[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome back to happy time happy money podcast with Viktoriia Miracle and today we have Craig Curelop. He went from a net worth of negative 30,000 to financially independent in just two and a half years. Now with his financial independence he has fun building team of investors, friendly real estate agents at The FI Team, helping others achieve financial independence as he did when he's not slaying dragons with his newfound mustache. He is rocking podcast episode and leaving in the bio-hackers good live in Colorado and Hawaii. Hi and welcome Craig.

[00:00:54] Craig Curelop: Hey Viktoriia, thank you so much for having me on.

[00:00:57] Viktoriia Miracle: Absolutely. And we are so excited to hear more about you, how you chose what to do, what you do? What inspired you to do what you're doing?

[00:01:09] Craig Curelop: Yeah. So basically it all started when I was in a corporate job that I absolutely hated, you know, I was working like a hundred hour weeks making like just over a hundred thousand dollars a year when my boss was making a million and his boss was making 10 million and that lifestyle was just not for me.

[00:01:24] So I discovered the idea of passive income. And when I discovered that idea of passive income, I started thinking of all these dumb ideas, like starting a business, all these businesses that wouldn't work. But then I settled upon real estate and I realized I didn't need to be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.

[00:01:42] I could just be a real estate investor. So that's when I found a company called BiggerPockets who just teaches tons of people about real estate investing started listening to their podcasts. You know, reading their books and educating, educating, educating and that's when I made the move and I got my first house hack.

[00:01:57] So for those that don't know what a house hack is, it's the idea that you buy a property for a low percent down, simply three to 5% down. You have to live in that property for a year and you can rent out the other rooms or other units. So your rent covers your mortgage and you can live for free. It's like the best way to get started in real estate investing because you're coming in with just a low percent down, you're living rent free.

[00:02:20] You have to live somewhere anyway, and you're building equity in a property and you can do that year over year, over year. So I've done that now for five years while picking up a handful of other investment properties in the process. And so now, Viktoriia, like you mentioned, uh, after just a couple of years, I hit financial independence now starting to build serious wealth, and I'm now no longer playing not to lose and a W2 role, but I'm playing to win as an entrepreneur.

[00:02:46] Viktoriia Miracle: That is amazing. Why is it so powerful? All you say that we've got us, some of you were going to leave for free in house hacking, but what is, what else is there? Why so powerful?

[00:02:58] Craig Curelop: Well, it's so powerful because one, you can consistently achieve returns a hundred percent or more. Every time in the function of that is that low percent down.

[00:03:07] Typically let's just take Denver for example, Denver, you're going to buy a house for $600,000 with how's that can, you can buy that property with just $30,000. If you want to do a traditional rental, you have to put 20% down. That's $120,000. That's a lot more cause it's going to take a lot more saving, right?

[00:03:23] So because you can buy it with such a low down payment, you can buy it year after year after year, and all those properties start appreciating you start getting that cashflow. That cashflow allows you to quit your job. Now, once you quit your job, you can become an entrepreneur. And now you can just like take that risk and you and I am sure both know that you can make a lot more money and have a lot more freedom being an entrepreneur.

[00:03:43] So that's what, that's what I've did and that's why we've created the team. We've created this because we truly believe in that mission.

[00:03:49] Viktoriia Miracle: What was the number one mistake you've done when you started?

[00:03:54] Craig Curelop: The number one mistake.

[00:03:55] Viktoriia Miracle: What not to do?

[00:03:57] Craig Curelop: Yeah. What not to do. So everyone will say this in real estate investing, you want to really make sure that you screen your tenants.

[00:04:04] And you know, it's, so the first phone you'll do really good on, right? Because you're, you're kind of scared. You're nervous gonna wanna make sure all your boxes are checked when you get to like your third and fourth. When you start to get coffee, you start to get confident. You start to get complacent. When you get complacent, you know, used to let things slide that's when things can really come back to bite you. So make sure you just really stick to your standards. And, you know, if, if someone's got a ding on their background report or their, their credit score is low, do not accept them.

[00:04:31] Viktoriia Miracle: Hmm. Okay. Well, do not accept credit as low credit score low.

