How This Real Estate Agent Became A Millionaire Real Estate Investor In His 20s

Jose: Good, Toby. What about you?

Toby: I am fantastic. I’m excited today because I know you’re not super young anymore, but I know that by the time you were a millionaire, you were. And I love talking to people that, what? It took you about seven years to go from zero to millionaire status. Is that fair?

Jose: Yeah, I would say so.

Toby: Let me introduce you first off because you’re a very successful real estate agent, but you have generated a ton of wealth in real estate in a pretty short period of time. I wanted you to get your story of where you started and how you got into real estate, and then we’ll dive into some of the specifics. Maybe just give somebody an idea of who you are, how you got into real estate, where it all started, and then where you’re sitting out.

Jose: Absolutely. I’m 35 years old. I am a father of two, husband now. I got started in high school. I wasn’t your typical 4.0 student by any means. I was a 2.0 student. I played sports, played baseball, and basketball. I didn’t really start to get serious about a lot of things until I got after college.

From 16–23, I didn’t really do much with my life. I was going to university but was partying, maybe not having the right friends. Then at 23, I got started in real estate, and that’s when my life started to change. I started changing the people that I was hanging out with.

Instead of thinking about partying and kegs, I started thinking about, okay, how can I build wealth and how can I build residual? I started selling real estate at 23, my broker introduced me to a book or a game by Robert Kiyosaki, it was called The Rat Race, and then I became obsessed with getting out of the rat race.

I started selling a bunch of real estate to buy real estate that produces positive cash flow. Then all that real estate that produced positive cash flow just kept almost snowballing on top of each other until the properties got bigger and bigger. Now obviously, we’re in a position where we’ll be able to retire if we want in the next couple of years.

Toby: That’s pretty nice. Let me unpack this for a second. From 16–23, you’re doing the typical, hey, let’s go to college. Let’s have a good time. Party around a little bit. You had a good time.

You weren’t the top student. Did you come from a wealthy background? Was it humble? Was it normal? Did you have a whole bunch of head start, somebody give you $1 million, and say, here you go, go invest, or what was it?

Jose: I didn’t have a head start, but my parents were actually really good examples. My mom came to do this program called the Bracero Program, where they basically gave residency to people that work in agriculture. Her father had got her involved in that. She came to the country legally, but my father came to this country as an immigrant.

They bought a business in 1990 and I was born in 1987, so I saw them build up a business, and then they kept buying real estate. I worked in their business from the time I was 9 until I was about 23, even while I was going to school, but I learned so many good principles. They never gave me any handouts. They didn’t give me the down payments to any of the properties. They didn’t give me basically anything, but what they taught me was really good.

My father, I would go out to lunch with him during our lunch breaks at work, and he would start telling me, hey, look, you got to take care of your credit. His rule was so simple, Toby. His rule was if I can make $1000 a month in positive cash flow off the property, I’m good. But what ended up happening was that over 30 years, the rents went up and the principals got paid down tremendously, so a $1000 a month turned to $5000, $6000, $7000 a month per property. I got to witness a lot of that.

I had really, really good examples as a parent, but as it relates to handouts or anything like that, I had to learn real estate. I basically became one of the top agents in my marketplace. A good portion of the income I would make, I would reinvest it back into cash flow–producing real estate.

Toby: This is really cool. Your parents did the American dream. They came in here, didn’t have a lot, and built it up over time. Instead of just giving you a bunch of money and hoping that maybe you’d get into it, they let you come to investing on your own terms. Was it your parents that told you to invest? Did they say, hey, just work really hard or get an education? What was their message to you?

Jose: Whenever I would sit down with my dad—and my dad was the one that would tell me these things—he would tell me, invest your money, take care of your credit, and without your credit you can’t really borrow any money. Sometimes you can make money by borrowing money, by leveraging certain things. He really taught me the foundation.

I didn’t have a name for it at that time and I didn’t even realize it. It was almost until I played that cashflow game with our broker that I was like, oh, this is the name of the game. Then I got obsessed with this. Before I would buy a liability, I would always buy an asset first. Before I moved out of my parents’ house, I owned four properties already.

