Looking to take your real estate investing to the next level? Look no further than this episode of the Unstoppable REI Wealth podcast, where Billy Alvaro interviews Matt Hagerty, a highly successful real estate investor from Nashville, Tennessee. Matt shares his story of how he got into the business and what strategies he uses to achieve his goals. He also discusses his goals for the future and how he plans to achieve them. This is a must-listen for any-Matt Hagerty's journey from engineer to full-time investor-How he made his first flips, including a simple rehab that netted him a profit of $90,000-The importance of learning from mistakes and of gaining respect from those you work with-How he almost lost everything during the last economic downturn, but was able to turn his fortune around by being more cautious and strategic with his investments -His advice to other investors is to focus on one KEY POINTS Approximately mentioned @ 00:00:18 Matt discusses how he is able to purchase land and properties at steep discounts and then turn around and sell them for a profit. He breaks down the numbers on one of his recent deals, which involved a duplex. He purchased the land for $125,000, put $500,000 into the build, and is selling it for $850,000. Approximately mentioned @ 00:00:58 You make your money from your losses. Learning from past mistakes is essential to success in any industry, but especially in real estate. Having multiple exit strategies is crucial to weathering any market downturn. Approximately mentioned @ 00:01:07 Matt Hagerty went from being a structural engineer to a successful real estate investor, making a 90k net profit on his first flip. He has since quit his day job and now travels the world, enjoying his life. Approximately mentioned @ 00:21:49 Billy Alvaro's biggest mistake in his real estate career was trying to do too many things at once instead of focusing on one thing and becoming an expert in that area. Approximately mentioned @ 00:28:56 The biggest game changer for me personally in the past year has been making decisions from a position of strength. Approximately mentioned @ 00:29:09 Billy Alvaro talks about how important it is to take action every day in order to achieve your goals. He struggled with fear and insecurity for years, but through consistent action and discipline, he was able to turn his life around. Connect with Matt: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/superhero-by-design/id1649994716 https://www.instagram.com/acehagerty/ And after that head on over to... https://easysell411.com https://billyalvaro.com https://billyssecrets.com Who knows maybe you will be our next partner? To get some neat (and FREE) Tools | Tips | Tricks to help you in REI!
Looking to take your real estate investing to the next level? Look no further than this episode of the Unstoppable REI Wealth podcast, where Billy Alvaro interviews Matt Hagerty, a highly successful real estate investor from Nashville, Tennessee. Matt shares his story of how he got into the business and what strategies he uses to achieve his goals. He also discusses his goals for the future and how he plans to achieve them. This is a must-listen for any
-Matt Hagerty's journey from engineer to full-time investor
-How he made his first flips, including a simple rehab that netted him a profit of $90,000
-The importance of learning from mistakes and of gaining respect from those you work with
-How he almost lost everything during the last economic downturn, but was able to turn his fortune around by being more cautious and strategic with his investments
-His advice to other investors is to focus on one
KEY POINTS
Approximately mentioned @ 00:00:18
Matt discusses how he is able to purchase land and properties at steep discounts and then turn around and sell them for a profit. He breaks down the numbers on one of his recent deals, which involved a duplex. He purchased the land for $125,000, put $500,000 into the build, and is selling it for $850,000.
Approximately mentioned @ 00:00:58
You make your money from your losses. Learning from past mistakes is essential to success in any industry, but especially in real estate. Having multiple exit strategies is crucial to weathering any market downturn.
Approximately mentioned @ 00:01:07
Matt Hagerty went from being a structural engineer to a successful real estate investor, making a 90k net profit on his first flip. He has since quit his day job and now travels the world, enjoying his life.
Approximately mentioned @ 00:21:49
Billy Alvaro's biggest mistake in his real estate career was trying to do too many things at once instead of focusing on one thing and becoming an expert in that area.
Approximately mentioned @ 00:28:56
The biggest game changer for me personally in the past year has been making decisions from a position of strength.
Approximately mentioned @ 00:29:09
Billy Alvaro talks about how important it is to take action every day in order to achieve your goals. He struggled with fear and insecurity for years, but through consistent action and discipline, he was able to turn his life around.
Connect with Matt:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/superhero-by-design/id1649994716
https://www.instagram.com/acehagerty/
And after that head on over to...
Who knows maybe you will be our next partner?
To get some neat (and FREE) Tools | Tips | Tricks to help you in REI!
