Turning a Rental Into a Sober Living Home: What Changes and What Doesn't

Recorded 2023-11-15 for the Millionaire Mindcast. This transcript has been lightly edited to correct obvious transcription errors and improve readability. Figures, program details, and regulations reflect the date of the recording. Use the linked guides above for current information.

00:00Well, I'm excited to welcome into the show, my brother, Mr. Andrew Lamb of Sober Living Riches. How we doing, man? Doing well, doing well, glad to be here. Yeah, we were just talking kind of before jumping on this and, you know, reminiscing a little bit on your real estate investing journey. I know when I met you, what is it?

00:22Three, four years ago? Probably. Yeah, 2018, something like that. More plus years ago now. Where, you know, when you and I first started working together, you know, coaching and consulting, you were wanting to your crush in it in real estate on the traditional side of things. And you really wanted to get more onto the wealth building side and generating more cash

00:45flow. And boy, have you cracked the code on the cash flow side, which we're going to be talking a lot about today because sober living homes, retirement homes, you know, a lot of those models in terms of kind of co-living have become somewhat popular again. But not a lot of people do it right. And not a lot of people do it the way you do it. So I'm excited to, you know, get a little bit of a look behind the curtain here today.

01:10But for those who don't know who you are and what your real estate investing and wealth building journey has looked like, rewind a little bit for us. Yeah. So yes, I've been in real estate as a real estate agent for 12 years. This will be my 12th year and 2015, 2016 started up a Keller Williams brokerage in my town back in California. And we grew that, but we, the initial person we had leading that, we kind of stalled out

01:40at about 40 agents. So I took some time out of my sales team to jump into growing the office and what's called the team leader role and grew it from about 40 agents to about 100. And in that process, that's where you and I met. So I was kind of grinding away, still had my sales team. I was out of production. My wife was still in the business kind of running the show, but I was growing the office.

02:04And I knew I didn't want to stay on that path of, you know, having a W two and having a clock in clock out forever. I wanted to build real wealth. And two things happened. My mom and my grandmother both had health issues, they each had my grandmother had dementia. I got to call in the middle of the night saying I needed to fly out to North Carolina and get her or she was going to be putting her home and they were going to sell her house

02:32and deal with all that stuff. So I booked a red eye, paid with points, got out there and had to bring my grandmother to live with me. And quickly we realized that's not going to work out. She was just as far as the care she needed, it was too much for us with three little girls at the time. Now five today.

02:53But man, we thought she was going to live with us and after a week of her getting up in the middle of the night and getting angry in the evening, just different stuff that you deal with. Had to put her in a assisted living home. And the cost for somebody who is solely on social security is exorbitant. We had to make more money essentially to be able to help provide for her and care for her while also dealing with all the other stuff.

03:20Selling a house from across the country, all those things. And then my mom soon after had her own series of health setbacks and had a series of strokes. And I ended up needing to really take time off and care for her and also move her from North Carolina to California. Her and my grandmother are now roommates, in assisted living. So it's odd how it worked out, but they are better together and it's great. But I learned quickly wealth.

03:44You know, can't wait. Stuff happens, life happens. I can't expect to one day make a good amount of money to be able to provide for myself or my family or extended family. So that's where you and I started talking. I was like, I need to learn how to invest and like flip some homes and do something. You had a course on it.

04:02I called you up, you're local. You're 30 minutes away from me. And it's not something you do often, but man, you partnered with me on that first deal. And I saw the light and started just doing more of that. So thank you for being a part of that journey. You were instrumental in just seeing the way you run things. That's exactly how I run it today.

04:21Yeah, dude. I mean, you, well, one, you just you took action. That's one of the reasons, you know, I love and respect you not only because you're an amazing father to five wild, amazing little girls. You're amazing husband. You're super connected to your church and your community and beyond just, you know, being a badass in business.

