The School Of Cash Flow

House hacking means buying a multi-unit property, living in one unit, and renting out the others. This is something Diego Corzo has been doing in order to generate cash flow. Learn how Diego became a REALTOR so that he can make his money work for him. Learn about the real estate market in Austin and how he bought his first property. Learn how to house hack and find great tenants to live with. Also, learn about GoBundance and how Diego’s life changed by applying for it. Learn all that and more as Dale Corpus brings Diego to the show.

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House Hacking As A Way To Generate Cash Flow With Diego Corzo

One of the biggest traits that successful people have is that they persevere. When the going gets tough, that doesn’t faze them. They don’t offer no as an answer. They’ve got the grit and stamina to keep pushing forward regardless of any adversity that stands in their way. My guest, Diego Corzo, despite all the challenges thrown at him is the epitome of perseverance. There are a lot of inspirational stories out there for real estate investors and entrepreneurs, Diego’s story is up there.

He’s a DACA recipient, Forbes featured entrepreneur and a TEDx speaker from Austin, Texas. He was born in Lima, Peru and came to the United States at the age of nine. After college, he started working in Corporate America and soon discovered that he was destined for more and pursued a career in real estate. He is a realtor for Keller Williams and has a team. He’s also a real estate investor. He is on a path to financial freedom and helps others do the same by reaching financial independence and reaching their full potential. That being said, let’s get started. Diego, How are you?

What’s up? Thank you for having me here.

I appreciate you being on the show. You have quite an impressive bio. What’s your overall story? How did you get into real estate?

It has been a roller coaster, especially coming from the background that I have, which is being a dreamer and a DACA recipient, which means that I am undocumented. I don’t have papers at the moment but I am allowed to be here, work and drive. The journey to getting into real estate for me started after a few obstacles. At fifteen, I found that I couldn’t drive legally. I couldn’t get my driver’s license. At eighteen, I found out I couldn’t qualify for student loans and financial aid.

At nineteen, I found out I couldn’t work. When I was 21, one of my best friends, Pascal, who’s in GoBundance, threw me this book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. He’s like, “You have read it.” I read that book and I learned two things. You can either trade your time for money or you can make your money work for you. From that perspective, I knew that in the future, I want to build wealth by making my money work for me and it happened. In that book, they talk a lot about real estate so I happen to be like, “I’m going to invest in real estate.”

After again a few ups and downs and a lot of lenders telling me no because of my immigration status, I was able to buy some properties. I was able to get started on one of the first house hacks that I was able to buy. I bought a four-bedroom home, rented out the rooms, lived in the master and lived for free. That allowed me to keep my expenses low and continue investing the rest. Now, I have a portfolio of around 43 doors. It’s been a crazy journey from that perspective.

House Hacking: You don’t need to spend any money on the marketing side. Just focus on your brand and social media presence. Your story is the thing that attracts potential clients.

Where was it located in? Was it already in Texas?

It was in Austin, Texas. I grew up in Florida and I moved after college. That was when Obama passed the executive order called DACA that allowed me to finally work and drive. That’s when I got interviewed by General Motors and they told me, “Do you want to go to Detroit or Austin?” I don’t like the snow so I told them I’m going to Austin. I’ve been in Austin ever since 2013, that’s when I moved. It has been great. I bought that home here after I was working for General Motors.

How did you transition from being an employee over at GM to getting involved in real estate? I’m not sure if you were a realtor or a real estate investor first. Tell me about that transition.

I was always the kind of person that has seen the way how my parents worked and the way that they hustle. I couldn’t go home after 5:00 PM. All my friends did and were like, “We’re going to watch Netflix. We’re going to go to Happy Hour or do this or do that.” I was more like, “How can I make my time as efficient as possible?” I was big in side hustles. I knew that I wanted to invest in real estate but I didn’t know anything on the market. I’d never been to Austin. I was like, “If I can get my realtor’s license, as a realtor, I can learn the market. It will force me and then I can make some extra income.”

