Struggling With Goals? Focus On Systems

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Welcome back to Success With Srini. Happy Tuesday morning to you. As I’m recording the podcast today, I have so many thoughts crossing my mind. And I’m just thinking that if you allow me to speak for the next three hours, even then I don’t think I can get all my thoughts in. And I do this podcast every day, every day, I have the same feeling that I come here. I have so many things to talk about. But then luckily, I get a question or two, from the listeners of this podcast, and they rescue me. So I put all my thoughts behind me and listen to their question. I’ve worked on answering that question but then this is the biggest question of all which is, do I do this podcast every day, why is it that I still have so many thoughts in my mind and why I struggle with this? Question.

Today is the 151st day on the Gregorian calendar for the year 2022. That means there are 214 more days left in this year. The reason why I’m calling it out is that May 31 is officially the completion of five months of this podcast. Five months every day. And when I started this podcast, I was thinking, wow, what will I say every day? Every day, I have to say something, and what will I say every day to keep the listeners inbound. That will engage the listeners. But then that will make this podcast sticky. And I made a commitment to myself, which is I want to do this every day. The last time I made a commitment to myself was in 2021. And I did for about six weeks, I give up. And prior to that, I gave up multiple times. And today here is where we stand. After five months of doing this podcast. I’ll tell you the finished product sounds good. So you are listening to this podcast with a nice intro and you will listen to a nice outro at the end. And this is edited out a few things here and there. But I prefer not to edit as much edited out, you will probably see this podcast with a bunch of videos and a bunch of with a transcript. Bunch of words on YouTube, you’re seeing this on YouTube, maybe the first product is okay, may not be the best, it’s okay. The finished product looks good but there is a lot of struggle that goes into this podcast. And I want to highlight this, but before I go there before I talk about the struggle, I want to thank you for you being a subscriber you being a listener, and you being a supporter of everything that I have done.

I just sent out an email about 10 days ago saying, Oh, I crossed 150 a day on my podcast. I sent that email out on the 140th day. But we were still 10 days behind. I did that because I already figured out what I’ll be doing for the next 10 days on this podcast. Did not record but then I had an idea. And a bunch of people responded back to me congratulating me and saying thank you and all that. The truth is this. The truth is, there is a lot of struggle behind this. And now I have a team all of us struggle through this process. It’s not easy to kind of commit to something like this on a daily basis and keeps on doing it without really getting to know who is listening on the other side. The first day, second day, three days, four downloads, three downloads, two downloads, and I respected those downloads, I respected people listening. We started putting this podcast on Facebook, two views, three views, one like two likes, and kept on doing it day after day after day, without expecting much. And the question became was what do I want from this?

First of all, why should we do this? Why there is a need for a podcast when there are millions of podcasts and everybody does an incredible job than me. I don’t consider myself to be the best in the game. And I don’t think that I have an incredible idea that’s going to change your life that other people do not have. I don’t consider myself to be the ultimate source of any information. Forget about some information. And why is that? I still need to do a podcast about what is that I have that I can share and that I want to bring value to people. This is the biggest question I had when I started. And of course, there are millions of other podcasts and there are incredible thinkers and coaches and mentors all of them. They are playing the game at a whole different level. And I don’t consider myself to be at that level. Question is, what value will I bring? So that my listener that one listener who’s listening will listen to this thing. When you’re listening, listen, you’re in wasting some time, and I respect that time. What can I do to bring the change? Or bring that solution or bring that outcome or bring that whatever that is? Whatever that is to you? How do I aid the process so that you become better in whatever you’re trying to achieve? The big question when I started this, and then in that email, I said, we are growing every month with this podcast. January was hard. February was okay. March was a little bit better than February and then April was amazing. May, the best month we had in terms of downloads, it’s good to say, I have this number of people on my email list, this number of people listen to me, this is the wrong thing, seriously.