Matt
00:00:15 Welcome to Unstoppable real estate investing wealth. My name is Billy Alvaro, aka the Unstoppable BA former billion dollar mortgage banker gone bankrupt, turn professional real estate investor, where each week you'll learn the tools, strategies, systems, and secrets my Elf and other highly successful real estate investing entrepreneurs use to start, grow, and scale their businesses, creating massive profits and how you can too. And we'll teach you how to put those profits to work so you no longer have to get ready to finally experience financial freedom and generational wealth. Now let's get started. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the episode Unstoppable RA wealth. I'm your host, Billy Alvarez. Unstoppable BA going to bring it again. If you've been listening to any blood to Time, we try to teach you guys how to start, grow, and scale your real estate investing business. And today's show, I'm going to be bringing on a guy who he's telling me from reading his bio in 2023, this guy is going to be traveling the world and going to be enjoying his life. Mr. Matt Hagerty?
Matt
00:01:20 Correct?
Matt
00:01:21 Mr. Matt Haggerty from,, Nashville, Tennessee. Welcome to the show, brother.
Matt
00:01:25 Yes, sir. Thank you, Billy. Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. I'm super, um, excited to be here.
Matt
00:01:30 Yeah, good. I'm, u super excited to have you on. So Matt, real quick, just two minute backstory. How did you get into real estate investing? What did you do? Prize it is.
Matt
00:01:39 Yeah. So I am a structural engineer by trade. Went to school for it. Started as a consultant for a few years. And it was a really miserable start to my career. And through different ways and, just different experiences, I ended up working for a contractor, doing structural work, design work. And I also ran crews. And from that experience, a, ah buddy of mine who was a realtor, this was probably back close to ten years ago. This was after the Great Recession, and there was, um, a bunch of just bank owned properties and we were doing short sales. And so a, uh, realtor buddy of mine came to me. He's like, hey, you're in construction, right? And I was like, well, I guess so. I'm an engineer and we do structural work, but sure, why not? Um, and he essentially was like, well, I've got this short sale. How about we partner in on it? And I was like, I didn't know anything about flipping other than what Chip and Joanne Gaines did on Fixer Upper. And so some of my guys and we got the property, I guess, with short sales, too. I didn't realize you have to hold on to them for 90 days. And so that gave us plenty of time. I think we threw about 15,000 into the rehab. It was just a lipstick rehab. And we came ahead. 90k net profit for us to share.
Matt
00:03:07 Net profit, 90 grand. Love it.
Matt
00:03:08 Yeah. First ah project took three months. Pretty simple and easy.
Matt
00:03:13 This, ah, was what year?
Matt
00:03:15 This was about ten years ago. So, 2012.
Matt
00:03:19 Is this your aka your Ace?
Matt
00:03:21 Hagerty.
Matt
00:03:22 I'm seeing your name on the screen here, Mr. Ace.
Matt
00:03:24 Mr. Ace, yeah, is my superhero name. That was given to me for my tribe. Um, we can get into that, too. But you would think after making 90 grand on a pretty simple flip, that I would have just quit my job right then and there and became a full time investor immediately.
Matt
00:03:44 No, I would never think that about you, because you're an engineer. You guys are fucking conservative.
Matt
00:03:48 Exactly. And it takes me many times to learn a lesson. I'm one of those people that, unfortunately, a lot of times makes the same mistake over and over and over again. The beginning of my career, yeah, it was kind of like that. I would just do flips on the side. I would work full time and flip on the side. I do a lot of what they call sweat equity, so I do a lot of the work myself.
Matt
00:04:12 Or side action you had going on there.
Matt
00:04:15 What's that?
Matt
00:04:15 Uh, a little side action you had going on?
Matt
00:04:18 Oh, for sure. And I don't know, when I started in construction, actually, my boss had me start as a laborer. He's like, I know you're an engineer. I had multiple degrees. I was licensed out in California, all that stuff. I had the pedigree. But he's like, I want you to really not only see how the work is really done, but I want you to get the respect of the guys in the field. So he threw me out as a laborer, and we did foundation work, seismic upgrades, things like that. So I was literally crawling under houses, pulling bags of concrete, mixing concrete, maybe 18 inches of clearance in some of these houses. I had to decide really quick if I was going to remain, uh, claustrophobic and get out of there, or just stick it in and just stay there with the crews. And so, obviously, I made the decision to stick with it. But, uh, from that, I learned a whole lot about building how things are built, how to budget things, put together, estimates, construction, uh, schedules, how the workers operate. So there was a lot of invaluable experience that happened, but at the same time, it sucked. I'm not going to lie. The whole time I was under there, I was like, man, I never thought I'd be like this. But I've got so much education and degrees, and here I am, just digging ditches, working on a jackhammer and all that. But looking back, great experience. I learned a whole heck of a lot. And when I went to manage the guys, when I got out of the field, they respected the hell out of me. So everything they knew that I did.