In doing that, I got my license in April of 2014 and I did it part-time until August 2015. I left Corporate America and I went as a realtor full-time. That’s been a crazy journey too because I’ve gone from selling 6 homes in one year to 56 homes in 2020. In 2021, I’m probably going to sell around 60. Now, I’m leveraging a team. Back in 2020, I did 56 by myself with a full-time admin but in 2021, we added more agents. We should do around 200 deals if everything goes well with my business partner and four other agents but personally, I’m going to do around 60 with somebody else.

We’re both realtors. I’m a realtor in the San Francisco Bay Area and you’re realtor over in Austin. My market’s a feeder market to yours since a lot of people from California are moving out of it. What areas of real estate do you cover? Is it the Greater Austin Metro Area?

All of Austin. From Kyle, all the way down South to Leander, Georgetown up North.

A lot of your clients are investors. Do you teach them house hacking?

Yeah. A lot have been on the house hacking side. When my BiggerPockets podcast went live in 2019, that changed my life. I had a lot of people reach out to house hack. I was able to help a lot of house hackers in 2020 but it also gave me the opportunity to take my Instagram and my brand to the next level where now, thankfully, I build my business through referrals. I don’t market on Zillow. I don’t spend any money on the marketing side.

It’s just my brand, my social media and my Instagram. My story is the thing that attracts that potential client. Both from the house hacking side and also other investors and other realtors that refer me clients. It has been a crazy journey. In 2021, I have helped lesser house hackers but I’ve been able to work with a lot of other investors and first-time home buyers.

Since I’m not as familiar with your market, what is the Austin real estate market in general?

The market shifted completely crazy between January and February 2021. Everybody and their mother had a goal to move to Austin in the first quarter of 2021, especially from California. It was crazy from the perspective that there were offers that I will submit or I will call agents and we were offered 20 or 30. There were 90 offers. They price a house low and I was like, “Why would they do that?” In 2020, they could have gotten that. Fast forward six months later, it was $100,000 under market but it was because it was priced six months ago.

What ended up happening is we have seen a 30% to 40% appreciation from 2020 but the market has slowed down a little bit. Back in April and May 2021, anything that would be good was selling in one weekend, which was insane because of the fact that people were bidding. It was normal to bid $80,000 to $100,000 over asking or even more. That was the norm. If you don’t have that much extra, you cannot compete. It has been from that perspective, now it has changed a little bit. Now, a home may sit in the market for two weeks before it gets an offer. It’s still a hot market but it has slowed down from the amount of offers that it would get.

On the Bay Area side, I still notice that the detached single-family market is still super hot, easily ten plus offers. People are valuing the lot size and land. I’ve noticed more of a slowdown in the condo townhome side. Both of our markets are fueled by the tech economy too. The buyers here have to be as aggressive. A lot of times on the single-family home side and the hotter neighborhoods, it’s expected that to be able to stand a chance to get their offer accepted, they’re waiving all of their contingencies upfront. The market is bonkers everywhere. Going back to the Dallas market, how investor-friendly is it now? Is it mainly clients there buying to live as apartment residents? Do you still see investment opportunities in your market to be had?

In Austin, whenever I talk to investors, I always tell them that Austin has high property taxes. I usually tell first-time investors trying to buy their first investment property that, “You’re not going to cashflow. You’re going to be in the negative $300 a month.” The people or investors that are buying are people that have that extra cash, maybe high-income earners that are okay having a negative $6,000 for example but if a property that’s $400,000 or 500,000, if it goes up 5% a year, you’re looking at $25,000 in equity.

To half a negative, 300 times 12, it’s about $3,600. They are willing to take $25,000 in equity minus $4,000, you’re looking at around $20,000 on the positive side because of the appreciation. A lot of investors that are buying here are investing for appreciation. I gave you the numbers on 5% but we have seen 30% appreciation. That’s what’s crazy. I don’t think that we will see another 30% in 2022. My hope is that it’s more like a steady 5% to 10% appreciation. It’s a healthy market but the way that it’s been, it has been more of the investors or out-of-state people moving to live here than first-time buyers living off.