In 2019, I made an attempt to go to the peak of Mount Everest. And as a part of the process, I had to have anybody who climbs Everest, they have to go hike up to the Basecamp and live there for what, six weeks or four weeks and then go up. And during that time, the Basecamp there is not much you can do all you have to do. Other than sitting in the tent. all-day all night. You can’t sleep in the night sleep is a rarity there. So you have to kill time. And during that time, I carried a couple of books with me, from Kathmandu all the way to hiking in my backpack. I carried those books to the Basecamp. And water book was Atomic Habits by James Clear. While I was reading this book, James Clear said something incredible. He said, listen, “People who chase goals, they struggle.” Achieving goals who struggle, you are preparing to run for a marathon. Yeah, you spent like seven hours a day, preparing five days a week. And then once you finish crossing the finish line. What else? What’s next? Nothing. And what do people do in the spot training? I read that book may in the Basecamp. He carried that book with me to Basecamp. And I’m reading this book in the Basecamp. And then guess what? I came down from the mountain. I couldn’t Summit. And I have a whole video on this and multiple podcasts I have done on this and why I could not summit but then I came back. And then guess what? I stopped training. And whatever right in the Basecamp. It’s kind of Wow. He said that in the book. You see people stop training. One, download two downloads, and people stop. I have many people who like tell them to start a podcast. This podcast was about me, me, in accumulating ideas. I can’t come every day here and have a conversation with you. That’s not incremental. So you go to work today, how can you be incremental? Do you go into the relationship that you are in for the last 1015 20 years with your spouse or partner? How can you be incremental? With the children? How can you have an incremental conversation? The same stop doesn’t work? How can I bring in more ideas? How can I be incremental in everything that I do? Because I’m exporting myself daily? I’m here on this podcast every day. So you know, if you listen to this podcast, you know my mindset. You exactly know who I am. What I want is I want my subscribers, and my listeners to achieve whatever they’re trying to achieve. And I want to aid the process. That’s the goal. Okay, the goal.

Let’s talk about that for a second. James Clear, let’s talk about that said people give up because the changing goals and once they accomplish the goal that done and even if they don’t accomplish the goal term, instead of winners, they focus on systems. So the first couple of months of this podcast was about how can I build a system not worried about subscribers not worried about what is a system what is the what are the elements of a system including that I come I do something on a daily basis. So it means consistency. That means you say you will do something and you will do that thing, whatever you said you will do. So commitment to consistency. That’s the first element of the system. The second element of the system is that I need to get to say something incrementally better, mentally new. So if I say the same thing over and over again, you will unsubscribe, you will leave and I have no other way to get you back in. Well, I would want you to leave if you feel that this is not the right thing. You feel that this guy is not why this guy’s not telling the right stuff. He’s not there. He doesn’t aid my success or he doesn’t take away my problem or my pain or my suffering from his ideas from his concert from his solutions then I have no right to have you listen to the podcast. Why would you So I have the clarity when I’m doing this. That’s another element of the system, we stay grounded. We stay humble through the process. We are aware we value the listener value, somebody who’s investing the time to listen to the podcast then comes recording, and editing. You know, you’re listening to this podcast, which is an edited-out podcast, by the way, that means, at the time of recording, there is no intro, there is no outro. But then there will be an intro towards the end, you’ll listen to an outro, all nice product. But this is the finished product edited out, created, ready to go on YouTube ready to go on my apple podcasts on the Apple platform and several other platforms. But to test this, the truth is, there is a lot of heartburn that goes into a lot of time, effort, and energy that goes into producing something like this.

