How Real Estate Cash Flow Can Fund Your Retirement When Your 401k Falls Short | Jim Duffy

Jim Duffy (00:00)

I started a newsletter called Asset Accelerator, and that’s the mission is to take generally high income earners, 45 to 65 year olds, generally speaking, or most of the readership, and they’re used to earning a good living. they earn 150,000, 300,000, whatever it is per year. But when they talk to a financial planner who says, Well, the four percent rule, you gotta have three million in the bank so you can live off 10,000 a month and never run out of money, and they’re looking going. Well, I have five hundred thousand in my 401(k). I’m not gonna get to three million? So I’m saying, okay, let’s push that aside. Don’t do the accumulation thing, rather create cash flow and let that cash flow compound rapidly. And it does.

Quentin Edmonds (01:10)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. I have a wonderful guest and I cannot wait for you just to peek through his lens. we got a lot of different things we’re gonna talk about, but this gentleman has really literally helped and walked thousand people, thousands of people through their real estate journey. I’m excited for us to learn about him. He’s an investor. he has a lot of different things, different tools that can help people out within this real estate space. And so I’m so excited for us to get to talk to Mr. Jim Duffy. Mr. Jim, how are you doing today, sir?

Jim Duffy (01:44)

Q, it’s awesome to be here with you. I really appreciate the opportunity. Your enthusiasm is contagious. It really is. I love that.

Quentin Edmonds (01:53)

I appreciate that. It’s funny you just said that. I feel like I’m having a little off day today. So I’m glad you said that. My morning, I had a different routine this morning than what I normally have. I’m a very routine type person. So when people take me out of my routine, I have to intentionally get back centered. So the fact that you can still feel my enthusiasm, thank you for saying that. I really, really appreciate that. I really, really do. Absolutely. Well

Jim Duffy (02:16)

Because the routine needs a break, and that’s okay.

Quentin Edmonds (02:18)

So my one of my closest friends, he says, we do everything in moderation, even moderation in moderation. So you’re absolutely right. Sometimes you gotta break it up, son. So you’re absolutely right, sir. Absolutely. well, listen, man, I am a type, Mr. Jim. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, how you got into the spaces that you’re in. Now also tell them where you are in your world. People love to know where people are g geographically. So Mr. Jim sir, you have the floor, my friend.

Jim Duffy (02:48)

Yeah, I would love to. I it’s everyone’s got their own story and stories are so interesting the way we live life and the way life happens to us sometimes. But my name’s Jim. I’m 25 years in the mortgage business, right? I’m in Charleston, South Carolina. I’m with Alcova Mortgage and I run a branch for the mortgage company, right? But over the years, 25 years of doing this, helping people into their homes, into investment properties, et cetera, I’ve noticed one thing and it comes up again and It doesn’t matter how much money you earn. Some people just get ahead because they buy assets that grow, right? The cash flow or grow. And those who do are tranquil. They live a happier life, generally speaking, right? They just do. And so my mission right now, I started a newsletter called Asset Accelerator, and that’s the mission is to take generally high income earners, 45 to 65 year olds, generally speaking, or most of the readership, and they’re used to earning a good living. they earn 150,000, 300,000, whatever it is per year. But when they talk to a financial planner who says, Well, the four percent rule, you gotta have three million in the bank so you can live off 10,000 a month and never run out of money, and they’re looking going. Well, I have five hundred thousand in my 401(k). I don’t how am I’m not gonna get to three million? So I’m saying, okay, let’s push that aside. Don’t do the accumulation thing, rather create cash flow and let that cash flow compound rapidly. And it does. It’s amazing. Yeah. And it gives people hope and it should because there is a lot of hope. There’s so much opportunity out there. You just have to pick a lane and go do it. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (04:17)

Yeah. I love it, man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for taking me a little bit on memory lane. I want to dig into the passion, man. So you you’ve been in a real estate space, I think I’ve heard 25 years, you’ve been in the lending space, got this passion project. Like where did all of this passion come from? Was it just, hey, I found a job, I got into it and I stuck with it, or was this something, from your earlier stages, from from your parents and different things like that. Tell me a little bit about where the passion comes from.

