Cody Sperber
Appearances
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
So I bought a building for 4.25 million. And at that time I owed a couple million dollars in taxes. I could have taken my millions that I had saved up to pay my taxes and paid my taxes. Or I could take my same millions and go put it down as a down payment, plus use some leftover money to repair the building and improve the property.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Well, it's physical. I like that it's physical. It's tried and true. It's very proven. You know, there might be it's kind of a future proof business because, you know,
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
you know uber uh wiped out taxi drivers but at some point uber drivers are screwed right because they're gonna have self-driving cars well even if the car's flying i don't really care they're gonna park it in a garage somewhere and go sleep somewhere and so the the real estate side of things always made a lot of sense to me um there's a lot of tax benefits for it financing is in place there's a lot of laws especially here in the united states to protect your assets as long as you're not in a
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
you know, where squatters can just live in your property for free forever. But yeah, it's just, and it's accessible to anybody. I know immigrants that come to this country that English is their third language. They have very little money to their name. They're working as a dishwasher or whatever. And they save, save, save, save, save.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And they get in a duplex and they live in one unit and they rent out the other. And eventually a few years later, they sell that. They get into a fourplex and live one unit. And then they keep house hacking their way up. Next thing you know, they're 25 years in. They got millions of dollars worth of real estate. They got huge apartment complexes and they're financially free.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I love that that's a vehicle that anybody can get in no matter where you start.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Well, unfortunately, a lot of us aren't taught how to be successful. I think, you know, it's like you're doing the best you can with the resources and the knowledge and the environment you grew up in. But if you want more in life, more joy, more control, more freedom, more money, then you've already taken yourself as far as you've been able to take yourself up to this point.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Well, you get in proximity to somebody else that's maybe, maybe you live in an apartment and you get around somebody that has a $300,000 house and you're hanging around people that are making 150 grand a year, you start to think that, well, what are you listening to? What are you reading? What do you do? What's your habits like? And you get exposed to another level of thinking.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
We're really in three main areas, affordable housing, land entitlement, and then large developments where we're actually working with a lot of quick service drive-through, massive chains, the things that you've all heard of, the Chipotles and the Farmer Boys and Chick-fil-A's of the world and that kind of thing.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Well, eventually you're gonna tap out there and maybe you say, well, I want a $500,000 house. I want a million dollar house. I want a $5 million house. Every time I put myself in proximity to somebody playing the game at the next level, it exposed me to a new set of principles. And it's up to me. Nobody's coming to save us. It's up to me to put in that work. It's up to me to invest in myself.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And we've all heard like, you know, the best money you can ever spend is on your own self-education because it's true. You're going to increase your skills and capabilities. You're going to add more value. And yes, there is a moment. I'll end with this. There is a moment when you put yourself like, let's say I'm making $500,000 a year, which is more money than our parents ever made.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And we're feeling like, wow, we're doing really good. And then we get around somebody making $2 million a year.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
there's gonna be a moment when you're trying to push yourself into that next level where you actually go backwards for a while because you're new, it's scary, there's more things to learn, there's more things you're gonna screw up, but that's exactly when you know you're in the right place.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
You're pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, you're kind of feeling like, God, this isn't happening on my timeframe, it's not happening fast enough, maybe I'm screwing up, whatever that self-limiting belief is, but the reality is you're doing all the right moves because then you're gonna springboard forward and all of a sudden level up
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And that's a beautiful thing because your kids are watching, your family's watching, your spouse is watching, your people are watching. And it's up to you to be the leader and set the standard and remind everybody else of their shortcomings so that way they want to level up as well.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Let's start with the benefit for the people. I do it because when you're standing on stage and you're looking out in that crowd, and I've had thousands of people attend my events. I've spoken on tons of stages over the last 15 years.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
When I look out in the crowd and I see the eyes of the people and I'm able to shake their hands after we get done speaking and meet them and hear their stories, it's so inspiring to know that I was that person. I got on a plane, scared to death. I looked like I was 15 years old. I didn't know if I could do this real estate thing. I'm dead broke, piece of shit, Nissan pickup truck.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And we're helping them find locations, working with the city and then getting their buildings built so they can run their businesses. So that's on the real estate side of things. I started Clever Investor, the online education brand in 2009. That's what a lot of people on social media know me as. Just started teaching people how I was doing what I was doing.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
