As a serial entrepreneur, Ryan Pineda has seven core businesses and flips 100 properties a year. On this episode of The Byron Lazine Podcast, we get into why he disagrees with Dave Ramsey, how he got his start flipping homes, and his prediction for the Las Vegas Market.
Take Big Risks
Ryan credits his success to taking risks – he maxed out his credit cards and took a hard money loan with a 12% interest rate to buy his first flip. That deal worked out, earning him $25,000 and starting his first business of house flipping.
While Dave Ramsey famously encourages people to live 100% debt-free, Ryan thinks it’s bad advice, especially if you are young and want to build a business. Of course, there is bad debt out there, like using credit cards to live a lifestyle you can’t afford. But if you use debt to leverage and build your business or invest in real estate, you are setting yourself up to succeed in the long run.
The Long-Term Game of House Flipping
There are so many people who think they can flip a house in four months and make money quickly. And you can. But with house flipping, you need to immediately reinvest that money into the next property – so you never get cash-rich.
From his very first flip, Ryan looked at house-flipping as a business. He has never swung a hammer and doesn’t know how to do the construction side of the work. What he knows is how to scale a business.
Ryan kept his credit cards maxed out for years so he could invest more into his business, do more deals, and hire more people. It was this long-term vision and constant business investment that recently brought Ryan’s first million-dollar month with house flipping.
His main advice for people who want to start flipping houses is to get a mentor. Just like real estate agents need a great coach to fast-track their business, so do house flippers.
Prediction for the Vegas Market
During the housing crash, Las Vegas was hit harder than any other city. Ryan saw houses that were sold for $350,000 in 2008 being put back on the market in 2010 for $100,000.
Leading up to the crash, houses were being built at an exponential rate, and people who had no business getting loans were buying homes above their means. When things went downhill, the homes under construction didn’t get finished and foreclosures were popping up everywhere.
The question is, will Vegas get hit harder than every city again? Ryan doesn’t think so. There was a mini-crash in 2020 at the start of the pandemic: the strip was a ghost town, no one was traveling, and there was high unemployment. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, and investors who kept buying during this time (like Ryan) made a lot of money.
As the market heads into the next phase, Ryan believes Las Vegas is in a better place for three reasons:
- People can afford the houses they are buying.
- There is a big influx of people moving into Las Vegas from California.
- Hedge funds and iBuyers continue to buy single-family homes. And hedge funds aren’t reselling, which adds to the low inventory.
These three factors mean that even as buyers begin to pull back with rising interest rates, there is still a lot of competition for properties. He also thinks the Feds will find a reason to lower rates again to keep the market moving along. Where would the crash come from?
If you want to learn more about Ryan’s journey, head to this episode of the Over Ask Podcast, where he shares more about how he has become fully invested in content creation while running seven core businesses.