04:44You really are the definition of a whole life millionaire. You live intentionally and purposefully in all areas of your life. And you had this, you know, vision and this really this purpose, which, you know, was kind of brought on by unfortunate events in your family to go out and figure out how do I create more wealth, more income, more stability. And after that first flip, I mean, you, you just ran with it. You went and did all kinds of flips still doing flips, but then you started going, okay,

05:09I want to really find a way to, you know, transition into this, you know, wealth building vehicle of generating consistent monthly passive income. And you're doing it at a really high level now. And I want to talk about that. But I also for the people that are not necessarily active real estate investors yet, but maybe they understand real estate investing or something about it. They're attracted to it.

05:37Talk about that journey of like those failing forward moments and how challenging it is. Because I know I've got many of my own, right, where you just, you get your ass kicked and you learn by being in the game and in the trenches with your sleeves rolled up. Yeah. Like talk about that journey for you and some of the mental and physical roadblocks you had to overcome. So people can understand and realize like there is light at the end of the tunnel, but it also

06:05is kind of a rite of passage, right? Yeah, that's so true. I mean, the fastest way through that is to partner with somebody who has the knowledge of skills and the experience. So that's why we did that initially. Because I felt stuck and like paralyzed and how to do it on my own. So I mean, just getting in the room initially and going to meetups, getting in connection

06:26with people who are doing what you want to do is huge. But aside from that, I mean, when I really started running full steam and focusing on investing more than even selling real estate, I did have to just jump in. And so I started off with analyzing deals. Like I analyzed at least a hundred deals before I jumped in on something. So I knew without a shadow of a doubt, like this is a deal, I can do this and wrote an offer side and scene and got it accepted.

06:54And everything was exactly as I thought it was. So I knew how to analyze a deal. I remember when you and I were talking initially and I didn't know anything about how to calculate anything. I didn't know what a spread was, what after repair value was. And then I started railing off, hey, I'm looking at this deal, looking at that deal. You're like, wait, who are you?

07:14So that's a big part of it, right? Just getting the reps in and practicing. But man, we did a deal in Napa, we thought everything was going to be great. It was going to work out. It was outside of what our typical buy boxes usually were looking at three twos or bigger. This was a two one on a weird one way street and it turns out location is everything. And my first flip I made 60 grand first flip on my own.

07:38That flip in particular, like it took way longer than we thought the city is a pain to deal with inspectors and just like in general, the buyer pool is a bit more sophisticated there than in other areas where I flipped. So they're asking all these questions and wanting all these different things. And we just, I mean, we sold it for a hundred thousand less than we thought we'd tell it for. So it wasn't the big win.

08:02I thought it would be now we underwrite really conservatively. We still made money, probably made 14,000 on it, but it was not at all the home run we thought it'd be. And you just, you learn. So now there's things we put in place to that never happens again. But you got to be willing to take some risk and just insulate yourself, make sure it's a real deal.

08:22Because if I didn't buy with that much spread initially, I would have probably lost my shirt on it. Yeah. No, it is something that you gain ROI on those lessons, right? Because you just carry those forward. I think it's the people that either don't decide to jump in the game because of that fear that ultimately miss out on all of that upside in ROI or it's the people who hit those

08:43challenges and those roadblocks and then they just kind of stop. And I know for all the failing forward moments, you know, when you fall flat on your face, it's like, okay, I got to make sure that I maximize the learning lessons that came out of this, which are all part of kind of climbing the ladder of success. And I think you brought up some important things there though is, you know, having clarity on a buy box, having a criteria of what your model looks like and, you know, getting those reps in over and over and over again, it's like stepping into a batter's box and the first

09:16time a pitcher throws something at you, it's a little, you know, it kind of takes you back a little bit. But then after seeing 100 pitches, you feel way more comfortable standing in there and taking some swings at it. And I think the other thing too, in the beginning, which is something I've always said and it's something I've always done myself is, you know, if you're concerned of getting into maybe new asset class or a new model or opportunity, really leaning into those relationships, right?

09:42And if you need to partner and you own half of a watermelon instead of, you know, 100% of a little shriveled up raisin or something that ultimately ends up being a big, you know, zero, that's a good way to hedge your risk. But also to bring value to somebody else to expand your network to get more lending or, you know, partnership relationships in place and ultimately tap into other people's wisdom, which can often give you a second set of eyes, more confidence, more resources. So I love that you brought that up because I think that's just a great way to always segue

10:11into something new. And even as I consider myself a great real estate investor in flipping, but when I got into hotels, I was completely new in that space, right? And so I think it's as you branch into new opportunities, thinking about those kinds of things is there's nothing wrong with that if you're going to play the long game with it, right? Yeah, it's.

