First Responder Freedom

Mike Hambright (00:00.834)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today I’m here with my buddy Mike Webb. He is a firefighter and we’re gonna be talking about, and also a real estate investor and a lender and runs a RIA club and a lot of other things. Where’s a lot of hats, I guess. And today we’re gonna talk about kind of first responder freedom, like being a first responder and being able to find financial freedom and specifically inside of the real estate investing industry today is what we’re gonna talk about. So Mike, good to see you buddy.

Mike Webb (00:26.012)
Good to see you. Thanks for having me on, Mike.

Mike Hambright (00:28.3)
Yeah, yeah. So I’m excited to see you, because I think very highly of you. We haven’t talked for a little while here, and it’s always been great to catch up. Honestly, that’s one of the reasons I do the podcast, is to catch up with old friends and maybe make some new ones every once in a while. But hey, before we jump into this, I want you to tell us a little bit about your background and kind how you found your way into real estate, because I know that you didn’t start here.

Mike Webb (00:53.026)
no. So how I got started in real estate was, I’ve always had an entrepreneurial bug, if you will. You know, I had my own carty-tilling business in high school and a lot of that type of stuff. And as I got older, I got into the fire service, my wife worked at a hospital. And so we were working a lot and a shift work at that. So whenever we found out we were having our first child, I remember kind of just

cruising the internet and looking at what it cost to go to Disney and I remember doing the math of what it was going to cost roughly and how much overtime that was going to take to work to pay for it and I was like man this is there’s just got to be something else and at the time I was working overtime all the all the time so I looked at Subways and Liberty Tax and all these different franchises but I kept coming back to real estate and I

just went hard with educating myself and then buying a rental property, doing a lot of the work myself, you know, realizing I didn’t know anything. And oftentimes arguably still don’t, but that’s kind of where it got started. And that’s

That’s where I was like, hey, I’m going to be able to provide the life I want for my family by real estate while working in the fire department. So that’s kind of where it originally started. And then there’s a lot of different offshoots we could go with how it went from there.

Mike Hambright (02:25.324)
Yeah, it’s interesting. I they’re obviously, I think, very highly of…

all first responders. There’s a lot of people that are public servants that do a lot of good for society, but they just don’t make a lot of money, right? And at the end of the day, I think, and by the way, you’ve been on this real estate journey for quite some time now, done a lot of things there, but you didn’t leave as a first responder. And talk about that, like how you weren’t trying to get away from it, you’re just trying to supplement it, I guess, but maybe, you your need, your, your kind of feeling that you still need to play that role as well when it’s not for fun.

financial reasons clearly,

Mike Webb (03:01.466)
Yeah, you know, and that’s something I’ve wrestled with for, would say, a couple of years off and on because everybody.

When you get into real estate, it’s you got to quit your job. You got to do it full time. You got to this, that, and the other thing. And I there for a while kind of fell victim to that. That was the thinking I thought like, Hey, I have to pick one or the other. And then that’s when I kind of just got to the point where I was like, you know what? I’m going to run my own race. And it’s something important to me to finish that career journey on my own terms and reach my retirement eligibility date. So

I decided a couple years ago, you know what? I’m going to just make the decision to see it through. At this point, I have less than three years till I can retire or be eligible to retire. I’ll be 44 years old. So it’s like, okay, I still have, you know, I knock on wood and joke. I have time. We all think we do. And I just decided I was going to finish that career while still building my real estate business.

so that it fit my needs.

Mike Hambright (04:10.862)
Yeah, and firefighters have a unique kind of like time situation too, more so than police officers or other things, right? mean, it’s a little bit of, what would you say kind of being able to fit the real estate business into your life as a firefighter as compared to maybe other types of first responders?

Mike Webb (04:32.324)
I think, so it’s pretty common across the nation to work 24 hour shifts and there are some places where they work 48 hours on, they’re off for 96, but where I work specifically it’s 24 hours on duty and then you’re off for 48 hours. And then every three weeks you get a five day stretch off called a Kelly Day. So,

I think you see a lot of folks in the fire service with other businesses or other second jobs because of the way the schedule works. With that being said, two separate times now in my career, I’ve had a surprise where I got moved to a Monday to Friday office job within the fire department. Both times.

involving training. So I got moved to a Monday through Friday role and I was working just normal business hours type thing. So that really hurt my wholesaling business when that was what I was doing and I was a one-man band like to the point it like decimated my business.