There are situations well, not situations, the wrong choice of word happen. See, I just gave you an example, numerous times I press the record button. And I just don’t get the word right. One time 22 takes 22 times I recorded the podcast. And the last time I recorded the podcast like I was really happy, it was going well. I looked I did not press the record button and I was speaking. I have seen it in the last five months, I have seen it all I have recorded this podcast. In my garage. I’ve recorded this podcast, in my car, in the countryside, like going on small roads, pulling over to the side, and recording this on my iPhone. I’ve recorded this right now I’m recording this in my closet. And God is watching me. Because there’s no way for you to see it. And I’m not saying anything to impress you. I have been put in situations because this is a daily thing. I have to find myself in situations and give this a priority. Doesn’t matter one listener, one subscriber, and one comment doesn’t matter. We do. We do this consistently. It’s a system. I don’t think the system has evolved. I don’t think that I have systematically gotten to a point where I can say yes, you know, no, I don’t think this is still in process. The goal is not 10,000 downloads 100,000 downloads a day, none of that stuff. There are people who talk about that. It’s not about that. The goal is to get a question. The goal is to have a great conversation. And the goal is to create value without ever knowing who the listener is. As a listener, you don’t need to identify yourself. There is no way I’m not expecting any attribution from you. I’m not expecting to see many great things about the podcast, even if you want to say I’m not expecting a payback at all zero. But the goal from this side is that how can we serve someone whom we will never meet, who we will never talk to, I will never talk to. That’s the goal. And for that, the system has to be in place. This is about subscribers and seminars and workshops. People do that. They happen great. But that’s not the chase the chase is to help people who listen silently, who work on their goals silently have a system in place to help other people’s goals. But the goal is not to get subscribers, or listeners, to make money or build funds. Any of that. I’ll tell you one of my goals is to have great conversations. So starting the first of June, which is tomorrow. And I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. And now I’m starting to put this into play. I’m trying to get to the feature. The listeners of this podcast, as my guests on this podcast, will try to see if we can do this as many times as possible. But then, at least once a month, I’m going to have a listener of this podcast be a guest. And I’m going to make that listener and share their strategies of you know how they achieved whatever they achieved or whatever their systems are for achieving whatever they would like to achieve.

Everyone is an achiever. I don’t see anybody who is not a winner. I see I meet people In my day-to-day life, I want to learn from them I’m invisibly learning from people. This is one of my life pursuits is to learn from people, invisibly. That’s exactly what this podcast is doing. I’m expecting you to learn invisibly. And that is a calling this from our site on the site. Thank you for you being listeners and subscribers and above all, a supporter of this podcast. And we completed five months. This is a gratitude podcast episode today. And tomorrow is a new month, it’s a new start for us. But then I’m constantly thinking about how to raise the game. And again, take it to a whole different level and practically as far as possible, so that this delivers the value that you want in your life. Big goal, but that’s the calling on this side.

Okay. That’s all for now. I hope today’s podcast helps on some level. At least you get to know what’s happening behind the scenes here. And wholeheartedly I from my team here. I’m thankful to you for everything that you are doing for us invisibly. Wherever you are, be safe, and we will start tomorrow. The new month with some incredible new ideas. Stay tuned.

I Lost My Competency at Work: Now What?

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Welcome back to Success for Srini. Happy Monday morning to you today’s podcast episode is based on a question from a longtime listener of this podcast. And they’re saying, “Srini, I’m going through a mental challenge lately. Wherein I’m feeling I’m not competent anymore to do the work that I’m doing. This has been going on for a long time, it seems like COVID has contributed to this. But even though I’m doing my job, I feel what’s the point? Because I’m not going to win anyway. I thought of asking you this question for a long time. But now that I listen to your podcasts a lot, and you’re asking people to ask questions. So I thought of asking this question, but I’ll catch up with you later and we’ll talk more.” In fact, is a long question. I’m just paraphrasing, I’m reading between the lines as I’m recording this. So what should I say to this?

Now, it’s very natural to have this feeling. And if you have been listening to this podcast, multiple times, I’ve mentioned this here, it’s very natural for the mind to hit the lows throughout the day, multiple times. Recently, I talked about this. So it’s a natural thing. If you’re competing, you’re a professional, you’re very good at what you do. It’s natural for you to stop and question yourself. And second, guess everything you’re doing. In fact, I see it differently. I think that a good competent professional should always question and second guess, in fact, the success that people have, has to do with their questioning of the capabilities of their abilities, and everything. So I think it’s a good question, to begin with, it’s a good question. But here’s what I want you to do, I want you to find out whether this feeling is factual, or just your perception of yourself. And everything I say, beyond this point, has to do with this question, is it factual or is it perceptional?

