618: Do This Before Your Income Stops—Scale or Fail

Keith explains why achieving scale rather than simply earning more is the key to long-term financial freedom and how income property uniquely delivers multiple forms of leverage.  He breaks down 25 years of inflation data to reveal which everyday costs have most outpaced wages and what that means for the real purchasing power of the dollar.  Keith also explains why markets like Memphis—combining strong cash flow fundamentals with a massive new AI infrastructure build-out—are positioned as compelling targets for long-term real estate investors. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/618 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: [email protected] Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Join Mid South Home Buyers' one-time, free live webinar featuring Keith Weinhold on September 30 at GetRichEducation.com/MidSouth to learn how Memphis' economic expansion could create new real estate investment opportunities, and have your questions answered in real time. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. When I talk to a 25-year-old, it's an epiphany. When I tell them that they need this one thing that they're lacking, then some fascinating takeaways about the 93% inflation we've experienced in the past 25 years, and what you can do about it today on Get Rich Education. What if I told you that one of America's strongest cash flow real estate markets is also becoming the new brains and brawn behind AI? That city is Memphis, believe it or not. In September 30th, we're going to show you why the smart money is paying attention now, along with an investing opportunity you won't want to miss. Join me, Terry Kerr and Matthew Van Horn of Mid South Homebuyers, the largest turnkey company in Memphis with more than 6000 homes under management, for a free live webinar the likes of which I've never done before. We're going to look at what billions in new investment could mean for jobs, housing demand, neighborhood appreciation, and your portfolio. Everyone who attends live will also get exclusive access to the best deal terms Mid South has ever offered. Reserve your free seat at getricheducation.com/midsouth again, that's September 30th. Don't say we didn't tell you. Save your spot at getricheducation.com/midsouth.   Speaker 1  1:33   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  1:49   Welcome to GRE from Livonia, Michigan, to Laconia, New Hampshire, and across 188 nations worldwide. You are listening to Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, heading up this slackjaw operation for another wealth-building week. But at least I'm just a slackjaw. If this slackjaw gets lockjaw, it would probably end the show. Now I've got to tell you, when I meet a 25-year-old, I soon tend to learn about their job because it takes a lot of their time, even if I don't ask them about it, and I find out that a 25-year-old is usually an employee of some sort. They're working for somebody else, depending on our conversational flow. I ask that person this question: Have you considered adding scale to your life? And they usually don't know what I mean. I ask that question because, sadly, today it's less common to live an economically vibrant life if you have a quote normal job like a teacher, engineer, retail manager, app developer, or other normal jobs like a firefighter, truck driver, physical therapist, or social media manager, that is not going to lead to an economically vibrant life with options and freedom. I mean, you used to be able to raise a family of four in New York City. That opportunity is just gone for anyone under a certain age. Well, what about say doctors, corporate executives, and attorneys, including some people that might be older than 25. I mean, professions like this can still pay exceptionally well. But even white-collar careers now have AI breathing down their necks. AI is drafting briefs, reading scans, and virtually attending meetings without pretending to enjoy them. Okay, well, what about the outcome for a 25-year-old that's gone along with the somewhat more nascent trend of rising AI sheltered trades like plumbing, electrical, HVAC, welding, carpentry, equipment repair, and these other types of jobs where ChatGPT can't crawl beneath your sink. Look, here's the thing: it doesn't matter whether you wear scrubs, a suit, or a tool belt. Employment has one stubborn limitation: even if you grind hard, even if your body holds up, even if promotions help you climb to the top of the corporate ladder, when you stop working, the income stops. That's the big problem, and yet people keep designing their life this way, employees lack scale. Now, what is scale? Scale is your ability to increase your wealth or income without increasing your personal time and effort at the same rate. Now, employees can find just a little scale. 401k contributions can compound for decades, sometimes with an employer match. Some employees receive stock compensation or bonuses, but employees generally sell one unit at a time. That unit is an hour. They're selling their hours for dollars, and here scale is limited, if not impossible. Real estate investors can stack several forms of scale simultaneously, and remarkably, doing it takes zero certification, zero qualification, no license, and no permission slip from the dean.   