Fast forward a couple years, I went back to a Monday through Friday role, but my business actually thrived, but because I had built some systems and got some people in place so that the business was actually working while I had to do that two year basically schedule commitment. But now I’m back to normal 24 on 48 off. And that just allows a little bit of time freedom, if you will, to do other things like real estate.

Mike Hambright (06:00.366)
Yeah, and you have a partner as well, right? So you guys are able to probably tag team things a little bit there as well. So it’s not like you’re a one man band and everything stops when you’re not able to work,

Mike Webb (06:12.058)
Yeah, and so you had Bill on Bill Kenny’s my business partner and I’m actually.

We have been working together since July 2nd of 2014. I have the first wholesale we did together at the check stub on my bulletin board above me. yeah, and over the last several years, we’ve built a business together and a partnership is just that. Like you’re constantly covering and move. There’s times where I have to do stuff that he’s not able to do and vice versa. And that’s just kind of the way a partnership plays out, especially in a small business. At least if you ask me.

Mike Hambright (06:25.738)
Nice.

Mike Hambright (06:44.91)
Yeah. So you guys were real estate investors first for a long time. And then I know you pivoted a couple of years back maybe, I don’t know exactly when it was, but to more of the lending side of the business. Is that right?

Mike Webb (06:58.714)
Yeah, we’ve been hard money lenders now for about three years and we’ve been growing that business each year. But yeah, it kind of started whenever we were.

kind of just feeling a little burnout. I’ll speak for myself. I felt a little burnout with the flipping and you can make a lot. First off, any of these facets within the real estate investing community, you can make money is what I’ve realized. It just depends on what suits your lifestyle, personality, desires, so on and so forth. And we had done very well flipping and wholesaling there for a while. But right whenever the you know, the pandemic and

Pricing was going crazy and one minute you by the time you got them by the time you bought the deal and you went to rehab it prices had gone up 20 % and the only saving grace you had was the market was going up 30 % so it it was just a lot of stuff coming to a head at once and that’s when we pivoted from being the the flipper if you will to being the lender

Mike Hambright (08:02.168)
Yeah, yeah, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I there’s a lot of people that in some ways people see that moving kind of upstream a little bit of kind of everybody. Ultimately, everybody wants to be the bank or they want to have the ability to be the bank, right? So some people just find it faster than others, I guess.

Mike Webb (08:17.914)
Yeah, and it all comes with challenges, like whether you’re flipping or being the lender or… All of it, I don’t care what people tell you, like all of it has stuff to deal with, you know?

Mike Hambright (08:34.382)
So talk about, I know you’re not only a first responder, you do a lot of stuff to kind of help other first responders with financial literacy, kind of finding freedom, which most of your, I’m sure what you do is around the real estate space, like teaching people how they can use real estate to make more money and ultimately live a more fulfilling life, impact more people in their lives. Tell us a little bit about that, what your primary beliefs are there.

Mike Webb (09:01.532)
So it all started like whenever I was…

dealing, like getting involved with rentals and the guys at the firehouse would always call me slumlord. And at first it bugged me. but now I just totally laugh about it. But what I noticed was in a group setting, it was, you know, slumlord this or whatever. And then once you were by yourself, people would be like, Hey, can I ask you to pick your brain or, know, and as I, and as I started to put,

Mike Hambright (09:29.666)
Yeah.

Mike Webb (09:31.98)
more out. I used to try and keep everything like separate. Like this is fire department life, this is real estate life. And then after a while, I just like leaned into it and started posting stuff on social media. And then that just created conversations. And I noticed like a lot of people apparently were curious, but didn’t want to like put it out there that they wanted to know how they could do this. So that’s when I started the first responder financial freedom Facebook group. And then subsequently we started a podcast that

We just, yes, it is heavily based in real estate, but we’ve talked to people that have, you know, fishing charters or you name it, foundation repair and everything in between. So it’s just one of those things I’m passionate sharing that like, you don’t have to always trade time for money. And a lot of these guys are extremely resourceful. at the end of the day, like firefighters are job description or title, but

our job description is just problem solver. Like I would say less than 5 % of the calls we go on are for actual fires. Everything else is just, they didn’t know who else to call and you’re there to solve a problem. And that’s really what real estate investing is, is just trying to solve problems daily. I would say entrepreneur is that. So, it was just my goal to, I always say like, I’m just a fireman. So

Mike Hambright (10:43.266)
Right.