10:32And I think that when you get in connection to people who are doing the thing you want to do, you realize everything that you thought in your head, like maybe it's a little different. Maybe you don't need much money as you think. Maybe it doesn't cost as much as you think. Like I had saved up six figures in order to buy property and put this big chunk of change down. So behold, just through having conversations with other local investors, I found people

10:57willing to fund the entire deal. So I didn't even need to use my own funds. It gave me definitely the runway if we made a mistake, the cushion and the confidence to jump out there and do it. But I didn't need to use really any of it because legit found a private lender locally who had done 100 flips himself, who would fund 100% of the purchase in the rehab, as long as we were buying really good deals.

11:19And I was finding them. I was even finding them on market. So a lot of people say, "You can't find good stuff on the MLS." I found so many good deals. The first six or seven I did were all on the MLS. So there's a lot of myths out there that just aren't true. Yeah, that's such a good point.

11:36I know for, I mean, you really become great at breaking free of that myth of, "I got to have all this money to now." You and I were just talking a couple of weeks back and I was telling you about a seller finance deal I was doing and you're like, "Oh, shoot. I should maybe present this to a deal that I'm working on right now where I'm going to have to bring all this cash to the table. Instead, I'm just going to present the seller finance in this way and dah, dah, dah, dah."

12:03And you ended up getting that deal done, didn't you? Yeah, later that day, I think I texted you. They agreed. I didn't need 10% anymore. The seller covered it and we closed and moved forward. So just learning how to even present those options, right? You just don't know what you don't know.

12:19So having these conversations is huge. I would say even knowing you has stepped up my network because I've been able to ask people around me. I started leading a local investor group, but I'm also now in GoBundance because you are because you talk about it. I was like, "I want to level up my network too." And specifically doing this and the pivot I made back in 2021 is what allowed me to

12:44even qualify for GoBundance. So I know we're probably going to talk about that in just a second. Yeah, I was going to say talk about that pivot, right? Of like going, "Okay, I'm flipping some houses, but I really want to start buying some assets, building a portfolio that generates passive income." Like, what did that story look like for you and how did you kind of lean into taking action on bringing it to life?

13:09Yeah. So I love flipping because it does create such a massive windfall. You can get a really good amount of income immediately or within, you know, for us, 93, four months, 90 days. But it's like getting on the hamster wheel. Like, you get a deal done and then you're off searching for another deal and then another deal and another deal.

13:31And you're not building true wealth. So I wanted to acquire assets and truly hold on to these properties. The first one I ever bought was like 370 and today is worth probably $5.55.60. And I just looked back like, "Man, why didn't I hold on to that?" And I know in my mind, because I had done this whole calculation on, you know, if I went X number of dollars per month and to be able to retire, I'm going to need to buy X number of homes, which was like 80 properties cash flowing $300 a month, which is a lot of work.

14:00And like that could overwhelm you. So I started thinking, especially in 2021 when I was flipping a couple of homes, rates were below 3%. I was like, "How do I hold on to these? I don't want to flip them." They were mid-flip. And I was like, "I don't want to flip these.

14:15I don't want to stop them." So I just started asking questions. And I literally called our local shelter because I know that if I help more people, like I didn't want it to just be a traditional rental. And I knew if I help more people, you get paid in proportion to the value you provide. So if I can provide value to more folks, not just a single family, maybe there's something better in it for me.

14:42Aside from just the feel good, which is nice, maybe I'll also do well financially. So I called the local shelter and just asked, "Do you have any need for a single family home?" And I ended up talking with the director of the shelter. And she happened to run or be the chair of a program called Housing First, which is a HUD program to transition people from homelessness to being housed. So it's Housing First.

15:07She introduced me to this whole concept of sober living. Having an environment that is clean of alcohol and drugs and is a safe place for people to get back on their feet, live with others. It's kind of a co-living environment. And then eventually move on to permanent housing. And so being in that role, she introduced me to everyone I needed to know. She laid it all out.