I wanted to dissect your first deal which happened to be a house hack. Tell me about that. What was the price? How much did you put down? Tell me what you did to house hack.

A lot of people think that you need 20% to buy a house but if you’re going to be living in it, you can qualify but putting down 3% to 5% down, there’s FHA or conventional. This is back in 2014, I bought it for $170,000. That house is now easily worth $300,000. For $170,000, it was remodeled. I’m not handy at all. That house was completely remodeled. Brand-new carpet, paint, kitchen, bathrooms, everything. I was like, “Cool.” I didn’t care because I bought that house for cashflow or to live for free.

House Hacking: Start buying homes and put 20% down as investments and just cash flow more and more. You will be able to build and grow your portfolio that way.

From that angle, I knew that I could get roommates super quickly because I knew that the house was looking great. If you have a good presentation, things are going to run quickly. That was my angle. I bought that home for $170,000, put 5% down so for less, it was $8,000 for the down payment. I was able to rent out each room for $550 in the beginning. My mortgage was $1,350. $1,650 minus $1,350, I had $300 in positive cashflow and save some for reserves.

My car payment was around $250 a month. My first house hack allowed me to live for free and also pay for my car payments. I was 24 years old. Imagine that I’m 24 years old for $8,000, I’ve been living for free and having my car payment paid by other people. That allowed me to save some more money to be able to repeat the process because not many people know that you can buy another owner-occupant home within about 1 to 2 years. You can keep your first one as a rental and then buy another one by putting down 5% down. That’s what I did and it was great.

The numbers work great when you’re able to rent room by room versus renting out the house all together with a single-family or whatnot. On that note, I wanted to ask you, how did you find these tenants? Online, I’m guessing. What did you use to screen these folks that are going to be living in your home that are complete strangers? How did you know that they’re going to be able going to pay?

I found them on Craigslist so it was a little bit weird. I made the ad sound like, “This house is super close to General Motors, Samsung and Dell.” I made it perfect for the type of tenant that I was looking for. I mentioned all of the companies that were around there so that anybody that’s also young that maybe works at Dell, Samsung or General Motors, they’d be like, “That’s where I work.” I got them to say yes multiple times in my ad.

I broke it down, proximity to things to do and to jobs, a little bit about me and what I would want in the potential tenant. That allowed me to get good people that will call me like, “I work for Samsung. I saw your ad. I work for Dell. I saw your ad.” That was pretty cool. I did a background check through Cozy.co at that time, now it’s owned by Apartments.com. Through Cozy, I was able to do a background check.

They had to choose whether they paid me through Venmo, PayPal or Cozy. I did a background check on their credit and their history. I got a copy of their last two pay stubs and their ID. When I did the walkthrough, I would ask them a few things about their schedule, what they do and what they like to do for fun. I didn’t want any pets so that was also like, “No pets,” but that allowed me to get quality tenants especially if I’m saying that like, “It’s close to these corporations.”

Regarding that first one that you did, did you keep that home when you got your second home? I’m trying to understand the progression. Tell me about the second home then.

What happened was I was able to buy another house. I believe that one was $195,000. I rented out each room for $550. By the time that I left, I was renting each one or two for $600 and I was able to rent out the master for $750. Imagine, I’m already cashflowing $250 plus that $750, now I’m cashflowing $1,000 a month from a property that my down payment was only $8,000. I repeated the same process on property number two. That one was also in North Austin. Four bedrooms, I lived in the master and rented out the other three rooms.

By the time that happened, I had one of my buddies, Pascal, who is in GoBundance, he was like, “I have some money. Is there an opportunity that we could partner up?” He saw the numbers that I was doing and he’s like, “Holy crap. I won” There’s an opportunity there where you can rent out each room for $600. You’re getting a house for three rooms, $600, that’s $1,800 plus another $750 or $800.

$1,800 plus $800, you’re talking about $2,600. The mortgage on that one was around $1,400 so you’re still cashflowing in another $1,000. That’s what we did. We were cashflowing more and growing the portfolio that way. We started buying homes, putting 20% down as investments. That’s how we were able to build a portfolio before we sold a few.

