Transcript of Building a $2.5B Brokerage in 10 Months ft. Eddie Garcia & Mark Dimas (Realty of America) | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Today we are sitting down with two future legends in the real estate space. They are going to take over so much national market share. Please welcome the founder and CEO of roa, as well as the president and co founder. We got Eddie Garcia and Mark Demas in the house. Thank you guys for joining the show. Welcome to another episode of Coffees.

Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah. So guys, man, I've just been so impressed with what ROA is doing. But before we jump into what ROA has been doing, I would like to start the show off with what I ask everybody, which is what's your morning routine?

Morning routine? Wake up, I don't eat breakfast or lunch. I spend a little bit of time with my son and get back, get straight to work, you know, look at my calendar and figure out what appointments I have, who I need to speak to about Realty of America, what agents I need to support, any meetings I have with Eddie and this support team. And. And that's how I get started.

For me, it's like this morning, Woke up at 5am and then I spent the next two or three hours just reading, reading, consuming all the data I can consume. On average, I read maybe two, three hours a day and just kind of get my day going, get my brain going, and then I get to work.

Love it. Now, what is it right now that you guys think is the biggest differentiating factor that's really allowing Realty of America to grab so much market share?

I think for us is that there's never been a real company that has been built like ours. So traditionally, real estate companies are either you know, takes 15, 20, 25 years to really scale or, you know, some big hedge fund comes in and starts buying lots of companies. That takes years for us. Literally in 10 months, we have closed $2.5 billion, 7,000 properties sold, onboarded over 2,300 agents, opened 17 stores, paid out almost $3 million in rushed to our agents and I mean in countless other things, right? Build systems, build logo, build a business plan, et cetera, et cetera. So to us, it was identifying seven founders that literally started from absolutely nothing. We all decided to put the egos to the side, come together and build one national brokerage. Collectively, we have 170 years of real estate experience. Experience and over $17 billion of closed business.

Now, in this market, you got exp. You got real, you got all these random companies and they all kind of offer the same thing. And I talked to you guys about the sesame and you're like, no, what we do is different now. What do you think is, like, all these competitors? Do you view them as true competitors?

I think they're amazing companies, and I think you have to respect what they've done. They're trailblazers, especially EXP Coming in first and doing what they've done. Real broker came in second and kind of did things different. I think for us, the experience. Right. If you look at what they did in their first two years, you can't compare to what we've done in 10 months. You look at what they've done in five years, from inception to what we've done in 10months, you can't compare. We're growing right now probably 8x faster than what exp was doing in its first five, seven, eight years. And it's thanks to a man like him. I mean, he was the first person I spoke to. Mark Demas, number one realtor in the Wall Street Journal. Number one realtor on the Real Trends 2022. He sold 3,200 houses, 971 million. You're in the real estate business. You understand that a typical Agent closes maybe 7, 8 deals a year. 70% of agents last year closed, 0 transactions. How do you find someone that's human, that does 3200 closings? With a team. With a team of 15 agents. He doesn't have 500 agents.

Team of 15. He's like the US Navy Seal. So when I had the vision of growing realty of America, I said, you know what? This dream is so big, and I was about to retire. So for me to hold off on retirement, you know, at 40, my goal camera retire. I've done very well for myself. I'm going to get married, have a family. And then I had this vision. I said, okay, well, if this vision is this big, I'm gonna fly to Houston, I'm gonna talk to him, and if he says no, it'll be the greatest news, because I get. I get a chance to go retire in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and just live on a little mountain, you know, a little mountain home. But he said, yes. And now I'm 40 years old, about to turn 41. I'm out here in San Diego, nowhere close to retiring.

No, no, we're close to retiring. You know, there was never. There's never been a real estate company that was put together like Realty America, you know, taking the top 1% of the 1% of realtors, bringing them together, creating a company, and not Only that, the 1% of the 1% who still practice Real estate every day. So even though I'm a non producing team lead, my, my office is still doing deals every day. Every day. Eddie's has a team that's doing deals every day. Max and Claudia, Mo, Max and Claudia have, you know, a team that's doing that. All of our, all of our founders are doing amazing businesses and we knew that we would create beautiful company that we created. What we didn't know is how fast it would grow. Considering that when you take the top leaders in the industry that come together, then their friends also that they talk to want to come together. And guess who top producers hang out with? You know, thoroughbreds like to hang out with thoroughbreds. And so they're hanging out with the friends that are at the top of the top. That validates the company. And then agents who want to become top producers are drawn to Realty of America.

