How to Invest in Real Estate While on Active Duty

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

You need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Podcast. What is going on everybody? I wanna welcome you to our first podcast interview of 2019 on the Warrior Soul podcast. Guest today is a really awesome guy.

His name is Markian Sich. And Markian is a US Marine Corps officer, but he's also a real estate investor. And Markian has been able to accumulate wealth through real estate investment while serving on active duty in the Marine Corps. And he's developed a new course. It's called active duty passive income.

And you can find it over at activedutypassiveincome.com. And what he's teaching is he's teaching US military active duty members how they can invest in real estate during their service and create wealth while they're still in the military. Now I wanna tell you why this is important. Because as an active duty service member, even if you're a veteran, but but particularly if you're on active duty, you have the ability to invest in something that's going to give you passive income while you're on active duty. And let's say you you buy a couple of properties while you're on active duty and you start earning rental income from them.

Right? So if you've got these properties, let's say you're you're you're just earning $250 a month off of each property. So you can stack that money, you can stick it into an account. And then as you go through your service, that builds up. And then when you get out, what happens is rather than scrambling to find a job or scrambling to to figure out the next step, you've got yourself set up with a source of passive income while you're trying to figure your life out.

Markian has this down to a science. He's helping active duty military members all over the country to invest in real estate properties. This isn't a get rich quick scheme. I'm I I promise you that. If you know us here at the Warrior Soul podcast, we don't do those types of things here at all.

And I have no business ties to Markian, so me me talking about this does not cause me to profit from anything or anything like that. I'm telling it to you in this way so that you understand the importance of this interview, and so you understand the importance of why we brought Markian onto the podcast. It's a really, really interesting way and a good way for you to potentially have wealth when you're getting out of the military and transitioning. Right? And so you could potentially be 22, 23 years old, having an amazing passive income coming to you as you're getting out of the military.

If you want to go to school, you'll be able to take advantage of your GI Bill benefits while still earning money. If you want to go out there and get a job, you can go out there and get a job while still earning money and potentially having a a good amount of money in the bank when when you're getting out. Right? That'll put you in such a good position. The other thing about Markian is he is a US Naval Academy graduate.

We also talk about you know, for those of you who are looking to stay in the military, we we talk a little bit about the Naval Academy. And and one thing I want you guys to understand, those of you who've been in for a few years as enlisted men, you can all have the ability to, you know, move up through the ranks and and become a commissioned officer if you want. So the naval academy is an option for a lot of you out there who are coming toward the the end of your enlistment. So if you're in the army, the the US military academy, or if you're in the air force, the air force academy, whatever, you know, you're you're thinking about going about. Now I'm rambling.

But whatever you're you're thinking about going about, you know, that's another option for you. But there's a lot of value in this interview, and you guys are gonna get a lot out of it. So I don't want to give you too many announcements right now because that was a long intro. I just wanna say that if, you want to head over to check out our amazing sponsors at F Bomb Nutrition, this podcast would not be possible without them. You can head over to www.dropanfbomb.com.

They've got amazing macadamia nut butters. They mix them up with chocolate, and they mix them up with sea salt, and mix them up with pecan butter. Absolutely delicious. When you head over to www.dropanfbomb.com, use the code Warrior Soul at checkout, you get 20% off of your first order. And with that, let's get into this interview with mister Markian Sich from activedutypassiveincome.com.

Markian, how you doing today, man?

Markian Sich 00:05:54 (link to this point)

I am doing fantastic. Just enjoying an awesome sunny day here in San Diego or near San Diego. I live in Oceanside with the family, and now I'm on this amazing podcast with you.

Chris Albert 00:06:06 (link to this point)

Absolutely. You know, a lot of people sunny day in December, the day after Christmas is when we're reporting this right now. So, you know, a lot of people out there where I'm from in Connecticut, and I'm sure where you're from, you know, people don't just don't get to enjoy that. Right?

Markian Sich 00:06:22 (link to this point)

Yeah. It's almost cliche these days with, like, the whole weather thing, but it's so true. And, like, my wife misses the four seasons. She really wants snow, whereas I'm like, I don't mind living this up right now. It's pretty nice.

75 and perfect.

Chris Albert 00:06:36 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

It that's the big thing that drove me to California in the first place. I was sitting in grad school at the University of Connecticut, and I was freezing my butt off and I was like, I gotta get out of here. Oh my god. But, you know, we've got we've got a whole lot to talk about besides the weather. You have created something called activedutypassiveincome.com.