But I got my butt to an event, a Jack Miller event. And I'm standing in the back and I'm feeling total imposter syndrome. And I'm super quiet, but I'm seeing success happening. I'm learning new things. I'm meeting people doing the thing that I'm dreaming about doing. And then I go to another event and instead of sitting in the back, I sit in the middle.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And I go to another event and I work my way up to the front. Now I get more courageous each time I put myself in that environment. And events and masterminds have moved the needle for me more than anything else that I ever have done in my life. I can read every book, watch every YouTube video, but you put yourself in that environment and everything integrates, internalizes, and changes for you.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And you never know, one relationship can change everything. One sentence that somebody says to you at one of these events can change everything. I met my first mentor at an event. His name was Lyle Wall. He changed everything for me. I was struggling. I was overwhelmed. I was drinking from a fire hose. And that man helped me become who I am here today.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And there's no amount of money I could have given him or paid to go to that event because the benefit was so just outrageous and life-changing. And what I love about the Man in the Arena event is it's bigger than just content. It's bigger than just, hey, come to this event, get motivated and learn a thing or two. No, this is a movement. This is powerful.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
When I was listening to you and Garrett talk about it, I was like, damn, I wanna go to this event. I don't go to any events. I don't even wanna go to events anymore. Like I'm so busy, but I'm like, I wanna go to this event because it's powerful. It's it and the world needs what you guys are doing right now. And I'm not saying that to pump your chest or puff you up or anything.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I really believe what you guys are doing is gonna create a army of men out there specifically that are gonna go out there and do great things and lead us to where we need to go because we need it more than ever right now.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah, so masterminds are really cool and unique because there's not a lot of places business people can go to be around other like-minded people doing the same type of things as you. Our friends aren't always doing this stuff. Our family doesn't understand a lot of times. And there is this unique thing that happens when you cut a check. Versus, and there can be free masterminds.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I'm not saying that they can't be free, but there's something that happens when you cut a check, especially a big check. When you show up in that room, you're intentional. You're there to serve. You're there to network. You're there to build. You're there to help. You're there to grow. And you're very intentional.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And I've never cut a check and joined specifically a business mastermind or a personal development mastermind that I didn't get 100X ROI on my time and my money. I've gone to a lot of events where you're like, some events are good. Some are kind of lame. Sometimes they just talk at you. Masterminds are experiential.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And that was supposed to be something small on the side. I just love talking about real estate and it grew into one of the largest online education brands and had about 85,000 students come through that, which has been a real blessing because I love real estate and I love what it's done for me and my family and I love talking about it. So it was a match made in heaven.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
You're breaking down real problems and challenges in your life, in your personal life, in your business. We just did a round table at the 100 mil mastermind the other day. Everybody's talking business. This one guy's talking about his daughter and the challenges he's having with his daughter and how she was having a lot of problems.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
in tough feelings around like the way she looked and the way she felt and her friends and stuff. And everybody that was a parent was piling in, helping in this person. And by the time we were done, we were almost all in tears because it was so powerful. Just a quick 15 minute session with somebody guaranteed changed everything that he's going to do when he goes back home with this family.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And you can't get that very many places, but you can in a mastermind.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Because when you're doing things for more than money, when you're fighting for something bigger than a check, when there's a passion and a purpose behind it, People galvanize and work way harder and go above and beyond because of that.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Every one of my businesses, since I met our friend Cole Hatter, and he kind of taught me about this for-purpose concept, all my businesses have a charitable component built into the business model because I'm like, yeah, I want to make a lot of money, but I want to make a lot of impact at the same time. I want to feel good about making money. We've all heard that rich people are greedy.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I don't think that at all. I think rich people are the most generous people I've ever met. At least my friends are, you know, I don't hang around asshole rich guys, you know, and all the ones I know are like you. They're donating tons of time, tons of money, tons of connections, tons of resources all the time. It's just part of who they are.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And when you put that into a company like my company, Green Elephant Development, every house we build, every property we build, a portion of our proceeds goes towards elephant conservation. A simple thing that you can do, but I want to save as many elephants as I can. There was a Steve Irwin video I saw one time where he was like, give me all the money.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I want all the money because I wanna buy all the land and save all the animals. And I was so inspired by that thought. I was like, damn, I'm not doing enough. Maybe I can integrate it into the business. And it's been cool because when we build a house and we donate the money and we sponsor an elephant, We actually show the homeowner or show the building owner the elephant that we sponsored.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And they think it's super cool. It became part of our brand. And what do they do? They go around and they tell their friends, their family, like, look, we sponsored this elephant when we bought this house or this building. And everybody thinks it's cool. And then they remember Green Elephant Development.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