There are guidelines you have for the type of home that fit this house hacking strategy. Can you reiterate it again? What was your preferred size of home that makes sense for you?

I always tell people that the best house hacks are 1,900 or 1,850 square feet to 2,400 square feet max. Maybe 2,300 square feet might be the ideal number. It should be a two-storey with 2.5 baths, ideally 3 full baths because that makes it easier for roommates to take showers or share the bathrooms. If it’s a large enough house like 2,200 or 2,300 square feet, there’s enough room in there to have large bedrooms, maybe an office or a loft that the roommates can enjoy as well. There’s enough space there to make it happen.

Correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like mostly all of these were happening around Austin. You’re investing in your own backyard.

In the beginning.

How did you expand beyond that? I know some of your investments are outside of that. Where are you located? How did that come to be?

At first, it was a client that reached out through BiggerPockets. He wanted to grab a beer and talk real estate. Fast forward, I helped him buy two investment properties here in Austin as a realtor. After that, he hit me up and he’s like, “I’ve been investing in Gatlinburg doing a couple of Airbnbs. I ran out of money. Let me show you the numbers. Maybe you can be one of my investors and we can partner up.” I analyzed the deals and I was like, “This might work out.” Fast forward a couple of years later, we have fifteen Airbnbs in Gatlinburg.

I have sold a few of the homes that I did have in Austin because my business partner on those homes wanted to invest his money in a startup so we sold them. I took the cash and I invested it in other areas. What’s good is that I partner up with people in a way that we are each playing in what I call our unfair advantage. In the beginning, my buddy had the money and I had the knowledge and boots on the ground, the time. Fast forward a year later with the Airbnbs, I didn’t have the knowledge and the time.

I just worked as the money guy but we were able to grow the portfolio. My roles change in partnerships but I played through my unfair advantage from that perspective from we were able to grow that portfolio. Now we have stabilized it. That’s been pretty good. It’s been great so far. My other properties, I own a sixteen-unit with four other partners in Augusta, Georgia. That’s my first multifamily deal so that’s been pretty fun. We bought that one in 2021. I own a quadplex in McAllen, Texas and some properties in Austin, Tennessee and Atlanta.

It sounds like you found these areas because you built networks around them and you’re able to have boots on the ground for people to work with you. That’s very exciting. Were many of these properties that were out of the area, were they sight unseen? Did you visit all of them? Tell me about that.

House Hacking: Do a little bit of everything just to diversify whether it’s multifamily, Airbnbs, or short-term rentals. Also, don’t forget to work with the people you enjoy working with.

A lot of the ones especially the Airbnbs, we bought them sight unseen but we had a team that had the boots on the ground. We did inspections and everything we had to do to make sure that we’re comfortable buying those homes. The sixteen-unit, we have one of the partners boots on the ground that he did the inspections. He was in charge of that. He saw the property.

I flew down to Augusta, Georgia a day before closing to see the outside of the apartment complex. I was like, “We’re buying this. This is pretty cool.” There was a period of time that I had bought some homes in Florida because my brother is a wholesaler in Jacksonville. He’s one of the largest wholesalers there now. He wholesales 200 to 300 deals a year. I was buying some homes from him sight unseen, getting them rented out and then keeping them for cashflow. I sold those and I was doing something else with the money. I put them into the Airbnbs.

What’s your favorite real estate investing strategy now? Is it the short-term rentals, house hacking something else?

My favorite one now that I’m leaning more towards is between Airbnb and multifamily but I do a little bit of everything to diversify. I bought a brand-new quadplex as a 1031 exchange in McAllen. We have a property manager there that charges 5%. It’s been super easy. I would say, “That one’s pretty good too,” because it’s more long-term. I don’t have to worry about anything. It’s brand-new. It depends on what stage I am on but the ones that I have the most fun or that I enjoy are the ones that I work with my friends.

It’s a nice collaborative effort where you get to work with people you already know, like and trust.

