# How Real Estate Agents Build Wealth Slowly: Multifamily, Value-Add, and the Long Game

> Published: 2026-07-16 | Category: podcast-episode

**Guest:** Stuart Gethner

Investor Stuart Gethner on value-add multifamily, cap rates, mentorship, and why agents build real wealth slowly, not fast. Get rich slow, not quick.

## Content

Most agents spend their careers selling the best wealth-building vehicle in America and never buy a piece of it themselves. Stuart Gethner did the opposite. He was a licensed pharmacist in Phoenix — a career that took years of schooling and paid well — and he walked away from it to buy apartment buildings. Today he operates small-to-mid multifamily, teaches 12 online classes for the National Real Estate Investor Association, and sits on the Forbes Real Estate Council.

His message on this week's REI Agent episode isn't the one you've been sold by late-night infomercials. It's slower, less glamorous, and far more achievable: returns don't come from timing the market or predicting rates. They come from what you buy, when you buy it, and how long you hold. This is the episode for any agent who has watched investors buy five properties in a year while their clients buy five in a lifetime, and wondered which side of that table they'd rather be on.

## Why Would a Successful Pharmacist Walk Away From His Own Pharmacies?

Stuart grew up in Chicago wanting to play Major League Baseball. When that didn't pan out, family gravity took over — his father was an optometrist and a pharmacist, his grandfather was a pharmacist, his Uncle Max was a pharmacist. He went to pharmacy school at Wash U, moved to Phoenix to escape the snow, and opened his own independent pharmacies.

The real estate idea came from television. "When I was a kid growing up, they used to have these infomercials on television. Guys like Dave Del Dotto, Carlton Sheets," he told host Mattias Clymer. "They would say, you can buy real estate and you can surf in Hawaii all day and count your money at night. I was like, that's for me." Then, without missing a beat: "I can tell you, it's not like that."

That correction frames everything else. Stuart is direct that passive investing is oversold — that real estate is a business, not a hobby, and certainly not a hammock. What pulled him out of pharmacy wasn't the fantasy but the arithmetic. He bought single-family homes while still filling prescriptions, then a fourplex, then an eightplex, and learned the concept "kind of like the hard way": economies of scale.

His example is deliberately unglamorous. Buying one water heater is expensive; buying three or four drops the price dramatically. And in an eightplex, when one fails, others are close behind — so you're buying in bulk anyway. "You actually save money by owning more and having them all under one roof." That's the entire thesis of small multifamily. Cross a certain unit count and you can justify an on-site manager instead of being the guy who gets the Sunday phone call. Stuart deliberately targets the tier the big REITs ignore — where independent operators can move faster and build real advantage.

## Is Commercial Financing Actually Harder Than a Residential Loan?

Here Stuart pushes back on the fear that keeps most agents out of multifamily. The word "commercial" sounds like a wall. It isn't.

With a residential loan of four units or fewer, the underwriting is about you. "You fill out the application. They want to see your tax returns. They want to see your W-2s, your savings account. It's all about you," Stuart said. "I joke they want to see a urine sample, a stool sample, a blood sample." Only after you squeeze into that box does the lender bother appraising the property.

At five units or more, the order flips. "It's no longer about you. It's going to be about the property. It's a lot easier to finance," he explained. "People hear the word commercial. They think it's going to be much more difficult. Actually, it's easier to finance because they look at the property first and they look at the rent rolls and the leases and such. Then after that works for them, then they'll look at you."

The asset carries the loan. Mattias noted the parallel with DSCR loans now trickling into residential — underwriting that asks one question: does the rent cover the debt? Stuart's shop doesn't use them, and he raised an eyebrow at lenders writing DSCR loans below a 1.0 ratio: "I scratch my head and think, weren't you around about 10, 15 years ago?" Under one means the rent doesn't cover the debt and the money comes out of your pocket. Reserves aren't optional.

## What Does a Real Value-Add Deal Look Like?

Yes, Stuart runs value-add — and his definition is refreshingly modest. It means buying a property that needs TLC and spending a few bucks to turn it over. His sweet spot is a specific seller: what the industry calls "tired landlords." "People that have owned 50, 70 properties or so over time, they've gotten older. As they've gotten older, they haven't really done the maintenance or the updates or the upgrades that they should. They haven't raised the rents like they should."

He's living the example. At recording, Stuart was buying 17 units in Phoenix from a gentleman in his late 80s who bought them 30 years ago for $8,000 to $12,000 apiece and hasn't remodeled some in three decades. The rents are low, he said, and the properties aren't in bad shape — "they're just antiquated."

The work is small-ball. "We just won't do the traditional carpet and paint. We'll put in the elongated toilets instead of the old round ones and maybe update the cabinets and the countertops. We'll add value so we can start getting market rents." No demolition, no architect — just enough to command what the market already pays.