15:31And it has become the thing that I live for at this point. We ended up turning the two that we were flipping into sober living homes. And oddly enough, while we were helping a ton of people and providing a place for literally folks who had nowhere else to go. They were living in their car or they were fresh out of jail or rehab. So being able to do that also provided more than enough cash flow to completely cover the living expenses for my family.

16:03I mean, definitely the mortgage. I mean, this cash flow is better than if the house was paid off already. So we found this perfect alignment of purpose and profit. And I just want to keep doing it. So we now have seven of those. In that year, we did five. We bought and rehabbed five properties, turned them into sober living homes.

16:23And today we house over 60 men, women and children and provide a beautiful space. Like it fills them with dignity. Like the tears in people's eyes when they walk in and see luxury vinyl playing floors and beautiful quartz countertops brand new everything. They kind of break down. Like I've gotten so many hugs and so many just tears of joy. And that alone could do it for me.

16:50But I love the fact that it also takes care of my family. And I'm able to provide and cover the expenses for my mom and grandmother. It's just been the perfect thing. And so now I actually teach other people how to do this across the country because it's a really simple pivot. You don't need a license. You don't need a certification.

17:06You just need a big heart and maybe a little cushion of savings because you're probably going to be covering costs for a month or two. But man, you can turn a rental from cash flow in just a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars every single month and help a ton of people. Yeah, dude. I when you when you started sharing this with me, I was like, Oh, dude, this this is a model that you need to really lean into because it really is like 10x of everything you've

17:34been talking about wanting to do, right? And I love that it's it checks all the boxes of it's an asset. Financially you get, you know, the cash flow and the benefits from it from a tax perspective. But then on the other side of things, you really get to make a difference in people's lives and really impact your community. I know that's something big for you. And I know that's something big for a lot of people, right?

17:55Like why I love hotels is. I love creating experiences and memories for people. It checks all the traditional real estate boxes and the tax stuff, right? And the cash flow. But at the same time, like it's it's something that goes beyond just a financial gain and the asset that generates wealth can also generate experiences and memories, which in my opinion is another form of wealth.

18:18And I know what you're doing is you're literally changing and transforming people's lives and making a difference in your community. And I know for a lot of people, that's why this model is so attractive, right? And yet not many people understand how to kind of navigate this world or what it really looks like. So I'd love for you to maybe talk a little bit about maybe just talk a little bit about the actual like financial side of this model and how amazing it can be one for the investor.

18:47And then maybe we can talk a little bit more about, you know, some of the systems and processes and what operations look like in terms of managing these types of properties. Yeah, 100%. So financially, let's just take an example because I have a home that was my first home I ever bought 2017. We got renters in there because a year later, we bought a bigger place thinking, you know, like my grandmother would move in.

19:11And so we turned that home. Well, so that home was a rental and it was earning honestly a really good cash flow, $600 a month in cash flow. Not bad, especially here in California, right? But we knew after we had several other of these homes that we could turn this into a sober living home and cash flow way more. So today that home cash flows over $8,000 a month.

19:35And every single one, like that's the minimum. And that's not even being a hundred percent full. So every time I do the calculations, I never bet on like full occupancy. There's always vacancy involved. But even with some vacancy, like we will cash flow well over $6,000 on most of our properties every single month. So it's a huge opportunity.

19:58And so it more than covers the debt service. We do have a loan on it. And more than covers the utilities. We do take care of utilities. We furnish the property, but it doesn't have to be, you know, like Airbnb status. We're putting two beds to a room. We're putting, you know, furniture, meaning TV, Wi-Fi, washer and dryer, kitchen table,

20:20couch. We try to get high quality stuff that's going to last a long time. And then typically we're remodeling the property too. Not everyone has to do that, but that's something that we know helps our homes stand out. And it's a sense of pride we have in providing that to our folks. So but I can furnish a home for less than $3,000. Like I know where to go to get the furniture, to get the dishes, to get, you know, this

20:41and that so that we can get a home started really quickly. And within 90 days, fill up and be cash flowing, you know, well, a lot of money close to 10 grand a month. Occasionally, like we have a property with three units that does do over 10 grand a month. So it's a great way to turn real estate into more than just get rich later. Like I know a lot of people, right? And I read the book, Hold, it's up here.