[00:04:35] So if you have a credit, low credit score, like you said, there is a percentage low percentage you can buy property. Can you do it with a low credit score?

[00:04:45] Craig Curelop: So, with an FHO loan, you can have a lower credit score. I think that goes down as low as 580

[00:04:52] Viktoriia Miracle: FHA loan you said?

[00:04:54] Craig Curelop: FHO. It stands for the federal housing administration.

[00:04:57] Talk to any lender, they'll know exactly what you're talking about, but it allows you to buy a property for 3.5% down and their credit score limits are a little bit lower than like a conventional mortgage. So I think you can go up and go as low as 580. So, you know, if you're below 580, you just need to work on your credit score. And then when you get that up, you can then get your mortgage.

[00:05:18] Viktoriia Miracle: I didn't know. That was below a 600 and it was 600. I think that was a lowest one.

[00:05:23] Craig Curelop: Yeah, well, that's, that's good for you, right?

[00:05:26] Viktoriia Miracle: Got it. So cool. So what he meant by you have real estate team. What I understood you just living in the houses and you're renting them out and then you rent basically where you live to the person and then you move on to the next one. Is that right?

[00:05:41] Craig Curelop: Right. Yeah. So basically that's how I started and that's how I achieved financial independence. Well, my passive income exceeded my expenses. And so, because that was such a powerful method for me, I really wanted to help other people do it. So, I got my real estate license and created a team of real estate agents.

[00:05:57] All of whom are doing the same exact thing that I did so that we can coach guide and mentor people through that entire process so they can help more and more people achieve financial independence in, in what we think is a very low risk way to do this.

[00:06:10] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, when definitely you're leaving in your investments, you, at least you can feel it.

[00:06:15] The crypto like stocks that you can feel it. I think that's something you want to definitely learn more about. Okay, and what will be your number one advice to people that are starting out or already started and just a little bit further ahead?

[00:06:33] Craig Curelop: Yeah, I would just say, just keep going, getting ready to fail because every wall and every entrepreneur, every real estate investor, everyone in this space fails and fails and fails and fails.

[00:06:43] And we just learn from our failures and we try not to make the same mistake twice. So, you know, strap on your suit of armor. Get ready to take some blows and just keep pushing forward.

[00:06:53] Viktoriia Miracle: Nice. So the one failure you said. Well, getting a wrong tenants. Yeah. Anything else comes on your mind? What can be possible?

[00:07:07] Craig Curelop: I mean, you know, screening the right contractors, making sure you hire the right people. I've hired some bad contractors in my day. You know, just making sure you do the right diligence on the properties, not getting emotionally invested in the property, because if you got to always make sure that the numbers work, or if the numbers don't work, then you can't buy it. Right. That's the most important thing you're only going to live there for a year, so you don't need to have the most luxury luxurious living space, save your luxury houses and save your lifestyle creep for after you've, you know, you've built some serious wealth and some passive income.

[00:07:36] Viktoriia Miracle: Got it. Got it. Perfect. And the last question that I ask everybody on this podcast. Finish the sentence for me, please and it sounds like this. If you really knew me, you will know that I am blank.

[00:07:51] Craig Curelop: If you really knew me, then you would know that I really am genuine authentic guy in everything that I say, I try to be a hundred percent truthful for I'll admit my failures.

[00:08:02] I'll tell you what I did. Right. I'll tell you what I did wrong and I always liked to try to be people's friends. So I try to be friendly as well.

[00:08:09] Viktoriia Miracle: Super cool. Awesome and I know you have a free gift for our audience and where they can find you?

[00:08:17] Craig Curelop: Yeah. So you can go to our site and download the financial independence calculator, and you can find me on Instagram.

[00:08:24] Viktoriia Miracle: And we will link everything is always an episode page where if you're watching or listening, just scroll down and there's going to be a link where you click and they will take you to the page where you can also find the video, audio version of it and transcript and all the links and connection, social medias for Craig and me as well. And don't forget to leave a review, subscribe, and rate, and shared with your friends if you love it. And if we find this helpful and sharing a scaring generosity, rule the world. Thank you so much, Craig, for coming over and sharing your knowledge and thank you so much for watching and listening and bye.