If it’s perceptional, then yes, can be fixed. But if it’s factual, it means there are people telling you, you are not working, you’re not producing, you’re not competent, you’re not meeting the numbers, you’re not meeting the expectations. Now there is something going on there. So beyond that, let’s say you have the answer, let’s say everybody’s happy with you. But somehow you’re feeling you’re disconnected or let’s say you’re doing your best, and somehow other people are feeling that you’re not performing. And let’s say none of those things are true. And you want to compete, and you want to excel, but something is stopping you. Now, once we get beyond that point, I want you to get to the core of this, once you get beyond that point, I want you to create a recovery plan. And a timeline, a recovery plan would be like, I need to go learn something, I need to acquire some more knowledge, or I want to change this place, I want to go to a different place. And I want you to start enlisting the help of other people. If that is a part of the recovery process. Where recovery plan has to be in place, I think your question is because I think some are very deep behind. In your mind, you’re thinking of a recovery plan. That’s why you asked this question. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be asking this question, at least to me.

Let’s talk about competency for a second. Every time there is a feeling of lack of competency, there are two things you can do. And only two things be accomplished this individual does this, and only two things can be done. One is immediate mastery of the competency. Where you go, you start to learn, you start to do things, you want to gain the experience and you get back. So a pursuit to master or reclaim the competency. So you get mastery in one area or two areas, whatever you identify. And the second approach is to leverage the competency, which is you go hire people or you put in systems to play maybe both. So either you go personally mastery and build mastery around a few areas, or you leverage those areas where you hire people and deploy systems. Only two ways to do this. The reason why you do this is that you want to better the competition. There’s a competition going on, you want to be better, you want to be good, you want to be good. Now, in this specific scenario, based on your question, it seems like you’re competing with other people. That means maybe you want to get to the next level, get a bigger promotion, or get yourself a little bit more significance, whatever that is.

So it sounds. if that is the case, by acquiring competency, what you’re doing is you’re turning the competition around with other people and you’re making the competition more based on capabilities. So you are in a capability-based competition. I hear this all the time from people When people tell me I want to acquire a skill, I want to gain some more knowledge, a little bit more experience so that I can compete better. So there is a perception, at least in people’s minds that by raising capabilities, they can compete better. But it doesn’t guarantee success. It can eliminate many things, it can get you closer to success, but simply reading capabilities doesn’t assure success. There are no guarantees. Because some people are in opportunity-based competition, you are trying to play capability-based competition, others are trying to play the opportunity-based competition which means people are looking for various things that I am looking for, and where does that exist? So what can I do to get there?

Back in the day, I used to hear people tell me, I want to go work for this company because this company is doing a good thing. So they go get there. And then they’re there for six months. And then they’ll they’re looking again, I want to go work for another company. And they somehow get some recruiters and some connections and they get themselves hired into these companies. They are opportunity-driven. Nothing wrong with it. But you get the idea. Now, every time you are going after increasing competency, it cannot be done overnight. You can’t learn something overnight. I mean, you can excel or accelerate the learning process. But to excel, it’s hard. It takes time, but we can learn. But it has its own cycle. The brain has functions in its own way. This is hard to do it overnight. And companies struggle with this. And obviously, as individuals, we are also limited. So we also struggle with it. So competency cannot be changed overnight.

Now, I’ll tell you, one of my personal, I’ll give you one example, my own story. Now I started out as a creator and I was producing courses, training stocks, the video shows keynotes, all that, and I was coaching. Along the way, as the business started taking different directions, I started to behave like a manager, like a marketer, like a sales guy, all those functions I had to take on myself. So more and more hiring more and more outsourcing retention, people culture, all that came in. And then more sales service, because we have sales now service, pursuing different media outlets to promote my products, all that happens. So as I started focusing on managing and marketing my stuff, I started to feel less and less competent when it came down to me creating more courses, or producing more talks and radio shows all that I started to suffer. So you see one area, the competency goes up the other area it goes down. As a part of you getting to the core. As I mentioned earlier, I want you to find out what areas do you lack competency in? See, there are two broad areas. We have strengths and weaknesses. That area we call internal area, and we have external area, which is our opportunities and our threats.

So I wanted to find out where you feel at a broader level. Do you feel internal that you lack competence? Or it is, Is it true that externally also exists? So you said you lack competency at work, the work that you’re doing? And sounds to me more internal? But then are you also feeling there are more threats? Now, Is it possible that you are not wanted anymore, or you’re getting that feeling, and maybe other people may take your position? Those are types. So I want you to start looking into that as a part of your fact-finding work. For then I want you to start putting a plan together a recovery plan very, very quickly and a timeline to achieve it. And start leveraging wherever possible and start mastering wherever possible.

