Ep. #1 - The first... and Landlord Podcast with Jonathan Taylor Smith

This is it, the very first episode of the [… and Landlord] podcast! I am J.T Smith, and the [… and Landlord] podcast is all about achieving financial freedom through residential rental real-estate. In other words, being a landlord. Yes, I know. You don’t have to tell me. You don’t want troubles with tenants and toilets and termites and rent not being paid on time. You don’t want those headaches. We’ve all heard landlord horror stories where the tenant was a nightmare, and completely trashed the property. Would you believe me, however, if I told you, because I am telling you, the likelihood of those types of tenant troubles can be significantly reduced, if not completely eliminated, by having policies and procedures and systems in place that allow you to be a professional landlord? In other words, to run it as a business?

So, this podcast will be about professional landlord-ology, so to speak. I'll be releasing weekly episodes, and occasionally I may release two during the same week. Many episodes will be me solo, speaking on the topic of interest. But as often as possible, I'll bring in a guest to interview, so that we can learn from their successes and failures, and even hear their landlord horror story. I think those are important to hear, so that we can disarm them with best practices on how to avoid horror story situations going forward.

It’s like if you’re in a horror movie, you don’t say “I’ll be right back” and go outside to investigate a noise. You're going to have a bad day. Likewise, as a landlord, there are certain things that you need to just avoid doing, or it will not work out well for you. Hearing the details of someone else’s nightmare situation, along with first-hand information as to how it could have been prevented, could literally save you thousands of dollars and months of headaches.

But even that has to be kept in its proper place, because prior to me getting into real estate, I would tell people that I wanted to buy rental property; that I wanted to be a landlord. And inevitably, they would vomit their landlord horror story all over me. As a result, for years, I let those stories and the fears they created in me, keep me from taking action. And that easily delayed my landlord journey by a decade. Don’t let fears and doubts keep you out of what I feel is the most amazing opportunity to achieve financial freedom that exists for the average person today.

I laid out many of the benefits of residential rental real estate in the intro. And by the way, sorry about that long intro, I will shorten that before the next episode. But the benefits go beyond even those I've already mentioned.

So, what is financial freedom? I count it as a scenario where you have income from your passive investments that exceeds your monthly expenses. So, let’s say you require $5000 a month to pay all of your bills and live the lifestyle that you desire. And I don’t mean that you're taking your vacations every year and you’re driving a Ferrari. Just your normal lifestyle that is satisfying for you on a day-to-day basis. If you needed, for example, $5000 a month, to achieve that lifestyle, but you had $5000 a month, or more, coming in from your rental properties, or other passive investments, then I would count you among those who are financially free.

So, that’s the goal. But of course, you’re not going to get there with just one property. That’s why you need to make it a systematized business where you have multiple properties that are all working towards your monthly cash-flow needs. In fact, that makes it even more secure for you, because if you only have one property, and it goes vacant, well now you have a 100 % vacancy, and you’re coming out of your pocket to pay that mortgage. But if you have ten properties, and one of them goes vacant, well, that’s only a 10 % vacancy, and it should certainly be the case that those other nine properties are generating enough cash-flow to cover the mortgage and other expenses for the one vacant property until you can get it re-rented.

So, the method to the madness is over time to create a portfolio of cash-flow positive rental property, with great long-term tenants who pay their rent on time and create little to no distraction in your life, ultimately resulting in fully paid-for properties that were essentially free to you, that will continue to kick out cash-flow to meet all of your financial needs for the rest of your life, while leaving a legacy for your family.

So, if you’re already on that journey, the goal of the [… and Landlord] podcast is to help you get there faster and with fewer bumps and bruises along the way. And if you haven’t started that journey yet, I want to inspire you to do so. Get started. Buy investment property. It’s the greatest thing ever, and we are living in an amazing time, so don’t let the opportunities, that are all around you, go to waste.