So it actually helps you with referrals, helps you make more money, better reputation, lower refunds, lower just problems after the sale. And the team loves it. They get behind it.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And then recently, I took some of my real estate monies and my education monies and I started a business called Floor Daddy. And we're literally selling flooring, which is a whole new industry. But all of the things I learned in growing my other companies apply towards this industry as well. And I'm really passionate about it because everybody has floors.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
So this is a tough one because my... Conversations with them up to this point, now they're 14 and almost 16, where you're not getting money. You're getting, you know, I'll make sure their housing and their medical and all that stuff is there. And maybe at age 37, they'll get a small amount released every single year to them to play with.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
But my goal is to set up a foundation that they can run and help do more charity, help do more, make more impact. And if that is something that they're passionate about, I would love to have them as involved in that as humanly possible. But I don't see a moment where they get this huge bucket of money and they could just, you know, do whatever they want with it. Yeah.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah. So with Floor Daddy, we're local in Arizona right now. If you need new floors, we would love to help you with new floors. We'll take really good care of you. But nationwide, we have something else called Super Cheap Floors, which is our wholesale division.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And we can help anybody who needs a small amount of flooring, a large amount of flooring, cabinets, countertops, all the stuff you would put in a house, blinds, AstroTurf. We can sell it all. We can ship it to any state. We can help you find an installer. It's more of a wholesale thing. We work with a lot of designers and contractors and stuff like that.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
So that's on the floor daddy side of things. You can just go to floor daddy.com. And then if you want to learn anything on real estate, go to clever investor.com or look me up on all social platforms at official Cody Sperber or at clever investor.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Not everybody wants to learn how to flip a house or do a real estate deal, although they should want to know a lot about real estate because I haven't paid taxes in years. But everybody's got floors, and I love businesses that are kind of future-proof, AI's not going to disrupt them, and that are very scalable, that everybody can be my customer.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And then I did what's called a cost segregation study on the whole building and all the improvements I made. And then I accelerated that depreciation from accelerating my four and a half million dollar building into the first year, wiped out over $2 million in taxes, but I still own the building.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Well, where are you starting? What's your passion? And if you've got a lack of funds but a lot of hustle, and you're willing to put in some work to increase your skills and capabilities, you can start like I did, wholesaling houses. That's no money down real estate. There's a lot of creative real estate strategies out there. Wholesaling is one of them.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Taking over somebody's mortgage is a great way to get into a deal. Getting the seller to, there's a tremendous amount of free and clear properties out there. And there's softwares that literally tell you, here's one, here it is. You could do a quick search and get every free and clear property in your local area. And if you approach those sellers and say, hey, will you be my bank?
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Will you participate in giving me the funding I need to buy your property off you? Maybe they're retiring as a landlord, but they still like the cashflow. there's a deal to be worked out there. So you got to squad up with somebody that's teaching this stuff. My favorite educators beside myself at Clever Investor would be like a Pace Morby, good friend of ours. He's great at teaching.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I try to find people that have great communities and that are very passionate about teaching because it's an art form to teach. It's not about the money for me. I don't really care about, we make money naturally just because we're passionate about it. And so I would squad up with somebody like that that has a good community and just get started and don't overthink it.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Don't put too much pressure on yourself. Just get out there, make some calls, make some offers. You'd be surprised. My first deal, I made $40,000. It changed my life and I never looked back since then.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Well, it's kind of the we buy ugly houses concept. I see that billboard everywhere. Yeah, so well, what are they doing with their properties? Well, the way it works is if you look down any American street right now, it doesn't matter which one, 85, 90% of the houses and the owners that own those homes, they're not motivated at all. They got good jobs or they're financially stable.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And they're just living their lives. If they go to sell, they're gonna sell through a real estate agent, they're gonna take their time, they're gonna try to get top dollar, whatever. But 10 to 15% of those homeowners, at any given time, life is gonna run them over, right?
