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Notes of the Episode
Are you graduating from college with a huge amount of student loans? You are not alone. Listen to Frank Macia’s story of how he got out of his student debt by being intentional, creating a plan, mitigating life’s expenses, and taking the first step toward his goal.
Because of his desire to achieve financial freedom, Frank explored other ways to earn more income. He discovered real estate and learned how to house hack and do short-term rentals. He experienced challenges along the way but he was able to get through them and learn valuable lessons. Listen now and learn from his journey!
Key Points from This Episode
- Frank started as a pharmacy technician at a public supermarket.
- He worked as a pharmacy intern for a children’s hospital.
- In his third year in pharmacy school, he accrued a huge amount of student debt which led him to explore other options to earn more income.
- He stumbled upon real estate and started gathering as much knowledge as possible about it.
- The initial steps he took to move towards his vision and goal of financial freedom.
- How Frank’s journey in real estate investing started.
- How did he finance the lot he wanted to buy while still paying off his student loan?
- Frank shares the setbacks of building a house from scratch and how they solved them.
- What is the advantage of getting a builder?
- What would Frank do differently if he were to start all over again?
- What is Frank’s advice to a pharmacist who just graduated from school with a huge loan? Which should they prioritize – paying off their student loan or saving for an investment?
- What are the benefits of investing in real estate for a pharmacist?
- Why does Frank love house hacking?
- The tax benefits of real estate investing.
Tweetables:
“If you want to accomplish anything in your life, whether it’s career or financial goals, then you have to have some type of planning. You have to have some type of intentionality.” [00:10:06]
“As a pharmacist, you’re a graduate with a lot of student debt, if you can get into real estate for strategies such as house hacking, you’re biggest expenses will probably gonna be your living expenses. And so, if you can find a way to mitigate your living expenses, you can do house hacking or having a real estate property. You’re gonna come out ahead very quickly.” [00:27:43]
Links Mentioned:
Building an Investment Property with Frank Macias, PharmD
About Frank Macias, PharmD
My name is Frank Macias. I currently live in Bonita Springs, FL and have lived in Southwest Florida (SWFL) for the majority of my life. I am a husband and a father to my 1.5-year-old daughter. I graduated from Mercer University in Atlanta, GA in 2017 and worked as a pediatric pharmacist for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for 1 year. We moved back to Florida to be closer to family where I worked full-time as a retail pharmacist and part-time at a pediatric hospital. I accepted a full-time position at the hospital and made the transition from retail to hospital. I worked as an evening staff pharmacist for about 4 years and transitioned to daytime shortly after the birth of my daughter. Just recently, I was the outpatient hematology/oncology clinic pharmacist. Beginning of January 2023, I will be transitioning to an adult hospital system that is closer to home and will remain per diem at the children’s hospital.
When we moved back to SWFL in 2018, we rented for about 9 months before purchasing our first home. We initially wanted to purchase a duplex so that we could house hack and dramatically cut down on our living expenses while we paid back my student debt. We could not find any duplexes that met our criteria that were not outrageously priced. So, we opted to purchase a single-family home but we drew up a contract to have first rights of refusal to an adjacent lot that was owned by the same owner as the home we were purchasing. We purchased the lot 6 months after closing on our home with the goal of building a duplex to “house hack” while we lived in the other half. We experienced some bumps along the way during construction (increased supply cost, shipping delays, labor shortage) mainly due to Covid & the lockdowns. We initially wanted to do long-term rentals for our single-family home and the other side of the duplex but switched to short-term rentals. As of now, we have been doing short-term rentals for half of the duplex and our initial single-family home since April of 2022. We self-manage the properties as we are on-site. I handle all the guest communications, listing management, pricing, maintenance and reservations while my wife handles the coordination of our cleaners, final inspections, supply ordering, and payroll for our cleaners.
Our next move is to purchase another single-family home in the same area after we finish paying off my student debt (target pay off date January 2023). In addition, we will turn the other ½ of the duplex where we currently live into a short-term rental. My goal is to be part-time by the time I am 40 years old (~3 years away). My vision for the next 5 years is to create a unique property with 4 tiny homes and a pool to really differentiate ourselves from the competition, a mini resort if you will.
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