00:00 - 05:00

David:

What's up military millionaires. I'm your host, David Pere.

Today we have an exciting episode about military finance, entrepreneurship, vetpreneurship, and just real estate investing in general awesome stuff with Mike Glaspie.

So Mike and I met this last weekend in Miami at the 10 x growth conference. If this is your first time listening, thanks for joining the community. The podcast is produced every week for your enjoyment. Show notes are found at From militarytomillionaire.com/podcasts.

Now relax and enjoy the show.

Intro:

You're listening to the military millionaire podcast, a show about real estate investing for the working class. Stay tuned as we explore ways to help you improve your finances, build wealth through real estate and become a person that is worth knowing.

David:

Hey, guys, what's up? It's Dave with From military to millionaire. I'm here with Mike.

Mike and I were talking we're both here at the 10x growth conference, crashing in Airbnb with like eight other investors, which has been awesome. And we got talking about real estate and realized, you know, I had my stuff. Let's do podcasts. So here we are.

Mike, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Mike:

Hey what's going on everybody, I’m Mike Glaspie I have actually been in the military for coming up on 11 years now. And I've actually been simultaneously investing in real estate for the past three and a half years or so.

I'm also a licensed North Carolina real estate broker. And now my passion is kind of helping veterans learn how to leverage the benefits that they have to invest.

David:

Yeah.

Mike:

So yeah, I'm from Texas, originally, when I grew up, I've always had kind of the mindset of entrepreneurship in a sense, starting my own business from like, some Pokemon cards and all that good stuff back in the day.

David:

Still have my stash. I've been looking like, like no joke, I have a stash and I have an Excel document tracking what's worth what and eventually I will start selling but you know, I also have a kid and half of them are not in the car, the quality they need to be.

Mike:

Right.

David:

They've been they've been kid destroyed is, you know, the nice word, I guess.

Mike:

They were really, it was really interesting back then, because you know, everybody wanted holographics are the rare ones, you can go buy a booster pack for whatever was $5 and then just divide that up. So the energy cards are 25 cents, and then the holographics for $5 whatever the case was...

David:

Alright, so anyway, we're not talk pokemon, none of that was ever stated. I'm not gonna edit it out. But you know, just admit that I'm just totally never a nerd.

Mike:

But yeah, so that just kind of carried over.

Naturally, with the military, I wouldn't pursue a certain past there. And I've always had that kind of burning desire to continue that entrepreneurship, you know, a path.

So from there, I actually was introduced into a network marketing situation where they actually helped mold my mindset a little bit further.

So I felt I've always had that drive and passion, but I never really had the path laid out for me. And so with them, they introduced me to a few different books and, and things of that nature started that journey of kind of research, what other options do I have? And that's when I came across real estate.

David:

Right.

So what have you done with real estate? Like, how's that kind of worked out? What do you have, how you invested, you know, any, I guess, strategies you use?

Mike:

So my favorite strategy, and again, why I mentioned I'm passionate about helping veterans learn how to do this is because my favorite strategy is utilizing the VA loan over and over and over again.

Anybody who's into real estate investing has heard of BiggerPockets.

David:

Absolutely.

Mike:

And they understand the concept of house hacking, they understand the concept of living flips, and all the gambit multifamily investing.

Now imagine being able to do that with zero money out of your pocket.

David:

Yeah.

Mike:

It's the VA loan. And many veterans unfortunately don't have the exposure to somebody who can tell them what these benefits are. They know that they have them, they know they have the VA loan, the TSP etc. But they're not taught to strategically implement those benefits.

David:

Absolutely.

And you know, another thing and while we're on that I've got some videos that will be coming out here in probably two months. We're going to get it professionally done, but people don't realize it only happened like it came into beta like three years ago. And I think this year was the first year it became official but like there's a renovation loan through the VA.

Mike:

Yes, there is.

David:

There's a lot of lenders that don't even know that yet because it's so new, but I met with someone the other day that does it and holy smokes. We'll talk more on that later. But it is amazing, the stuff you can do for zero down.