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Death, divorce, inheriting an unwanted property, fire damage, flood damage, old, ugly house, doesn't qualify for a new loan, whatever. Well, when that happens, historically, Americans are pretty bad savers. And so all the money that they have is trapped in their house.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And so if you can learn some skills on how to market yourself to get out in front of those people when they have one of those opportunities, Problem properties or personal financial problems. And you show up and say, hey, I can help you get that money out of your house very quickly. You don't have to pay commissions. You don't have to wait three months to sell it traditionally.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And then you can work out a deal to put their house under contract. When you put their house under contract, even though you haven't bought it yet, you now control their real estate. And we can take that contract and I can go to a guy like you, Dan, that's got more money than time and you're looking for good investments. And I can say, hey, Dan, I got this house.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
It's worth 250,000, but it needs a ton of work. I'm into it for 175. I'll give it to you for 185. Would you be interested in it? And you might say, 185, that's a smoking deal. I'll take that deal because not only will I rehab it, I'm gonna rip off the backside of the house, put another bedroom bathroom. And I don't even think it's worth 250. I think it's worth 275. or 300, whatever.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And it's a perfect deal for you. So I become a middleman, a matchmaker. I take the motivated seller and I take the cash buyer and I work the deal and I put them together and I get paid a wholesale fee, AKA an assignment fee for putting the deal together. And you don't need a real estate license to do this. That's what's great because you're doing this on your own behalf.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
That's the workaround on why you don't need a license.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah, well, I have became one of the biggest, best marketers just by necessity. And starting in 2009, social media was just starting to come around and buying ads on social media and funnels and copyright and all this stuff. And I had to teach myself how to become a marketer. And I became pretty good at it. And we made over $150 million selling education online through my Clever Investor brand.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
But there is a ceiling to it. And I have these amazing skills of starting and scaling businesses. I got these great marketing skills. But I was looking for a vehicle that was really big. I didn't want a vehicle where AI was going to disrupt it anytime soon. If you're... plumbing goes down, you're calling a plumber. If your roof has a leak, you're calling a roofer.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
There's certain industries that are, I don't want to say forever future-proof, maybe there'll be some Tesla robots. Yeah, but for a while, those businesses are tried, true, boring businesses that haven't really innovated or switched up their marketing angles yet. And here comes a guy like me. I don't know anything about flooring, although I've installed a lot of floors in my development projects.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And I just saw this huge market and we called it Floor Daddy because I'm a branding guy and a marketing guy. I was like, let's make it memorable. Sexy floors, affordable pricing, quality install. We got a little jingle. It's a cool name. It's memorable. And then I was my plan was just to out market everybody. And build a really great team, scale it.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And plus the last reason I went into flooring is private equity loves it. It's a very sellable business because it's not based around a person. It's not like my clever investor brand. It's like based around Cody. Whereas floor daddy, I don't really work at floor daddy that much. Personally, I'm not on the front lines. I'm not installing floors.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I'm running marketing and working with the team and the culture building. And that's a very cool business. And I have a great mentor in that business. His name is Tommy Mello. He owns A1 Garage Doors, one of the largest garage door repair companies in the country.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
billion dollar evaluation about to have a second exit great mentor for me and we're like backwards engineering a sale my whole plan is to scale this thing for five years and sell a portion of it to private equity keep scaling use use that capital to keep scaling and then eventually maybe do it a second time and i'm sick and tired of seeing my friends like you get rich i want to be like you dan
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah. So first I squatted up. I found some great partners, brought in Tommy, gave him some equity and said, hey, I want you to guide us. I brought in a couple of my best friends that I've been friends with for 20 years that were really great human beings that had complementary skills in me, like operation skills, finance skills, those kind of things. I took over charge of the marketing.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I immediately went out there and I don't want to say I stole because I didn't steal, but I definitely did a good job enrolling one of the CMOs from our biggest competitor out there. And I said, what do you need to make in order to work for me? And he gave me a number. I said, done.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And so I started building a team by bringing in other industry experts that have lots of experience, which cut our learning curve way down. And I'm also a very aggressive marketer.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I'm willing to spend a lot of money, screw a bunch of stuff up, build systems very fast, throw a lot of resources and energy at things in order to go quick because money loves speed and I don't want to be in the small phase for too long. When you're small, you die. Everything is painful when you're small. And I've screwed everything up. We were going so fast.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