Keith Weinhold  6:05   The first way real estate investors have scale is through something that you already know so well: real estate pays five ways, leverage appreciation, 10 funded income, loan amortization, tax benefits on the entire asset, and inflation profiting on the bank's loan. Secondly, as a real estate investor, you have scale through operational leverage. Property managers, leasing agents, contractors, lenders, insurers, and software all allow just one investor, you, to control multiple properties. You don't personally collect every rent payment or replace every water heater. I mean, sheesh, that could be a plumbing career with less sleep. And this is all tenant funded. Thirdly, real estate investors have geographic leverage. An individual investor living in Los Angeles can own property in Atlanta, Tulsa, Cleveland, and Belize. Physical location does not limit where your capital works. Your body can only work in one city. Your capital can work the night shift in five. The fourth way real estate investors have scale is with replication. Once you learn how to buy and own one suitable rental, the process can be repeated. You buy, stabilize, finance, rent, and repeat. See, the first property is the hardest, and then your second property does not require learning an entirely new profession. It can be replicated. To review what you've learned so far, those are four dimensions where real estate investors achieve scale through real estate pays five ways: operational leverage, geographic leverage, and replication. Here's the important distinction: employees often mistake earning more with achieving scale.   Keith Weinhold  8:16   A surgeon making $900,000 a year earns a nice income, but see that surgeon has limited scale if the income stops when the surgeon stops working. But an investor earning just $150,000 from a portfolio possesses more scale because dozens of tenants, properties, loans, and operating systems continue functioning without your one-for-one labor. That's the distinction. That's why the $150K investor might or might not be living a better life than the 900K surgeon now, but they are set up to live a better life than the surgeon in the future. Now, your employer, the person who hires you, has scale with their many employees. But if you're an employee, you probably don't have scale. You cannot save your way to scale either. That's just stored labor. Savings become scalable only when you convert them into productive assets. Income is how much money comes in. Scale is how little your personal time needs to increase for more money to come in. You can work 20% more hours, but you cannot sustainably work 10 times more hours. Capital can be deployed across 10 assets without requiring 10 times more personal effort. And you know, once I realized this, at a certain point in my life, I was motivated to obtain loans for rental. This helped me scale and own more, replacing my active income with mostly passive income sooner. All right, so what should you do when you have this epiphany? It doesn't mean you should flip over the stupid copier machine as you storm out of work today and announce that you are now a real estate magnet. Not right away, at least employment that can be your launchpad, just like it was for me when I was a humble construction materials inspector for the state DOT. A job does provide you with some benefits like short-term advantages, seed capital, mortgage qualification.   Keith Weinhold  10:45   I'm talking about health insurance and some steady cash flow, and even some skills. But the mistake, whether you are aged 25 or 55, is allowing employment to remain the only economic engine for your entire life. Your job can fund your future, but having just one single linear income source that should not be your entire future. But you know, some people just stay on lazy cruise control at a slow speed and let their life unfurl that way. Others, you know, they merely haven't been exposed to thinking this way, and fortunately, now you have been. Really, the bottom line here is that labor won't scale; capital does scale; it compounds, and few, if any, investments offer more dimensions of scale than real estate. And you also get all kinds of other ancillary benefits by gradually tilting away from active income and toward passive income. Because increasingly, when it comes to taxes, you're going to pay lower capital gains tax rates instead of the higher ordinary income rates. The sooner you optimize this and get into as many properties as you can, you're also going to gain the ability to borrow against your assets tax-free, and so much more. Scale or fail-that's the lesson here, and most people fear change. It's why they stay stuck in relationships longer than they should, and why they stay stuck in jobs longer than they should. They keep settling for a B plus life. Don't settle for a B plus life. This is something that NYU professor Susie Welsh talks about: If you have a D life, oh, everything is lousy. You don't live where you want to live. You don't have reliable transportation. You don't have friends, and you're so very motivated to change that. If you have an A plus life, you've got it all. You get to do what you want to do, who you want to do it with, and you're tremendously incentivized to keep that. But having a B plus life like so many do, and being stuck in it, that is the most dangerous place to be. You could tread water for years and stay stuck in a life that you know you're not fully satisfied with, but it isn't so terrible that you feel compelled to change it. So the people that grow wealth know it means that sometimes you have to give up the good to have the great, and the K-shaped economic divergence that we've had in the past five years. This is really bringing things to a head, so get scale.   