Toby: We got to stop right there real quick. You are financially successful, you are making good money, but you live with your parents?

Jose: I did. The reason is I got obsessed with the cash flow game and I got obsessed with growing the business, so I had to make a sacrifice. I actually didn’t move out of my parents’ probably until I was 26–27. From 23, to 26, to 27, I own four properties. They all produce great positive cash flow. I lived with them until an opportunity came up where I could actually justify moving out on my own. Even then, I was a little bit scared of moving out on my own at that time, even though I was already in a great financial position.

Toby: Let’s talk about how great a financial position it actually was. If you don’t mind, when you were 23, 24, 25, 26, what were you making a year? Was it $50,000, $35,000, $100,000? What were you making a year?

Jose: I probably say around the time that I moved out, my first year in real estate, I made $20,000, then $40,000, then $100,000, and then $200,000. From $200,000, I think it jumped up to about $500,000 in gross commissions. I was probably making somewhere between $200,000–$500,000 a year and had about $6000 of positive cash flow coming in every single month.

Toby: And you were living with your parents while you were doing this?

Jose: I was.

Toby: I love that. This is the thing. The ego becomes your amigo thing. It’s like, hey, I’m making good money, and therefore I deserve to have the Mercedes, a really nice house, and it’s at the expense of perhaps building up an asset base.

I actually really like hearing that. What would you say to somebody who’s in a similar scenario? Hey, but I really want to get out of my parents’ hair, they’re pushing me to get out. What would you say to somebody who’s saying, but I know I could invest so much more just for a few years? What would you say to that person?

Jose: I would just say have a plan and have a goal. I remember my first year in real estate, I was part-time. I said, if I could save up $5000 and have $5000, I’ll go full-time, and I got there. Then when I moved out of my parents’ house, I was like, well, if I can have $5000 or $6000, then I’m ready, I’m in a position to be able to move out as well, too.

I would say have a goal. This is something my father always told me. He told me that it was easier to build wealth while you were younger because you had time, energy, and you didn’t have a family. From the time I was 23–27, I didn’t have any kids, I didn’t have a wife, I could work until I wanted to, I could invest in how I wanted to, and I didn’t have kids or anything like that.

I would say that just have a goal in mind. Sometimes by sacrificing a little bit up front, it really puts you in a very good financial position where you can actually do a lot more and live a lot better quality of lifestyle as well by making a sacrifice. I have cousins that lived with their parents after they were married because they didn’t have as strong of a financial situation, where I’ve never done that. The moment we were married, I had my own place before we got married.

I’ve seen some of the challenges that they have gone through living with the in-laws or with their wife at the house. I was just like, man, I’m so glad that I made those sacrifices then. That way, I didn’t have to sacrifice when I actually did have a family. I never had to sacrifice that. I sacrificed upfront, so that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice now.

Toby: When you were 23 and you started making some money as a realtor, did you buy a really nice car? Did you spend anything? How much of that would you invest?

Jose: I would invest the majority of it. My first real estate car, I actually bought for $5000. I bought it with cash. It was a 1995 BMW 323i. It looked nice and that’s all I wanted. I wanted something with the appearance that it looked nice, but it was 10 years old or maybe 15 years old at that time.

I remember, one of my friends was upgrading cars. He had the same model car as I did, but it was four years newer, so then I upgraded from $5000 to an $8000 car. And then I kept that car probably a little bit before I moved out on my own. It was in 2013. I ended up buying it in 2015, which was the year I moved out on my own. I bought a used 2013 E350. That car was about $33,000, which I did get a loan on, but it was a payment like $687, and I had all this residual income already.

That’s a funny story. I had my BMW, I bought a GPS for my BMW because it didn’t have GPS, and he made fun of me. He said, look Jose, how much money right now do you make? I go, I make X amount of money and then he goes, and you’re bragging to me about buying a $300 GPS to put on your BMW?

He challenged me to upgrade cars, but it was a good decision because in my business, that can actually help your business a little bit. It helps your image, and it actually made me feel a lot better at that time when I did buy it. It was just a funny story of how he challenged me.