Matt
00:05:53 Everything that I do yeah, I know that. Uh, that was small look. You stuck the ass for a little bit, but you pulled out of it. We all have to do that. We have to eat shit for a while. And, uh, when you come out of it, you realize, holy Christ, man, I don't want to do that again. But it's an invaluable experience because you learn from the ground up. You can't from his books, man. You got to get into it and start rolling up your sleeves to figure out what the hell is going on. It's the only way to do it.
Matt
00:06:15 Yeah, exactly. And so I did flips here and there with my partner back in California. And then about five years ago, uh, my girlfriend at the time, we moved to Nashville. And I was like, all right, I'm going to hit it hard. I'm going to become Mr. Nashville flip guy. And Nashville is a hot market today. It was a really hot market five years ago. So I came in thinking I was the bees knees. I was going to flip Mr. Flip guy out there. And very quickly, I picked up a project within the first couple of months. And it took forever. Went way over budget. When we went on market, it was sometime, I think, in the fall. So things have slowed down a little bit. I wasn't super happy with how it turned out. And I never lost money on a deal at that point, but ended up reducing the price, sold it. And at the same time, it was a few weeks before I was getting married. Needed the money. It was everything that could go wrong, went wrong, and ended up just eating 35K right out the gate. So Mr. Flip got, uh, humbled very quickly. What's that?
Matt
00:07:28 You got your ass handed to you?
Matt
00:07:30 Yes, I did. But from that, learned a lot of good things, too. I was in a new market. I had to find new crews. I wasn't using my guys anymore or subs that I had good relationships with. I put the trust in the, uh, GC that I hired and didn't really manage him very well or watch over him very well. And from every bad deal or every time I've lost money, which hasn't happened too often, but every time I've lost money in a deal or had a bad project, there's always so many good things you can pull from it and learn from. And that's what everybody says.
Matt
00:08:07 You make your money from your losses, right? I mean, you'll never make the same well, I don't know. You said in the beginning you make the same mistake a couple of times. So I'm not 100% sure if you're going to make the same mistake twice. But most of us, and I know you're, including you, just making fun of yourself. Before we learn, we lose 35, $30,000, $100,000. We learn quick, like not to do. I'm going to call you Ace now because they see your name is ace. And they matt looking over the last two and a half years of what was going on in the economy, and no offense to anybody, but you can look like a real smart individual simply because the market was in your favor. I know a lot of guys that were just they were betting on the Cum. They were buying these properties with $10,000 margins, like ten grand on a $40,000 rehab. And they're like and, uh, they still make it 30 40,000 because the market was going up so fast. But it's all good when shit is going the right way. In the Midwest and the West Coast, man, it changed quick. And I know a lot of dudes who got caught with the pile of shit in their pipeline that they couldn't move when they're writing down half a million dollar loss. Million dollar loss, $2 million losses. Like, no bullshit, you learn. And it's weird because over the course of the last two and a half years, my team, they wanted to grow more aggressively. I came from 15 years ago when the market imploded, they ended up losing $14 million. Like, I don't want to start over ever again. It's not going to happen. I'm very aggressive, but, um, I'm wiser. From what happened, the experience you learned from the past, I knew that when this pandemic hit that I thought it was going to take immediately. But when it started going up like this, I said, it's just a matter of time. It's going to be two, maybe three years. It's going to blow you losses. I would have lost my ass this time around if I didn't lose. So, um, I'm happy about it, man.You learned from your losses.
Matt
00:10:08 That's right.
Matt
00:10:10 I don't know if that's on your end of my but I never had that before. It's like really bad feedback.
Matt
00:10:14 Do you hear it on, my end? No, I'm not hearing anything.
Matt
00:10:18 Okay. It must be mine. It is what it is.
Matt
00:10:21 Okay,, I was going to say that if you're about 30 years young or younger than that right now, all you've known in your life as far as real estate and everything is good times, baby. Good times. Good times. Yeah. I started in construction right after the Great Recession. And so with the contractor I worked for, we were a good company, but it was still lean times.
Matt
00:10:48 How old are you?
Matt
00:10:50 What's that?
Matt
00:10:50 How old are you?
Matt
00:10:52 I am about to turn 40 in a couple of years.
Matt
00:10:55 You've experienced it. You saw the last downturn. You were young, but you saw the last downturn.