Keith Weinhold  13:43   Scale is the difference between grasping the financial abundance that's available to move you toward that A plus life, or staying on the treadmill, stuck and struggling. Two different people living a B plus life, you know, they have the same starting point, and making a plan is your difference maker. We help you with that here. If you're ready to add real estate scale to your financial life, drop a quick email to GRE Investment Coach Naresh for a complimentary strategy session at Naresh at getricheducation.com. You don't need any qualifications. It can take as little as a 20% down payment on a 200k to 400k rental property, and we have access so that you can buy directly from the builders and get a mortgage rate in the fives. And we are chasing the next hot thing here. Last week we discussed co-living on the show. We waited until that strategy was proven. I like strategies that have had some contact with reality. AI can compose a song, or summarize a meeting, or fabricate a photo of some. Wacky like Abraham Lincoln riding a dolphin, but it still cannot download an affordable bedroom, affordable housing. You're scaling into something sustainable that has a future and can't be easily disrupted by AI. Scale or fail. Stop settling for the B plus life. We can help right now at this moment. Drop a quick email to [email protected]. I should spell that out for you. It's n a r e s [email protected].   Keith Weinhold  15:36   More straight ahead. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to Get Rich education. What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group NMLS 42056. They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal and even chat directly with President Caeli Ridge. While it's on your mind, start at ridgelendinggroup.com. That's ridgelendinggroup.com.   Keith Weinhold  16:13   Let me ask you something: If you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure: I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed. But with a track record of consistent, on-time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call, or text family to 66866. That's family to 66866.   Chris Martenson  17:17   This is Peak Prosperity's Chris Martenson. Listen to Get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your daydream.   Keith Weinhold  17:33   Welcome back to Get Rich Education. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Having residual income from real estate, it can make you more comfortable for sure, but for me, I like to primarily use it to buy back my time. I'll tell you how I just did this. It's a small thing, a small win. It is time for my car's annual routine maintenance. Boring. I really don't want to lose my time dropping it off at the dealership in the morning and then picking it up again. Those two boring round trips don't add anything to my life. But the dealership had the option of, for just 100 bucks, picking it up for me and dropping it off for me at the end of the day. Oh well, that is an opportunity for me to buy some time, so that's why I did that. Now, when it comes to flying, sometimes I fly coach and sometimes first class. I just booked a flight and I refused to pay six times as much for first class. It just wasn't really worth it this time because the experience isn't that much better, and it sure doesn't save me any time. I tend to do that if the price is just 3x more, so I'll pay to save time, but not always to borrow a wider seat for five hours. And you and I both make hundreds of time versus money decisions every day, most of them small.   Keith Weinhold  19:04   With the more residual income you have, you're gonna make better decisions where you can choose the time over the money. One thing's for sure: whatever we're doing with our money, and that is that our dollar does not go as far as it used to. Let's look at inflation during the first 25 years of this century. This is really interesting. We're going to see how the cost of goods and services has changed from 2000 to the end of 2025 on some select categories that you spend on, and then I've got some mind-bending takeaways for you once I describe this chart, and this is the same chart that I sent to you last Thursday. If you are one of my newsletter readers, but I can open up and talk about it more here than I can in the newsletter because I keep that short. Overall inflation is about. 93% during this time period. 93% over these 25 years. Now, here are the items that rose less than that much, meaning that they became then more affordable over this span. What fell the most is the price of televisions down more than 90% in the first 25 years of this century? Toys down 74% Computer software down 73% Cell phones down 44% By the way, this all uses the government's CPI inflation rate, clothing up just one and a half percent, and even though it's up, that's still more affordable because it's up less than the overall 93% CPI inflation rate over this span. Household furnishings up 21% and finally new cars up 26% So all those items became more affordable because they rose less than the general rate of inflation. All right, moving on up. Now we're going to go above the line. Items above the 93% overall inflation rate, food and beverages were up 106% housing up 111% average hourly wages up 131% All right, let's pause. Yes, wages then outpacing 93% inflation. but of course, since that 93% uses the government CPI, well, that's pretty understated. Probably, you know, the true dispersing power of the dollar is probably more than 93% So it's debatable about whether there are real wage gains from 2000 to the end of 2025, medical care services up 147% Next in the category that has become less affordable is childcare, up 159% And as I'm naming these, there are some common threads here where I think you're going to have a few epiphanies when I point them out. College textbooks up 177%. Sheesh, what a scam! College tuition and fees up 197%, and finally the major category that became less affordable here at the top is the worst of all: hospital services. They have soared the most, up over 281% All right, there they are.   