Mike:

Yes, yes. It's insane. It's insane. So I love it.

So that's my strategy. And right now I currently have I actually just closed on a triplex with the VA loan. And so that brings me up now to 11 units.

David:

Awesome. Right on that's killer. Yeah, that's super cool.

So we were talking earlier and some other investment stuff. What other kind of like military related investment strategies do you like? I mean, obviously, there's a VA loan and there's house hacking. You know, that's, that's awesome. I mean, it's super powerful. But we were talking earlier about you rolling into it. So I don't waste stuff but.

05:00 - 10:00

Mike:

No worries.

So one of the big ones I've leveraged was the TSP.

David:

Yeah.

Mike:

So for those who aren't familiar with the TSP, it's essentially a military or a government version before one K, the beautiful thing about it is with the TSP, they actually just changed the system to where they do a four and a half percent matching.

So at four and a half percent, you get 100% of your money back, or 100% return on your initial investment.

Well, the beautiful part is, once you've established the TSP, you can actually take out a loan against your tsp, the loan is at the APR, the percentage rate of the government bonds here in the US. So if you follow stocks and bonds in the stock market, you'll understand that the government bonds are roughly about 3.5%, right now, I will pay you if you can tell me a credit card or, or anything else that you know, has a 3% APR, right, I will pay you if you can come and find me.

David:

But it gets better.

Mike:

It does.

David:

It gets better.

Mike:

It does.

After you take this loan out. And it's just a general purpose loan, you can go and use that to invest where whether it's a private money lending or put into a property or whatever the case may be. But after you pay that loan back off, and it has to sit stagnant only for 60 days before you can do it again. 60 days.

David:

And the real cool part there, which he alluded to, but you're paying yourself back.

Mike:

Yes.

David:

So the interest that you're paying, is that you're giving yourself interest. So like, you don't even have to change the percentage on your tsp if you don't want to, you know, take the money out, leave it at like right now. I'm at like 22%. So I'm putting like, 7 - 800 bucks a month in there.

So if I take that $10,000 loan, it pays off like 800 bucks a month until it's done. Well, that's you know, what a year and I don't know, 15 months down the road. But I paid myself three and a half percent interest for the whole time. Yeah, I didn't have to add money to the account. So that's the downside.

Mike:

Yep.

David:

Yep. But it's super cool. If you're gonna use it to buy an appreciating asset. Like...

Mike:

That's the way and a lot of people are concerned. They say, okay, so I wasn't putting money into the TSP. I wasn't getting the game from the market. But let's be honest, guys, the stock market is fine. For those who want to invest in it. That's okay. But the average rate of return that you're going to get if you're even investing in the C Fund, which is the equivalent to the s&p 500?

David:

Yeah.

Mike:

What are you getting? 10-12%? Max?

David:

Yeah, on average, I think it’s like 10 or 11.

Mike:

It's like a 10 or 11, right? Max, you might be getting somewhere around 10 to 12%. And maybe you can get a little bit more.

But why don't you take that money and invest it into an appreciating asset where you're getting 25% return? And, you know, if you don't know how you're going to get 25 to 30% return? That's the power of the VA loan. All right, that's the power of buying a property that's undervalued that you can house hack with zero of your money into it. That's how you get those super high returns. So why not? Why not leverage the TSP for the same thing?

David:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And the cool thing, you know, the TSP is, we're finally getting better at teaching people how to use it.

So he hit on the C fund. If you've ever looked at my little ebook, like, I'm the moron who invested, you know, 10% of his paycheck into the Thrift Savings Plan and, and did all that stuff, right. And then never knew that there were different funds that..

Mike:

I was all into G?

David:

Yes!

It's not, they've changed it, it's going to automatically go into lifecycle funds now, which is so much better, you can leave it alone in there. But to put this in perspective, in 2008-2011, I'm earning one, two, or maybe 3% interest on the money that I have in there, while the C fund which is where I'm like 80% c 20% s right now, the C fund earned anywhere from 20 to 35%, returns the same, I would at least double probably have tripled my money. Which is so disheartening, because it is like all I had to do was go poop and I was like, I'm a risky guy. So Had I known that at that age, you better believe I was ugly? Which one's the higher risk that one for going with it right. Like..