21:07Jim and Linda McKissick, amazing people who bought homes in the 90s. What 20% down, put them on 15, 20 year notes, but made no money until those were paid off in 20 years. Yep. Now I'm making more money currently than if the home was paid off and I don't have to wait 20 years, 30 years for the tenants to pay it down. Like it's happening now.

21:27So I've been able to literally step back from my other businesses, never have to have a job again and just focus on this because it's created freedom in my life. I love that. And it gives you so many options, right? To either take those profits, reinvest them into future properties, take those profits, you know, snowball the debt down faster. And ultimately it allows, I know for a lot of people, depending on what market, you know,

21:54you are investing in and you know, where the listeners tuning in from, a lot of people are going, man, I can't find good cash flow in my market. I don't want to have to go out of state or I don't want to have to do, you know, all of these things to just find a little more cash flow that makes sense for me. And this is that model that ultimately solves a big need in a community for people that really need it. And obviously we can talk a little bit more about the rules and rags and how to keep things

22:20safe and all of that kind of stuff, the systems behind it. But it allows you to take properties, especially in a state like California, which you're lucky if you can get a couple hundred bucks in cash flow, you know, and you get rich way later down the road and you're just banking on appreciation versus I can make great cash flow, not even good cash flow, great or amazing cash flow today and get the benefits of the upside and the wealth building along the way. Yeah.

22:48It's, so yes, there's rules and stuff. But yeah, it's what it's been able to do for me to turn this long-term plan into something that literally within a year changed my life and added a million in net worth to my balance sheet. Yeah. I mean, we were creating equity because we were buying fixers. So we had this perfect storm of value add plus high cash flow and we were able to refinance

23:16out of the hard money into, and right, and didn't even use my own cash, refinance out of private loans into long-term 30-year fixed notes and still make really good money today. So it's a huge opportunity. And if somebody already owns a rental or maybe even, and I've had people approach me about this in a rent controlled area, yeah, there's some pretty cool things you can do with this to make it so that it's very low risk. You don't have to deal with the regular hassles of having a single family long-term rental,

23:47but you can have the cash flow of almost short-term rentals or more without all the, you know, the headaches and the constant moving in and moving out and paying cleaners and all that stuff. So happy to talk through that too. I mean, we have rules. We have a chore schedule. It's very clear what someone needs to be doing to move into one of our spaces.

24:05Yeah. Talk about that a little bit in terms of, you know, I think maybe one of the myths in this model that a lot of people have is like, oh, you got, you know, criminals and druggies coming in and out of your house and, you know, neighbors are going to be up in arms and it's going to be a complete, you know, shit show versus, no, there's a right way of doing it. And there's systems and there's, you know, rules and there's responsibilities that come along with being in one of your houses, maybe just give a high-level overview of some of

24:32those things. Yeah. So I will have the, I will say the caveat of I didn't do it right the first time because I had no idea what I was doing. This was a whole new world to me. This was a demographic that in my town, I didn't even know existed. And very quickly, I had four or five homes full of people in my city that I never knew

24:52needed something like this. So there's, I mean, there's probably an opportunity wherever you live in the country. But the biggest thing is we now set expectations and have standards and rules that are very clear upfront to prevent anything bad from happening. Everyone has to be a really good neighbor. Like they can't just loiter out front. If they're going to smoke, if they're going to hang out, it's got to be in the backyard.

25:18There's cameras everywhere. So I implemented security cameras on every single exit to make sure I knew who was coming and who was going and protecting the people who are in our homes. Part of that was also where the only locations that really allow kids. So we have a place for single dads, usually reserved like the master bedroom for a single parent in our male homes. And then we have a woman in children's house as well.

25:40So just to make sure the kids were safe, I wanted to make sure there were cameras in the main living spaces and on every exit. So we knew what was going on. And then it's, we have a chore schedule. So literally everyone has a job to do. They have to contribute to taking care of the home. They take care of it honestly, like it's their own.

