Jason Hartman on Why Real Estate Works so Well as an Investment (CFFL 0013)

Jason Hartman on Why Real Estate Works so Well as an Investment Jack Butala:                   In the world of real estate investment, Jason Hartman needs no introduction. But just in case, Jason Hartman has been involved in several thousand real estate transaction and has transactions in his own income properties in 11 states in 17 cities. His company Platinum Properties Investor Network, Inc. helps people achieve the American dream of financial freedom by purchasing income property in prudent markets nationwide. Jason's complete solution for real estate investors is a comprehensive system providing real estate investors with education research, resources and technology to deal with all the areas of their income, property, investment needs. Thanks so much for joining us. Jason, it's an honor to have you. For those of you in real estate who live under a rock, Jason Hartman is kind of the institutional investor at least in the podcasting world, I guess, I saw. Make sure- Jason Hartman:                 Well, its great to be here. Thank you for having me. Institutional investor, that's funny. Maybe I should be institutionalized. I don't know, some days ... No, I'm kidding. I love real estate. It's the best thing ever at least since slice bread. Jack Butala:                   Continue my attempt at your intro and kind of fill us in or fill our listeners in about who you are in the industry. Jason Hartman:                 Yeah, sure. Basically, I started my career being interested in real estate investing. I was only 16 years old. I went to my first real estate seminar at age 18. Got my real estate license my first year of college at age 19. Then purchased my first income property in Huntington Beach, California at age 20. Since then, I have just fallen in love with real estate investing. I spend many years in the traditional real estate business. I worked for RE/MAX. I was a very successful real estate agent, traditional real estate agent there. Then I purchased a real estate company and, years later, sold it to Coldwell Banker. Then about a year before that deal closed which was actually 10 years ago, just about now ... Actually 10 years ago today. Wow, didn't even realize that until I looked at the date. Jack Butala:                   Wow. Jill DeWit:                            That's cool. Jason Hartman:                 Today, 10 years ago, that deal closed. Many would say my timing was perfect. I think it was more lucky than good. Then I started ... About a year before the deal closed with Coldwell Banker, I started this real estate investment business where I became very interested in nationwide real estate investing in approaching the most historically proven asset class in the world, income property, from a nationwide perspective, from the perspective of the way a financial planner would do that, a financial advisor, a financial services firm. We've got ... It's always struck me as odd, Steve and Jill, that we've got these companies like Merrill Lynch, and Ameriprise, and all of the other firms that pedal the Wall Street garbage. We've got all of them out there, and they have such a mediocre to lousy product frankly yet they have a very good sales force and a very good system of selling their product. You look at real estate, which is the most historically proven product, it's the best product out there for investment and wealth creation, and it isn't sold very well. It's a very fragmented, inefficient market, a bunch of people doing things in their little local area. There are just a lot of things wrong with it, so I created my business to solve that problem. Jack Butala:                   Now, that's a great description. I'll tell you there's a lot of similarities between the two of us. I started my company in the late '90s the form that it has now. I looked at it for some of the very similar reasons. It's a rock solid asset to invest in. It [throws 00:04:20] up an asset based ...