So, a little bit about me. Why should you listen to me? Why should you care what I think, or what I have to say? Well, the tagline of the show, and from where the name originates, is “Husband, father, entrepreneur, realtor, and landlord.” These, and many other titles and descriptions, speak to who I am, and what I do. So, in part, the show is about me, but I also want it to be about you, and all of the titles and descriptions that speak to whom you are, and what you do. And I want to help you add “…and Landlord” to that list. And I believe that I'm qualified to do so, so as it is mentioned in the description.

I'm a husband; I've been married to a beautiful woman for almost nineteen years now. And no disrespect to your spouse, but I have the best wife ever. I'm also a father. I have an eleven year old son. And again, no disrespect to your children, but my son is amazing. I love my family. I'm also an entrepreneur, meaning I own multiple businesses, such that I have been self-employed since 2002. So, I can give you insight into managing people, putting systems and processes in place, and leveraging automation to get more done in less time with less effort.

I'll tell you more about my businesses in future episodes, but one of them is a technology business; web-hosting and IT consulting. So, I can give you insight into anything and everything related to utilizing the internet to be more productive. And an aspect of that business is search-engine optimization, and search-engine and social media marketing. So, I can guide you in growing your business online, and using those resources to find deals, to find properties to buy to make into rentals, to find money to buy those properties, to find team members, to build a team of professionals that are there to support your needs and to help you grow your rental property portfolio to one that is large enough and generates sufficient cash-flow, to make you financially free.

And so, as also mentioned in the title, I'm a realtor. After I bought my second property, I went and got my real-estate license, because I realized that it would help me to be a better investor.

And so, in line with my entrepreneurial mindset, I started my own real-estate agency, and I'll tell you more about that in later episodes. So, I think my unique combination of over two decades of business experience, I started my first business in 1996, along with also being a licensed realtor, along with having a rental portfolio of my own properties that I manage myself, and having a property management firm that allows me to manage properties on behalf of others, have all brought me to a place where starting this podcast is the perfect thing for me to do, because I've come to the understanding that you learn most and best by teaching others. And so, that’s what I want to do. I hope I will be able to provide you with excellent content. And in the process of preparing and presenting that content to you, I will only learn more myself.

So, that’s about it for this initial, inaugural episode. This is number one, and it was just a brief introduction to me and to the purpose of the podcast. I'll go into more details about myself and my businesses and tell some of my specific stories in coming episodes, as it relates to things that will help you become, and succeed, as a landlord. Also, none of us are born knowing any of this stuff. I, myself, learned it from others.

And so, as we move forward, I will point out certain online tools and resources that I found particularly useful; books that I've read that I thought, in some way, transformative. And just know that any time I say read, I probably mean listen to. I love Audible. And one book, in particular, that I'll cite for you, is the one that over the prior twenty years or so, is responsible for most investors getting involved in real-estate, and that is Rich Dad Poor Dad. So, in a coming episode, I'll tell you the story of how I was on a cruise ship, reading that book; Rich Dad Poor Dad. And that was the one that I actually was reading, in electronic format, in that case. And despite the fact that I was with great friends, having a great time, I couldn’t wait for that cruise to be over, so that I could get back home and start looking for my first property.

In addition to books, and various online resources, I also consume podcasts myself almost daily. And so, when I have some information to relate that came from a particular show, I'll give that show credit for being the source of that information.

Well, that’s enough for now. I just wanted this initial episode to be an introduction to me, to the podcast, and what is to come. So, I'm extremely excited about this; the [… and Landlord] podcast. I could not be more excited, and I want this to be a two-way communication. Give me your feedback. Let me know how I'm doing, how I can improve. What information you would like presented, topics you're interested in hearing discussed. Because ideally, as we move forward, this show will become far less about me and more about you, and the guest that I bring on to interview. New episodes will be released on Tuesdays of each week. And on the next episode, I'll tell my story of how I became a landlord, continuing from being on that cruise ship reading Rich Dad Poor Dad.