Keith Weinhold  22:57   And what takeaways do we have here? The items that became less affordable tend to be where the government either provides subsidies or they heavily regulate and mandate the product or service, like education, child care, and medical care. The categories that have become more affordable-that's where there is little or minimal government intervention, like clothing and technology. The lesson is that free market competition kept prices low, and some of these categories that became more affordable-you know-they would have become even more affordable than that if it weren't for profligate dollar printing, sadly, the items that have become less affordable-and this could really upset you-the items whose price increases exceed the overall rate of inflation, like medical care and housing, these are life's necessities. They are not once the stuff you need most got harder to obtain, healthcare is the ultimate example of this. It's sad to say, but you'll either pay the fee or you'll die, and the price reflects this. With hospital services up 281% outpacing the overall rate of inflation by about 3x. Also, items that have become more affordable, they are then generally the more discretionary purchases like furnishings, toys, and televisions. You can live without that stuff. Items that have become less affordable. They also tend to be more in-sourced activity, while those more affordable are outsourced, like to China. If you've noticed the trend, then anything involving people in the United States will be expensive, like child. Care and medical care. It involves people in the United States, and then it just gets more and more expensive. And this is also why service prices increase more and goods prices increase less. People are expensive.   Keith Weinhold  25:18   Microchips don't ask for dental insurance, and microchips don't file sexual harassment lawsuits. Overall, inflation was just 2.66% per year during this time period. But when it's compounded for this long, that's how it got to 93% cumulatively. But of course, inflation is higher than this 2.66 rate here in the late 2020s, and inflation is poised to rise even more than the level that it's at now. The war in Iran has pushed up energy prices 24% and these costs seep into almost everything, all right. But you're probably aware of this already, so I'm not going to discuss it much more because I discussed that before, like on episode 606, nearly two months ago when I called it our most important message in years, all right. But few seem to understand that this is just one part of a new inflation triple whammy. First, you've got spiking energy prices, like I mentioned. Second, more U.S. tariffs, and third, you've got mushrooming AI spending, and as a result of all this, this new inflation triple whammy that most people aren't aware of, this has pushed up bond yields to their highest point since 2007, and pressure is mounting for the Fed to jack up rates. Mortgage rates are soaring right along with them, and they are now near 7% Could mortgage rates reach 8% This is a real question now. The bottom line here is that inflation made the dollar lose nearly half its purchasing power in the first quarter century. Real asset owners will win, especially leveraged income property owners. This raises the property's replacement costs, spikes rents, and erodes your mortgage's real burden. Nearly everyone else is going to lose, and I don't want to lose a learning moment for you here. Bond yields-they are closely tied to what future mortgage rates are going to be. It's not about what the Fed does, and this is not as esoteric as some people think. This correlation between inflation, bond yields, and mortgage rates. Bonds pay a fixed interest rate long term.   Keith Weinhold  28:01   For example, the 10-year Treasury bond right now pays about 4.7% each year for the next 10 years. That's what that means. Now, would you lock in your investment for 10 years in order to get a 4.7% return? Well, if you were a conservative investor, maybe you would if you knew that inflation was only going to be 2% because then you'd be making about a 2.7% real return on your investment each year risk free. But if you expect inflation was going to be 5% over the next 10 years, oh well, then locking in a return of 4.7% means that you would lose real purchasing power every year. Investors don't want to lose money, so if investors expect that inflation is going to be higher, they will only buy bonds if they're paying higher amounts. And the bond market is telling us that as of today, investors expect at least 4.7% inflation over the next 10 years. If things change and they expect inflation to be higher than that, well, then bond yields will go up. If they expect inflation to decrease, for example, from a recession, bond yields will go down. So therefore, Treasury bonds are a true representation of investor inflation expectations and the movement of that bond yield-that is the number one factor that moves mortgage rates in that same direction. There's your explanation. That wasn't so hard. The market does not believe we're going to escape the Middle East war without substantial inflation or energy supply chain issues. That's what that means. Now, what else is going on in this era is the continuation of a reduction in the volume. Of housing transactions, fewer deals are happening. It had its recent peak of 6 million existing homes changing hands back in 2021. In 2022, it was 5 million, and it's been about 4 million transactions every year since. Now, as far as investor activity, just looking at that, for big investors, activity that's been sideways to a little down these past few years. But let's look at ourselves for smaller investors, mom and pop types, defined as those doing 10 or fewer deals per year, which probably includes you. You know, each of the past three years, activity has been up for smaller investors like you. You have gradually been purchasing more property, and this is as reported by realtor.com. Okay, what are the reasons for this?   