I hope this is helpful. This is the best I could do, at least in this podcast setup. But if you have a question for me beyond this, please text me on the same number 888-818-0404. And I’ll do whatever I can from this site to make sure that you get clarity on your site. That’s all for now. Wherever you are, you’re listening to this podcast as a podcast. You did not ask the question but you happen to be listening to the podcast. Thank you. You’re watching this on YouTube. Thank you. Leave me a question. Leave me a comment, and subscribe to the channel. And I’ll be back here again tomorrow with another podcast episode. Stay tuned.

Bay Area Real Estate: How Bad Will The Crash Be?

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today’s podcast episode is again, based on a question that I made up, completely I made up. Not really, in fact, I just had a conversation with a friend of mine for about 30 minutes talking about Silicon Valley real estate. Where this is heading, where is this going, what’s gonna happen, and all that. Interestingly, that’s not the only conversation I had. I have several friends who have been asking me about real estate markets in general, specifically Silicon Valley. And I thought I should record a podcast, not because I’m talking to friends, we all talked to friends. That’s not the point. But then, I had been listening to this question multiple times on the radio, I have several friends who do shows on the radio. And I’m hearing this question across multiple channels, across multiple shows people calling in asking questions like, Where is this market going? Should we buy it? Should we wait? If we buy which should be bought? Should we buy in San Jose? Should we go to East Bay? How far can we go into the East Bay? I’m listening, I’m hearing all these questions. I thought, based on my interactions, based on these questions, I should answer this question myself. I’ll tell you why I want to answer this question.

First of all, I was a very serious investor myself. I bought and sold houses, I held apartment buildings and condos, and I even bought houses that I rehabbed myself. Those were my glory days. And I also did seminars on real estate. In fact, I promoted some of the top real estate experts at my events. And I silently supported many of the real estate gurus in successfully running their events. So they pick my brain for putting people into rooms. So I’m very close to the topic of real estate. And I carry one of the largest libraries on real estate investing. And I had been to multiple seminars as a student, myself, and I learned from the best of the best. So I have some understanding of the topic. But the biggest understanding is not from all this activity. The biggest understanding is from me investing and losing money in real estate while making money. I have lost houses to foreclosure. I have lost houses to short sales, that gives you an idea. I’m not doing this because I have a podcast and I just want to record a podcast, not really. I’m doing this because I see the pain in the market. I’m doing this because I have personally gone through it. And I also have this itch to go back and buy more at this point, seeing where this market is the case in point, I think I have some credibility to answer this question. That being said, let’s get into this. What to do with the real estate market? If I’m a first-time investor, I’m a first-time buyer, what will I do? What should I do? So let’s look into the indicators. So here is the as I’m recording this, this podcast today.

I do not know when this is going to go. When this is going to be live on my podcast. I’m recording hoping that I’m going to give some value. I’m going to listen to this recording myself. And I’m going to play this recording with my friends. If they like it, then I’m going to release this on my podcast. If not, I’m gonna delete this. Okay, so that’s the disclaimer. So there are a few indicators. First and foremost is the stock market. So at the time of recording this podcast, we have successfully completed one week of the stock market, the longest streak of decline since 2001. For one week, that’s where the stock market is today. As I’m recording, one full week is gone. Losing so continuously stock market is falling for the last seven days. So that’s the state so the stock market is going down. They see the truth.

Okay, let’s look at the second one. Have the companies have they started laying off people? Yeah, in a way, people companies are starting to bring people back into the office. and also have stopped, gone a little conservative on hiring. And there are one or two companies that I know for sure, have started to lay off people. Okay, so layoffs are starting to happen. Interest rates are going up 5%, 30-year fixed something somewhere around there. So interest rates are high and houses are starting to stay longer in the market, multiple beds are going away. So these are the indicators. So all these indicators, they are telling that, yes, the market is slowing down. Let’s accept the fact that is slowing down. Now, where do you as a first-time investor come in?