Jim Duffy (04:43)

yeah, sure. So there’s two stages. How I got into the mortgage business was no one ever plans on, well, I’m gonna be a mortgage lender when I grow up, right? I lived in Europe for a long time. I came back here, was doing something, but I was doing sales, but it I was traveling a lot. And then my first daughter was born. And I said, I’m on a plane sometimes three tight days a week. And I met a guy. well, I was in a Bible study with a guy who he had a brand new car every year, right? He had a BMW and then a Jaguar and then an Audi and then a and I was and his name was Ignacio and I said, Ignacio, I knew I wanted to stop traveling. And I said, Ignacio, you do like home loans or something, right? What is it you do? And this here’s the interview process. He said, come in the office on Monday, you can start that. That was it. And that’s how I got into it. But the passion at the time was not so much real estate. It was I wanted to see my daughter grow up and be there for her. And this allowed for that. And then the more I got into real estate and really digging into macro and microeconomics, right? Personal economics and macroeconomics, I realized this is freeing for so many people. It can be. If you just embrace it’s very, very simple. It’s not a complicated thing, buying and managing real estate is not that complicated. Anyone can do it. And so I just the passion grew over time as I saw more and more people earning, 200, 300, 400 million dollars a year in some cases, but not having the assets to let that income stop ever. I said, look, we’ve got the tools right here. Let’s just plug people in and show them how to use them and how to create a life that they can slow down. Whether it’s by choice or by force, right? Health reasons, whatever happens, someday we gotta stop the earned income. Yeah. But we gotta keep something else coming. Yeah. And that’s the passion. That’s where it grew from.

Quentin Edmonds (07:07)

Yeah, though. I love it and and I love a lot of it was sitting around, hey, you want to see your daughter grow up? I actually love that. And I often say, Jim, destiny has no wasted moments, right? We’re learning from every leg of our journey. Like we’re learning from the failures, we’re learning from success, we’re learning from it all. So, like what has the journey revealed to you about yourself? Has it revealed discipline? Has it revealed made you more humble? Like what is some of the things because sometimes you gotta pivot, right? Sometimes things doesn’t go the way we expect it to. So, what has the journey revealed to you?

Jim Duffy (07:37)

that’s a great question. So you said the word, you nailed the word, and that is humility is the main thing because the market is constantly changing. we’re seeing it right now. is the Fed gonna cut again? Is there or hike again rather? Are they not? What’s gonna happen to housing and everyone’s on pens and needles, rates are too high, home prices are too high, except for the fact that what if they don’t come down? And I don’t think they’re coming down for a variety of reasons, which we can talk about if you want, but the humility for me is adapting, right? It this market is constantly changing. So I have to serve people in different ways and I have to approach the real estate investing in slightly different ways as well. Yep. Every market has its opportunity. It really does. Every market has its opportunity, including this one. And this market’s opportunity, I think, is phenomenally great. Yeah. Because there’s less competition. And so you can get some really good deals. Yeah. Really good ones. But humility for me is, by the way, humility for me is not playing small. A lot of people misunderstand humility. It’s not playing small. It’s there’s a sister virtue to humility, which is magnanimity. And I don’t know if the word, a lot of people don’t. I get it, but it’s being the greatest you can be using your gifts to the greatest extent that you can. And like there’s a great philosopher, theologian Thomas Aquinas, I don’t know if you have heard of him back in the twelve hundreds. And he talked a lot about magnanimity. And he said, look, you have an obligation to use your gifts to the best of your ability. An obligation. And it doesn’t contract contradict humility to do so. In fact, it complements humility. But I I’ve always lived by that because I think that’s what we’re called to do. we only have a short time on this earth and we gotta we have God given gifts, we gotta use them to the best of our ability.

Quentin Edmonds (09:24)

Sir. No, I so well said. I think I, just so well said, I, so you talked about Bible study and you talked about God. One of the scriptures that I absolutely love, it says, we make our plans, but the Lord determines the outcomes, or the Lord determines our steps. And so He like you’re absolutely right, He has given us these gifts, and we are supposed to use them to the fullness of our potential. We were created to create, like that creative gene is in us. And so thank God

Jim Duffy (09:50)

That’s a part of your side.

Quentin Edmonds (09:51)

plan, right? We supposed to plan like we supposed to plan and work like it depends on us, but pray like it depends on God. And the result it it is right. And so yeah, I definitely

Jim Duffy (10:00)

Exactly. Well, and that’s the humility piece. If you recognize, and I try and remember this in gratitude every morning, is the gifts that I have, I didn’t create me. I didn’t give them to me. You didn’t create you. God did. And so that’s the humility piece. And it’s easy to remember if I just focus in on that as yeah, I’m doing some big things. I’m trying to help thousands of people with this asset accelerator newsletter. But it’s not. Me, I didn’t give the gifts. God did. I just have to be a steward of them. So I love the way you put that. That’s awesome.

Quentin Edmonds (10:29)

Absolutely, man. So well said, Jim. So, big thing within business, right? Building businesses, big thing is operations and systems, right? You got to have good operations in place, good systems in place. So, Jim, I would love to hear from your perspective, what is maybe one or two operational things that you’ve put in place, let’s say the last two years that has really helped you be successful.