Matt
00:11:00 Yeah. And I knew a lot of investors that just lost everything, went bankrupt, and just over leveraged themselves. And, uh, you know, markets, if you study the history of markets, they usually turn about every 15 years. And we're right on that cusp right now. And it just happens for a variety of reasons. When COVID had hit. People were freaking out, and I just kept pushing. I was like, things are going to continue to take off. But just like you were thinking, too, in two to three years, things were going to come back down. And now, what is it? Within the past six months or so, interest rates have tripled or quadrupled, and the Feds themselves single handedly have just completely slowed the economy down to fight inflation and all of that. But if you don't plan for that properly, you can find yourself in troubleshooting. Yeah, I always tell investors, like, have at least two exit strategies. If you can have three, that's great. But if you go into something with only one exit strategy, you are in for a world of hurt, because you need options. They always say you make your money on the front end of a deal. When you buy the deal, that's when you make your money.
Matt
00:12:16 No doubt.
Matt
00:12:18 For what I'm doing right now, I'm doing new construction,, long term single family spec homes, and also short term airbnb.
Matt
00:12:26 Let's talk about that, right? Because that market right now, what you just said scares the shit out of me. It does.
Matt
00:12:32 It does.
Matt
00:12:33 Because just what's happening in this rate environment, who knows what's going to happen if you're starting to bolt this ground now, like, I know in the Northeast, if I start to put in for permits, it can take me six months to a year and a half to get permits just to get off the ground. So if you think about that, a year and a half, who the hell knows where the market is going to be? I'd be scared shit. So how are you handling that? And you're doing this in Nashville, in the Nashville area of Tennessee?
Matt
00:12:56 Yes, sir.
Matt
00:12:57 How are you handling that? Are you buying at ridiculously steep discounts with the land?
Matt
00:13:04 That's one way of doing it. Where I'm specifically at, uh, right here and now, I have about a dozen projects that I'm working on, and I'm at the tail end of them. So some people could see it as a good thing because, um, I'm pretty heavily leveraged. But at the same time, I'm going to get out of that here pretty soon. Other people can see it as, oh, my goodness, you're finishing this project. What if you finish them six months ago? Eight months ago when? Back in January, February of this year, nashville was just an insanely hot market. Yep. Things were flying off the shelf within a couple of days over asking, no inspections, no contingencies.
Matt
00:13:44 None of that was the whole entire United States. I mean, everybody was on fire.
Matt
00:13:48 Yeah, exactly. And now things have slowed down. But one of our spec homes, we weren't under contract actually this morning for.
Matt
00:13:57 Asking what's the value of these spec homes that you sell? What's the, uh, medium?
Matt
00:14:03 Uh, they range anywhere from about 850,000 to about 1.2 million.
Matt
00:14:08 They're not in the lower end, you're in the higher.
Matt
00:14:11 They are not on the lower end, especially for Nashville specifically. These are definitely, um I wouldn't say super high end, but they're on the higher end.
Matt
00:14:21 Let's break it down, brother. I want to give some value to the guys that are listening. So talk us through these deals. You're in the tail end of the construction phase. Give me an idea of this one that you just got for, um, asking. Go through the numbers. What was your pickup price of the land? What did it cost you for your soft course, your hard cost, your private money course? Let's break the deal down.
Matt
00:14:43 Yeah, I'd be happy to. So this one was, um, a duplex. So in Nashville it's really popular to take a single family home that's just built maybe in the 1950s, just completely run down. You demolish it and the way it zones, you can a lot of times build two.
Matt
00:15:02 Got it.
Matt
00:15:02 So we'll just cut this thing in half. So we got the land for 250. So let's just say 125 and we put let's see, the house itself is about 2700 sqft. All right, I got to do arithmetic. Uh, yeah, so we were building about 180 sq. Ft for about 2800. So let's say we put about half a million into the build and we picked it up for 125. So we're 625 all in. But then you got to pay the banks and all that. So seven and then we're selling it for 850. Take out 7% for realtor fees and closing costs and all that.
Matt
00:15:51 You're making about 100,000 a house. 110 a house.
Matt
00:15:54 Yeah. And that's that's pretty reasonable.
Matt
00:15:56 And what was the time frame at from the time you actually got to do? Because I know in New York that would be fucking two and a half, three years to try to get the subdivision from the time you closed on it to the time you broke ground. And my other question follow up is did you do it subject to being able to get it subdivided or was it just as of right, so to.
Matt
00:16:17 Get it divided, it's just how things are zoned out here. We just got it surveyed and the lot was large enough to put two on. And our architect just drew that up. We went down the codes now to pull permits for that prior to COVID here, at least in Nashville you could get a permit within a week.
