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Why Your Parent’s “Buy Real Estate” Strategy is Bankrupting Your Future
Do you want to own assets or be OWNED by assets?
Last week, a buddy FaceTimed me from a duplex just off the Beltline in Atlanta, smiling like he’d won the lottery.
“I just closed on my first fix and flip! I’m officially a real estate investor!”
I was genuinely happy for him.
“Congrats! When do the midnight plumbing emergencies start?”
Had to get a joke in there, but this was a big deal for him, and rightfully so. Real estate has been a major wealth-building tool for Americans since the mid-1900s — hard assets, passive income, appreciation.
The ultimate generational wealth builder.
But after I hung up, I started thinking…
Did he make a massive mistake?
While he’s dealing with a burst pipe at midnight, some 19-year-old in Cleveland is building a $5M AI-powered business from his bedroom. When he’s sweating over his Bank of America mortgage, a Starbucks barista is scaling a software product to 100K users — without ever talking to a banker.