You know, we were, you know, with any company you get haters, right? And you get people that say, you know, this about this company, whether it's exp or real or century 21 are realty of America. What some of the hate was is that, oh, don't go to Realty of America because that's a company of hundred million dollar producers.

That's great hate.

And I said, you know what, it's not a company of just $100 million producers. It's also a company where a $10 million producer can become $100 million producer, where a zero million dollar producer can become a $3 million producer. So we're here to inspire, encourage our agents and we're growing and our numbers are, you know, it's no longer a dream and a vision. Now it's being executed on a daily basis. And then our numbers are there to prove it. Last month we closed just shy of 400 million over 1100 transactions and you know, 10 months old. It's incredible, incredible growth.

One thing I really admire about both of you is like both two beautiful souls, two amazing human beings. What I've noticed about Realty of America in a very short time in my interaction is like the culture. Culture's phenomenal. How are you guys really fostering and creating that collaborative culture, that wonderful culture that already exists? How did you do it in such a quick period of time?

So I think it all started with Chicago. You know, Chicago, I built the 11th largest real estate company from scratch. College dropout, undocumented to the age of 13 years old, had no money, no experience. And somehow, you know, I built this company and the way I built it is 90% of my agents were not realtors. 90% of my agents, I found them as people that were busboys, waiters that served me, Costco workers, Walmart workers, CTA drivers, nurses, police officers. And we created opportunities for them. They became realtors, they became top producers. We helped them invest their money into real estate. They became millionaires. And then what we taught them is like, hey, today we're going to pour love into you. We're going to help you, we're going to inspire you and empower you when you're in your lowest. We're going to help you out. But once you become a top producer, when the next person comes in, that's expected of you too. And we created like this almost like this 15 level program of just like everyone's helping each other, everyone's helping each other. So that was the foundation that Realty of America was built on.

So, you know, we have a national back to school bag giveaway that we just did. We served in almost all our cities that were, that we're open in. We're going to have a national back to national turkey giveaway where our goal is to feed over 200,000 people. So this is not just a company of making money, of closing billions and closing thousands of transactions. This is a company that we care to give back. We're going to be one of the first companies, I don't know of a company that's been open for less than a year, that's able to mobilize their force to send out hundreds of people to give to thousands of people.

So it's a company fostered and created in servitude.

Correct.

So what's happening is God is just anointing it.

Oh, 100%. You know, it's serendipitous. You know, the, the way that Eddie and I met, the way that I've met all the, the founders, the way that my business has grown and this is, this is the time for Realty of America. You know, Eddie, Eddie says it the best that the culture first started in Chicago. You know, I had a team, a very small team. You know, we did a lot of volume, but we, we had great culture as a small family unit. But Eddie, you know, perfected the culture on a wide scale and helped us to become where we are right now. And you ask like, how do we foster the culture? We just got off a call with 51 of our team leads, you know, hearing them out, addressing concerns, addressing, you know, future initiatives and what we're doing to grow Realty of America and so we're there in the trenches with them. You know, we just came up with a. A new initiative for next year where Eddie and I are going to be traveling around on a thank you tour. Not on a growing tour, but on a thank you tour to go visit all of our leaders, all of our agents.

We're talking about, you know, six events a month in different markets so that we can go and pour into our leaders, pour into our agents, hear them, figure out where we need to grow. And I think that's the difference. You know, we're such in a digital world right now. People are texting, you got AI, you got emails, you got all types of automation. But what's the best way to do real estate? Belly to belly.

That's right.

I will be anybody in a listing agreement if I'm belly to belly with the agent, and they're trying to do it on Zoom. And it's the same thing with how we grow our company. You know, we scaled so fast because we took over a hundred flights before launch to meet with the agents face to face. We wouldn't tell them about it. So if we called you up, we said, we got something, you know, that we want you to hear. You're a good friend of mine, and I want to share with you something. Tell us about it. I'm gonna fly to you. This is so important. We got to do it face to face, belly to belly. And that's what we're teaching our agents, and that's how we're growing. It's old school, but it's new school.

It is. I actually, my moment, my own mentor said that the new school is going to be face to face handshake. That's going to be the new thing.

Yeah.