Matt
00:16:38 Oh God.
Matt
00:16:40 Yeah. It's absolutely insane. You don't need structural drawings. And I'm originally from California, so here in the southeast part of the country, structural stuff isn't that serious. Like you up, uh, in the northeast you need a structural set of plans, you need architectural plans. Yeah. Here you just need like a half baked architect. They don't even have to be a licensed architect for residential. We're not talking commercial, but for residential. And so usually it would take not very long to get a permit. Well, this was during COVID and all of that. I think it took us a good four plus months. And I used to pull permits in California, so I know all the tricks, and you have to go to the building officials and all that, but it took about four months for us to get permits. And then the build itself, we're going on about month. I would say month 16 right now. Um, but it has been on the market for about a month. I think somewhere between 30 to 45 days we've been on market.
Matt
00:17:39 So it took me a moment to complete the project. Or not yet.
Matt
00:17:43 Yeah, the project is complete and everything. Um, 16 months. Yeah. And that was my first build. Before that, I've flipped houses. I did, um, a lot of flipping, a lot of turnkey rentals, buy and hold. Long term, short term. I've done a little bit of everything. So this was my first ground up, uh, project. So there was a lot of pitfalls when we were buying lumber, that's when lumber was three times historic amounts. What it was.
Matt
00:18:11 I got hit with that.
Matt
00:18:12 Yeah, I got hit with that. And then once we got through framing, then everything else started to go up. So my original budget was about $125 a square foot to build, which is super cheap. And Nashville was super cheap to build in, because I have a lot of builder friends around here. And, yeah, they were knocking out projects around that for good finishes.
Matt
00:18:34 That was your all in. So that was your knock down planning. All your rough everything, foundation, all the way up okay. Was included in that.
Matt
00:18:44 Yes, sir. Yeah, the whole number.
Matt
00:18:46 Got it.
Matt
00:18:47 Yeah, the whole shooting match.
Matt
00:18:49 Got it. 125 is a solid number for an 800 to a million dollar resale value, that's a solid number if you could have got it done. And they told me everything. Just threw us for a loop with all the freaking prices.
Matt
00:19:04 Yeah. Well, the thing is, we were thinking we were making a, uh, killing, because my partner on this deal. So I'm the structural guy, I'm the construction guy. I've got the contractor's license and all of that. My partner, he's the front end and the back end guy, he's a realtor here in town. He found this property. He's the one selling it. And so it worked out really well, because he's front end, back end, and I'm, um everywhere in the middle, we've got our own lanes. We stay to our own lanes, and we complement each other. I've been doing this for ten years, and one thing I've realized, uh, not very quickly. I made this mistake many, many times.
Matt
00:19:40 Yeah, you don't learn quick, do you?
Matt
00:19:42 No, not too quick. Learn it. I've tried the sales part. I've tried seller financing with homeowners and things like that. And one of the things I was never really good at was finding deals and buying deals, and then the back end selling deals. So I partnered up with someone who was great at it, and I was great at building. And that's always when I've made the best business decisions, is partnering up with the people that have strengths where my weaknesses are. And then I have strengths where their weaknesses are.
Matt
00:20:13 That is ultra smart, bro, honestly. Because a lot of guys try to go out there and do it all themselves. And you can't know and do and, um, be all to everybody. Like, we all have a unique ability, our superpower, right, if you will. And that superpower needs to shine. When you stay in your lane and you do the thing that you're the absolute fucking best at, you're going to crush it. And if you bring in partnerships and JVs or full fledged partners, that their lane is their lane. If they're killing acquisitions and marketing and back end selling, bro, it's a marriage made in heaven. Um, I'm not the greatest builder. I bring on people who understand buildings so I can delegate out to them so they can just run in their lane. I don't want to be a builder. We have a construction license, but I don't want to go out there and go underneath the house and start learning from the ground up. Like, I'll wind up killing somebody on the job if I do that. So I bring in people who are the experts, partner up with them. And I'm good with sales and marketing phenomenal. Good with closing, good with structuring the business. But put me in the field for construction. I'll do it if I have to, but it's not I get jammed up by doing yeah.