Yeah.

Mike Webb (10:58.598)
take your advice, you know, with a grain of salt, but just trying to normalize like, Hey, just because you work $30,000 and over time, don’t go buy the a thousand dollar truck. Maybe go buy a duplex, live in one side, rent the other, you know, just trying to normalize some of that conversation because, you know, for a lot of guys, this is like, I call it their first big boy job. Like they have benefits, they have a retirement, you know, and nobody ever really sits down to go over how that all works.

And again, I’m no expert, but it’s like, you might want to be thinking about 10, 20, 30 years down the road because it just shows up one day. Trust me. Like I feel like last week I was the new guy and now I’m filling out paperwork for guys that weren’t even born when I graduated from recruit school. So it’s like, you know what I mean? It’s one day you’re going to be the old guy and you want to be able to give them some good advice, hopefully.

Mike Hambright (11:28.269)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (11:48.173)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (11:52.226)
Yeah, and time really is on your side. went from a, you know, we’re talking about financial literacy a little bit here, or kind of teaching that. Time really is on your side from an investment standpoint. Basically, the younger you get started, the better it will be for you in the long run.

Mike Webb (12:08.954)
Yeah, if you look at just about any investment vehicle, the longer the time horizon, the better. know, it makes it a lot harder to lose if you just stay in it.

Mike Hambright (12:19.542)
Yeah. So let’s talk about the mindset of the typical first responder.

firefighter, anything you want to cover there of just, so I grew up, my whole family, I have a very blue collar background, mostly factory workers and things like that. not too different trading time for money ultimately. Ultimately thinking that retirement is, I’m gonna retire and I’m gonna sit on the beach and do nothing. But it’s just like, think sometimes when you have, I think service providers are a little bit unique compared to like a lot of people that are my family that worked at a factory. like, there was really no,

element I mean I’m just supposing as much of an element of like feeling like you’re making an impact on other people that you guys are clearly impacting other people because you’re working with the the community you live in versus

building something that’s gonna get shipped off to somewhere else and some faceless person’s gonna buy it someday, right? But there’s still that same kind of thought of like, it’s just a job, it’s not, this isn’t like, I don’t know, I guess for firefighters, there’s a lot more pride in like, this is what I do. But anyway, my point is there’s a lot of folks that are in W-2 type roles that are trading time for money that like, don’t like their job at all and they’re not really planning for the future.

they’re just kind of living paycheck to paycheck for the most part because you’re really capped for the most part of what you can’t even make, right?

Mike Webb (13:45.478)
Yeah.

And I would say a lot of that is still true within the first responder community. I have a lot of friends that are police officers, paramedics, et cetera. And it’s at the end of the day, like the work is very meaningful, at least to me, like, and it’s something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I was young. Just never really outgrew that, I guess you could say. And it, not every shift is like this where you feel like you’re making a difference. Trust me. And I speak probably for all first responders when I say that, but truth be told, there,

are definitely times where you feel like or know that what you did made a difference and that that’s that is rewarding and you know some folks might think that’s kind of cheesy but it’s true and you know I’ve had the privilege to teach within our department so I know that I’ve

taught hundreds of fire recruits, you know, maybe one little thing that they’re going to use during their career that’s then going to basically be hopefully passed on or maybe I taught them what not to do. I don’t know, but it’s one of those things like you, you may never get was it the shade of the tree you planted? Like I know that there’s going to be guys that I taught that are now promoting that are going to hopefully just continue it on. So it’s really satisfying, but

your point like you are capped like and then you get politics involved to where it’s like hey the budget is this and the you’re getting a cost of living that you know so you don’t have a lot of control in a lot of respects to what your income potential is other than whenever there’s overtime available you work yourself to death so i think the identity of those professions is something that is

Mike Webb (15:28.622)
it just kind of comes with the territory. Like it becomes a part of your identity and not just a job. And that’s where, that’s where I think whenever I eventually retire, you know, that’s something I’m going to have to contend with. But if I have this group to where I’m still around those types of folks, I can feel like I’m still giving back to that community. So.