Jim Duffy (10:52)

So there’s a couple of them that come to mind. One of them is something that we can share with everyone listening in the show notes, hopefully. And that is a simple calculator because once I put when I’m looking at an investment property or analyzing it for a client, either one, I put in all the numbers as real as possible. water taxes, insurance, set asides for maintenance on this property, everything like that. And then I carry it over and say, okay, I earn a good living. I don’t need this cash flow to live off of. Therefore, I want that money to do something else. I wanted to have two or three jobs. And so I say, okay, all that cash flow then goes into a dividend paying stock. It’s what I prefer. And then I do have it do another job. Boys sell a covered call against it every month so that there’s an added return because dividend paying stocks aren’t gross stocks, right? I’m not in it for a two hundred percent. Growth return like SpaceX or something like that, I’m it generally doesn’t move that quickly. So a covered call is a great strategy there to increase even more the things. But one of the things to your point, the system that it put in place is I just I do the calculation, I purchase the property, and I just let the money work outside of my checking account. It never enters like the personal checking world. It just works because that’s the cash flow that I’ll live off of when I stop originating loans, right? Yeah. One day in the future. And so that’s one of them. but another one is very simple. I this one I think is interesting. Got into it about three or four years ago. I started getting into cycling as a hobby, right? Everyone has a hobby. That’s mine. But cycling, I found, made everything else change because I wanted to do a century ride, which is a hundred mile ride. under five hours. Now I haven’t I’ve done sentry rights, but not in under five hours yet. But in order to do that, I realized, well, I gotta go the gym and work out and get stronger and leaner and all that stuff. And so the only time I could do that really in my schedule is from five to six A. So I get up at four thirty, I go to the gym and etc. But in order to do that, I realized I would usually have a drink or two most evenings. Yeah. out just calm down, right? Whatever. And I realized I can’t do that. I’m not up at 4 30 if I’m having a drink the night before. So I had to cut that out. And the it sounds silly, but one decision created a whole system around how I start and end my day. Yeah. And that filtered through. And it’s been the discipline of when do I write the newsletter? When do I make my calls for work? When do I and I felt the whole thing create a system that’s made everything in life a little better. Yes, sir. A little more production, a little more, whatever. Yes, sir. I hope that answered the question. I know that was a rambling one, but I I’ve found that one decision created a whole series of others that were follow-on.

Quentin Edmonds (14:17)

No, listen, you definitely answered the question. You didn’t seem like you was rambling. I was tracking very well. And to Eva Hammer on your point, this is one of my favorite books, *Atomic Habits*. Have you read this? To your point.

Jim Duffy (14:29)

yeah, it’s a great book. James He writes a great newsletter too.

Quentin Edmonds (14:33)

yeah, yes, he does. Yep, yes, he does. And it means it’s to your point, one these small decisions that you have it stacking. And so realize if you’re gonna get up. In the morning to go to gym. I’m with you too, Jim. I am a 430 riser, be it I’m normally about four thirty. And so because like you said, if we’re gonna get it done where it fits, that’s the time that it fits. So it and I, normally would stay up late and it’s like when that four o’clock alarm goes off to go to the gym, if I’m only on four hours sleep, it’s more it’s very less that I’m gonna go to the gym. So it’s like, no, you gotta go to bed earlier. So To your point, to the systems, small changes amount to, big impact. And that’s what the book talks about. And so you are spot on, man. Like these small changes means everything. So it makes total sense to me, man. Total sense.

Jim Duffy (15:21)

I have found that and I don’t mean to cut you off and I want your question, but I have found that it’s the same when I talk to people about, Hey, I know you’re in a high income, I know your 401(k) isn’t gonna cut it’s not there yet. So let’s start creating cash flow and they’re like, Okay. How it seems overwhelming, right? ‘Cause it’s something they haven’t done before. Just like me going to the gym, it was overwhelming. I hired a coach, a personal trainer, because I didn’t know what I was doing. And I just wanted someone to tell me what to do. And that’s what this asset accelerated newsletter does is paint by numbers. Like, start with something very small. Figure out what your real estate investing group is in town that meets once a month, because there’s one in every town. And just show up and that’s part of your routine because you’ll absorb so much from that alone. and you’ll feel like a real estate investor when you hang around. real estate investors, for example, where you feel like a stock investor when you hang around people who love investing in stock. Just like you go to the gym and you feel like you belong after a while.