Matt
00:21:14 Yeah, exactly 100%. So, yeah, so it's worked out really well, I would say. I've been in this for ten years. One of the biggest mistakes I think that I've made so far in my career is I've already, uh, said I've done a whole bunch of things, buy and hold, flips. I'm doing development now, and a lot of investors like myself, you know, it it's like, what's the next big thing? Like, we're like a social butterfly of, oh, I want to try this. I want to try seller financing. I tried that for three to six months. Hey, uh, zero down. You know, let's let's do some subject to stuff. And so I I was, like, doing so many different things instead of just focusing on one thing. Am I a turnkey guy? Am I a flipper? Am I a developer? And so I've enjoyed everything I've done. But let's use this for an example. So it's taken me ten years. I'm on the verge of becoming financially free through my investments, through my developments and other parts of this business that I've worked on. But I have a very close friend who doesn't really know much about real estate. He's up in Pennsylvania. But he's a very good business owner, he runs very good businesses, and he's a huge believer in that book.
Matt
00:22:34 Who not how I just actually seen him this weekend.
Matt
00:22:39 Are you?
Matt
00:22:40 No, I've seen him this past weekend. I, uh, was in Tampa and he did a presentation in front of us. Uh, great office. I got this book here, Ben Hardy. I just got this book.
Matt
00:22:50 That's right, yeah.
Matt
00:22:51 Yourself now. Great book.
Matt
00:22:53 Brilliant. Yeah. Just brilliant concept. Don't ask the question of how to do something, because now you're going to do it. Ask who can do this.
Matt
00:23:00 Yeah, no doubt.
Matt
00:23:01 Being lazy. It's not being lazy at all.
Matt
00:23:03 It's being freaking smart, dude.
Matt
00:23:04 Exactly. Exactly. And so my buddy not in real estate, but, um, a little over a year ago, he was like, you know what? I need passive income. I want to become financially free. And so he bought a few packages in his area in Pennsylvania, in the Poconos, and he ended up doing like, the Burr strategy. He got hard money, picked up these properties, fixed them up, rented them out higher, and then refinanced into long term bank loans. That guy became financially free in about a year and a half. And here I am on year ten, being the structural engineer, being the expert. When him and I talk real estate, I just run circles around him. However, he was all about systems, he was all about business, and he was all about who do I surround with? Me, the realtors, the contractors, the property management. I self managed forever. Uh, just this past year, I said screw self management, and started to get property managers so that my time would be freed up. And I amazing property managers, and they are doing ten times better job than I ever did. Property manager. Yeah. So just lots of lessons to learn. But in real estate, you don't have to be an expert, but you do have to have a lot of good business sense and a lot of common sense. And me being an engineer, I don't feel like I am m the traditional office engineer, but at the same time, I do have some of those qualities. And it shows in the results that have happened throughout the years with me. I'm not ashamed to say that, but.
Matt
00:24:43 Uh, a lot of engineers I know, they get jammed up with the minutiae. They go too much into the detail. They over just about fucking everything. They double question, triple question the decisions that they've made. They roll it over their head a ton of times. And not that it's bad or good, it's just the way your minds operate. Like, you're very structured, detail oriented vision. Me, I'm a complete disaster. I make decisions and I try to figure it out. It's chaotic. And people around me like, dude, you're going too quick. But it's just the way I'm built. I'm built that way. And so we all have unique ability. You got to have somebody in your circle that complements your personality style to get you driving a little bit quicker for where you go. You obviously are bright, dude. It's just uh, from talking to you in the last 40 minutes, 35 minutes, you are bright, you're brilliant. You just hold yourself back, I think from actually going and taking that leap forward because your brain gets in the way. You're overthinking engineer, does it?
Matt
00:25:46 Yeah. No, I would agree 100% 2nd guess over complicate things. And like we talked about being around people with different skill sets. You have to be around different people with different psychological mindsets as well. And you do this real estate, anything they say 80% is psychological, 20% is mechanics. So working on your mindset is such a huge part of this business, any business, but it applies to real estate just as much as anything else.
Matt
00:26:17 I think mindset is number one in anything you do. It's the mind first, everything else second.
Matt
00:26:23 Yeah. And I am on the verge of, like I said, on the verge of becoming financially free. And I feel like the reason it's happening is because mindset this past year had, uh, a few personal things going on. And I just told myself enough is enough. I'm almost 40, I want to be financially free before I turn 40. And I'm looking to hit that goal. But I really had to dig in deep and change my mindset on everything this past year. And throughout this craziness, with interest rates going up, having millions and millions and millions of dollars of bank leverage debt and keeping my cool, keeping moving forward every single day, I'm going to get there. I'm going to get there very soon. And I'm, um let me ask you.
Matt
00:27:10 A question about the mindset thing. Is it fear based? What is it with the mindset that holds you back?