Keith Weinhold  30:55   Well, back during the pandemic, you had to compete with owner-occupied buyers, that's when open house lines stretch down the block, and today there are fewer bidders in the room, and small investors are buying because builders are buying down your mortgage rate for you. That's another reason, and the source analysis it found that investors are sticking to affordable Midwest and Sun Belt markets that have strong rental demand. In fact, they're buying at least one out of every five homes in Memphis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Birmingham, and Oklahoma City. Real estate providers know that some prospective owner-occupant homeowners and even some investors-they won't buy anything at today's market mortgage rates, even though you and I know that these rates are historically normal. But providers-they need to stay in business. They need to keep turning things over. They need to sell property. They need to keep their people busy. They're not running museums here, so they're making sure that mortgage rate buydowns happen. And one of the most lucrative sources that I know about for investors is Mid South Homebuyers because they have investment property where the numbers work in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas with mortgage rates in the fives and a conventional loan with 25% down. A lot of their income properties cost under 200k, and these are quality homes in decent neighborhoods. I've physically walked inside many of them myself, not by drone, not with a virtual tour, not by AI, and not through some glossy brochure with suspiciously perfect lighting. The reason I'm telling you about this now is that this mortgage rate is one part of their limited triple five program. Here's what else we get as investors: a mortgage rate near 5% like I mentioned, and a 5% property management fee for five years. Though leverage has its benefits, if you decide to pay all cash instead, they provide you with the 5% property management for life, even if you finance later. I think they call that their forever five. Frankly, it's just amazing how many investors rave about the quality of their rehabs and say that their property management never seems to mess up in this industry. I mean, that is about as common as a calm political debate, or perhaps an airline actually improving legroom, and I have helped recommend Mid Health Homebuyers to our listeners for over 11 years. I know some followers that have looked at their available properties and scooped up three properties on one phone call. In fact, where they're based and have a lot of their available properties, Memphis. You know, Memphis has a story where I don't know if any other market in America can tell it right now. Do you know what's happening? Memphis is developing into having both the new brains and the brawn behind AI, and you got more smart money moving there now. Memphis is now home to the world's largest AI supercomputer. It's XAI's Colossus. It's now part of SpaceX. It's the biggest single-site AI facility on the entire planet. Anthropic is paying over a billion dollars a month to run Claude on it. Google just signed a deal worth up to 30 billion starting october 1, and I look forward to announcing that I have got a live event that I am co-hosting for you the day before this happens on september 30.   Keith Weinhold  34:56   So yes, that's the night before Google's money starts flowing. Into Memphis in one year, XAI became the second largest taxpayer in Memphis after FedEx, and the city has committed 25% of the property tax revenue from those sites to infrastructure in the surrounding neighborhoods. And when you add in FedEx, because Memphis already moves more physical goods than anywhere else in the country, you can see how Memphis is increasingly becoming the brains of the digital economy, while it's already been the brawn of the physical one. In every other market, you know they showcase things like their population growth and the rent-to-price ratios, and those attributes certainly matter, but now the fact that perhaps the biggest infrastructure story in America is happening in the most affordable major cash flow market—I mean, this is something that almost nobody has connected the dots on. So join me and my two co-hosts that lead Mid South Home Buyers.   Keith Weinhold  36:01   We're going to discuss market fundamentals, the AI build out, what it means for jobs, rent in neighborhoods over the next decade, and then a heavy live Q and A on Mid South. You're invited to join me. This is happening again on Wednesday, September 30th. It's at 8p.m. Eastern. Yes, you will have me live. Sign up at getricheducation.com/midsouth. It's a special event as Memphis is positioning to become both the brawn and brains of AI and a property provider that already makes a lot of sense for investors. Save your spot at getricheducation.com/midsouth. Until next week, I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 2  36:54   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal, or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.    Keith Weinhold  37:22   The pre- program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, getricheducation.com