And it's happening. So would you attribute your current growth to belly to Belly, or what are some of the key strategies that really have allowed you guys to grow this fast?

So I'll tell you that when we started, you know, we just did it. So strategically, you know, this dream would have fell apart, never been, never would have been born if I would have just called him now. I told him, hey, I have this idea. What do you think? Maybe he would have been, you know, his baby busy driving in his Ferrari, can't hear me. And then he was, oh, I'll call you back. And that would have been it. But as soon as I had the vision, I've been a Belly to Belly person my whole life. How I built my business, how I became a top producer, how we closed over $4 billion in Chicago, sold 12,000 properties. I was a belly to belly guy. I built relations that way. So when I knew I had this vision, I just flew to Houston, had a conversation with Mark in person and told me, hey, this is. You see what I've done in Chicago. You've seen the culture, you seen, you've seen how big we got. I said, we can do this nationwide. And you know, it was a five minute conversation.

That's just a cold call. Like you just. Because you just went, reputation.

It's kind of a. It's kind of a semi cold call because we've known each other for 10 years. But for the last year and a half, Covid happened. You know, he had a new baby building a house in Mexico, building a house in Houston, that we had stopped talking. So literally when I called him, it's like we had never stopped talking. I was like, hey, Mark, what's up? He's like, hey. You know, I told him, I want to see the new baby, I want to see the new house. Come whenever you want. So I flew into Houston, had that conversation, and literally it took maybe 5, 10 minutes for a billion dollar agent to say, I'm in. And then the second conversation was it with Victor. He's $115 million producer. That's okay, you know what, let me vet it now. With someone that doesn't know me, that was a cold call. This is a relationship. But I wanted to talk to somebody that never met my family. I never met their family, never slept at their house. We've never traveled together. We've only known each other on Instagram. So I went to Austin, Texas, and I spoke to him.

I was like, hey, this is the business plan. This is what we're doing. Martimez is in. Are you in? Thirteen hours later, he said, I'll leave KW after a 13 year career, he was unrecruitable. He left. And then four days. And then it was Mark day one, Victor, day two. Four more days later, we had assembled about a thousand producing agents and we knew we were onto something. Then we shut down. We're not recruiting. Let's build the company. What's the CRM? What's the cap? What's the business plan? What's the rev share? Now we had the money and the friendships to hire all the consultants in the world, hire the biggest attorneys to build this real estate company, Realty America.

What's crazy is, do you hear what he just said? If you hear the timeline, it was Mark Victor, all the other founders. You had Alex Mosquera, you had Andreas, you had Mo and Claudia, you have. I know I'm missing people. Diego. Yeah. Victor, Nino, David Dominguez. But. And then we went to build the company. So we didn't, you know, when we talked to all these top 1% of the 1%, right, people that are doing 100 million, 200 million, 700 million in production in a year, not in their career. We didn't have a logo, we didn't have a comp plan. We didn't know what our splits were gonna be. We had the name Realty of America, we had our reputation and we had the vision. You know, when Eddie tells a story and it's the true story, right, is that he asked me, you know.

Hey.

I want you to come on this journey to build this company. And I asked him the three questions. I said, is it going to have rev share? He said, yes, it's the future.

I said, all right.

I said, is it going to have equity? He said, yes. I said, is it going to go public? He said, yes. I said, I'm in. It was a five minute conversation because previous to that I was already searching. You know, it's like you had talked about God. God had created and provided a door that was so vivid to me as he was speaking to me that it was just, yes, this is exactly what I've been looking for. The last year I had spoken with Gary Keller and I spoke for 30 minutes to talk about like, hey, what does it look like? Mark dimas team joining Keller Williams. I had spoke with Josh Miller, the CEO and founder of Epic. I spoke with Glenn Sanford and Leo Pareja, the founders and CEO now of Exposure. And it just wasn't the right time. And then six months later, Eddie calls me up. You know, we've been best friends for 10 years, but you know, like he said, for about a year and a half, I had Covid for 45 days. That's when I became a business owner because, you know, I couldn't do any work and I had to get out of production.