Matt
00:27:19 I would say what it boils down to is fear. At the end of the day, fear. Fear of not being enough. So I'm very educated, I'm very experienced in real estate and engineering and all of that. But everything comes down to am I enough as a man, am I enough uh, as a husband, am I enough as a business partner? And so I would say a lot of what I've had to overcome even specifically this past year is a lot of those insecurities and fears and saying, yes, I am enough. Yes, I am good enough. And just take the daily action that you need and everything else is good. There's so much that's, uh, out of our control. Just control what you can control and everything will take care of itself. And that's what's been happening. Even in the neighborhood where we went under contract on that house today, there's a guy right down the street, another investor, builder, friend of mine, and he did a fire sale. He's going to lose a good chunk of money on. His developments. And my partner and I, uh, were like, well, we don't want a fire sale. We don't want to lose money on this deal. We don't think that's going to really change what's going on right now. So we stuck to our number, and we're getting our number. Obviously, we have to go through the whole process of getting it sold, so I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch. But at the same time, we stuck to our guns. Like, are we going to make a decision in a place of weakness, or are we going to make a decision in a place of strength? And right now, every decision I make in my day to day life is from a position of strength. And that is the biggest game changer for me personally in the past year.
Matt
00:29:08 Well, Matt, congrats on that. And just to share something with you, it's probably no secret, but to someone who listens, it may be every single person, every single man and woman out there deals with some sort of fear based insecurity, whatever the fuck it is. They might wear a mask and not show it, but I'm telling you, everybody struggles with it. It's just a matter of how they actually deal with getting through it. Some get through it a little bit quicker. Some takes a little bit longer. Some never get through. And they like the proverbial deer in the headlights where they kind of freeze up and they don't do anything. But it's born in, uh, as shitty as that sounds, fear is like born in, man. You need to fucking eradicate that thing out of your body. Get it out, get it out of your head. And every once in a while, that shit starts to creep back in your mind, and you just need to push it the hell out. Because it's real. I suffered with it for years. And even still, as great as I feel and as much as I'm doing, every once in a while, that one seed pops in, and it can set you off in a different direction. And you need to just me? I need to just clear my head every single day, man. Clear the cash, set myself straight, meditate, get myself focused, unstoppable for a reason. Because I'm brainwashing myself to be that personality, that lifestyle. Because I'm never going to be put in a position where I'm a deer in the headlights and I don't take action. It happened, man. When I lost my business. I went $14 million in debt, dude. 14 million, uh, just about fucking killed me. And for a solid chunk of time in my life, I didn't know which way to move, because everywhere I went, I was getting hit, man. And it was, like, overwhelming to the max. But it calluses you. It gets to a point where if you allow it, you either sink in and you're like, I can't handle it, or it actually calluses you and you become stronger. I'm lucky. I'm happy that it tells me it may be stronger than what it was previously.
Matt
00:30:56 Yeah, exactly. We're all human. We're all going to experience fear. It's just what we do with it. This past year, January, I did this thing called the 100 Day Challenge that my mentor, uh, put on. And for 100 days, we would do just a whole bunch of things. So I was getting up HM at HM 530 every morning, working out for 2 hours, taking cold showers. I told myself within the 100 days, I'd write a book, which I ended up doing. Um, I lost about £35. I got under 10% body fat.
Matt
00:31:28 Wow.
Matt
00:31:29 I cleaned up the businesses and all this and that and what I learned from that 100 Day Challenge because I never thought I'd write a book before. I've always tried and failed. Tried and failed. My businesses were kind of spiraling out of control as well. And so what I learned 100 days of discipline from the moment I got up to the moment I went to sleep. Shoot, I made my bed every day. I was one of those people that never made his bed. But that was something on my list that I wanted to do. And so I just took action every single day. It's like cardone, uh, with the, uh, ten X, like, do ten times everybody else. And so I took daily action. Completely turned my life around. Health, fitness. Ah, exactly. Within 100 days. And people like hundreds a lot. In the grand scheme of things, 100 days is nothing.
Matt
00:32:21 It's a fucking drop in the bucket, dude. Like, get off off the couch and start making shit happen.
Matt
00:32:26 Exactly.
Matt
00:32:26 You said word, man. You said discipline, man. You have to have this one. And you need to be consistently taking action on a daily basis.
Matt
00:32:33 Yeah. If you interviewed me a year ago from today, completely different person. Low self confidence, just victim mentality scarcity mindset. And right now, I'm finishing up projects. I'm going to be financially free. I, uh, wrote that book. It came out shoot, it came out a couple of weeks ago. I started a podcast. Never thought I'd start a podcast before. Have a podcast that's already ranked top 5% of all podcasts in the world. Like, insane stuff has happened in 2022 for me, when the world seems like it's on fire for real estate, people are flipping out, economy is going crazy, people are scared, and I am having the best year of my life.