And you're an active duty Marine Corps officer, and you're doing some amazing things. And I want to get into all that today. First off, tell us a little bit about your background.

Markian Sich 00:07:14 (link to this point)

Okay, so I can go crazy with my background, but I've I've gotten pretty good at just kinda hitting the wickets and getting everybody a good idea. So I my my story is kinda crazy, because I was born six months prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. Two parents who are second generation immigrants from Ukraine ended up going back to Ukraine, and that's where I was born because they my dad was a big nuclear engineer nerd, essentially became a meltdown expert because he just did his dissertation on Chernobyl. And so he needed to get to Ukraine to do that research. And he was the only one, I think, the time that spoke Ukraine and was at MIT.

And and so he went for it. And then after that, that launched him into a whole career working in that whole world with like energy and stuff like that, and a couple of diplomatic missions. And that's why we were in Ukraine. And I lived there pretty much all my life, a couple of years in London and stuff. But I saw a huge contrast.

That's what kind of I think was the the the seed of who I am was living in Ukraine for so long. I mean, everything from my mom having to buy weight in line for milk for two hours, to, you know, when I was born to like, just seeing that kids parents would make $100 a month, and then flying to visit my grandparents in Knoxville, Tennessee, in Upstate New York and going to Dollywood and ride roller coasters. It was just like, it was just two completely different worlds. And I eventually, I remember telling all my friends like, yeah, roller coasters are a real thing. It is amazing.

And when I was like 10, and I couldn't I couldn't understand why it was so radically different in America's like Wonderland. And we would like daydream about going back to my grandparents. So eventually, I come to The States. My parents decide, hey, it's enough of you being in Ukraine, we're going to move back to The States eventually. You need to start buffering that culture shock transition.

So at 15.5, I decided to go to high school, tenth grade, just plunged right in, lived with my grandparents. That was a huge culture shock. Did not enjoy it at first, But then it started to absolutely love America. It just it just took me a while to really get acclimated

Chris Albert 00:09:29 (link to this point)

English at the time?

Markian Sich 00:09:30 (link to this point)

Yes, I did. Because I was actually homeschooled third through ninth grade by my parents.

Chris Albert 00:09:34 (link to this point)

Okay. So I fluent English and everything.

Markian Sich 00:09:38 (link to this point)

Fluent English, but a little bit awkward English. I didn't I I would say some of the cultural aspects of, you know, certain movies and cartoons just like the and the idioms just went right over my head sometimes. But yeah. Like, I'll I'll tell you, I'll never forget the first mom joke I heard. I almost punched the kid.

Was like, you don't even know my mom.

Chris Albert 00:10:03 (link to this point)

Oh my god.

Markian Sich 00:10:04 (link to this point)

I yeah. I had no idea what was going on, And I I thought that kids were brutal. Anyway, so yeah. So here I am in The States, and I'm like, okay. Time college, all this stuff.

And coming up, I I ended up going to the Naval Academy. I wanted to party in college, but when I got into the Naval Academy, my dad's like, you're an idiot if you don't go. And I was like, fine, I'll do it. And I didn't even know anything about the military. Literally had zero clue what I was doing.

Showed up, started to have like, I just got kicked in the nuts and, you know, our Plebe summer boot camp went through all four years, ended up absolutely loving it. I really felt like I was able to become the best that I could be in those four years. It was just awesome, really, getting to know people from all over the country, that were just so motivated. And I really I think it it helped me get more motivated. So I I had an amazing experience, got commissioned as a Marine Corps officer with a pilot contract.

And then after TBS, that's when things started kind of slowly happening for me in a whole other track, so to speak. You know, I'm going through my whole military life working on being a pilot, which, by the way, was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It was it was an I'm a computer science and IT guy and having to memorize lists and then do things with my hands while while reciting it was just not let's just say I was no Tom Cruise.

Chris Albert 00:11:40 (link to this point)

So but let me because I I definitely wanna get into all the entrepreneurial stuff, but this is really interesting for a lot of because you literally came to The United States at 15.5. Then, what is it? Like, two and a half years later, you're at the Naval Academy. And, like, that's that's insane. Right?

That's that's that's pretty crazy because it's not only you going to college, it's it's you stepping into like the epitome, I guess, of America, right? To get into a service academy is really difficult for a lot of people and and there aren't roller coasters there, right? So, you know, it's a very different kind of college experience for most people. So, like, when you said when you showed up, you knew nothing about the military. What eventually clicked in you that said, want to do the Marine Corps?