On exit, Stuart cites Stephen Covey's second habit: begin with the end in mind. He's done wholesaling and fix-and-flips and concluded that "buy and hold is really where you create the long-term wealth." Investors who don't want a 10-year horizon get served through a cash-out refi or a sale. Either way, the plan exists before the offer does.

## How Do Cap Rates and Cash-on-Cash Returns Actually Create Wealth?

Stuart's cap rate explanation is the clearest stretch of the episode, and it starts with what the number is *for*: comparing a real estate return against everything else competing for the same dollar — crypto, gemstones, stocks, bonds. It assumes no debt. If you paid all cash, what would you earn? That's apples-to-apples, because you *would* pay cash for those other asset classes.

"The nice thing about real estate is even though we talk about a cap rate using 100% of our money, we usually don't use 100% of our money. We usually finance. We use leverage, which makes the investment even more attractive." His math: $100,000 of stock requires $100,000. $100,000 of real estate might require $10,000 or $20,000.

Realistic cap rates run roughly **5% to 8%** by market. "If you can find a 10% cap rate, you start to wonder what's wrong with the property, or can I buy two of them?" Institutions accept lower caps because they're parking money securely. "For someone like myself and others who are looking to create wealth, we're not looking to park money. We're looking to create wealth."

On smaller deals he underwrites cash-on-cash instead: how much cash in, how much out in year one? Run properly, "you'd be surprised that you could be in the 20%, 30%, or even higher" — before taxes even enter the picture. On the cheap houses he started with, interest deductions plus depreciation plus cash flow returned more than half his down payment. "Gosh, if it works on something that's $75,000, it'll probably work on something that's $750,000. And all you're doing is adding a zero." His most recent raise: roughly **$3 million**, structured as an LLC with A-shares and B-shares rather than a traditional syndication — B-share members earned a **12% return**, with IRR bumping to **20.2%** on sale.

The discipline behind all of it comes from a Sam's Club story about his wife Stephanie insisting on a three-pack of Q-tips they didn't need, purely because it was on sale. "They were on sale at Sam's Club, and that's how we want to buy real estate. We want to buy real estate when it's on sale."

## How Does an Agent Actually Get Into Their First Deal?

Stuart is blunt about the agent's structural advantage — and the box that prevents using it. "One of the challenges agents have is that they get stuck in the box of what they're taught on how to sell real estate and such." Meanwhile, "the average person who buys a home maybe buys five homes in their lifetime, seven homes in their lifetime, while most investors might buy five or seven properties a year."

Investor clients are also easier clients. "We really have no emotion, right? I don't have to have a cherry tree in my front yard." No school-district anxiety, no bedroom-size negotiation. If the numbers work, they buy.

The entry point is smaller than agents assume. Stuart has watched agents take a $15,000 commission and put $3,000 or $5,000 into a deal. "They may not have tremendous an equity position, but they're in, and they're seeing what's going on with how things are run, how things are being marketed, how they're being updated." That's the point: "The hardest part is really your first deal, getting in."

Mattias added the argument agents most need to hear — you already understand this asset class. You don't really understand how the businesses in the S&P 500 make money, but you understand a fourplex. And unlike a 401(k), the cash flow and tax benefits arrive now, not at retirement age.

## Why Does an Abundance Mindset Make You Wealthier — and Healthier?

The most human moment is a story about failure. After selling his pharmacies, Stuart circled every For Sale By Owner in the Sunday paper and started dialing. One woman answered. He admitted he was an investor looking for property; she replied that she was an investor too. So he tried the move that always worked in pharmacy: can I take you to lunch? Her answer: "Why would I want to go to lunch with you and teach you what I know? I'll just have another competitor in the business."

"And I thought to myself, you can really corner the market on real estate investing? And you can't. So there's enough for everybody." That contrast defined his approach for decades — and it's why he credits a mentor named Summers, introduced through a patient who wrote *Bank on Yourself*, with compressing his learning curve: "You never get hit by the bus you see coming. And so someone that's done it before, they've seen the buses."

Mattias offered the practical counterpart: when you approach a mentor, bring something. Offer to run a top agent's flyers. Create value first instead of arriving as a burden. Stuart's own resolution is worth writing down: "In order for me to have more does not mean someone else has to have less."

He ties health to the same ledger. At Walgreens out of pharmacy school, earning a weekend off meant working Friday noon to close, a 12-hour Saturday, an 8- or 10-hour Sunday, and Monday until noon. Now he plays pickleball three times a week and still hits the gym — and credits the portfolio for it. "As long as I have my laptop, I can be here at my office or I can be in the Bahamas." Enough income to replace a job doesn't just buy money. It buys the schedule.

## The Golden Nugget: Get Rich Slow

Asked for takeaways, Stuart quoted Henry Ford — "if you think you can't, you're right. If you think you can, you're right" — then landed the line that captures the whole conversation:

> **"This isn't get rich quick. It's just not. But it is get rich slow. So if we're willing to put in the time and do the due diligence and follow the plan, it's not hard."** — Stuart Gethner

The rest follows. You make your money when you buy — "you don't want to bet in the come. Oh, the market's going to go up. Oh, interest rates are going to go down." You can't control inflation or rates. You can control how, what, and when you buy. Find a *great* deal: "There's a lot of good deals out there. I want you to find a great deal." And "I ain't got no money" is an excuse, because capital finds great deals through partnerships and joint ventures where everybody wins.