Mike Hambright (15:33.516)
Right.

Mike Hambright (15:48.727)
Yeah.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but a lot of the training is probably technical around the job, right? But there’s not necessarily, as you kind of said, front financial literacy. There’s not necessarily people that are saying like, hey, this is what you make, but let me show you how to take it to another level by investing in assets or other businesses. There’s nobody that’s really teaching that. mean, it’s kind of like people are hearing guys like you or other people that have done something and probably saying, I’d like to do that too. And then finding a way to go down that path.

But there’s nobody that’s like proactively saying like, look, yeah, the salary isn’t great, but you’ve got a lot of time and here’s how to utilize that to make lemonade out of lemons maybe,

Mike Webb (16:30.844)
Yeah, and I can’t speak for every place, but I can tell you at least where I work. They walked in with a stack of papers, you know, on like day one and just said like, here, sign these. And you don’t know, like you’re checking HMO versus PPO. Like you don’t even know what you’re filling out, but you’re like, all right, go for it. So unless you have a family member, friend or somebody that kind of like takes you under their wing when you get out in the field to kind of say like, hey, this is a 457, this is a 401k, this, you know,

Mike Hambright (16:43.64)
Hahaha.

Mike Webb (17:00.888)
kind of spell that stuff out. If you don’t go seeking it, it’s not like there’s a class on Fire Department Finances 101. So at least where I’m at.

Mike Hambright (17:10.136)
Yeah. So, so, so how can folks that are there like find something that else that they’d be passionate about it. They can make money. Obviously I know you have a podcast where you teach financial literacy to first responders and things like that. But what, what, what do you, what do people like, what advice would you give people that feel like, Hey, I need some supplemental income and I need to build something like build some long-term wealth. Cause the opportunity is there. Right.

Mike Webb (17:35.086)
Yes, 100%. And I think, I would say whatever your competitive advantage is, for example, if you’re like, there’s a couple of guys that have like a dumpster and trailer business. Like if that’s your…

skill set or you feel like you have a competitive advantage because in a previous life you used to haul 18 wheelers. I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be real estate but that’s just where I chose. I think real estate is one of the best investment vehicles out there. With that being said, and I heard a buddy quote this recently, you can only do so much with real estate to some extent. Example,

we buy self-storage facilities. At the end of the day, there’s only so much I can squeeze out of that square footage, revenue management, so on and so forth. It can be a lot, don’t get me wrong. But like with a business, for instance, like say you decide you’re gonna start buying dumpsters and renting those out, you can scale that to…

how much can you handle geographically, inventory wise, operations wise, you’re not limited by the square footage of the business or the, excuse me, the facility. So I would say wherever your competitive advantage or passion is, that’s where I would pick to start. Because it makes it a lot easier to.

deal with the suck when it’s something you enjoy. So I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer there, but it could be car mechanic for all I care. Like there’s a lot of opportunity there, you know?

Mike Hambright (19:06.53)
Yeah, well everybody has to find their own way. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of that kind of, a lot of that blue collar mindset that I’m familiar with from my family is I don’t have the money to do that. There tends to be a lot of here’s why I can’t do it, you know? And, cause I just think, you know, there was a time where you could have a, and it’s coming back obviously, but you could have a.

a blue collar type job where you work at one place for 30 years and retire and have a nice retirement. think that those days are, other than maybe first responders, I mean I know there’s good benefits and things, but those times are not as, that’s not as prevalent as it used to be, right? So you’ve gotta find some ways to supplement it.

Mike Webb (19:49.264)
Yeah, and I don’t have like the statistics, can tell you just by being around our department, it was very, very uncommon once you got hired for anybody to quit.

And I don’t know again what the percentages are ratios, but over the last, would say five to seven years, it’s not uncommon to see like two or three people just quit and pursue some other profession after they’ve gone through the training, gone through probation, gone through the first couple of years. mean, that’s.