Markian Sich 00:12:30 (link to this point)

Wow. Holy cow. That that was that's an interesting story because so let me just back up. I I applied to the Naval Academy just because I I kind of like most people are also probably thinking like, you made me realize this, I'm just kind of storming through my story, because typically people just want me to talk about like the real estate stuff I'm doing. But like, so the way that that whole decision process happened was I will never forget this.

I was, I think, a junior. And my parents came to The States. And my dad did like the father son talk about college with me. And I was like, look, you know, there's this school, that school, what do you think? And you're applying here, there and the other.

And I was like, yeah, yeah. And then he's like, you could also, you know, apply to the Naval Academy. You'll probably won't get in, but whatever. And I was like, I don't know. I wasn't even offended because I was like, yeah, but my dad knew me so well.

I think I just subconsciously was just like, I'm gonna do it. I mean, I just I'm gonna apply and I'm gonna get in and just show everybody that I can do it. So I I was the chillest guy at like these congressional, like, or senatorial, you know, what do you interview? I was like, yeah, I was with congressman Duncan. I was just sitting there.

He's like, so why do you wanna do I was like, because it's awesome, and I'm awesome, and I wanna go do this. You know, I was just like, it was not really. I'm kidding. I was not really I was not pompous, but I was just I was chilled out. I told them my story.

I was like, I'm from Ukraine. I know two other languages. I wanna be the best I can be, and the Naval Academy scene's awesome. And I think they were just blown away that like, I came in with like a sweater and my school pants still on and like, whereas other kids were like in full ties and like, you know, they were like, all like jittery and worried. I just didn't I didn't really think that that's what I wanted to do.

So it was never I was never worried. So now that it's answer your question, here I am at the Naval Academy, and all I know is Navy, right? I Marine Corps was not on my radar. It was not again, because like you said, I said earlier, I don't I didn't even know it was. I didn't know the difference between enlisted and officer that probably didn't click till halfway through.

Plebe summer, which is bad. I should have figured that out sooner. If you ask my roommates, they will tell you that I was the shit screen. Like, no, like, everybody's they called me king stitch or stitch daddy because I I was on crutches. I broke my leg two months prior to going, which is a whole story in and of itself. So here I show up. I agitate my break, my leg swells up.

I'm the biggest problem child for everybody. Everybody hates me. And and all I'm thinking is like, well, I can't quit. I have to keep going. Anyway, so I am powering through powering through, And I realized I want to do computer stuff.

So I'm like, I'm going to be Navy, I'm to be Navy, that's all I'm going to do. I'm going to do information warfare. Well, guess what, by the time I graduate, it's not an option there. I could do I think the only other option is you do surface warfare with the option to do information warfare. And so that that allowed me the opportunity to potentially four years down the road after I commissioned to maybe actually hack China and Russia, like I wanted to. I was a total nerd. I did computer science and IT. And I was like, trying to figure out the stock market and predict it with Twitter. Like, don't know. I was I was doing all sorts of crazy stuff.

And I did really fun internships. And I really wanted to I just wanted to hack the crap out of Russia. Honestly, I was like my dream.

Chris Albert 00:16:01 (link to this point)

Yeah. Ukraine, you definitely want to do that.

Markian Sich 00:16:06 (link to this point)

Yeah.

So So here I am, and I get in trouble. I, I had I had a couple of beers at a Toby Keith concert, and I had to go on restriction. And because somebody got caught and somebody found out. Anyways, it's a long story, but I was actually in San Diego on training. And so that kind of put a sour taste in my mouth because I, I don't know why. It was just some of the people that got me in trouble are all on the Navy side.

And then here I was tightly knit with the rugby team, and all the cool guys seemed like they were Marines, and they all went and worked out every day. This is sorry, Navy guys, if you're listening to this. I'm not trying to it's just it's just the people I really aligned with the most, it felt like, was the marines. And my my roommates both went Marine Corps. I was with the same two roommates all four years.

We all went Marine Corps. I don't know. It's just they loved lifting weights more, which that was like a daily thing for me. My roommate would literally make me feel like the biggest piece of crap ever if I did not go to the weight room at least twice a day. His his thing is like, you're sick, go to the weight room.

So only way you can power through it. So, yeah. And then that's just kind of how it happened. I don't know that there's too much really even knowledge into the decision. Like, was you're you're in this environment where you just kind of you end up going with the and doing what with the group that you align with them.