His book picks: *The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah* (a mindset book, not a religious one), *The Four Agreements*, and *Let Them* by Mel Robbins, a gift from his daughter. Find him at **StuartGethner.com** — and true to the abundance theme: "I bet if you called, I bet I would probably answer the phone."

The full conversation goes deeper on financing mechanics, deal structure, and the mindset shifts that separate agents who sell wealth from agents who own it. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe so you don't miss next week's guest.

Ready to go further than an episode? **[REI Agent Advisor](https://advisor.reiagent.com)** is built for exactly the agent Stuart describes — the one who knows real estate is the vehicle but wants a plan instead of a guess. And at **[REIAgent.com](https://www.reiagent.com)** you can sign up for the weekly newsletter summarizing each week's guests.

Because as Stuart heard once and never forgot: there were two great times to invest in real estate. The first was 20 years ago. The second is today.

*All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.*

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<summary>Full Episode Transcript</summary>

Welcome back to the REI Agent. My guest today is Stuart Gethner, a mid-level multifamily operator, educator, and investor based in Phoenix, Arizona, who has made one of the more unconventional pivots you will hear about on this show, from a practicing pharmacist to a full-time real estate investor specializing in small to mid-multifamily facilities. Stuart focuses on 100 or more unit tier that a lot of the big REITs ignore, but where independent operators can build serious cash flow and competitive advantages. He speaks regularly on multifamily acquisition, operations, and underwriting, and brings a refreshingly practical operator-first perspective to a niche that most investors overlook. Stuart, thanks for being on the REI Agent. Welcome to the show. Kevin, I'm glad to be here. I was really looking forward to it today. Becoming a pharmacist is no small feat. I'm sure that took a lot of work. It's also not a poorly paying position. Tell us about how that pivot happened and why. I grew up in Chicago. I was a big baseball fan. We had the Cubs and we had the White Sox. I tried to make it in Major League Baseball. I wasn't good enough. As it ends up, my dad was an optometrist and a pharmacist. My grandpa was a pharmacist. My Uncle Max was a pharmacist. By default, I went to pharmacy school at Wash U in St. Louis. I just moved out to Phoenix because I got tired of the cold winters. I got tired of the snow and such. It's been a great run here. I opened up my own pharmacies here in Arizona. Independence. Over time, I just started buying one off a single-family residence. Buying a property here, buying a property there. The whole reason I did it, Mattias, is because when I was a kid growing up, they used to have these infomercials on television. Guys like Dave Del Dotto, Carlton Sheets, back in the day. They would say, you can buy real estate and you can surf in Hawaii all day and count your money at night. I was like, that's for me. I can tell you, it's not like that. No, it's not. Passive investing is kind of overhyped. It's not really true. It's not really passive. Yeah. That's great. You started building up the portfolio. I assume you got more sophisticated as you went? Yeah. As time went on, I would buy a single-family house, a townhome, things of that nature. Then I started to scale. I bought a four-plex, bought an eight-plex, and just started scaling. I learned the concept, kind of like the hard way, if you will. A concept called the economies of scale. If I was going to buy one water heater, if I had to buy three or four water heaters, the price went dramatically down. With that, I learned that if I could buy an eight-plex or something larger, if I use a water heater as an example, if that were to go out, I'm probably going to need others that are going to go out at the same time. You actually save money by owning more and having them all under one roof. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Once you get to a certain size, too, then you start having the ability to hire an on-site manager, for example. I know that you're not going for huge complexes, but I would imagine with some of these that are 100-plus, you definitely would be having on-site managers, right? Yeah, exactly. We call it our team. As far as how often we're going to have regular office hours, whether it's our office here or on-site, you start to scale. I think the biggest challenge is people understanding that when you're just starting out and you're using traditional loans, they really tend to look at you. You fill out the application. They want to see your tax returns. They want to see your W-2s, your savings account. It's all about you. I joke they want to see a urine sample, a stool sample, a blood sample. It's all about you. Then once you fit in that box, then they'll go out and do an appraisal. When you start getting into more than four units, five units or more, it's no longer about you. It's going to be about the property. It's a lot easier to finance. People hear the word commercial. They think it's going to be much more difficult. Actually, it's easier to finance because they look at the property first and they look at the rent rolls and the leases and such. Then after that works for them, then they'll look at you. Then they'll do an appraisal. The emphasis on commercial is really on the property. It's so much easier than dealing with a traditional residential loan. Yeah. It's a whole different world, really. If you can get into the non-recourse debt as well, that can be a pretty crazy avenue. Now, DSCR loans, they've kind of trickled into the residential game a little bit. Those can be a little bit similar to what you're talking about where they're really analyzing what kind of debt service coverage ratio you have. Is the rent able to cover the debt? Right. It's that simple. What I find interesting is that they don't always take into consideration things like taxes, insurance, and HOA dues. But yeah, DSCR loans are very popular. They seem to work well. At the end of the day, I've seen lenders, believe it or not, that'll do a DSCR loan ratio lower than one. I scratch my head and think, weren't