It was the same friend that challenged me. He’s like, dude, you’re 27 and you live at home with your parents? What’s up, man? You have all this money. It was also a good decision because at that time, that was a very good opportunity for me to move out. It challenged me to make more money at the same time as well, too.

Toby: Just be glad you didn’t have that same friend challenging you at 23. When you moved out, would you consider yourself already a millionaire at that point? Do you have $1 million with that?

Jose: I would consider.

Toby: This is for everybody listening. I’m going to send this to anybody that is in their 20s. I’m going to say from 23–27, you accumulated enough asset base to where you were already a millionaire, and you probably had enough cash flow coming into where you could have lived—if you’d had to—the rest of your life off of it. Is that a fair statement?

Jose: Obviously, very conservatively. I’d probably have to relocate areas just because obviously California is a little bit more expensive than most of the areas. But I could have and would have, but then the numbers just kept getting bigger. The goals kept getting bigger and bigger now.

Toby: Here’s the thing, Jose. According to the Census Bureau, the average American spends $5100 a month. Could you have replaced $5100 a month off of what you had when you were 27?

Jose: 100%. I could have, yeah.

Toby: I always look at stuff like that. I guess there are people that live for less, there are people that live for much, much more. But if you were in a pinch, would you be suffering in your life?

Jose: I could have, yeah.

Toby: It’s a lot better than social security where you might get $2000 a month or $1900.

Jose: A hundred percent, yeah.

Toby: All right. You’re in your 20s and you knock this thing out of the park because you were willing to eat the ego, stay at home, live with parents, build it up. When you’re 27, what’s the next step? Did you get married or did you just move out and do your own thing? What was it that prompted you to say, you know what? I’m going to go out on my own now. I’m having success professionally, but you decided to go out and venture on your own. What prompted that?

Jose: Either I made a goal to actually purchase a primary residence because I wanted to move off on my own. I wasn’t actually married at that time. But what I ended up doing is I ended up setting a goal.

It’s funny, I don’t know if you call it the law of attraction, but I had a dream board and I put on my dream board that I was going to buy a property that I bought for $400,000 or $500,000 and it was worth $650,000 or $700,000. I had on my dream board that it was going to be a single family residence, but what ended up percolating to the surface was actually very different.

I got nominated to be on a magazine for 30 Under 30 and I met a builder there. The builder had this new development where it was live–work, meaning commercial building on the bottom, residential on the top. They were sold out at that time, but I told them, hey, look, if anything falls out of escrow, call me.

Then I get a call maybe two weeks later and he says, hey, look, this property is going to fall out of escrow, but I’m selling it today. If you want it, you have to come over today. I was not expecting to buy a house that day. He came to me. He said, look, we’re willing to pay you 6% commission, we’re willing to pay you 3% closing costs. I did the numbers, the mortgage was $3300 at that time. I could rent out the top if I didn’t move in for $3000, and I could rent out the bottom for $1000.

I was a little bit nervous just because I was like, oh my God, it’s my primary residence. But I asked myself, I said, what’s the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario, I move out and rent these two pieces of property out. It’s still a cash flow–producing asset and I’m getting paid, I only put 10% down. I was getting 6% on commissions and 3% on closing costs.

I literally came in with very little money down. It was a blessing because now that building’s worth a lot more. And that building allowed me to grow my real estate company because now I had my own building. It also made me super efficient because I used to live right above my building and I would literally walk downstairs to go to work, which means that while most people were commuting, I was walking. Not only that, but it helped my driving record tremendously. I haven’t gotten a ticket in probably five or six years because I live so close to my offices now, which is crazy.

Toby: You got the trifecta there, but I got to just go back to it.

Jose: With kids now, Toby, I still live in the same place, so I ended up upgrading from the place I live in to an actual home. I live maybe two or three blocks away from my home. Now, it helps me because my office is here. I literally get to go home and eat. Every day I get to see my kids whenever I want. If I have an hour break, I can literally take off and be back to the office within a couple of minutes, two minutes to be exact. It’s really, really amazing. Yeah, it’s really good.

Toby: But what’s really amazing is you had a dream board. I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds like you put things that you wanted to come to you. Is it that idea?

