047: Vee Khuu | Into The Real Estate Lab Healthy Wealth

OVERVIEW: In this episode of Fitness & Finance, real estate investor Vee Khuu shares his experiences getting into real estate investing as an immigrant from Vietnam in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, the benefits of investing out-of-state, tax liens & more. 

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: What was Vee’s upbringing like, especially as an immigrant from Vietnam?  Vee grew up playing volleyball and has become a volleyball coach here in the US.  Vee read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, which led him to workshops and coaching in real estate.  When Vee got involved in real estate it was in the middle of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, with tons of foreclosures, so he was interested in buying wholesale from foreclosures.  He found a coach and bought his first property in only three months, and that was only five years after he came to the US.  As someone new to the country, Vee developed the confidence to pursue this line of work after he invested so much money into the coaching that he had nothing left to lose.  Vee learned that he didn’t need any liquid cash in order to make an offer to buy a property, he only needed to put earnest money down once an offer is accepted and contracts are signed, at which point Vee had time to flip the contract and sell the property to turn a profit.  After his second-ever deal went badly and he pulled out of it, Vee and his business partner bought a house to flip themselves.  Ten years later, Vee is interested in out-of-state investing.  Looking ahead, Vee wants to get into commercial investing, maybe with an apartment complex.  To build a team in a new market, Vee suggests doing a lot of research about job growth, population growth, and other data about the area to identify where to search for properties.  You can determine comparable rent in the area by asking other property managers in the area, going to Zillow.com, or RentOMeter.com.   Another option for getting to know an area is to do “mystery shopping,” by calling numbers on for sale signs and saying you’re an out of town buyer looking to move to the area.  People who are interested in investing in real estate but who don’t have a lot of time to wait on the market or shop around because they’re nearing retirement, Vee suggests finding a business partner.  Another option is a tax lien certificate where the government is your debt collector, but it requires a property where someone has defaulted on their property tax.  Vee’s podcast, Real Estate Lab, aims to give you the information you need about real estate investing to earn enough to quit your job.  3 KEY POINTS: Vee met his coach and others who helped him in his career—including Erik—through networking alone.  Out-of-state investing is great because if you make a mistake, it is potentially a smaller financial risk.  Figure out how much cash flow you need and profit you need to make from a property as your baseline so you can determine what deals are a good fit for you. 
TWEETABLE QUOTES: “I was young at that point. I was young and stupid. I didn’t care. I didn’t have anything in the back of mind that this was not going to work. I knew it was gonna work because we bought it cheap, we knew the number, we had our mentor, there was no way that I could be wrong.” –Vee Khuu
“You can live in SoCal and invest elsewhere. You can go to Detroit, buy a $20-30,000 house and get in $800-900 rent per month. Or you can go to Memphis, same thing. Those are towns you may not want to go in, but people live there. People have jobs there and they need to rent somewhere.” –Vee Khuu
“If you want to invest in real estate, I would say invest for cash flow and be an investor not a speculator. You do not want to speculate because you will lose a lot faster than you will win.” –Vee Khuu RESOURCES MENTIONED:  Schedule a time to talk with Erik. Find Erik on Instagram, Facebook, Linke