We're already doing over about 1.1 million a month right now. We're 10 months into this thing. And I'm installing floors in the wrong houses. We're not doing sub floors, right? I have to rip stuff up, get people free floors. Like there's lots of challenges on the quality control install side when you're bringing in that many customers this fast. But I love it because we're learning a ton.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
We're building systems around it. And I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel where this thing's just going to get that exponential return.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Money flows where the energy goes. Maybe something like that. Yeah, I just, you know, you need to be the biggest cheerleader of yourself and your brand and your company at all times. And there's a lot of noise out there. People are distracted constantly. And so you got to kind of cut through that with the right messaging, the right hooks, and the right repetitiveness. Like, it's really...
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
you do get this exponential return on your marketing spend And you have to have marketing stamina. You really have to keep doubling down, doubling down, doubling down, tweaking, testing, tracking until you get it right. And over time, especially with flooring, you don't know when your customer's gonna need floors, but you gotta have that jingle in their head. You gotta have that messaging.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I bet you right now I can go into Arizona and say, name three flooring companies. And before Floor Daddy was around, they probably would have been able to name one, maybe two. And that's because they're on TV. They're on the billboards. They got a jingle. And then here comes floor daddy, small little company. I'm now competing with guys making hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
We're this little company and they're fearing us already. We got a fleet of cyber trucks. We got jingles. We got commercials. We got billboards. We're doing everything the big boys are doing. And trust they're paying attention. And it's a good thing because we're seeing the call volume scale every single month, month after month.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I think maybe.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
I own a Tesla and I don't even do the self-driving, so I don't know if I would.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah, that would not be good.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Yeah, so there's something out there called depreciation, right? And the government kind of tells you what they want you to focus on. And you can depreciate a lot of assets, not just real estate. But with commercial real estate specifically, you could do this thing called a cost segregation study. So I bought a building for 4.25 million. And at that time, I owed a couple million dollars in taxes.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And so I could have taken my millions that I had saved up to pay my taxes and paid my taxes, right? My millions are gone, the government gets paid, and I move on to make more money. Or I could take my same millions and go put it down as a down payment, plus use some leftover money to repair the building and improve the property. And then rent that building out.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
This particular building was an 18,000 square foot building with six different 3,000 square foot suites. And so we used some of the suites for our businesses and we rented out a bunch of the other suites. And then I did what's called a cost segregation study on the whole building and all the improvements I made. And then I accelerated that depreciation.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Well, first off, thanks for having me on. Appreciate you, brother. Yeah, I've been in real estate 22 years, done every type of deal under the sun, thousands of transactions, started off with no money down, really small houses, built my way up to doing big commercial development deals. Like you mentioned, that was a very nice intro. We've got a lot of commercial development going on right now.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
So instead of taking it over, say, 37 years, I was able to take it in the first two or three years. And it's changed a little bit since I bought there. Bonus depreciation used to be at 100% when Trump first got in office. Now it's down to, I believe, 60% or something like that. at least it was last year.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
And so your accountant will be able to tell you like how fast you can accelerate that depreciation, how much you can take in that first year. But I essentially wiped out all my taxes from accelerating my four and a half million dollar building into the first year, wiped out over $2 million in taxes. but I still own the building. I still have the income from the building.
The Money Mondays
How I Wiped Out $2M in Taxes with One Real Estate Move w/ Cody Sperber 🏡 E116
Now, let's say 10 years from now, I go to sell that building. There is some recapture of that, but hopefully by then I'm either in a lower tax bracket or I have another tax strategy that I can implement to make sure I don't pay taxes.