So I was with a bunch of guys that wanted to go Marine Corps and seals. And so I was like, these are the people I kind of align with more. And so that's what I decided to do. But at the same time, I didn't want to compete for one of 26 jobs, MOSs. So I was like, this pilot contract seems decent.

I didn't want to be a pilot at first, I was like, can't be that bad. It's probably fun. The movies are cool. And I kinda got hooked, and my roommate ended up doing it too. And so we both went and got the pilot contract.

So

Chris Albert 00:18:09 (link to this point)

That's awesome. That's an awesome story, man. Yeah. I think I mean, it's part cause I hadn't heard a story like that before and and you know that we a lot of the guys who listen to this they're enlisted and you know, the the they don't even for some of these guys who are 22 years old and at the end of their enlistments, you know, the Naval Academy might actually be an option too, you can go 100%. You know, and head over there after you enlisted, and you might have a leg up on a lot of those kids who are going to be showing up in the ill fitting suits, even though Markian showed up in a sweatshirt and pants and got in.

Yeah. But I think that's awesome, man. That's awesome. You know, and so so those of you out there who who are, you know, young enough, and you're you're at the end of your enlistments, you're considering school, the service academies are great potential for education. Whether you do that or you go to MECEP program and you go to regular college and get your officers commission that way, there's careers for you guys.

Now, we're going to talk about the other end of this now, because Markian is very well known for his side hustle. Right? And it is possible to have a side hustle while you are in the military. A lot of people will tell you it isn't. But Markian's been very, very smart about this, and he's building something that I think is probably one of the more interesting businesses I've seen out there and and something that I think could change the lives of a lot of people.

So so how did you decide that you were gonna start to do this this business?

Markian Sich 00:19:47 (link to this point)

Wow. Thanks for that intro there on the business side. Really appreciate that. So I left off by saying I moved on to flight school after the basic school.

Right. And flight school is the hardest thing I ever did in terms of just like mental wherewithal capacity, like what I had to put in it, because I had to rewire my brain from understanding things to just doing things and doing them very well and in order and memorizing the process and not asking why. There is a level of understanding that has to happen. Absolutely. But it was more like they broke me in that aspect, like they rewired me.

And so I think the reason I'm saying all this in preparation for what I'm going to get into on the business side is because a lot of people are like, and I've had this asked me for like, how did you have time to do anything else in the Marine Corps, let alone in flight school? Well, honestly, I it's just how I'm kind of like, it doesn't matter what I'm doing and what I'm busy with. I always wanted to do something for myself. So for example, you can watch football, or you can do what I was doing. I was obsessing over building an app, Right?

For me, that was more fun than even watching football. I didn't grow up watching football, for example. And the reason I say football is because everybody I know watches football all the time. And I think it's awesome if it's a good pastime, if that's your thing. For me, it was just, I wanted to like for me doing things that are enjoyable for me was just figuring out the next creation, I guess, or the next like, way to make more money.

And the motivation behind all of that too, was because I was dating my wife, now wife, who's also Ukrainian, who was in winemaking school in France at the time. And so the only way I could get to see her is if I had enough money. And traveling to Europe during, like, the one week break I had in training every three or four months was very difficult. So whether it was Christmas or Thanksgiving or in between primary and advanced flight school, like I would find a week and I would preplan it and I would make it awesome. But I needed money.

And I did everything. Was like, doing the credit card game, putting my money away in acorns. And I was like, I can't keep saving money. I want to just make more money. Is that a thing?

Can I like, I make more money? And so we were started developing this app, which is really cool. And I still want to make it one day because it still doesn't exist. But people that want to invest in us wanted us to be full time. It wasn't.

And I told, like, eventually rubber met the whatever the right idiom in English is. I'm still bad at those.

Chris Albert 00:22:36 (link to this point)

Rubber meets the road.

Markian Sich 00:22:37 (link to this point)

Rubber meets the road. Right? Like, I hit a I hit a block. Right? And

Chris Albert 00:22:41 (link to this point)

You hit hit the fan. Yeah.

Markian Sich 00:22:42 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. The proverbial shit hit the fan. It was like, we need you twenty four seven.

I was like, half of the seven of us are going on deployment next year. There's no way. And because I was doing this with a group of guys. And so, I quickly realized that was that I needed to do something that was passive. That's the only way that you can do military.

And that's the only way I could be in the military full time, do my duty and not feel like I'm, you know, not doing extent necessary, like I am actually fulfilling my duties as a military officer, I'm actually trying my hardest in that professional aspect, but also scratching my own personal desire and itch to do something entrepreneurial. How do you know, I realized I need something more passive there. And so I started just diving into that. I literally I think I'd like googled passive income, or like what are ways of making passive income, discovered a couple of people. Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad, which I call the Purple Bible, a lot of people call it that.