If you’re a first-time investor, then this podcast today’s podcast is again targeted at first-time investors and first-time buyers because that’s the question I’m trying to answer, because I hear that on the radio. So as a first-time buyer, let me tell you something. You will be as confused today as you were or as confused you are today as you were just three months ago, three months ago. We saw the real estate market at a 19-20% rate of return. Like if you put money in let’s say you bought a house in 2021, you probably had a 20% of appreciation, literally, by 2022. First-quarter of 2022. Now Fannie Mae came out, and now Fannie Mae said that, yeah, that was about 20% depreciation in the Q1 of 2022. But then, by 2023, the end of 2023, we’re going to have maybe 3% depreciation not more than that. So they are now resetting expectations. So Q3, Q4 of 2023 next year 2023 towards the end, you will have only 3% depreciation. So if you buy a house in 2023, you’re expecting to have 3%, year after year appreciation, which was not the case at the beginning of this year, which is 20%. Crazy.

Okay, so we are going back to pre-pandemic levels in terms of appreciation that is going on there. Let’s look at the core question, the core question, when a caller calls on the radio, the core question they’re asking is this. If I put money into real estate, will I lose money? The first default thought is that if we are investing in something, we shouldn’t lose money. Of course, we want to make money, but we shouldn’t lose money. Let me answer that part of the question. If you buy a house today, will you lose money based on my understanding you want? Because the only time the real estate market collapsed, was back in the 1930s. I was not born, my father was also not born, maybe he was. So there was a collapse and that was a national collapse. Then the second-biggest collapse in real estate happened in 2007. And the primary reason why the 2007 collapse happened, which by the way, is also at a national level is because of overleverage. So there were no regulations, anybody could borrow money, anybody could buy money, people started buying houses with zero down, all that happens. So there were no conditions, there were no restrictions. And there were irregularities when it came down to lending. So people borrowed money, me too, I also borrowed money. I bought houses, what is your down?

So obviously, there was no quality in the transactions which is why it collapsed. Okay, fine. Let’s take that into account. There was no qualification in the transactions back in 2007, everything that was leading to the 2007 crisis. Let’s look at it now, there is quality in credit. As of today, that means people are making money, people are putting down money to buy houses and they’re credible, as credible as their jobs are. So the stock market is credible, the jobs are credible, hence, the investors are credible, if the job market is not there, if the stock market is not there, then they are not credible. So, at least as of today, the credit quality is good. That’s what Fannie Mae is saying. And there is less leverage. But what Fannie Mae is saying, that people are not borrowing a lot of money to buy houses. So that putting down 10, 20 I think 20% At least recently I started seeing 5%, 10% loans, but again, and now I’m also seeing interest-only loans coming in and you know, term loans coming. All different kinds of so are fixed. 30-year fixed, 15-year fixed. Those are, I’m hearing less and less of But, and I’m hearing more arm loans. Anyway. So the point is still there is less leverage. So given that this market is reasonably better than in 2007 is what experts are saying.

Now, clearly, let’s go into the interest rates for second interest rates are going up. Now, because of that, what it means is, it’s difficult to borrow, let’s look at construction for a second construction has to happen. In fact, by 2030, you need 2.5 million houses in California, we need 2.5 million houses in California. So construction has to happen. But construction will stop if the interest rates are higher because builders cannot borrow money freely. So because construction is not happening, there will be demand for the existing houses. People will say, Well, I’m not getting the price that I’m expecting as a seller. So I’m going to defer the sale. So there will be fewer houses for sale, and hence there will be a demand. And because of that, I don’t think you will lose money if you buy a house today. Now, if you ask any broker, or any agent about houses, they will tell you, anytime is a good time to buy and anytime is a good time to sell. Understand, they are an agency business. So they make money when you buy they make money when you sell. Well.