My son, who was born premature at 26 weeks, he was in the NICU for 74 days. When I closed the 3,000 transactions, I spent 160 days in Mexico. I was semi retired. And Eddie was also, you know, flourishing in his business, traveling 45 days at a time. So it's not that we didn't want to see each other, it's just life happened. But when he called and said, hey, I want to come and see the baby, I said, come anytime. He said, I'll be there tomorrow. And then he showed up. And as he's telling me his vision, it was just clear to me one thing about me and my. In my life and the decisions I make, some will say they're very hasty because I can make them really quick. But I go off of energy, I go off of feeling, and I go off of. Is this where I see my life going? If it is, then I'm just going to say yes. And we're going to do that Richard Branson way. You know, if you don't know how to do it, just say yes and figure it out later. Right when opportunity comes your way.

And little did I know that it would change my life, my family's direction, legacy, change his life, change thousands of agents and eventually tens and tens and hundreds of thousands of agents because we will be the number one real estate company in the country. There's no doubt. I don't do anything to be number two. You know, everything that I've done in life not to. And it's not an ego in that, hey, I'm better. It's just that I always compete against myself and I always compete against, you know, my best year. And I always want to do better, and I always want to do better to not not caring what anybody else is doing, but just knowing that I can get to the top because I've already seen the vision. And it's the same thing with Realty of America. We see it, and now it's just happening. It's just. It's just the snowball of, like, good news and blessings. We would. We would talk about last year when we just kept getting yeses and yeses, and it's like, man, when is somebody going to tell us no?

I said.

I said the dream is too big. The vision's too big. Now we're 10 months in. We don't. We have a logo now. We have a. We have a whole tech stack. We have an amazing C suite. We have 23, over 2300 agents. We have the production. We have the volume, you know, now it's the vision, the story and the production. And now we're meeting great people like you. We're meeting great people like Sam at the Vaughan, who brought us to the Mindset summit. This is just a.

God just is pouring in. You guys are just doing God's work.

And he's the one who had the. And he had the dream, you know, so.

Yeah. And it's incredible to see because it happened at such a fast pace. And I'm Sure. In the short time I met you guys two months ago, I don't even know how much more you guys have grown since.

In two months, we probably closed an additional $700 million in business. I mean, that, that, I mean, name a company that opened 10 months, has over seven figures in cash in the bank because we're a profitable company. We have zero investors.

I mean, that's insane.

We have no debt.

Yeah. And no big lawsuits yet.

Thank God, you know, I had the biggest one. You know, I was personally named in the 7 billion dollar NAR lawsuit. So if it's not 7 billion, if it's under 7 billion, I'm not sweating.

It right now, you know, but you know, you're just, you know, lawsuits or something. I'm like, yeah, that's great. I got, I got a stack of them like, like that high, you know.

They say, they say if you're not getting sued, you're not doing business.

Yeah, that's it, that's signing. You're winning, you know, Signing, winning.

No, but we don't, we don't have any.

Thank God. Yeah, it'll happen anyways. And when it comes, it's no big deal because you're a big legal team anyway. So what do you think? Like we talked about a future, the future of ro. What do you think the future is right now for you guys in the next like 12 months? What's some of the future plans?

3 strategy goal to go public. So one of it is having a certain amount of cash in the bank. Second one is having a certain number of agent count. The third one is owning 60% of our technology. So I started.

You own it by yourself.

You don't built it from scratch. Not white labeled. Because if you white label everything, you don't own anything. Right. And there could be another competitor that opens up tomorrow with the same CRM, the same everything you have. So one thing that I was trying to solve for at Realty of Chicago, my old company, is that I was tired of everyone using the Redfin website and Zillow. Like literally everyone was using it. Right. Because it's a superior website. So I was like, man, I want to build it. And once I went to the biggest tech companies, they were like, oh, that's a 5 million, 10 million dollar project. And I was like, eh, I don't think so. So I did what I always do, crazy things. And I set out to build my own tech team. Hired the brightest, probably. I've hired thousands of people. This is the brightest person I ever hired in My life. He was actually, he received the global employee of the year award last year for us. So this man, literally single handedly with a team in India of 18 developers, worked for over a year, built our realtyofamerica.com website to portal.

We built it from scratch. So literally on the same foundation that Redfin built it, we built our mortgage calculator from scratch. Our mortgage calculator is actually easier, less touches than one of the big boxes to build that from scratch. So now our consumers can search houses on the MLS and all 17 states we're opening and we open to 20 to 30 to 40. We're sending on all MLS in the future. All 50 states. You can search on all 50 states including Puerto Rico. So including Puerto Rico, which is, I forget their mls. Stellar mls. So now we've also built our own revenue dashboard from scratch. So it shows our agents, their organization, they show them how much they paid to cap how much they're earning in rev share what they've earned year to date. That's owned by us. Also our onboarding system. Anyone can join our company day or night. No human needed in all 17 states. Obviously there's a human that you need to change that DRE license, but that was built from, from scratch. And right now what we're building is it's going to be a one year sprint. So 2026, September, we will have a technology that a multi billion dollar company has been open for 15 years has and we will own it from scratch.