And I discovered Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Workweek. Those two books single handedly changed my life. Like I I realized that I can potentially use my computer skills to build a website or something where I teach something or do something. And it could potentially it's just like having a piece of real estate in the internet space. That would, you know, bring me in money on the side while I'm flying, while I'm on deployment, whatever it is that I'm doing, that could potentially just be working for me. And at this and then I'm and then I'm like, I'm also learning about real estate. And I'm like, well, this is like, it just was like a light bulb. I realized, and this is my honest opinion that real estate is the cornerstone of American wealth. And I was like, well, whatever I do on the side or in the military, any money I make with a side hustle or the military, I'm gonna funnel that into real estate investments. I was like, I was so convinced that that is the way that it needs to be done that like my thing, I'm gonna make a shirt one day like side hustle, plus real estate equals America.

Like, that's what I thought. Like, just that's what I thought the formula should be. Just started working on that. I started making websites, a lot of a lot of mistakes, started trying to invest in real estate made a lot of mistakes eventually brought my parents on board and kind of next thing you know, here I am, own a rental property in Georgia, own a 56 unit apartment complex with my parents, a primary residence looking at another apartment complex currently. I have a team of guys who have collectively closed on hundreds of units, and are doing every single facet of real estate imaginable.

And we have a community and an online course that teaches people how to do all of that. Not every single piece of it, you know what I mean? Like, it just it's the foundation. And yeah, it just it happened kind of like serendipitously, organically, without me ever really knowing the exact direction at any one time. And but we finally, after about a year and a half of creating the buying the domain name, I feel like we have a very clear path.

We have a very clear mission. And that is literally to teach military members, veterans, retired reservists, their families how to purchase, buy and hold real estate in America, buy pieces of America that'll give them streams of income and grow their wealth. So that's that's what we do.

Chris Albert 00:26:24 (link to this point)

So when you were doing this for yourself and you were, let's say, you know, you decided to go out there, you got this this this multiunit apartment building and you you procured it, you you went through all the processes. When you were going through that at that point, were you recording and systematizing everything you were doing in order to eventually teach people or or or or to replicate it again for yourself? Did did you look at doing that? Or?

Markian Sich 00:26:54 (link to this point)

That's a good question. So the the multifamily side of the house? No. Even though right now, we are creating a multifamily curriculum that is coming out in several months. The multifamily side of the house, I think in certain regards is easier. But in certain regards, it's way harder because it deals with a lot more money and it just seems scarier. And when I was going through it, I was so concerned with just making sure I'd be able to do it. And I wasn't even thinking about recording any of it. My main thing was I so I started off by just writing an e book. I was like, I just need like, that was my first, like, boom, action step. I was like, I need to write I think I wrote I think I made a quick version of the website, wrote one blog post, and then wrote this ebook.

It was the first thing I dedicated hours and hours to and it was essentially a manifesto to everything I did not do and should have done while in the military from that point forwards. It was called the Military House Hacking ebook. And it was like, because I had seen so many people throughout flight school and wherever I was stationed that had bought houses and rented out rooms or Airbnb did or did something creative and cool ended up making either living for free completely or making money while they're living in their own house off of that house, or just making a huge profit and then scaling and buying more and more and more and getting it for free with their VA loan. And I was just like, this is the way I should have been doing this. This is like, this is the way military members can actually get their foot in the door with real estate investing without completely, you know, like risking their retirement funds or whatever, whatever you want to call whatever most people are scared about.

I was like, there's a way to just do this without any of There's there's a way to buy your primary residence in a very, very smart way, and and be equipped with the knowledge and how to, either exit out of it or hold it on hold on to it forever, and and really, really grow your wealth. So that's where it all started. And that's where once I wrote the book, I was like, okay, now I need to make a course. Because now every now that I've closed on my first rental property, now that I have a couple of guys with me that have done way more than I have, and now that I am now that I've closed on this multifamily complex, was like, I basically devised what I envisioned as being the perfect road map for a military member, where they they blend their VA loan benefits and buying turnkey rental properties or finding rental properties at every duty station, whether it's in the state they're in or outside of the state by creating teams and then just doing it passively over the span of ten, twenty years. It didn't doesn't have to be something you spend eight hours a day on.