25:59They do a really good job. They maintain the yard. It's honestly probably less work for me than if I did have an Airbnb. And I get to contribute to people, help them build life skills, teach them. I mean, we have some kind of sometimes we have funny conversations like, oh no, honey, I bought you pine salt last week. You shouldn't be out of it now.

26:21Like who, we got to teach you how to dilute that and real life skills. We're teaching people how to go shopping, manage a budget, how to cook. Like we have folks who, like we have partnerships in the community to where we can go and get as much food as we can possibly use from local food banks. And then we get to teach them how to create a menu and how to cook for people. And so it's, it's way more than just providing housing just to provide housing. Like we truly want people to get on their feet and move forward.

26:54But not everyone does that. That's just what we do to stand out. There are other homes similar to this. And again, I never knew they existed before I started it. But we kind of became the go to place for the local government programs or nonprofits to send people because we do such a good job and we really take care of our people. Just last weekend, we took leaders inside of our houses.

27:15So we identify in each location who is the most responsible, who's trustworthy, who's got more clean time maybe than anyone else. And we try to work with them, especially as they're coming off of programs that would be funding their stay. They're starting to pay out of pocket. We would love for them to stay and be like a responsible part of our community and help lead because having that like, that stair step of, you came in and you were just somebody

27:43who shared a room, but now we trust you, we give you some authority and you've earned some respect. You've earned our trust. Let's move you up here to know you have some responsibility. They really take that to heart because it's been a long time since someone really trusted them. So they're people who oversee their eyes and ears, but also they help their house run

28:03smoothly. They monitor the chores, all that stuff. So we just took those guys out to a Giants game, completely paid for them. They got to bring their kids for some of them. It was the first time in years that they've been able to hang out with their kids without some kind of monitored, supervised visit or something like that. So this, I think in order to do this, I mean, you could be somebody who just wants to slam

28:22people into houses and collect a check, but I think to do it right, you really have to have a heart behind it and care about people. Maybe that means I go a little bit too far or have a little bit too tied, my heart tied in a little bit too much at times, but I wouldn't do it any other way because we see the change. We have the reports of people telling us that, you know, so-and-so would be dead if we didn't give them an opportunity, if we didn't give them a bed.

28:50If we didn't give them a second or a third chance after they relapse, which relapse is part of it, but as long as they're not doing it in the home, it's really easy for them to go to detox, go to a separate facility where they can detox, maybe with, you know, medical assisted treatment, and then come back and have a safe place again and realize we're not going to give up on them. And we've had so many stories of people doing that coming back and then being clean for eight months and moving on to permanent housing and you're really getting their life right.

29:18So I know we're doing the right thing. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's what makes you guys an outlier in this space and why, you know, the partners that you work with in the community who bring you guys, the candidates, and we can talk a little bit more about that on how you filled with the houses is what separates you guys, right? As you talked about, this is real estate investing, but with a heart behind it because you're

29:40really making a difference in people's lives. You're not just collecting a monthly check from them and saying, Hey, call me when you need something like you're really, this is a business model around an asset that obviously has a very large upside in our light to it, but it requires a little bit of a different approach. And that's why I think you guys are just absolutely crushing it is because you're doing it with purpose and intention beyond just collecting a, you know, monthly mailbox check from these

30:04individuals. So talk a little bit about that, right? How do you fill these beds, the houses, you know, what's the screening process look like because I think a lot of people are going, well, how do you find these people? Am I, you know, putting an ad up on Craigslist and my hiring a property manager? Like what does this look like? Yeah.

30:25So starting off, it was, you know, I was trying to find a way to fill out homes. I had a 10% hard money loan. I needed to pay. So I was putting, you know, ads on Facebook marketplace and Craigslist and really bringing in it any one I could. And I learned that was the wrong way to do it because I didn't know how to ask the right questions.

30:43I didn't know how to screen people. Maybe they weren't in an outpatient program and didn't have additional help and support. And so I had to deal with people drinking and dealing with, you know, drunk or high or kind of crazy people. The first three months I was doing this on my own. I learned, I hired somebody local who's like, had their own place for eight years. And I was like, teach me, please, I need to learn how you do this.