Mike:

And you know, that's one of the biggest issues that we have right now, just in the military in general is we get exposed to these products, but we don't ever get properly educated because those who are educating us on the products, they don't know themselves.

Think about when I'm pretty sure when you signed up, I was probably in basic training, right?

David:

Ofcourse. Yeah. The drill instructors.

Mike:

They’re like you better do the TSP well, why? Because you need a retirement fund. Well, why? Because it's a good deal. Why? explain to me, why is this a good deal? And so that's really where I'm at now is trying to bring veterans back in and just educate them from the ground up. Like Alright guys, these are the benefits that you have. This is why this is important. And now when you separate from the military, what else can you do with those same benefits? Right. And that's, that's, I think that's the gap right now that we have with the military transitioning.

David:

You can roll it, but you're not going to find an IRA that's better than the TSP. Like, you really need to know, if you're going to roll it, you really need to know that you're going to use that money forever.

10:00 - 15:00

Mike:

Yep.

David:

And that you're not gonna want to put it back into a retirement fund.

Mike:

Yes.

David:

And you can leave so you can leave part. It's a complicated part of it in the TSP. But anyway.

Mike:

Yeah, it gets a self directed IRA. I mean, there's, there's so many different things you can do. Yeah, it does get complicated. But it's all very important that, especially on the transition aspect, we have to always believe that you always have to have an end goal in mind.

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there, right? So you have to know like, okay, by the time I separate, I want passive income of 5000 a month 7000, 10,000, whatever it is.

Now, how can I leverage every single benefit I have along this process until I get to that point? And if I'm not at that point, when I do separate, how can I now leverage the benefits that I have when I separate to get to that point?

So it is a lot it can get complicated, but the way I feel about it is it's simple, yet it's complicated. I don't know if that makes sense. But it's simple. It's a very simple process.

David:

Yeah, there's some reason books on some of that. Yeah, but it is definitely not a easy concept.

So yeah. All right. So what's in the future? So you're looking at being a real estate agent or you are a real estate agent? What does the future look like for you in terms of real estate investing?

Mike:

Yeah. So right now, I am an agent. I'm also an investor. We help a lot of out of state investors. Focus on the Fayetteville market Fort Bragg North Carolina. I'm part of a great team. Shelby Osborn is actually the team lead at five pillars. Realty. Shout out to her. She was actually right behind the camera.

David:

Yes. She’s staring at us through the glass right now. And she was one of my first probably, I don't know, she's probably my first 10 she's been on the podcast. Yeah, go search for her.

Mike:

Go search for that one was a great podcast. Um, however, we've come together and the team is composed primarily of veterans. And we're all investors as well.

Moving on from there. We want to help as many veterans learn. As many veterans learn as much as possible. I don't oppose her.. She better hurry up. Did you get it? Okay.

Huh?

David:

She was taking a video. Oh, here I am trying to for those of you who are watching this on YouTube. While we're looking like jerks. We thought that she was taking a picture of us. Yes, there was a video. So we were having a podcast conversation, well regarded stuff to just the camera.

Mike:

But yeah, so moving from there. The goal is to move into commercial real estate. And now and now provide that niche again for veterans. So moving into the multifamily to the triple net leases for those who know what those are land leasing just the gamut. We want to move into commercials or that's going to be my niche. And again, educate veterans of how they can get involved in commercial real estate as well.

David:

Yeah, CCIM

Mike:

Yep, CCIM is next. Also CCIM and more accreditations can be covered by the GI Bill.

So if you do not have the intent of passing down your GI bill or going to an institution, such as college, again, learning how to leverage those benefits that the military gives you. And you can go out and get an accreditation or certification.

What does a CCM stand for again?

Mike:

oh, man, I know it's it’s...

David:

So CCIM is basically like you're saying you're an expert in commercial real estate, so.

Mike:

Yeah, I believe it's Certified Commercial Investment Manager or management.