We’re also working on our expertise. For example, in the sixteen-unit, one of the partners, he’s the boots on the ground, his name is Philip. We have Tiago, who’s the numbers guy. He analyzes all of the deals and then we have Felipe, Christian and myself. We can find the money to make the deal happen. We are the ones that are like, “It may look like a good deal.” The two other people may have some money but they play to their roles which is analyzing the numbers and being boots on the ground then the other three, us, we’re able to make sure that the deal closes.

Everybody has their own specific role. I love the fact that everybody’s got a lot of synergies. Did you meet all of these folks also through GoBundance? Was it something else?

I have a Mastermind group called Rat Race to FI. It happened that all of us are within that mastermind community. Through that mastermind group and community, we’ve been able to build a lot of relationships and partners.

Speaking of relationships, real estate is all about relationships in general. That’s one of the reasons why I joined GoBundance. I met you there. You were there from the start. Tell me about that. How did that change your life? Do you feel like it was a blessing? How did you find about it?

It has been a life-changing experience. I found out about GoBundance back in 2014. I listened to a podcast with an interview with a guy named Pat Hiban. In that podcast, he talks about a mastermind group that he had called GoBundance. The importance of surrounding yourself with like-minded people and why having a peer group that will challenge you and has great conversations can take you to the next level and have accountability. I was like, “I want to learn more about this. I followed them online.

I followed him on Twitter. I reached out to him and was like, “Can you tell me more about GoBundance?” I found out that it was for millionaires and he says, “GoBundance is a tribe for entrepreneurs that like to age defy in health, accountability, financial independence, relationships and contribution.” I was like, “I want in.” I went to the website, filled out a form and a guy named Tim Rhodes gives me a call. As we’re going through that process, he says, “We’re going to have an event in August of 2014. Let me see if you can come. I’ll be in touch.” I was like, “Okay.”

A week and a half later, Tim calls me and he’s like, “If you want to come in August, you can come. Know that you’re going to be one of the only ones that are not a millionaire but you’re welcome to come.” I was like, “Let’s do it.” I put in a credit card. I was 23 at that time. I go to David Osborn’s house. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. David Osborn at that time was worth $40 million, now he’s worth over $160 million. We’re in the living room with twelve other guys and everybody’s introducing themselves.

You have David at $40 million, one guy is like $5 million, $10 million, $2 million, whatever. They come to me and I’m like, “My name is Diego. I’m 23 years old. I’m a software developer at GM. I just became a realtor and my net worth is $25,000.” They were like, “Who the heck let this kid in. Why is he here?” At the end of the weekend, they pulled me out to the side and they said, “We created GoBundance for millionaires but we want to help you out. Will you be our first apprentice?” I was like, “Let’s do this,” I became the first mentee or apprentice from that perspective.

I helped them out a bit on the tech side for a little while. My life changed. I did everything that they told me to do. Two weeks later, I was flying on a private plane with David Osborn to run a Spartan Race, hang out with them and the guys. I was like, “This is insane.” I started from zero. At 22, I couldn’t work or drive. By 23, I was able to buy my first property. At 24, I’m on a private plane with a millionaire so I’m like, “This is amazing.” I became a 100-percenter by investing in real estate.

A lot of people are like, “Where did you get that drive?” I said, “I’m hanging out with these guys and every single time we’re talking about, like, ‘What’s your net worth? Are you investing in this? Are you pulling the trigger on passive income, this and that.’” My norm changed. My norm was I have to build passive income. I reached financial independence through passive income by 26 or 27. By 29, I became a millionaire. It was because of the fact that I had that accountability and that example that the guys wanted to help me out.

I took action on everything that they told me, which is very important. If you have people that are telling you, “I want to help you,” but you’re not taking action, they’re not going to want to help you. I was the kind of person that when they said, “You have to do this,” I said, “Yes.” They said, “Go to Tony Robbins,” I went to Tony Robbins. When they said, “You should check out this book or read this book,” I read it.