Jose: It’s a vision board basically, which is like the same thing, which I did that for a long time. Almost everything that I’ve ever put on my dream board has come to fruition, not in the exact same manner, sometimes a little bit different but very close.

I’ll give you an example. The first big cash flowing property that I bought, I put on my vision board that I was going to buy a property in a certain neighborhood with an addition. I wanted a house with an addition because I could receive multiple incomes from it. I literally got a call maybe three months later from a person basically saying, hey, I need to short sell my property. Can you help me?

It was crazy because another agent in my office ended up taking the listing, but we ended up buying that property. And it was exactly what was on my dream board. Everything from cars, to watches, to real estate.

In 2017, I put on my dream board that I was going to buy large apartment complexes. I didn’t end up buying them until 2019, but it was very similar at that time. I didn’t know how it was going to come to fruition, but it ended up coming to fruition. I’m a big believer in setting goals, and I’m a big believer in having dream boards and vision boards.

Toby: I want to drill on this just for a second. I know it’s not tax asset protection or whatever, but I think it’s so important that people realize that. They’ve done studies on this and it’s this thing called locus of control. It’s the biggest difference between those that are wealthy and those that aren’t.

The locus of control is the belief that you can control your outcome. Who taught you to do that? Was it something that you learned in school, friends, parents? Who taught you to do that?

Jose: I got involved in real estate coaching probably in 2012–2013. At that real estate coaching, you would set goals, and then you would meet different individuals. Being in real estate, a lot of companies help you set goals, so I think the biggest thing that I got from real estate was setting goals.

I remember my first year, my broker asked me, how much money do you want to make? I said, maybe $50,000. She’s like, why don’t you bump it up to $100,000? That to me was a number that was astronomical at that time, but they taught me how to set goals.

I just kept getting involved with different mastermind groups. We ended up doing vision boards as part of our mastermind groups, doing goal setting, sharing our goals, and then we would help each other to stay motivated and help each other achieve those goals as well, too. I would say coaching and then getting involved with different mastermind groups a lot of the times with people that were doing a lot better than I was.

Toby: That is absolutely extraordinary. Again, I’m going to call this how to become a millionaire under 30 because holy schmoly, so many people think that it’s never going to happen for them. In fact, there’s almost this bleakness that exists in some of the younger generations where they’d, oh, it’s too late, there are not these opportunities, oh, it’s too expensive, and everything. There is a lot of that stinking thinking that keeps them back.

Then there’s somebody like you who says, you know what? I’m going to put this into place. I’m going to do it. You did it since this great recession that we had where everybody says, ever since then, things have changed. What would you say to somebody now? Do you do coaching now with younger people? Are you part of a group where you have folks that come in? And do you hear that from them?

Jose: Do I coach them personally or I am receiving coaching still?

Toby: Both.

Jose: I work for a company called EXP Realty. EXP Realty allows you to partner up with different agents across the country. As a result of me being able to partner up with different agents, I actually mentor agents for free on a group call that we do, because we’re incentivized to do so. As it relates to me receiving coaching, yes, I have.

I’m involved in several mastermind groups. I’m involved in one called Collective Genius, which is a $25,000 a year mastermind, which is 200–300 of the top investors around the country. We get together once a quarter. We talk about what we can do to grow our business, our wealth, and just our life in general. I’m also involved in another one that I paid last year that was a $50,000 a year mastermind. In that one, they taught me some different things like affiliate marketing and that sort of thing.

I got to the point where I was one of the bigger fishes in my area. I wanted to get involved in thinking tanks of people that would challenge me again, so I started getting involved with larger mastermind groups. But I would say that mastermind groups, coaching, it’s all great. I would just say vet out who you’re getting mentored by, because a lot of the time, things sound really nice and they’re not really achieving or they’re not really doing what they say that they are.

I think that’s one of the things that I’ve done really well that whenever I’ve had mentors in my life, I’ve made sure that they’re the real deal on the vetting process by sometimes even asking uncomfortable questions, or even doing my own research to verify if they really are who they say that they are. If they are, then obviously I listen to what they say. And if they’re not, then obviously we don’t get involved.