And I know that we can't. And that was the way it was designed. I was like, what is a path that is well followed by many military members almost accidentally, and then they find out when they transition to their millionaires without even their twenty year retirement. You know, like, what is what is the formula there? What can we create with the object always being passive income?

Like every single property you purchase, you want it to be something that that puts money in your pocket every month.

Chris Albert 00:30:16 (link to this point)

So so so your main message here is for those guys who who are currently, you know, they're in the military, they're going on deployment after deployment after deployment. They're they're, you know, they it is possible for them to set something up, so that they don't have to go through that financial hardship that occurs in transition, where you're looking for a job, you're looking for new work, you're getting discouraged because people are, you know, you don't know how you can apply your skills in the civilian world or anything like that. This is one potential solution for them, right?

Markian Sich 00:30:54 (link to this point)

Yes. So let's completely sidestep the fact that I'm running an online community because I I don't want that to be the focus here. And in the way you honed in on that is perfect. Is there is a way that even deployment after deployment and no matter what your tempo and how busy you are in the military, there is a way to slowly but surely grow your wealth completely outside of any potential pension you might may or may not get, depending on how long you're going to be in the military. And there is a whole other way to set yourself up for retirement, which, if done correctly, will produce a better retirement, and it'll produce it quicker, and it'll be a lot more tangible and more fun, in my opinion. Because here's the question I pose people. I was like, okay, so what why I asked them, why do you want to hit your 20 so badly? And they're like, well, cause I'm going to get a paycheck forever. And I was like, exactly.

I was like, okay. So I asked them, okay, well, how much do you think that is? Because a lot of times I find out they actually count their BAH and here in California, that's a big chunk of money. Was like, no, no, literally just your paycheck. After that.

And now it's only 40% of that. If you're with the BRS switch over to the blended retirement system, I was like, it's, it's, it's, it's a piece of that pie every single month for the rest of your days. It's awesome. It's the best thing ever. But I was like, what is that?

So why is that so valuable to you? Was it they're like, well, I don't have to do anything. And I just get money. I was like, exactly. So how about we calculate what that is?

And let's see if we can recreate that or even double that or 10x that completely on the side. Like, what is the power behind it? Is it? I was like, you don't have a million dollars in the bank. Why is that couple of $1,000 so powerful?

They're like, well, because it's just coming in. Was like, that's cash flow. That's passive income. That's what real estate investors love, is we want to create little systems, which is essentially just a rental property that just puts money in our pocket every month. And when we have enough of those, that creates passive income that creates that pension that creates that cash flow.

So if you have 10 properties, giving you $250 every month, that's $2,500 I mean, and accounting for all expenses, you know, reserves, everything. I'm saying just the sliver on top that is net, net, net going into your pocket. If you are smart about it, and you get 10 properties throughout your time that are getting you to, know, $250 each, That is huge. That is life changing because you did I mean, that is so much better in my mind than having several $100,000 in your IRA when you're in your when you're in your forties and retiring. Because and I can go into the numbers and explain really how powerful it is.

But it's just for me, it's all about I don't care if I have a million dollars in the bank. I care what I'm making every single month, even if I stopped working. That's that's what I'm trying to build. And that's the mentality we're trying to instill at Active Duty Passive Income. Yeah.

Chris Albert 00:34:12 (link to this point)

Right. And that's I think that's important for people to understand, because I think a lot of guys out there, you know, their paycheck shows up every month, right? And that's the they don't that's the extent of their financial knowledge. They get their pay right, right? And they don't really know much about anything else.

And they don't know that there is a way of making passive income. They don't know that there are ways of increasing the amount of money that you are receiving every month. I certainly didn't when I was in my 20s. I think that people now maybe are getting a better grasp of this because of people like you. Now, let's talk about your course activedutypassiveincome.com.

With your course, what do you do? How do you teach people how to do this?

Markian Sich 00:35:03 (link to this point)

Okay, so with our course, there's essentially three different levels of how we let our students, whatever, take advantage of it. So there's either because we've noticed that there's different of personality types. Some people want to do it all on their own, but they do want to get the information. They want to get the content. So we just have, like our military real estate investing academy is just basically a portal of all of our educational material that we've created, plus those initial core modules.

And it's just all in there. And any educational material we create, we just throw it in there. It's just a portal. Right. Then we also have we call we have a social network called Start the Spark.