you around about 10, 15 years ago? But the lenders are lenders, and sometimes they'll do silly things. We don't participate in those DSCR loans, but they're out there. Yeah. If that doesn't make sense to you, basically, the rent doesn't cover the debt if it's less than one. Well, then you got to come out of pocket, right? They want to make sure you have strong reserves. For those that are just starting out or looking to scale, we always talk about your opportunities and what they look like. From what everyone tells me here in the Phoenix area and elsewhere, sometimes deals are hard to find. We always want to make sure that we're buying great deals. Yeah. No, absolutely. That's the most important part, right? The money is made usually in the purchase. Stuart, with the multifamily game, are you doing the value-add type strategy? If so, can you explain that to people if they don't understand what that is? First of all, that's a great question. The answer to the question is yes, we look for a value-add. Value-add means you're buying a property that may not be in the best shape and is going to need some TLC, if you will, spend a few bucks to turn that over. That's really our sweet spot of who we go for. There's an expression they call tired landlords. People that have owned 50, 70 properties or so over time, they've gotten older. As they've gotten older, they haven't really done the maintenance or the updates or the upgrades that they should. They haven't raised the rents like they should. We're buying 17 units right now here in the Phoenix area from a gentleman who's in his late 80s. He bought these properties on us. He bought them 30 years ago. He bought them for $8,000, $10,000, $12,000. On some of them, he probably hasn't remodeled them in 30 years. The rents are low. The properties are not that they're in bad shape. They're just antiquated. From a value-add perspective, we'll go in and we just won't do the traditional carpet and paint. We'll put in the elongated toilets instead of the old round ones and maybe update the cabinets and the countertops. We'll add value so we can start getting market rents and bring that to the marketplace. Sure. When you are doing this, is your strategy to hold these properties long-term? Are you then selling it after five years? Do you have capital events as a refinance? What's your typical strategy? Does it depend on the people? That is another great question. That famous book, Seven Effective Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, his second habit is the one I know for sure. That is the one that says you start with the end in mind. What's your exit strategy? I'm a long-term hold kind of guy. Back in the day when I started, I've done wholesaling. I'm happy to talk and teach about that. I've talked about fix and flips. I've done those. Buy and hold is really where you create the long-term wealth. On some of my projects where I'm raising capital with investors, they may not want to hold for 5, 7, 10, 12 years. So for them, we'll either do a cash-out refi over time or we'll sell the property and move on. But at the end of the day, you hit the point head-on. You start with the end in mind. What's my exit strategy? Sometimes it doesn't always work out the way you want it to, but you may have to delay the strategy and such or tweak it a little bit. But that's a great way to put together a plan. When we're doing these value-add type deals, you could kind of look at it like a flip. Where in a single-family flip, you're looking at a property that is run down. And you could see that after it's finished, after the repairs are made, etc., that there are comps that show that it could be worth this. And so there's like this, it's $100,000. Put $50,000 into it. It's worth $200,000. There's this $50,000 equity that you can get from doing it. When you compare it to the holding it long-term strategy, do a refinance, get that $150,000 back out, keep the $50,000 in it as equity. And now you have this asset. That's what people call the birth strategy typically. But what my question is or what I want you to help explain is how the value is created and how that's a little bit different. Like how the equity or how the – with cap rates, etc., it could be a little bit confusing for people. So you seem to do a really good job at explaining things simply so they're understood. So can you help explain how the cap rates and what you do to make the value go up in these properties so that you can refinance investors' capital out or some people would sell? Sure, 100%. So a great question. So when we say the word cap rate, it actually is short for the word capitalization rate, right? So that's really what it stands for. And what it does is it allows the real estate investor to compare its return with potential other returns. So right now people could be investing in crypto. They could be investing in gemstones. They could be investing in stocks and bonds and such. And so the cap rate takes into consideration no debt services. If you were to buy the property paying 100% cash, what would your rate of return be? And because if you bought stocks or if you bought crypto, you'd have to pay 100% cash for those asset classes as well. The nice thing about real estate is even though we talk about a cap rate using 100% of our money, we usually don't use 100% of our money. We usually finance. We use leverage, which makes the investment even more attractive. So if you're going to buy $100,000 worth of stock, let's say, you would need $100,000. If you want to invest $100,000 in oil and gas, you would need $100,000. But if you want to invest in $100,000 in real estate, you may only need $10,000 or $20,000. And if it was your personal residence, obviously, an FHA 3.5% would be the down payment there. So that's how we look at cap rate, and that's how we use it to compare. And obviously, when I work with our investors and probably most investors, everybody would like a double-digit return. And I once had a client ask me, she said, Stuart, a double-digit return, is that 10% or 90%? Because they're both double digits. And the answer is usually more than 10%. Investors would like to make more than 10%. We have to take into consideration things like we're going to pay taxes on that income. And then there's inflation. So as far as an IRR or rate of return, if we could do double digits. But most cap