Matt
00:33:21 Uh.
Matt
00:33:24 It'S absolutely insane what's happened. And that all started with that 100 Day Challenge. But really, what it was, was yeah, a change in my mindset and daily action every day. No excuses, bro.
Matt
00:33:39 I didn't know this conversation was going to take this turn, but I'm glad it did, honestly. Good talk. Good shit. Um, I don't know you from a whole new world, bro, but I get a sense of your personality. Fucking solid human being. In a year, in 100 days, you change your life around like this because you have the mindset. I don't take you as somebody who had a negative attitude. I'm surprised that you said that. You were one of those real negative type individuals, always looking at the negative side of shit.
Matt
00:34:07 It was mostly just negative self talk garbage. Uh, in my head, I call those guys Saboteurs. My name is Matthew Joseph Hagerty. So I had nicknames for myself Doormat, because I'd let people step all over me. And Joseph was Average Joe. I'm always going to be average.
Matt
00:34:26 Um, even though everything tell yourself over the years.
Matt
00:34:30 Yeah, I didn't have names for them. But that's the negative self talk that I would have for myself. And so that's crazy. Yeah. Getting the superhero name Ace and really having a new persona, ace is the guy that I've always wanted to be. And that was given to me from a group of men that I love and respect so much. And they saw this self confidence in me that I didn't see it myself a year ago. And so I said, you know what? I'm going to be Ace this year. And it's made all the difference in the world.
Matt
00:35:01 I got to tell you what, buddy. You're fucking Ace in this podcast.
Matt
00:35:06 I appreciate that. Honestly. I wrote the book and I was talking to my superhero. Um, by design.
Matt
00:35:14 I love it.
Matt
00:35:15 And so I'm writing the book and I'm talking to my buddy out of the Poconos, the good business owner guy that I was talking about. And he's like, well, you need to promote it somehow. And I'm like, well, I don't have an audience. He's like, why don't you start a podcast? And I'm like, a pod? What? He's like, you know, Joe Rogan and all that. I was like, well, I've listened to Joe Rogan before. Um, I'm a fan of his. But I didn't really know what podcasts were. And so yeah, I started my podcast a few months ago. And that's been going great.
Matt
00:35:43 Good.
Matt
00:35:44 Enjoying it more than anything. Oh, my god. It's so amazing to go on shows and do shows and talk to, like, just really cool, inspiring people. And so that's the whole point of the book. And the podcast is really take control of your life. Take daily action. Be better so you can do better for other people. And the book talks about that. The podcast I get people on that I consider real life superheroes. So the stories are just like inspiring these people that against all odds, made things happen and are living their lives fully. And it's been an incredible journey. I can't believe that it's been less than a year and all this stuff happening. It makes me just even more excited for what's going to be happening in the future.
Matt
00:36:30 And just you realize it's by design. You're choosing your path. You got all the negative stuff fucking crap out of your head, man. Average Joe and Maddie the doormat, I mean, guys are dead, bro. They're gone.
Matt
00:36:45 And like you said though, too, uh, you have to kill those guys every day as you grow, it gets easier and easier. But every day, I call them my clones. I have to kill my clone from yesterday and be better today than I was yesterday.
Matt
00:36:58 No doubt. No doubt. Matt well, this whole thing, I got to tell you, it went for a different spin. But I'm kind of glad it did because I think mindframe and mindset is an important aspect, not just in life in real estate business, but in life in general, man. You have to have the right mindset. You have to have the right persona, the right internal belief systems. M need to give back to your community. And it seems like you're on the right path, dude. Like you're doing something right. So whatever the hell you're doing, continue doing it.
Matt
00:37:25 I appreciate that, man.
Matt
00:37:26 So listen, what's your podcast? I want to give you a shout out. Where can people find you? Online?
Matt
00:37:30 Yeah, podcast. You can find it on any podcast platform. Spotify, Apple, even some of the other ones for sure. It's same as the book, Superhero by Design, by Ace Hagerty.
Matt
00:37:43 Loving it, brother. Are you online? Facebook, Instagram, any of that crap?
Matt
00:37:48 Yeah, Instagram at Ace Hagerty. Facebook. Matthew. Ace hagerty brother.
Matt
00:37:53 It's been, uh, really good having you on the podcast today. This was, uh, a special episode for me. I really appreciate you taking that time out of your day.
Matt
00:38:00 Hey man, I just appreciate you having me on it. It was an absolute pleasure. Is here.
Matt
00:38:03 Cool, bro. Stay on. Bye.