Toby: You and I have had that conversation before. I get to do the tax returns on some of these folks, they’re out there saying how they’re making all this money, and then I’m looking at it going, that’s not true, I can see your tax return.

Jose: I’ll give you an example. There was this agent on YouTube who would talk about taking all these listings and how to grow your real estate business, and then you look them up and he probably never sold more than maybe 60 homes in his entire career. You’re teaching other people how to sell homes in high volume, but you’ve never actually done it. There was a little bit of a disconnect.

One of my big-time mentors that helped me out a lot was selling about 200 homes personally a year, Toby. When I got involved with them, he started teaching me how he operated, how we thought, and then that got me to about 80 homes in California a year personally and then 50 with a team. Last year, we did 130 homes in one year, me and two other people. But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without having the right mentorship.

Toby: When did you first get the coaching and mentorship? Was it when you were 23? Was it before? Was it after?

Jose: I would say, probably a year or two into my real estate career, so maybe 24–25. That’s when I got involved. At that time, it was a big decision because I was not making a lot of money. Let’s say I was making $40,000 a year and coaching was $1000 a month, which was $12,000. It was literally 33% of my income.

Immediately after getting into coaching, my income started to grow tremendously, where it was almost doubling. It was a great investment. Anytime you can invest in either yourself, meaning into your personal development, your business, or into things that produce positive cash flow, I would say you’re headed in the right direction.

Toby: You didn’t put in there, get a really, really nice car, a really big house, frivolous spending, and lots of vacations.

Jose: We still take nice trips and everything like that, but at the very beginning, I was a lot more conservative because I just felt that I could do a lot more with the money, investing it. We take nice trips now where we live a good life, but we live substantially way below our means.

Toby: I was just jesting. That’s what’s so funny. So many people think that success is spending, when success is in this creation. If you focused just as much of your time like what you did, I just think it’s so amazing that you did it in such a short period of time because it sounds to me like you’ve turned your life 360 in about 4 years.

Jose: A hundred percent, yeah.

Toby: That’s pretty extraordinary. There are a lot of people out there that don’t think it’s possible. They sit around, they’re told by all their friends, and they’re commiserating. And I’m always like, yeah, it’s absolutely possible. I see it all the time.

I get to meet really successful folks and a lot of them have the same stories. They live below their means, I believe you live on 70% of your take home or less, they invest the difference, and they spend time learning from people that have been successful.

It is a vetting process, trying to figure out there are a lot of folks out there—we call them gurus—and use these little things. They’re pretend gurus because they haven’t actually done it. You want to do what other successful people do.

Again, I’m in a really unique position because I do their tax returns. Somebody could say whatever they want, I tend to look at the numbers, and the numbers don’t lie.

In the world, you’re always getting hit with advertising and things like that. I just think it’s extraordinary that in such a short period of time, you did the sacrifices early so you could reap the rewards later. They always say you live like other people won’t, so that you can live like other people can’t.

Putting it back to you, there’s a shoe behind you. I noticed a boxing shoe and I happen to love the pugilistic arts. I’ve been doing it for a long time. What’s the story because it looks like there’s a red…

Jose: Boxing shoe?

Toby: Is that a red boxing shoe?

Jose: Yes. You can’t see the entire wall behind me. But when I was developing my podcast studio, I actually was looking for a theme. The theme that I wanted to do was the GOAT (the greatest of all time). That boxing shoe above it, there are actually some boxing shorts. The boxing shorts belonged to a gentleman by the name of Julio Cesar Chavez, which is, I would probably argue, the best Mexican fighter of all time, if not definitely top three Mexican fighters of all time.

The wall consists of different things. Different people had different characteristic traits that I admired. For example, I had Tom Brady on the wall, which I looked at as an underdog, meaning that maybe you wouldn’t have bet on him. Once he got drafted, he was going to be one of the greatest players of all time. I love that.

Michael Jordan had an incredible mindset, incredible work ethic, but wasn’t the most talented. Maybe the theme is not maybe the most talented, but almost like underdogs that did great things, Julio Cesar being one of them, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. I have Wayne Gretzky.