David:

That sounds good. We'll go with that.

Mike:

but we're gonna go with that. I'm not a CCIM.

David:

And then just for like, a super quick 30 seconds, explain the triple net. Because there's people here who don't know it. And it's a really cool lease if you get to use it.

Mike:

Absolutely.

So triple net lease, and I'm just going to go broad strokes here, you go out and you buy the property against a commercial property.

So imagine a strip mall. At the end units, you typically have your Walgreens or CVS, something along those lines, well with the triple net is that tenant, which is your Walgreens or you CVS, they go and not only do they pay rent, but they pay your insurance, your taxes, and they maintain all the repairs, okay?

So what you essentially do is you buy a property, you have a property management, or you do it, provide that tenant and that tenant takes care of the entire property for you. And all you do is collect the cash flow. The reason it's so important is because you're using these highly qualified tenants, Walgreens, CVS, these corporations that are coming in, and they're signing three five year leases. It's one of the safest returns when it comes to commercial real estate. slower, but it's safer. So yeah, it's a great concept.

David:

Yeah, it's brilliant. Because you're, I mean, you're literally saying, I mean, like the best way I could put it right would be like, hey, you want to buy my car, but instead of buying it, you just pay me? And then you take care of it?

Mike:

Yep.

David:

And so you're making you know, instead of making $1,000 a month cash flow, you might make $700 a month cash flow, but with literally no expenses.

Mike:

And no liability. I mean, you have no liability but I mean, they're responsible for the oil change. They're responsible for cleaning the car. They're responsible for paying the taxes and the insurance.

15:00 - 20:00

David:

Yeah, so like he said, Walgreens triple nets often are like, that's what like, well, that's not what McDonald's does because you pay attention McDonald's, they own the land underneath and that's their true value but like Burger King and fast food joints a lot times they'll triple net.

So someone bought the building, and now they are renting. But they basically own the place except that they don't. So you're collecting cash flow.

So it's not as high of a return. But it also has a high return because you're renting to someplace like that rather than, you know, some schmuck in a two bed one bath apartment.

Mike:

Yes.

David:

So, are there any other different real estate, or not real estate, but uh, we talked on the TSP and VA loans and any other investment strategies that you were thinking you want to touch on?

Mike:

So the only other thing is, again, just leveraging everything. So passive income is obviously what most of us are looking for when we invest in real estate.

David:

Yeah.

Mike:

But what we don't realize is that there are many ways that we can collect passive income, outside of real estate outside of other investments, one good example would be the GI Bill.

So obviously, while you're active duty, the GI bill simply pays for the course, and a book stipend, etc. However, when you're separated, you actually get BAH along with the GI Bill. So I always try to tell people, a lot of people get out of the military, and they say, Oh, I'm never going to use the GI Bill. Why not? Even if you don't plan on passing it on to your kids, why don't you use it? Because if you just enroll and simply use that BAH right, obviously don't enroll and fail, right? Yeah, enroll into something that'll be productive, maybe a certification, maybe something like that. But you can collect BAH now with that $800, or whatever the case is, because it's 800 if it's online, and if it's full time, then it's based on the geographic location. But if you take that $800, now that's passive income. Now you roll that up over the course of two years, three years, four years, that's, that's money that you can invest.

So just using all of these, just understanding what you have, using them to the best possibility, or the best use for that end goal. That's that's really what it all boils down to.

David:

Yeah. So I'm going to plug my wife who works in the education center right now.

Mike:

Perfect.

David:

So go to your education center and talk to him. So I'm looking at potentially transitioning out so I'm looking at all my options, and I don't want to go to school, I just got my associates, I don't really care to get my bachelor's, I don't feel like I got anything out of doing my associates except wasting time I get home work. And I get to take a couple of my homework assignments, and then put a header on it, call it a blog post and put it on my website. So I guess that was a win.