rates really, in reality, they don't hover around 10%. If you can find a 10% cap rate, you start to wonder what's wrong with the property, or can I buy two of them? So they usually hover probably between, depending on where you are in the country, 5% to 7% to 8%. And you're going to find in bigger companies, larger investors, they're happy with a lower cap rate because it's usually more secure. But for someone like myself and others who are looking to create wealth, we're not looking to park money. We're looking to create wealth. We want to buy something, and you already mentioned it, and then you should make your money when you buy. So if we can buy something at a discount and then put some value into it, it's going to create more equity for our investors. And just like you said, Mattias, they're going to do a cash-out refi where they'll take the cash out and pay the investors back. So can I finish with just one funny story? Yeah, please. So my lovely bride, her name is Stephanie. So we're at Sam's Club, and we're shopping, and we're going down the aisle, and she notices that the Q-tips are on sale. There's a three-pack of 300 each Q-tips. And she says, hey, Q-tips are on sale. And I said, yeah, we bought them the last time they were on sale, and we still have some. I think we have like a box left. And she looks at me, and she goes, yeah, but they're on sale. I'm like, I know, but we have some at home. And she's like, I know, but they're on sale. And so she reaches up, grabs the Q-tips, and puts them in the cart. And we went home with more Q-tips that day. So my point being is they were on sale at Sam's Club, and that's how we want to buy real estate. We want to buy real estate when it's on sale. Yeah, absolutely. So now tell us about the interplay with the valuation of the property and the cap rate. So if you are going into a property that is under-rented, it's for whatever reason. The landlord hasn't raised the rents for a long time. The property is dated, et cetera. And you come in, and you're able to increase the rent rate. And their NOI then is increasing, and how that interplays with the cap rates. Sure. So the more return we can give the investor, the more money we can put in our pockets, the better the return. And so a lot of times when we're working on smaller deals, we won't so much look at cap rate as we'll look at a cash-on-cash return. So how much cash do we put in versus how much cash can we pull out that first year? And if you look at your numbers that way, and happy to work with anybody that wants me to explain it to them one-on-one, you're going to find that you'd be surprised that you could be in the 20%, 30%, or even higher on a cash-on-cash return as opposed to dealing with a cap rate. Again, we use the cap rate just to be able to compare properties and such. But what we really care about most of all is how much can we put in our pocket, not just the cash, but we also take into consideration the depreciation and the interest deductions as well. So we look at our business as a business, not so much as a hobby. And we take a look at the bigger picture of what one property can get us. And I'll tell you, I was amazed. When I started buying this single-family residence when I first started, and houses back in the day were $80,000, $90,000, $75,000, and you would put 10% down, $7,000, or $14,000, $15,000, whatever that is, you would be able to get more than that back, over 50% of that back in the interest deduction, in the depreciation, and the cash flow. And so scaling it, that's what really taught me is, gosh, if it works on something that's $75,000, it'll probably work on something that's $750,000. And all you're doing is adding a zero. And you can keep on adding zeros, and the concepts stay the same. Concepts always stay the same. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think the tax advantages alone are a huge reason why I think agents really should be considering opportunities like this. Are you operating in the syndication kind of space, typically, when you bring investors on? Yeah, so we've typically brought in investors more on a partnership, where they're members of the LLC. And so we can do A-shares and B-shares, or I'm the A-shares. Most people who invest with us, or with you and some of the listeners as well, they don't want to be called on a Sunday that the toilet was backed up. So they want to be – for them, it's truly passive. Just pay me my dividends or pay me my money or whatever that is, but don't bother me with the day-to-day nuances. And so we structure our deals. In fact, this last one that we did, we raised about $3 million in capital. What we did was, just like I said, A-shares and B-shares. If you contributed, you were a B-share member. We paid a 12% return upon ascertaining your funds. And then when we sell, we're going to bump that IRR to 20.2%. So it's a good opportunity for investors, and it's a great opportunity especially for agents. One of the challenges agents have is that they get stuck in the box of what they're taught on how to sell real estate and such. And I think the last time I spoke to an agent and asked, the average person who buys a home maybe buys five homes in their lifetime, seven homes in their lifetime, while most investors might buy five or seven properties a year. And so if you're able to start learning that, the nuances of what investors look for. And one of the nice things I think about working with investors as opposed to homebuyers is we really have no emotion, right? I don't have to have a cherry tree in my front yard. I don't have to this. I don't mind that. For me, it's about the numbers. And when you're dealing with families who want bigger bedrooms or some of these nuances and such, we don't have those. We look at the numbers, not emotional. If the numbers work, we buy it. Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely a different type of clientele. I think we're easier to work with. Yeah. Yeah. It's not emotional. It's logical. And if you're also wanting to build up a portfolio as you build your real estate sales business, there's a lot of different avenues to go. Getting into the multifamily space can be great. Getting into syndications can be great, too. Definitely making sure that you are knowing enough about how the structure works, like listening to podcasts, reading books, et cetera, is good. You want to have a good understanding of how these deals all work, and so I think it's good to educate yourself to a certain extent. If you're getting into the syndication space, you are very, very passive, and that can be a good or bad thing. When it's good, it's really good because you have no control. And I've seen agents who have started very, I don't want to say small, but they've just contributed a few dollars from their commission. So their commission was $15,000, let's just say, after they split with their broker, whatever that looks like, and they put in $3,000 or $5,000 into a deal. Now they're in the deal. They may not have tremendous an equity position, but they're in, and they're seeing what's going on with how things are run, how things are being marketed, how they're being updated, how they're being upgraded. And I think it's easier once you're in the game. The hardest part is really your first deal, getting in. So agents certainly have a pathway in when they're ready because she can put some of her dollars in. And again, it doesn't have to be the full amount of the commission. It could be just a few dollars, and it still counts. Yeah, totally. And depending on the deal, how much they require. But when you're in a nine-to-five job, when you were salaried, you get opportunities to invest in the retirement plans, and there's always tax benefits for those, etc. But then, of course, you're not really able to touch those until you retire. There are things like self-directed IRAs that you could look into that would allow you to invest in real estate with your IRAs. But the point I'm trying to make is that if you're building up your rental portfolio, if you're building up your real estate assets, it's a field that you understand. You don't understand what the S&P 500, all those businesses, how they work and how they make their money. You really don't understand that. And I'm not saying you need to, but you do understand real estate. So there's an advantage there. But the tax benefits can be pretty awesome for you, and you can take advantage of the cash flow now. You can sell if you own the property, etc. There's things you can do now. You're not limited by that retirement age. Agreed. And everybody's got to start somewhere, right? Like I said, I started when I was a pharmacist, and I would just buy a house as inexpensive as I could and then learn to go to the different meetings. Just as you said, educate yourself. I was fortunate enough to have one of my patients wrote the book, A Bank on Yourself. And she had a mentor that lived here in Phoenix, and she introduced me to him. And I'll tell you, he's taught me so much over the years, and I still consider him one of the reasons that I've learned so much. Just on investing and life and such alone, when you have someone that helps mentor you, it kind of cuts down the timeline. It's not that I can't get there by myself, because most entrepreneurs kind of wing it and figure it out for themselves. But here's the expression once, you never get hit by the bus you see coming. And so someone that's done it before, they've seen the buses, right? So you're going to get hit with enough buses and stuff on your own. Why don't you learn from someone else to keep you out of harm's way? So I was very fortunate to be able to have a gentleman named Summers. He was able to help me really kind of elevate and teach me how to scale. Yeah, that's awesome. It's totally true. It's true in building a real estate sales business as well. I think one of the life hacks to becoming good at something or becoming successful, that kind of has a cliche term. Just getting good at the business is learning from others like you just talked about. But I think you have to really sacrifice maybe or get past your own ego if you have problems with that. And what I mean by that is you have to be happy and excited for other people's successes and not threatened. And some people can't handle that. And they will lose the friendship because nobody wants to be around the person that's just kind of constantly being negative to them because they're insecure. So you make a great point. When I first sold my pharmacies many years ago, I've been in the pharmacy business a few times. And I wanted to get into real estate. This was before COVID and such. And the newspaper used to have here what they call FISBOs in the newspaper. FISBO stands for For Sale By Owners. And I thought I would. I sold the pharmacies. They wanted me to stay on for a little bit to help them. They never really needed me, but they asked me to. So I showed up on that Monday morning and I had gone to the Sunday newspaper and I had circled all the For Sale By Owners. And I actually made a list of about 10, 12 questions that I thought were very clever questions to ask people about their home, about this, about that. And so the first thing I learned when I was calling on Monday morning for those FISBOs is that most people aren't home. They kind of go to work. So I really didn't get a lot of people answering the phone. But I got this one lady who answered the phone. And I went through my 10 questions, which I thought would lead to some kind of interaction. I think 10 questions we were done in about 10 seconds. And then there was that uncomfortable silence. And I finally said to her, you know, I'm a real estate investor looking for investment property. Do you think this might be a good property? And she says to me, I'm a real estate investor, too. This is one of my investment properties. Yeah, I think it would be a great property for you. And so I tried some of the things, the tactics that I did back in the day when I was working and owning pharmacies. Hey, can I take you to lunch? Can I take you to lunch, get to know each other, maybe I can learn a little bit about the business and such. And she said to me, why would I want to go to lunch with you and teach you what I know? I'll just have another competitor in the business. And I thought to myself, you can really corner the market on real estate investing? And you can't. So there's enough for everybody. And I'm happy to share, as are you, Mattias, the information, the knowledge that we have to help other people create success. What goes around comes around. And I don't know where she is today, but that was a lesson that I learned. I'm happy to share it with you guys. There's enough