And it's essentially imagine having Facebook, but it's our Facebook, and we call it it's hosted on what's called Mighty Networks. It's a really cool system, and we're eventually gonna have our whole own separate app. But we we on there, we host our social network, and it has a private group called our priority group. And those are the guys that when they come in and they wanna be part of the group mentorship, so they got the education. And now they're like, okay, I wanna actually have you guys help me close on my first property.

Because I because sometimes, you know, education or my good friend here, buddy rushing, he he has a whole education program too. He has a group out here. Like, always says right foot, left foot, like education, your left foot and action is your right foot. If you keep taking left steps, you're going go in circles. So you need to take one after another.

So we have this group and we're literally we open it up to our office hours. You know, we're like, if somebody wants to jump on a call with us, and like, just because they're stuck in some certain part of like figuring out how to what their next step should be, or we have we have the monthly zoom calls where we just talk, dive into their personal situations and figure out what the next step is. We have really good relationships with a couple of turnkey providers. And what turnkey providers are is they're essentially people that are professional flippers, they find homes that are, you know, ugly, dilapidated homes, but in good areas and good schools and good job market growth. And they completely renovate them, gut them, put warranties on it, place a tenant in there, wrap it in with a property management and pass it off to the investor who buys it.

And the numbers already should make sense. You know, part of our education is you have to run your own numbers, and you get a property that is turnkey, it's ready to go. It's already cash flowing day one, you're making net net net profit in your pocket every single month. So that's what that's what the priority group is, we help guys literally get to the closing table. And then now we just I'm not sure when this podcast is going to come out.

But you know, we're just about to launch We've already come soft launched it. We have a full of guys in there with us right now, but kind of our coaching program. And we were very hesitant about creating a coaching program initially, because I didn't want to again, we're trying to do this on the side. I don't have all the time in the world to jump on phone calls with people every time. Like, well, what we discovered is this awesome app called Voxer, and we just literally it's like a live walkie talkie.

Whenever I have a minute, I and Voxer and answer over and somebody talks, you know, we have guys from Sigonella, Italy, Germany, Bagram on deployment, you know, Japan closing on properties, talking to us from all over the world. And we just like tap talk and we coach them through the next couple of steps. And then they just move on and they're talking directly with our team and with the other guys, and we're creating, we're about to create tax channels in there. We just actually started our tax channel with a tax professional, and we're going to do a legal channel and a whole life insurance channel, all sorts of stuff. All the pieces to the puzzle is all live and interactive and you hear each other's voices and it's so much more powerful even in like a social network.

That's like the whole other level. Like, if somebody really wants to, like, you know, we're gonna hold you accountable to be a contributing member and actually, you know, we're gonna make sure you get to the next step. But it's it's a whole other level, and it's it's opened up so such an amazing opportunity even for us just to to to feel the energy. So long winded, but that's it's just a lot that we're that we're trying to do right now. And it's a team of five guys that every single type of real estate investing for wholesaling right now, We have one of us has done multifamily, mobile home park syndications in the hundreds of units to buy rent, you know.

So basically what's called BRRRR is you buy, renovate, rent and repeat. And so that's like a method where you buy you buy a home, you completely you completely renovate it, and then you just hold on to it and you rent it out. Oh, sorry, I missed refinance. Refinance. And so point is, and I'm not trying to throw out a bunch of technobabble to people that are first time hearing about real estate, but every single thing you can think of our team has done.

And it's just it's just fun. See, seeing, you know, guys jump into this world for the first time and realize exactly what we talked about. That cash flow is the new mindset, and we kind of help them get those properties.

Chris Albert 00:40:18 (link to this point)

That's awesome. That's awesome. And so you're you currently launched and you're launching your multi property course. When what do you know the dates that everything's going to be launching out?

Markian Sich 00:40:31 (link to this point)

So the multi property course that's like, probably three months out right now, three or four months out. We haven't actually set a hard date on it, because that's going to have a lot of moving parts to it. So right now, our our military real estate investing academy is really mostly geared towards single family and that side of the house. Multifamily is a whole completely different beast, which, I mean, I am equally as excited about. I can't wait for it to come out.

But, yeah, that's that's like one of the other big things.

Chris Albert 00:41:05 (link to this point)

So that's cool, man. That's so cool. And and so they can find all this stuff of that at activedutypassiveincome.com. Correct. So you're building this out, you're building this business out, you build this you built this course out.

Where do you see this company going in a year?