You know, whatever. But I'm looking at going to school because of that, right? Like, I get paid like two, three, I think it's like 2400 a month to go to school full time. And my wife's job will cover all the bills. So then anything I do is just a bonus. But I was like, oh, there's a marketing degree at the school nearby. I could do that. That could be useful, but I don't want to do that. So I'm like, Okay, well, I don't want to do any of these classes. What do I know, whatever.

So I started looking around. Where's the school an hour and a half away that I can go to two days a week. And I can get my commercial pilot's license to fly airplanes.

Mike:

There you go.

David:

I'm like, I've always wanted to fly to Vegas. I'm like, Okay, I'll probably go drive an hour and a half, two hours, two days a week. listen to audiobooks and podcasts all the way up and back. So it'll be my audiobook day. And then I get my pilot's license.

And now you know, maybe I will use it and, you know, someday own this massive private jet and have fun or not. But you know, I have my license. It's cool. And I got to fly. And it was fun. And I still made two thousand dollars a month to do that. And then I sell real estate, invest on the side, like, I don't need that money. So it's just a bonus. It's awesome.

Mike:

You get paid to go learn something you want to learn. Where's the downside?

David:

Yeah. Especially if it's like, if you schedule your classes, like two days a week, three days a week, like you do the math on that, what, two days a week. So that's eight. That's like $400 a day. I did my math wrong. $600 a day for marine math. You know, nope. I just did what are they sorry, like, 600 bucks a day to go learn how to fly an airplane? Like that's not bad.

Mike:

No, not at all. Not at all.

David:

Yeah, that means I'm not, you know, not working. So whatever. Anyway.

Awesome. Awesome. Let me run into some of my questions. Again, I've got my fancy piece of paper here. Because, you know, normally I have it on the computer screen. And you don't know that I'm looking at it. But I'm in Florida. We're in Miami right now living it up.

So if E1, E2 were to walk up to you, and ask you for some advice, 19-20 year old, you only had a few minutes to give it to him. What would you tell him?

Mike:

I would ask them two questions.

One, how do you want to live? Alright, and how fast you want to get there. I always ask anybody who's 18 or 19 that because a lot of people say oh, I want a car. I want all this. What about that really is the experience that you want to have? Because there's an Instagram lifestyle. And there's a real lifestyle, right?

So I asked them that and once they understand kind of where they're trying to go, I'm going to tell you that the one of the most beneficial things you can do is just to start asking questions, you have to figure out all the benefits that you have in life. A lot of people waste time in college. A lot of people waste time on a job that they hate or whatever the case is. But if you don't start asking questions and realizing what possibilities are out there, the world is gonna spin your wheels for years before you finally start to get traction and move in the right direction. Just don't waste your time and take advice from people who have succeeded.

I love my family. But I got a lot of terrible financial advice growing up. Right? You're, typically your family has nothing but the best things in mind for you. But if they aren't, where you're trying to go, go find somebody who has already accomplished that in it and start asking them questions.

20:00 - 26:11

David:

Yeah, it's huge.

Find someone that's where you want to go. They'll help you.

Mike:

Yep.

David:

What is one thing you wish the military taught you about? Investing? An earlier age?

Mike:

Yeah. Well, yeah, that just kind of alludes back to what I was saying earlier, just the actual benefits that we have in the military. If, and unfortunately, it's, you know, no offense to the finance section out there. But you'll typically have like an E three or an E four coming up to you and trying to tell you how the TSP works. And it's like, come on, come on, man. What are you doing, man? You just you just got here? Yeah, you're not a millionaire? You're not retired? What does that mean to me? You know what I mean? So I wish they would have just provided a little bit more of creative application to our benefits.

David:

Yeah. So I'm a command financial specialist. And the problem I see is that so I teach once a month and a half. I have like, like an investing seminar, or a lunch and learn.

Mike:

nice.

David:

And I don't get as many people as you'd think like the first time I had like, 50-60 people there, which is awesome. Second time I have like four and then you know, last month it didn't happen. But I see that a lot of times I don't get to talk to people until it's too late. Right like they don't bring people don't come to me to talk finance until Oh, my security clearance is getting revoked. I'm getting divorced.

Mike:

Yep.