We're literally building it. Who else to architect it than people like him, People like me. I'm like the least successful one out of all the bunch. Everyone that is around us is more successful than me. We know what the agents want, what they struggle in, what they actually use and what tech they don't use. So that's what September 2026 looks like for us. I think we'll be 24 months old. We'll have right around 10,000 agents. Add a few more million dollars in cash to the bank account, probably be open at 25, 30 states. What am I missing?

I would hope to close around 20 billion in production.

You know, 12 months.

20 right now, even if we don't grow one single agent, if we just tell, hey, you know what? Everyone stop and just keep it the same, we'll do $6 billion.

So 20 billion is not that far away. I mean we got two, we got 2300 agents doing $5 billion in production right now.

It's not like just 2300 agents like exp has got like 180,000, but you got 2300 producing agents.

Agents, you know, and it's actually not even real data because you, you know, how long for a team to onboard to Realty of America? They're still going to close for the next 45 to 60, 75 days. They'll be closing their business at the old brokerage. So you're really talking about, we've done, you know, $2.5 billion in seven months.

But that started with, you know, like no agents and then adding 100, 200, 500, a thousand, you know, opening markets. So by then, when we have 20,000 agents and our markets are actually seasoned markets, then, you know, my goal is per thousand agents that we're closing two to two and a half billion in production per thousand agents, which is 2x what our competitors are doing. And we should be doing that because we have agents that are doing 100x than what the average agent is doing.

So.

And we're doing it at infancy now. A company like EXP has got amazing agents, right? They got amazing producing agents, but they're also 15 years old, and it took them that long to build that validation and have those agents coming over. We're 10 months old and you already have those agents, and we have those agents. So can you imagine three years from now? It's gonna be a game changer.

So we've had all the positives. So what are some of the biggest challenges that you guys have faced in such a short duration of time?

So I'll tell you that. I mean, the biggest sacrifice this man has done is, you know, he has, he has a baby that he goes sometimes days, you know, weeks without seeing because he's building this dream for me. You know, I took 180 flights last year today. Hey, where do you live?

You live in a suitcase.

I live in a suitcase. Right. But this is, this is what it takes to build legacy. This is what it takes to build your America. Your version of your American dream, you know, and whenever I go speak, I said, look, look, if an undocumented immigrant that his net worth was $5,000 at the age of 21. And now look at where I'm at. If I can do this, I mean, why can't you do whatever you want to do? And I think that, you know, the US is still the greatest country in the world. Look at what you've built. I mean, look at what everyone built, you know, at today's Mindset Summit, you know, and I think that for us is like, you know, I Tell my team, right? I met with one of my senior leaders, and I said, look, like, I actually text her this because she's like, hey, you know, I really appreciate the meeting. And I said, hey, just know that I love you and I care for you. And then I know that sometimes we're, like, working like crazy, right? It can be stressful, but just know that it will be stressful.

The journey is going to be stressful, but it will be worth it, because right now we have an opportunity to build legacy and. And to change our entire lives. Because what we're doing together, we couldn't do separately. There was no way that Mark could. His company go public or my company could go public or everyone else. But if we come together, we have an opportunity to go public. One of the biggest privileges of our professional life is we got invited to ring the bell at NASDAQ last year. So just think about, like, all the wins. That's why when Mark's like, man, this is too easy. This is crazy, because literally, in 10 months, it's been an amazing journey, Incredible journey.

So, yeah, you know, it was. I want to piggyback on what he just said about ringing the bell, because that was a. That's a core memory, right? And not only that, it's one of. One of the highlights of our professional careers. And, you know, I think back on that. Was it July 27, July 26, breakfast. When I asked him, hey, are we gonna. Is it gonna have equity? Are we gonna go public? He said, yes. I never dreamt about going public. I just wanted to. I wanted to have a big vision. I wanted to have something worth putting in. Take coming out of semi retirement and then put. Going back into the 15 hours a day, going back into, you know, putting the. Putting, you know, getting suited and booted.