Honestly, the reason why they say that is because it’s difficult for anybody to time the market. If your question is, and if your thinking is that you can time the market you are incorrect. Because understanding the real estate market is very difficult. Computational brains cannot figure this out. There are so many variables, that it’s very hard to time the market. We try sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail. I’m telling you that from my personal experience, I couldn’t time the market. There’s nobody can time the market. See this is what’s going to happen. And this is what’s happening. Recently, a friend of mine bought a house. And he was waiting forever to buy a house and an investment house in the western property. And he got it because I told him to do it. And he got it because he knew he was not buying it. He was getting a $100,000 discount, I kind of got him a deal on this. Let me put it that way. He did it. Now, the point is, even though the market resets, let’s say by 20%, he’s not going to lose the money anyway, because he got it, he got this deal. 20% below the market. So he’s okay. But the point is, there are many people who are who were waiting for this market to go down. And they did not do it. And they probably got into the market just now at the peak. And now the market is starting to regress. These people are going to get into a situation where they’re over-leveraged, they probably put in whatever the minimum downpayment is. And they were confused to begin with, they did the deal because they never wanted to be left out. And any kind of a correction in the market. These are the first people to quit the market.

Now the question becomes is, are you qualified to buy a house? That’s the big question. Just because you have a job just because you have investments. Just because you’re paying rent, you may not be qualified. I’ll tell you what the qualification is. And I also get this question a long time ago, after I started investing in real estate. And then I started losing money in real estate I first foreclosure happened, I went back and I said, Wait, did I make the mistake. And the mistake was that obviously, I had zero down on the property. But then I never understood the math. The math is simple. There is a finite income that you’re making. And a finite proportion of that money should go into a liability. A house is a liability. It’s an asset, but it’s a non-performing asset. That means you’re living in it. It’s not making any money. Yeah, you are avoiding paying rent. But you are also banking on the fact that the house is gonna depreciate and when you sell the house, you’re gonna get back the money. But then the statement in itself needs a lot of other variables to play out. But given that you have only a finite income coming in and a finite amount of money should go into the Real Estate, what should be the math, the math is simple 25% of your take-home money should be the mortgage. Any mortgage payment that you make, shouldn’t exceed 25% of your take-home, net, take-home income on a monthly basis. This equation is violated in Silicon Valley. I don’t see this happening. I don’t see this going this way. And I learned that lesson. And now I stay with that statement. That means I have to make a lot of downpayment. That’s where I’m going with this. How much downpayment should we make 100%? That’s my standard instruction to everyone. Now, you need to if you have the money, go buy the house outright, if not figured out a plan where you shouldn’t be able to pay your entire mortgage, but 25% of your take-home pay. Because there are other expenses that are highly inflated. Everything is inflated. So, you need to have enough money to deal with those expenses. It’s not just about the house, if you get in into a situation where you’re putting the least amount of money, and you’re buying the most biggest amount of house. And now you are dependent on your job. And you are now a slave to that investment. You don’t want to be a slave to investment. I can tell you one thing for sure.

Let’s come back to the market for a second in Silicon Valley. You see, there has been no local crisis in Silicon Valley. 1930 was a national crisis. 2007 was a national crisis. There’s no local crisis. So the market, in general, is very hot, because the companies are here and all the dynamics playing out. Now, one time, I was on a radio show, a friend of mine has an incredible radio show. And he got me in as a guest there. And he asked me a question about the real estate market. I said, Listen, I look at Silicon Valley real estate as the Bitcoin and there are all coins and there are shit coins in crypto markets. Okay, excuse my language in here, but that’s what they say. Those are the appropriate words to use in that world. Given this is Bitcoin, that means starting all the way from Marin County, and all the way to La Jolla, this strip of land is the Bitcoin. So if you put money into this, it’s going to hold its value. And that’s why Bitcoin is a store of value. It holds its value. Yeah, it’s, you know, 52% down since the highest point. As I’m recording this bitcoin is down 52%. Yeah, it lost its value, understand I get it. But understand that Bitcoin was trading at 5000, just two years ago, and is still at 29,000.

And there are multiple reasons why Bitcoin actually makes sense. Now, I’m not promoting it. But I’m telling you, it makes sense knowing what I know about blockchain, knowing about what I know about consensus-driven mechanisms for transactions and stake proof, and knowing what I know about blockchain and public ledgers and consensus-driven algorithms. What I know, I don’t know a lot, I know a little bit but whatever I know, understand the value of Bitcoin. So I look at this piece of land from La Jolla, all the way up to Marin County, this piece of land incredible land. So best whether or not everything is going right. I think that if you buy a house today, let’s say you do buy a house, it’s going to hold its value is how I see it. Now, I’m not saying that you want to make 20% or 15%. That’s not the point, at least if you go by the suggestion, or the guidance that is given by Fannie Mae 3%, year after year is what this is going to go. I think I answered the question, at least I tried. I said construction is going to keep the artificial demand going, less construction is going to happen, and there’s gonna be more demand on the houses rental market is going to go up. All that is true.