31:11And they came in and gave me the right set of rules, how to, told me how to set up chores, told me how to do an intake. What questions to ask? So now we, it's really easy for us to get started in a location. We know how to scrub and create a list of all the nonprofits, all the government organizations that deal with transitional housing or sober living, things like this. We know all the keywords to search for it.

31:36We create a spreadsheet. We end up doing a blast email to them all to verify the list. And then we call through and we introduce ourselves and we tell them our heart behind it. And that's what gets us full within like a 90 day period. I just did this in Southern California in Riverside and San Bernardino, lists of 250 people, 200 of them were verified.

31:58And literally the same day I reached out, I got a call with a placement. So it's definitely possible to fill up pretty quickly. That's how we do it. I think market research is key, but you got to reach out to the people who either are dealing with this population all day every day, calling a local shelter like I did initially is probably the easiest way because they know all the ins and outs and the right pieces. There's also usually some kind of local committee on homelessness.

32:26So whether that's like the continuum of care or some kind of nonprofit that deals with getting people housed, those are the people you want to talk to. So that's what I did. It ended up working really well. We locally have four or five county programs that do pay for people to be in our homes and pay far better than most people can pay out of pocket if they're just on SSI or something. So that works out really well for us because those programs trust us.

32:52The only thing is they pay in arrears, right? It's almost like a hotel. We want to see how long they stayed and then invoice and charge at that point. But they pay more and it's worth it to get paid in arrears that way. Well, I know a lot of people are going to have a lot of questions and a lot of interest in this particular model. And outside of you doing this for yourself, talk a little bit about what sober living

33:17riches is and what's the purpose behind it? Yeah. So I ended up just by talking about this, getting a ton of Facebook messages, Instagram messages, emails, phone calls of people asking, tell me more about that. Like you just blew my mind. Like you went from 600 to 6000 to 8000 a month in cash flow just by this one little tweak and it didn't require a license or a certification.

33:43Like what? So after feeling all of these questions and trying to figure out like, how do I even fit this into my day, I created a simple program. So there's a six modules of literally how to start from what location to pick, like what what type of home makes the most sense all the way through the security, the locks that we use so that we can assign someone a code and it's automated versus having to deal with keys and all of that.

34:12Everything we do, all the ins and outs, our rules, our chore system, step by step, how I hire to manager so that I spend less than 10 hours a week in this now and the manager handles just about everything else. So after feeling all those questions, I even brought in my CPA, brought in my house manager to answer questions. So we have it now at soberlivingriches.com. It's all fully built out and you can get guidance on how to do this yourself and have

34:40access to me in a private community of other like minded people doing it as well. Well, we'll be sure to link all of that up in the show notes, millionairemindcast.com on Andrew's episode. I just want to give you, I mean, I've always been a fan and a cheerleader of yours. I think, you know, seeing what you've done and the action you've taken is just amazing and it's only a in my opinion, the beginning of what you're building and doing. So super excited for you, super proud of you and just grateful to know you, man.

35:09You're an awesome dude, great dad, amazing leader. And I'm really excited to see how many lives Sober Living Riches touches, not just for the investors themselves, but the ripple effect it has in communities all across the country. I think this is a model that is going to make a pretty big ripple effect and difference in a lot of people's lives. So keep it up and thanks for coming on Millionaire Mindcast today. Thank you.

35:33I appreciate it. If you want to get a free masterclass on how to start all of this on your own, you can go to soberlivingriches.com. There's a one hour training that literally answers a ton of questions on how to get started. I've gotten a lot of feedback that that's been super valuable. And then if you're somebody who already has a location, like has a rental and you're thinking of how can I partner with somebody who like maybe you don't have time or energy or anything,

35:57and you just want to double or triple your cash flow by having somebody else come in and operate, we're starting to do that too. And you can go to soberlivingriches.com/partner and learn what that looks like. Or even if you just want to fund more deals, help provide more housing like this across the country. And you can visit soberlivingriches.com/partner to learn what it looks like to be a private lender and help us provide more housing to more people.

36:22We're trying to go from seven to 70 locations in the next two years. Andrew Lamb, thanks for coming on the show, brother.