You were taking the advice to heart. What I love about GoBundance and I still consider myself a freshman is it resets that internal thermostat. You have a new hire baseline and like, “Everybody’s doing all of this. I’m not doing enough.” It’s amazing. The relationships and what everybody’s doing. It rubs off on you in a very good way. A lot of personal growth with business and everything all around. Speaking of masterminds, you even started your own mastermind. When did you start that?

After I was featured on BiggerPockets, I had a lot of Millennials that reached out and were like, “I’m a DACA recipient too. I’m a first-generation immigrant. I want to start house hacking too. Your story is great.” I partnered up with somebody else that was also a Millennial, his name is Felipe and we were doing lives on Instagram for free just answering people’s questions because we had so many people that would reach out in our DMS, “I heard about your story. Here’s my situation. What do you think?”

We’re like, “We need to do something.” We would do lives and answer people’s questions. We turned it into Zoom calls and then from there, we turned it into a mastermind group. Now, we have around 120 members in the community. We’ve done retreats for 25 to 30 people. We’re going to do our first Rat Race to FI event in December 2021 here in Austin. We’re going to have around 100 people. We’re going to have speakers and it’s going to be freaking amazing. It’s been by building a community for people that are hungry for accountability that want to invest in real estate.

Speaking of speakers, your bio says you’re a TEDx speaker. Did you always have the gift of public speaking? What was your speech about?

I used to stutter a lot when I was a kid. I still stutter sometimes but when I was a kid in middle school or high school, I would skip classes sometimes to not speak. It wasn’t until I met the GoBundance guys and I went to Tony Robbins that I got the confidence and I was like, “Even if I stutter, I’m going to go for it.” I’m a big believer that in order for you to grow, you have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. I joined a speaker mastermind for six people. I paid a speaking coach and I was like, “Let’s do it.”

House Hacking: You can be an apprentice or a mentee for GoBundance. That will change your life. Your norm will change into wanting to build a passive income.

It turns out that once 2 or 3 people were getting into TEDx talks, your peer group, it became the norm that everybody in that group is going to be a TEDx speaker. I started applying. I made my TEDx talk on, Can the American Dream Be Achieved When You’re Not American? I shared my story of me achieving my version of the American dream even though I don’t have a green card and citizenship.

I’m saying, “I came here from Peru when I was nine years old. I’ve been able to go through school or college. I hire Americans for my companies. I provide housing for Americans,” and then me achieving what I’ve been able to achieve, I share that I have achieved my own version of the American dream even though I’m not American. That’s been a crazy journey too. I’ve shared it at two TEDx stages. One is called the American dream if you’re not American because I talk a little bit more about the political side and then on the one for kids, I talk about the power of questions.

When you are facing obstacles like of me not being able to work or drive, the power of questions that you ask yourself in those situations can change the trajectory of your life. I talk about asking yourself things of like, “Is this happening to me? How can this happen for me?” If you ask yourself, “How was this happening for me?” you get to look at different solutions rather than becoming a victim. I talk about changing your mentality from a victim to more resourcefulness.

Going back to your first exposure to meeting the GoBundance folks and whatnot in the organization, I can only imagine what you were feeling and how uncomfortable and queasy you must’ve been being surrounded by all these folks with high net worth. What advice do you have for folks to get over the fear of the unknown and being uncomfortable? You do this all the time.

You just have to believe in yourself and be you. At the end of the day, the only person that you can be is you. If you’re not being you, they’re going to read that you’re playing somebody that you’re not and later it’s going to come up. If you’re trying to make yourself be somebody that you’re not, they’re going to get a feel of that. Be you and know that at the end of the day, you’re there.

I was there more as a servant leader. That’s always been my perspective, like, “How can I learn from this experience?” I’m a big student of life. I was always like, “How can I serve?” Coming from the perspective of like, “I belong in this room even though I didn’t but I’m there and I’m going to make 100% of it but how can I bring value?” If you come from that perspective of how can you bring value to whatever situation, you’re going to belong in that room. Maybe not on the net worth but for sharing the connections or in the value that you can bring.

Initially, what value did you bring to the folks in GoBundance? I know you have a tech background, I take it that it was tech skills.