Like we say, just love this too much, man.

Yeah, I love it too much. And then to, you know, a few months later. So that was in. Well, I think it was in May, you know, we get a call from Gary Acosta, and he. And he says, hey, I want to invite you guys to the closing bell ceremony at the nasdaq. And then I just remember getting off the phone and I said, this is a foreshadowing what's to come. When we. I was like. I mean, goosebumps were just. I mean, I was like, man, these things happen in my life, and it's just serendipitous that it just shows itself so, like, clear, right? And so we get there, and I remember after the ringing of the bell, we Go outside. We watch. You know, we're there looking in Times Square. We're looking at the. The NASDAQ building. And then, you know, it's like 60ft in the air. You got your picture up there, you know, of ringing the bell, and it just. And it goes through. And I was like, man, can you imagine when we're up there with our friends and our family and it's our company that's going public? I said, it's going to happen.

This is, you know, confirmation right now that God's giving us that it's going to happen. Because who else gets invited? I mean, this is just random, right, that you get invited to be able to participate. But it was because of the fact that we were planning to go public, and they were looking for business owners that were planning to go public and that they knew would go public, and that's why we were.

God bless, man. I got a couple last questions. We talked about family and this. You could. You can actually answer this, too. You know, you grew up poor, you grew up poor.

We all.

I'm an immigrant, too, and one thing I'm struggling with, I'm sure, is how do you instill the same level of grit, the same level of mindset, that same level of perseverance that you had to attain the level of success that you have now in your children and your futures?

You know, I went to public school my whole life, so I kind of understand what that looks like. And then I also went to private school for one year. And in that. In that, you know, it was night and day, right? My public school was 50, 60 students. My private school class was 9, 10 students. Public school. Everyone drove, you know, went on the bus. Private school, G Wagons, Mercedes, you know, like, just different lifestyle. And I remember I had a friend there, and he went to private school his whole life. Kindergarten, grammar school, high school. His mom cooked a meal for him, cooked a meal for the father, and cooked a meal for herself. Three different meals. I was like, I had one meal and we had to eat or else we're not eating that day. And I saw. I didn't realize he was being spoiled. Bought a new car, everything they were buying him. And then he ended up spending, I think, his 23rd year in life. He spent more time in jail than he spent outside. And I saw that his mindset was different. Everything was given to him. So I think he felt that the world belonged to him.

And, you know, we stopped talking. So for me, I think that, you know, for my kids, you know, I'm Going to have them work. I've been working since the age of 13 years old. My dad taught me these lessons, the same lessons that my dad taught me. I'm going to steal my kids. My dad gave me $100. Actually didn't give me $100. He said, here's, here's a loan, $100. Go get a fake ID that says you're 18 and start working full time. Summers, winters I was working at the zoo. I was cooking, I was selling ice cream in 90 degree weather. And that was probably one of the biggest lessons that it taught me to. I was 13, 14 years old, speaking with 35 year old, you know, 35 year olds. And I was learning to communicate, have conversations with them, negotiate with them. You know, your parents are not there. You had to literally fend for yourself and for me. My, my kids, I want them to be U.S. senators. I want them to build a sky, you know, a high, high rise. You know, I have those big goals. I don't have, I don't have a goal for them to run Realty of America.

I want like greatness and hopefully God gives me that.

Yeah, definitely. That's great, Great points. And you're gonna be an amazing father. I already know that.

Oh, dude, he's already teaching me.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think it's, I think it's a challenge and an opportunity that all parents have, right? Especially ones that have the ability to provide very well for their kids and give them everything, which I think is a duty of a parent, you know, to, you know, the reason why we work hard is so that our families can enjoy the life and to buy back our freedom to spend time with them. But at the same time, like Eddie was mentioning about the friend that he had, you know, we are entrusted with lives that the decisions that we make, you know, can impact what happens to them in the future, especially the way that they value things and work. So for me personally, you know, all my kids were homeschooled, every one of them. My middle daughter, who's getting married September 5th, she's the last daughter. I have three daughters that's to be married. The other two are married. She graduated. Is it summa or magna? Which is the one? Where's the top? The top. So she graduated summa cum laude, fifth in her class. Forensic science, forensic chemistry major. She's now a scientist and she was completely homeschooled.