David:

I'm moving overseas. And they say I don't have the right finances. I need to fix this in order for me to go and man, it's rough, like finances will wreck your life. And we won't think about it until it's too late. So yeah, definitely be proactive with it.

Mike:

And for those who are followers of Dave, like, this is this movement that you're creating here is astronomical, the the impact that you're going to have on the military community, being able to educate them prior to coming in, are early in their careers. People don't realize that you can join the military and become a millionaire all day, especially over the course of 20 years. Oh, yeah. Easy. All military pay. Easy.

David:

Yeah.

Mike:

But this movement is going to be huge.

David:

Yeah, I'm excited to see where it goes. And hopefully we help some people not do everything I did wrong at first. You know, I need to post a video saying like, where I got the idea to start, like everything I didn't do in my first few years is dead at all that you're not supposed to put yet. I mean, all, like, whatever.

What makes some Mike Glaspie like method of investing, unique or special?

Mike:

It's creative. So one of the biggest, I guess. avenues in real estate investors is they always say other people's money, other people's money, other people's money, leverage, leverage leverage.

Well, what I'm able to do is leverage everything that the military is giving me. And I've acquired 11 properties in less than two years. And I mean, it's I've done wholesales, I've done subject twos, I've done live in flips, I've done a subject to where I've rented it out rehabbed it and sold it. And I've gone in total 1800 dollars, my return on investment was over 1000 if you look at the actual numbers, I mean, all these creative methods of me leveraging situations and events. It's I think it's just I think it's just unique in that sense.

David:

Yeah, that's super cool.

All right. Let's see here. What's one resource that you would recommend anyone looking to get into investing whether it's real estate or whatever.

Mike:

Obviously, I got to give a shout out..

David:

You can’t say it.

No I’m just kidding.

Mike:

Okay I'm going for Bigger Pockets.

Yeah, guys go to Bigger Pockets.

David:

I assumed you were gonna say Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Mike:

Everybody says, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what man everybody wants to get into investing which is all great fun, go to bigger pockets, bigger pockets has an abundance of resources. However, if your mindset is not ready for the change, it's not going to happen.

So if we're going to go with a mindset resource, I will say Darren Hardy's compound effect.

David:

That was a good one.

Mike:

That was the one that kind of just knocked it out the park for me that changed everything once I read that book, but I was ready to receive the message which is key.

David:

Oh no. Why did it stop? It just stopped. Oh, well, I guess we're doing audio for the rest of this. Alright. So it is what it is. I guess my battery died because it still had five minutes of recording.

Oh, well. Alright, so um, before we wrap this up, is there anything you'd like to add?

Mike:

No, I just just just take action, just take action. I mean, if you guys are waiting, ready to go. Don't overthink it. No analysis paralysis, just start taking action because you're going to learn from those mistakes and ultimately, it's, you know what you make a mistake in Six months. You're gonna look back in five years and be like wow, I'm glad I made those mistakes early and fast.

David:

Yeah, yeah, I agree it's all about taking action. Mm hmm that's killer.

Where can people get a hold of you?

Mike:

Alright, again Fivepillarsrealty.com you'll find my whole team there Shelby and all them you can find you can email me directly @[email protected] my Instagram I'm still working on it but I'm going to give it to you at the at the end of the show. You can put in the show notes or something like that as well as my Facebook page and things like that.

David:

Awesome.

Mike:

Yeah bigger pockets bigger pockets guys I'm there too.

David:

Yeah bigger pockets and I'll have a link down below I don't I don't push it there's always a link down below if you're interested in bigger pockets whether free membership or I always recommend the pro membership because our calculators are awesome but the link down below go check them out. It's awesome.

Yeah, so cool. Well, Mike, thanks for I was gonna do this cool, like handshake II thing where we look like bros when we exit but no one's gonna see it. So we just did an audio High Five handshake. It was super cool.

Mike:

It was.

David:

You still got to see all my dance moves. So sorry you missed it.

Mike:

Appreciate the time. Thank you.

David:

Yeah, brother. It's awesome. Throw me that audio thing.