Now, there isn’t another dynamic that I want to share with you, which is if you buy a house and you pay it off. Now, you are in an incredible situation, where now you can do what is called seller carry back transactions, which means that about a year or two from now, the way this economy is going and the way the inflation is coming in the way the markets are behaving. Let’s say that we are and some people are saying that we are already in a recession. Let’s say that this is true that we are in a recession and everything is going to pull back then with a paid-off house. You now are in a situation to finance your transaction if you want to sell so you become the bank. You can qualify your buyers if they are unable to get a mortgage from traditional lenders. So, the seller carries back is, so I did this kind of transaction 2005, 2007, I believe. I bought a house where the seller did the 100% seller financing for me. And the seller did that because he was unable to find buyers who were qualifying through the general market at the time.

Now, let’s talk about interest rates for a second, it’s a very interesting thing that’s happening. And this is another data point that I want you to consider if you’re looking to buy a house, I’m sorry, this recording is going too far out. And too long. I’ll see if I can live and publish this podcast or not, we’ll see. I’m gonna keep going here for a second here. Talking about interest rates from 1980 to the year 2000. The interest rates were consistently above 5%, the federal funds rate was above 5%. But between 2007 and 2016, it went down less than 1%. And why because quantitative easing came in. And fiscal monetary policy changed fiscal policy changed money was pumped in Fed was buying out Fed was incentivizing and giving all kinds of stimulus and all that this was administration doing all this, they wanted to keep the economy going very simple. Now, in 2017, 2016, with Trump coming in, Trump administration, we started for the first time he started seeing interest rates going up. First time beyond 1%. It almost touched 2%. And that’s when COVID happened. And again, Fed started cutting rates. Why was the interest rate kept low, very simple, so that banks could lend out money and lend money for assets that are much more valuable than the money they have on hand. Clearly, real estate is one such asset where it’s more valuable than the money that they had on hand. So more money was available. Everybody did what they did. And here we are in this current situation. So what should you do as a first-time homebuyer to sum this up, need to put as much down as possible? Get a house, anywhere between Marin County all the way till the water all the way till La Jolla. It’s not about the location as much, it’s about your personal dynamic. So if you can afford it, my suggestion is that 20% of your take-home should be going towards a mortgage not more than that. So if you can afford that, if you somehow can make that math work, then go buy if not renting is okay.

Now the question is, will rentals be available? That’s also the question. That’s a whole different discussion itself. We can pick it up later on. As you see, this is a never-ending discussion. It’s very situational. It’s very personal. So it’s very hard. I see people trying to answer these questions on the radio. It’s hard to answer this question. It’s such a personal thing. There are so many variables playing and interplane. And usually, when somebody is looking to buy a house the first time, it’s not about one individual. There are a couple of other people involved in the back. It could be the spouse, it could be children. So there is more to this. But I’m gonna tell you something. The math is always right. You got to get the math, right. It doesn’t matter what your personal situation is. It doesn’t matter how many jobs you have, what all you do, and where you’re going to live. All that doesn’t matter. One more question also, before I wrap this up, should I buy a house in Texas? And you know, this was a question I heard before to no comparison. There’s no comparison. There’s nothing that compares with Silicon Valley real estate. I’ve made the comparison very clearly between Silicon Valley real estate and Bitcoin. So there is no substitute for Silicon Valley real estate, not that I know of.

Okay, I want to stop here. I know you’ll have questions. If you do, just let me know. 888-818-0404 Text me and I’ll wait for your questions I love to answer your questions on this topic. Okay, that’s all for now. Wherever you are, be safe. Take care. I’m gonna go back and listen to this recording. If I like it, I’m going to publish it. If not, it never happened. You will ever come to know. Bye now.