for everyone. Yeah. And I think also when you are trying to get a mentor, you probably need to try to offer them something. You know what I mean? So you could obviously be willing to pay for their lunch, but people often will get bombarded. And if you're not providing something, I mean, that's the angle. It's good to try to figure out. If you're a new agent and you're in a firm and there's a really successful agent, like, hey, can I run your flyers? What can I do to help you? I'm not asking for anything. Just create value for them. Don't just be a burden to them. And then likely they'll be a lot more willing to help you out. Again, there's enough for everybody. And another lesson that I learned, I learned this just a few years ago, and I'm happy to share. In order for me to have more does not mean someone else has to have less. So I'm happy trying to create more for my family, knowing that when we have enough, we can give to others and such. Because I think that's important as well. But real estate's been a great way for us to create wealth. And I'll add, when I teach the classes and work with my clients, this isn't get rich quick. It's just not. But it is get rich slow. So if we're willing to put in the time and do the due diligence and follow the plan, it's not hard. Owning real estate over time. Right. Going through pharmacy school, that was hard. Dealing with the State Board of Pharmacy, the DEA, the FDA. Dealing with your insurance company because your prescription's not covered. Dealing with patients who are aggravated. Dealing with big pharma. That was a pain. What we're doing now is a pleasure. So much easier. Stuart, you're clearly a motivated person. Becoming a pharmacist, that takes motivation, that takes diligence. Getting into investing. A lot of people just want to go home and veg out and not think about more work. You took on properties, figured out the investing space and went into it full time. How have you been able to keep yourself healthy, your mind right, your family? Have you been able to maintain that as an importance as you went? What a great question. And I can honestly tell you that when I owned and worked in pharmacies, standing on my feet 12 hours a day, when I worked for Walgreens, when I first got out of pharmacy school, if you wanted a weekend off, if you wanted a weekend off, that means you had to work from noon on Friday until closing, which was either 9 or 10 at night. You had to work and stand on your feet all day Saturday, a 12-hour shift, an 8- or 10-hour shift on Sunday, and you worked until noon on Monday. And the reason you did that was because your partner had the weekend off. And so it was very difficult really for me to stay in shape mentally, physically, when I was working in that world. As I've gotten older and realized how important, and this is just my opinion, that mental health and physical health are related. When I go to the gym and I get a good workout, mentally I feel good. I feel good. So they're related. So for me, what I'm doing now at this stage of my life, if you would have told me when I was a kid that I'd be playing this game called pickleball, I would have laughed and thought you were crazy. But I got to tell you, playing three times a week, still going to the gym, that's one of the great things that I think being a real estate investor allows you when you've accumulated the portfolio, which I know a lot of folks want to do. They want to create the portfolio to spin off enough income to replace their job. You can have flexibility. So as long as I have my laptop, I can be here at my office or I can be in the Bahamas. I can be anywhere because I'm able to work and I have what I need. It wasn't like that when I had a job because I had to be at the pharmacy, I had to watch the inventory, take care of the billing and such. This is so much easier. So, yes, being mentally and physically healthy is so important because without it, it's very stressful and aggravating. If anybody has ever been sick, had a cold, had the flu, whatever it is that you had, it's miserable. And so, yes, it's so important. And one of the big things that we did in our pharmacies, we did all natural. So we did a lot of custom compounding for hormone replacement. We did a lot of veterinary compounding, a lot of homeopathic herbal remedies. And what's interesting is that you may find this hard to believe, but that stuff works. If you have flus, for colds, for allergies, those homeopathic remedies are with no side effects. You can't say that about today's big pharma medications with no side effects. So we were very big into naturopath. Yes. That's interesting. Yes. How many pharmacies would also be doing that? It seems like it's a pretty unique thing. You know, it has been unique. And there's this company out of France called Boron Labs, B-O-I-R-O-N. Feel free to look them up. We weren't the exclusive distributor during the time, but we stocked all their products. If you go into Walgreens, Walmart, CVS these days, they have some of their products. Okay. And again, all natural. That's a chest doll for the cough. Oxalicoccinum for the flu. Sabadol for allergies. You know, people think when they go to the doctor, they want to get a prescription, right? Yeah. I'll tell you, some of this natural stuff is even better. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, when you get into some mental health things too, like, I mean, there's definitely a need for medicine, you know, to get people to be more stable, et cetera. I'm not discouraging any of that by any means. But I think that, you know, going outside and walking, exercising in general, can have huge, you know, benefits to your mood. And, you know, I think we, I've said this probably too much, but I really believe that we need to impose some hardship on ourselves. Everything is marketed to us to be, make things easier. Make your life easier. You know, we want to have comfort. We want to be going from our air conditioning house, air conditioned house, into our garage, into our air conditioned car, and to then go to our air conditioned office. And I think that what we then lack is what we've, you know, evolved to be, which, or went through the process of having to have hardship. And I think through exertion, you feel better. So that is physical exertion. That's mental exertion. I think, you know, going through the state