I’m A Real Estate Millionaire. So What?

The truth about real estate: you put more cash in than you get out.

The “investment bros” on TikTok said you can get rich in real estate. But they forgot to tell you something.

Sure, they told you about real estate riches. They make it sound easy- almost like playing a video game. You just lock in a mortgage rate here, manipulate some numbers on a spreadsheet there- and boom, you’re a real estate millionaire.

Let me tell you something: I am a real estate millionaire.

But it’s not what you think. Being a real estate millionaire doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t make you rich. Not in the way that people think about being rich, anyway: the cars, the lavish lifestyle, and so forth.

The reason is because real estate equity is illiquid. As the saying goes, “you can’t eat equity.” You can have a million dollars of real estate equity but it won’t do you a bit of good unless and until you sell the property.

(Of course, you could get a home equity loan. You could pay a bank thousands of dollars in fees and a super high interest rate just to borrow your own money. You could pay them for the privilege of loaning your own money to yourself. Doesn’t sound very smart, does it?)

Real estate equity is phantom money. It’s locked up tighter than a vault in Fort Knox. Like those gold bars, it’s there- but you can’t touch it, see it, or…