All my other kids are amazing. My daughter and son both work for me in the real estate business. Super smart. My youngest daughter also just A great, great woman. She just got married, but she, she, she manifested her dream. She says, I want to be a housewife. And she married Roy where she's gonna. Actually, she's giving me my first grandson who's, she's due in, in March. She's an army wife. So she literally manifested the life that she wanted. And as they were growing up, I was very careful on how I raised them because I was raised with no allowance. I was raised working from the age of 4 years old with my mom. I thought it was like seven or eight. Then I called, called her. I was like, how old was I? When I used to go to the flea market with you in the morning, she goes, you're like 4 years old. And I used to hate going there, but my mom's Korean and her English wasn't that great. And so she says, but you're really good with the people and they'll buy from you. And we used to sell these little buffalo head, nickel coin money clips, earrings and pendants.

And from there and then I worked with her in the restaurants and this and that. I sold gum at high school. And so I wanted to figure out, hey, what am I going to do for my kids? So what I did for them is I never gave them an allowance, but I always gave them the opportunity to work and make money. There was never a lack of work, you know, so they had their own chores that they had to do as being part of the family unit. Make your bed, clean the house, after you eat your food, you clean your dishes, you know, you're doing your chores. That is for living, period. But if you want to make money, you wash the car, you can cut the grass. All my kids helped me when I did my mail outs for just listed cards and just sold cards. And I had a newsletter. They would fold, trifold back this, back then, you know, we, we trifolded. We put stamps on, you know, on the, the envelopes and we mailed them. They did all my labels, all my stamps, and I gave them a checkbook. I never gave them cash because my first ever hire, my first assistant on the, on the.

We had a proper small property management division. The very first assistant that I hired, I asked her to write some checks and she didn't know how. She was like almost 28, 27. She said, I've never written a check in my life. Just like right now, kids probably don't, you know, they don't write checks, right? It's a, it's an old, it's a lost art form. And so at that point, I was like, well, I don't want my kids to not learn how to balance a checkbook. So right then, my kids were. I don't know, they were, like, probably 12 and 6, you know, that age. I gave them all a checkbook registry, and I became the bank. And I said, every time you earn money for whatever you do, we're going to put it in the register. And then when we want to go buy something, which we did all the time. So imagine this. We're at Target. All the kids, they all, you know, grab things. They grab some toys, they grab some candies and things like this. And the way that we're gonna. We're gonna charge it is once I have to pay for it, I do a debit in there in their.

On their registry. So as they're standing there in front of the conveyor. The conveyor belt, the candy's going through. One of my kids, Emma, she'll grab, like, the starburst and put it back. No, I don't want that. And another kid would grab something. Another kid would grab something. Another kid would grab something. By the time the conveyor belt was done, nobody bought anything because they didn't want to see their bank accounts go down. And then what I did when they were. They were the age of 13 to 16, I gave them the opportunity to buy a car. It started when they were 13. However much money you save from 13 to 16, I'm gonna match it, but you have to buy a car cash. And all my kids purchased a car. One of them purchased a $30,000 car, one of them purchased a $4,000 car. You know, but they all learned vehicle to be able to save the money up, to be able to balance a checkbook. And now all of them are fiscally, you know, sound. You know, they. They. And also, you lead by work, by just. By example, by just the strong work ethic that you have.

Kids want to be like their parents? I think so. You know, I. I think back. You know, my dad died when I was five years old, but even that small amounts of memories that I have with him. My mom divorced when I was one, so I didn't spend a lot of time with my dad. But even those small memories, I wanted to be like him, you know, and I think the kids want to be like you. So if you're doing things that are excelling, then you should expect that your kids are going to follow you if you give them the path for that.

Got one last question, guys. When you're in front of the throne of grace. What do you think God's going to tell you?

I'll tell you that hopefully he gives me grace for all the, you know, we've sent probably 50,000 kids to school when your school supplies haircuts, some laptops, we fed, you know, over a quarter million people on Thanksgiving. I think that we've poured into hundreds and not thousands of people to become better humans, build businesses that are respectful and you know, hopefully, hopefully he sees that. Right? We're imperfect humans. But I think that, you know, when I, when I pass, I want this, my legacy to be that I help more people than I hurt.

Yeah. I think the, you know, I think all of us want to hear, you know, well done, good and faithful servant. You know, you're loved. Welcome home.

God bless you guys. I hope you hit all your goals. I hope you keep dominating. I hope you guys become number one. Sam.