of flow in a game of chess, or being a musician where you just lose track of all time. Those are the things that everything is marketing to be taken away from us. And that's what we need. And that's what really will make you feel fulfilled and happy. And I'm preaching to myself, too. Don't get me wrong. I have to remind myself not to just scroll on TikTok. There are rabbit holes that I find myself going down as well on Instagram. Talking dogs seems to be my rabbit hole. Yeah, I love it. Stuart, what are some golden nuggets you have for our listeners today? Boy, that's a tough one. So just in my opinion, I think mindset and attitude are so important. You know, Henry Ford once said, if you think you can't, you're right. If you think you can, you're right. And I think we choose to be happy. We choose to be frustrated. You know, there's no such thing as a perfect life. You're never there. And I think another gold nugget I think that you hit on yourself, to be honest with you, Mattias, you said you make your money when you buy. When we buy real estate, you don't want to bet in the come. Oh, the market's going to go up. Oh, interest rates are going to go down. We cannot control inflation. We cannot control interest rates. So what can we control? We can control how we buy, what we buy, when we buy. So I think you make your money when you buy. And I heard someone once say there were two great times to invest in real estate. The first time was 20 years ago. And the second time is today. So I think if you can find yourself a great deal, not a good deal. There's a lot of good deals out there. I want you to find a great deal. And an excuse that I heard, and I had a professor back at college who made this point, I ain't got no money. I don't have the money. That's just an excuse. There's enough money out there that if you've got a great deal, we can put some type of partnership or some type of a strategic alliance, joint venture together where everybody can win. So I think the hardest thing is to get started. But I find once you get started and get moving, this is a very, very rewarding, financially rewarding, personally, entrepreneur rewarding venture to be in. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Yeah, I compare real estate to trees sometimes, right? Stuart, what about a favorite book, one that you think is fundamental that everybody should read or one you're currently enjoying? Okay. One that I really enjoyed reading, and I go back to it every so often, and I really do. It's called The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. It is not a religious book at all. It is a great book on mindset, just like The Four Agreements, a great book on mindset. The book I'm reading now, my daughter gave me this book. It's called Let Them. Let Them by Mel Robbins. I'm enjoying reading that as well. Love to read. Love to listen to podcasts and hear what other people have to say. There's so much information out there. You really have to kind of filter and stay focused on what you're looking at. But I do enjoy reading some of the books that are, I don't want to call them self-help, but The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is just a great book to give you perspective on yourself and things. Yeah, absolutely. I think if you think, I want to be a real estate investor, I don't know how I'm going to do it, or I want to be an agent, I want to be successful in these endeavors, subscribing to this podcast. Brainwash yourself. Put yourself into situations. Set yourself up to be thinking about it. You're priming your brain. You're thinking about real estate. When you think about, I'm thinking about buying a Tesla, and all of a sudden you see Teslas everywhere, right? It's the same thing. If you're putting that stuff in your brain and you're systematically just ingesting podcasts, books, etc., these opportunities will come. You'll see them where others won't. It would absolutely manifest. And also, I love your podcast, what you and your wife do as well. And the guests that come on the podcast are educated. And most of them, pardon my just making this assumption, I bet if you called them on the phone, they'd probably answer the phone and talk to you. So they make themselves available. Why? Because they want to share their knowledge. They want to help others. They're heart-centered. And so absolutely, you're spot on when you say that, Matthias, spot on. Yeah. And I think the abundance that people have shared you, the mindset of this abundance. You're right. There is plenty to go around. And I think when you really open yourself up to it, it comes back as well. So I love that. Stuart, if people are interested in learning more about what you do, are you on social media? Are you website? Where can they find more about you? Well, my name is StuartGethner.com. And Stuart at Stuart Gethner is my email address. I bet if you Google me, you'll probably be able to find me. I've been very fortunate. I have 12 online classes for the National Real Estate Investor Association. I teach real estate investing here, as well as I've been very fortunate to be on the Forbes Real Estate Council. So I'm confident if you want to Google my name, if you want to reach out, I bet if you called, I bet I would probably answer the phone. So don't be surprised if that happens. That's awesome. Well, Stuart, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for being so ready to share your knowledge and be an educator to people. It's huge. If you all have got a lot of good nuggets out of this episode, definitely go to REIAgent.com. Sign up for our newsletter. We will send out a weekly newsletter that summarizes our guests for that week. Each episode has its own blog, so you're able to ingest that information that way as well if you'd like. And definitely subscribe on whatever platform you use. We are on all of them. While you're at it, we'd love a review. But, Stuart, again, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been an honor talking to you. Honestly, it's been an honor. It goes both ways. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the REIAgent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week. Visit REIAgent.com for more content. Until next time, keep building the life you want. All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.

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