I have a bat by a gentleman by the name of Cal Ripken Jr. as well too, which to me, he represented consistency. I think he played 3000-plus consecutive baseball games without missing one. They all had a little trait that inspired me and that boxing shoe was definitely one of them for sure.

Toby: You named one of the greats. That’s absolutely true. They all had grit. They just put their heads down and get it done. So much of it is done up here. They say train hard, fight easy. I think those guys embodied that, all of them.

Wow, that’s pretty cool. I had no idea that you had a big old, cool wall. I’m not super old, but I’m a little bit older than you. What would you say to somebody who’s coming up, especially if somebody’s in that, hey, I’m just getting started out, I can’t see it?

You may say, visualize $100,000 and to them that’s still a really large figure, or they’ve been beaten down and something bad happened? Maybe they made some bad investments or bad decisions, they suffered the consequences, and they just feel like they can’t see it. What would you say to those people?

Jose: I would say that my life started to change when I started getting around different people. From the ages of 16–23, I hung around with knuckleheads. What did I become? A knucklehead. From 23 to now, I’ve hung around with people that are doing positive things with their life and that are either doing better than I am or on the same trajectory as I am.

I would say that who you’re investing time, who you’re giving access to your thinking, is probably the most important thing. One of my mentors said that the best thing you can get from a mentor is access to the way that they think, because the way that they think allows them to do what they do.

Example, you and I both have two eyes, two ears, one mouth, one nose. So what’s the difference between us? Let’s say that somebody was really unsuccessful and somebody was really successful, the only difference between that unsuccessful person and that successful person is the way that they think. If that’s the only difference, who are you giving access to your thinking?

If you get around people that are doing better than you and you vet them out, by them pouring into you and helping you change the way they think, you could actually change your exterior results. I think that’s one of the things that I’ve done really well, that I’ve gone maybe a little bit by luck. Some of it on purpose, but I’ve gone around the right people. That has helped me to grow and do so in a way where it’s been very predictable and sustainable, basically.

Toby: I really appreciate you sharing that. I really appreciate you coming on today. If somebody ever wants to reach out and pick your brain—I know you’re not selling a product, I know there’s nothing—how does somebody get a hold of you? How does somebody find out who you are and learn a little bit more?

Jose: I’d probably say our social media channels. I’d probably say Instagram would probably be the best one. If you go on @joseluizmorales on Instagram, if you go on TikTok, you can follow us on TikTok, and then we also have a YouTube channel as well where we provide in-depth real estate information.

If you wanted to learn a little bit about real estate, we’ve done videos on land assemblies, we’ve done videos on 1031 exchanges, and we’ve done videos on Delaware Statutory Trust. Just very in-depth real estate topics.

Toby: Perfect. I know I’m going to share this out with a lot of folks that I know when it comes out and say, hey, make sure your kids are watching this. I think your story is actually one that is particularly relevant in this day and age, and you see people fighting. They’re not willing to take that sacrifice that you did. I just think it’s so extraordinary.

It gives people hope because you did it so fast. You did it the right way. You really kicked some hiney in a very short period of time. You didn’t win a lottery or anything, you did it with intelligence and with the right principles. You just happened to do something in a very short period of time that people don’t think is possible. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story.

Jose: I’ll share this last thing with you, Toby. I heard a saying recently that stood out and it said, everybody is self-made, but only the successful ones will admit it. Meaning that a lot of people are self-made millionaires, but typically the only people that take credit for it are the ones that end up succeeding. Even if you’re not successful, you got to where you are because of certain thought processes. I thought it was really interesting and true as well, too.

Toby: We’re all self-made, but only the wealthy admit it. That’s perfect. I’m going to steal that, just so you know.

Jose: I’m okay with that. I didn’t create it by the way. I heard it from somebody else.

Toby: There are a lot of ideas out there. The best ones, we didn’t come up with. You’re always borrowing from our mentors and the good stuff. The thing about it is cream always rises to the top. You just have to give yourself that opportunity and realize that you’re in control of it, and then let yourself go. You did it and I think that anybody can, so I think it’s fantastic.