Quentin Edmonds (16:19)

Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. People come up and they introduce themselves. They give you the head nod because they start seeing you all the time. So you’re absolutely right. Absolutely. What’s next? What what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve at scale next month?

Jim Duffy (16:30)

So the next real goal is to get to the big goal is to help a hundred thousand people through the newsletter and the and the message to have a much better retirement. So the income cliff, they don’t hit this income cliff where it stops and they their whole lifestyle stops, but they’re building so that it just becomes a pathway. They just keep their lifestyle keeps going because they’ve created cash flow that replaces over time the income. It’s not easy to do. Well, it’s it doesn’t happen overnight. It actually is fairly easy to do, but it just doesn’t happen overnight. So people have to just start the path and they’ll get there. It’s amazing the compounding. Everyone talks about the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest, said Einstein, I believe. Yeah. And it’s true though. It just works. It just works if you start. You just gotta start. Absolutely. But that’s the big goal. Yeah. 100,000.

Quentin Edmonds (17:20)

Love it, man. Love it. Love it. Love it. So I always like to get everyone that comes on the show, yeah, their unique perspective when it comes on, when it talks about relationship. So I would love to hear your unique perspective on building healthy, business relationships, or even client, relationships. Like talk to me about relationships, how they serve you. What are some relationships that you have served people well? Talk to me, Jim, about relationships, sir.

Jim Duffy (17:43)

Relationships. I love where you’re going with this. This is a great pod. because that’s everything is based on relationships in my mind. So one of the things I did a few years ago, this corresponds with the health changes and everything else. Once one thing changes, it’s amazing, it snowballs. And one of the things I did for years in the mortgage business, which I’m not very proud of, was I counted it as very transactional. Right. I would I cared a lot and I would make it a smooth process, lots of communication during the process, but then the process ended and so did our relationship. And so a few years ago I started doing something very, very different. I said, look, I talked to people about building wealth and specifically through real estate. Therefore I had an obligation to walk along with them, at least from time to time. So now I call three times a year and just touch base. How are you doing wealth wise? The mortgage is okay. Everything’s we’re not in refinance territory. You’re fine there. But what about a financial planner? Do you have one? Do you have a good one? Do you want an introduction? How about life insurance? Yeah, you’re married, you have a house now, you gotta have life insurance. If something happens to the breadwinner, man, you’re flying naked without it. you gotta, have it. And etc. What about a good? tax strategists if you own a business and things like that. Right. So I make introductions that help them continue to grow on that journey. Yeah. And I have found that the relationships go so much deeper when I do that. And it’s made the business so much more fun because it’s real people and I get to walk alongside them, not just during one little transaction, but as they’re growing their wealth. Yeah. Which I love.

Quentin Edmonds (19:18)

Yeah. Yeah. Love it, man. Man, I love it. I love your perspective. I love the way you think about things. So man, I really appreciate you, Jim, coming on for sharing. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, Jim?

Jim Duffy (19:34)

So two things. assetaccelerator.com is where the newsletter lives, and they can reach me there. I think that’s the easiest, simplest way to reach out. But hopefully in the show notes we’ll put this calculator that I was mentioning earlier. Because if people start using that, it’s a it’s an eye opener. It’s just like all of a sudden the curtains open and you see this beautiful view of what could be and where you can hike to and travel to and enjoy life. And so I hope people will use the calculator that you’ll put in the show notes as well because it’s pretty powerful, this cash flow machine. So yeah. But asset accelerators, best by Surichmi. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (20:13)

Yeah. Jim, sir. Listen, man, let me say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time, man. I think time is our most precious commodity. And so yeah, I know how podcasts work. You got a host and you got the guest, but your time is just as valuable as my time. So thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Secondly, man, thank you for what I call the gift of your integrity, the gift of your authenticity. I believe when we show up as our true self and talk about the things that we know, we sprinkle seeds for people. And we never know when those seeds is going to grow or take root and grow, but the seed is there. So thank you, man, for coming and print sprinkling some real seed today. And lastly, Jim, thank you for the way you think. Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today, sir.

Jim Duffy (20:58)

Thank you. And I like I say, I said it before, but I’ll say it again. Your enthusiasm is it contagious. It really is. I love it. And you can tell it’s authentic. And so thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for your time. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (21:11)

That listen on a day like today, I appreciate that more than So thank you so much, man. I appreciate that. So listen, y’all heard my friend Mr. Jim. His information is in the show notes. The links are in the show notes. Please get in contact with him, reach out, just click the link. That way it can continue to help you be successful. So definitely hook up with Jim, but definitely make sure you are subscribed here. Cause I promise you we’re gonna continue to bring up amazing people, just like the Jim Duffy. So sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.