It was a lot of my tech skills. They wanted somebody that could connect with other GoBundance guys. If you join GoBundance, you talk to a member. You talk to a badassador. I was a badassador for six years before I left that role. I left that role in 2021. Imagine this, I was speaking to millionaires every single week since 2015 or 2016. I was asking questions and this and that. That for me was a way that I gave value to them. I volunteer at some of their events. I just did what I had to do.

You’re very resourceful. You know ways where you could add value. Even if you didn’t have money at that time, you added your own value to the table. How do you split your time between being a full-time realtor and an investor? What’s that break up like?

It’s been interesting. Because of the fact that now I partner up with other people, I’ve been playing more of the role of being the money guy, which is less time for me to be involved with stuff. It gives me the opportunity to leverage that. My time is not as involved now with my investments. I do more of the realtor and I run my other companies too but I’m stepping out of the realtor role in production to do stuff with my mastermind and other stuff that I have going on. We’re launching a course to help people, teach them how to invest in their first rental or grow their portfolio. I’m getting into that realm of education too, apart from the mastermind.

What are you excited about either in your business or your personal life?

I just came back from Puerto Rico. I was there for two weeks. I’m excited about exploring the idea of investing in a second home/Airbnb over there so that I can travel there more and have a property over there because I fell in love with the culture, the island, the people, the salsa music, all of that stuff.

Any other big goals that you’re working on for 2022?

I want to get into syndications. I want to do some cost segregation on some of my properties and I want to get into some syndications to reduce my tax liability. I feel like that’s in the realm of how I’m growing the different stages of my investment career or my investment life. I’m excited about that. I’m excited to learn about what that looks like and go from there.

What does success mean to you?

One definition for me is if you’re happy doing what you’re doing then I highly believe that you’re successful. It doesn’t have to be a definition of somebody else because other people have different definitions. If you’re truly happy and fulfilled doing what you’re doing then you’re successful. This is something that I got from one of my mentors on the coaching side with Jason Drees, he’s like, “What is success? It’s a stepping stone. It’s not the destination. What if your life begins at your definition of success?”

“That creates so much more opportunity, potential and growth. What if you reached success and you’re like, ‘I’m successful but what if that’s just the beginning?’ At that point, it’s like, ‘There’s more that I can do coming from the side of abundance.’ Success is not a destination. Success is a starting point.” Not that there’s more to accomplish to work for but if that’s true, if you take that as your truth or your reality, what else can you accomplish?

I haven’t heard that before. It’s getting to me now. It’s a different perspective and that’s amazing. We have so much potential. Along the lines of success, what’s your unique gift or your superpower that’s contributed to achieving all your goals this far?

Building connections and resourcefulness.

How can someone get ahold of you?

The easiest thing is going to be through Instagram. They can follow me @RealDiegoCorzo or they can also go to the website, RatRaceToFI.com. They can learn a lot about me there. They can check out about the mastermind and what I do.

Thanks for being on this episode with me. That’s all the time we have. I enjoyed this conversation. Follow Diego on Instagram and check out his mastermind. You offered so much value and I appreciate everything that you do. To my audience, thanks for checking out this episode. Remember to leave a review on iTunes as it helps me attract even more guests like Diego. Until next time. Live life abundantly.

Important Links:

• Keller Williams
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Cozy.co
• Apartments.com
• BiggerPockets – BiggerPockets Podcast 352: No Driver’s License, No Money, No Excuses: How Diego Corzo Blazed a Trail to 18 Doors
• Rat Race to FI
• GoBundance
• @RealDiegoCorzo – Instagram

About Diego Corzo

Diego Corzo is 31 years old, a DACA Recipient, Forbes-featured Entrepreneur and TEDx Speaker from Austin, TX. He was born in Lima, Peru and came to the US at the age of 9. After college, he started working in Corporate America and soon discovered that he was destined for more and pursued a career in Real Estate.

Now, Diego is a realtor for Keller Williams along side an incredible team and also a real estate investor Diego is on a path to financial freedom and aspires to help others, especially millennials & Latinos, become financially free and reach their full potential.