Markian Sich 00:41:27 (link to this point)

In a year? Well, I think we're gonna have we have a couple of surprises coming up. I really think what's gonna end up happening is we're gonna just it's gonna be a perfect blend of technology and in the modern social interaction, blending with actually doing deals and getting military members to have that epiphany moment like that. I think I want it to literally be the one stop shop. Like if, you know, a couple is on their go just came like, I don't know, let's say a marine Lagoge just got back from his first deployment, just had his kid and him and his wife are like, holy cow, we need to look at our finances and they find us.

We will be like the one stop shop. Like, this is your path to financial freedom. Like, this is what you need to do. This is how you figure out what you need when you retire. And this is how many properties that'll take.

This is you know, they'll be able to build out their own roadmap and figure out, you know, if I stay in the military ten more years at this savings rate, and this is what I'm going to be doing. Boom, I'll have 22 properties by then, and I'll be making $8,000 cash flow and I'll be able to retire. And so that we want it to be that perfect of a solution in a year from now. This is our if 2018 was our crawl phase, 2019 is our walk phase, and then 2020, it's we also wanna start teaching people about side hustles, like how to create ADPi on their own if they wanted to.

Chris Albert 00:43:00 (link to this point)

Wow. But yeah. That's so that's amazing. And that's amazing concept. I just wanna point out to everybody because everybody's out there talking about how to become a millionaire or how to get a million dollars in the bank.

But it's really as simple as figuring out how you can get paid the amount of money that you need to to live a comfortable life each month for, you know, through a passive system. It's literally just that. And in in real estate, a great way to figuring that out. And, Markian, you know, you're you're doing amazing things educating people about this.

Markian Sich 00:43:35 (link to this point)

Thank you. Right. We we really, really love it. We really, really try hard. Not gonna lie.

Like, I mean, we are we're the real deal. We we we we try to help people to the max.

Chris Albert 00:43:46 (link to this point)

Now you've got a book out there. How do people get access to that?

Markian Sich 00:43:49 (link to this point)

Right. So we do have a book called so that ebook I was telling everybody out about, we rewrote it completely, had to gut it and start from scratch. It's called the Military House Hacking. So you can either Google it, Amazon it, what what have you. You can go on our website, activedutypassiveincome.com.

It'll be right there on the front page. Or if you guys want super easy method, if you just text house hacking, it's just one word, no spaces, to 345345, you'll get, like, a response, and we'll basically just email you the the book, a link to the book so you can just, like, have on your phone. It'll just be in PDF format. You can read it wherever. But, yeah, it's it's available on Amazon and Kindle and paperback version if you guys want, on there as well.

Chris Albert 00:44:39 (link to this point)

Awesome. Awesome. Mark, number one, want to thank you so much for coming on here. You've got an amazing story, and you're doing really awesome things. Number two, you know, I want to have you back on soon once once you get your multifamily multifamily course out to talk more about that and to follow-up with you on this because like I said, I think this is absolutely interesting and and I hope all of you out there who are listening to this, follow-up on a few of these lessons.

You know, we talked a bit about for those of you who are staying in the military, how you could expand your career and potentially think about taking the path that Markian took. But for those of you, whether you're thinking about getting out or you're thinking about staying in, you know, think about everything Markian said here today. I hope it opened your eyes as far as routes that you can take in in terms of improving your income, improving your wealth, and improving the ease of your transition when you do eventually decide to get out. So Markian, thank you so much. Everybody get over there to activedutypassiveincome.com.

And we're gonna get all the links that we talked about today out in the show notes. You have any last notes, Markian?

Markian Sich 00:45:53 (link to this point)

I I can talk forever, but I honestly, guys, I'll I'll tell you what. If you go on our website, you can email me. You can Facebook me. Add me as a friend. You can if you honestly, if you join our priority group, you'll have access to all of our team.

Like literally, you can call us up. I think Mike Foster, our podcast host, has his link on our website that you could just you could just jump on a call and just like if you have any outstanding questions after this, after hearing what I said today, like we would love to talk to you. Oh, and on our website, we even have like a little chat bot. We're super nerdy like that. You can literally type in there, and me or Mike will respond to you.

Just make sure you leave our email because if you jump off the website and I start responding, you'll never get. So, yeah, we I don't know. We we absolutely wanna talk to you guys just just to help. And then if you guys wanna jump into our community, go for it. If not, no worries.

This is one thing I will say, it's for everybody, but it could be for everybody. It's all mindset. Like, if you're if you're up for the challenge, if you wanna really change your trajectory, go for it.

Chris Albert 00:47:07 (link to this point)

Awesome. Awesome. Alright, guys. You've heard you've heard what's up. Get out there and live your best lives while you can.