I wouldn’t say common, but it’s become a lot more common than it used to be. So I would imagine that the number of people that just park themselves in one spot for 30 years anymore is dwindling.

Mike Hambright (20:34.126)
Yeah. You think that’s a cost of living type issue? Is it financial stuff that’s maybe driving that? Where people could have a passion for it, but they just can’t afford to stay there maybe?

Mike Webb (20:41.403)
I think it’s a…

Mike Webb (20:45.594)
I think it’s probably a mix. You know, their spouse is allowed to work remotely now, so they go travel or do this or do that. Cost of living is, I’m kind of in like the DC metro area, so the cost of living is always something we’re contending with, and it just seems to creep further out every year. And I just think a lot of people growing up like,

Yeah, maybe their father worked in a factory and they sold them the get a good job, get a pension. You’re set. Right. And I think as the availability of information is just become so available, right. Between podcasting and webinars and whatnot, people just realize that there’s other ways that they don’t have to kind of just be this cog in the wheel for 30 years and then live happily ever after. So that’s just my.

guess. I don’t know if any of that is true.

Mike Hambright (21:41.954)
Yeah, but I think the great thing for firefighters is that you have the time, potentially you have the time to do something else. I know there’s some guys that I’ve been using for probably eight to 10 years now that they’re it’s off duty firefighters that are putting on Christmas lights. And they’re all over my neighborhood and I’m like.

Why wouldn’t I use them? know, they get it done like clockwork and there’s just, it’s just that side hustle. But I think one of the, you know, one of the things that you probably share with them is if you go do other things, you can also make that active money from that side hustle and put it into real estate ultimately, if you want to, right? If you wanted to buy rentals or possibly lend it or other things.

Mike Webb (22:05.425)
Yeah.

Mike Webb (22:21.872)
Yeah, and that’s kind of worked organically as I have.

guys in the fire service locally and frankly nationally that I’ve never met in person, but we’ve connected over that common thread. And now they’re like, Hey man, I have a couple bucks. what could I do with it? And we, we walked through some, some options and there have been times where they in essence give it to me to lend out and they get a payment every month without touching it. That’s not necessarily my goal, but like, they’re like, Hey, I feel comfortable. That’s what works for me. And I’m like, okay.

So, I don’t know, I think it really comes down to what you want to do, but I think taking that active income and putting in some sort of investment, at least a portion of it, is super important. You don’t realize it in the short term, but in the long term I think you do.

Mike Hambright (22:57.827)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (23:12.354)
Yeah, I if you think of like Kiyosaki’s cashflow quadrant, which I talk about that all the time, everybody wants to get to that lower right box. They want to have passive income, right? They want, whether it’s rentals, which by the way are not passive and you anybody that owns rentals knows that, but it is a way to build wealth. You know, I mean, it’s not passive, but there’s a lot of stuff happening without me. And then sometimes there’s, you know, I get pulled in, but.

or it’s lending or it’s putting it into syndication or even putting it in the stock market. Those are all passive things, but you kind of have to make it actively before. I mean, you can’t just get mailbox money if you don’t have a basis to start with. So you’ve got to make that money somewhere, right? I think that’s one of the myths is like, everybody thinks like, I just want to like get rich and have a bunch of money coming in. It’s like, yeah, you got to like seed it first with something else.

Mike Webb (23:51.729)
Yeah.

Mike Webb (24:00.516)
Yeah, I mean, if it was that simple, you know, but if anybody knows how to do it, give me a shout.

Mike Hambright (24:05.292)
Yeah, yeah, me too. So, Mike, if folks want to learn more about what you guys have got going on, you’ve got your hard money business there, you’ve got a pretty, you’ve got a Rio club, you guys have been running that for like eight or nine years now, right?

Mike Webb (24:07.21)
Yeah

Mike Webb (24:19.452)
Yep. Yeah, it’s a local meetup. We’re in the, like I said, kind of the DC metro area. So you can check us out. We have a Facebook group for that. I 81 real estate investors. And then we also have hard money, which is jump capital dot loans. Or if you’re a first responder and want to chat, we have a Facebook group and podcast called First Responder Financial Freedom. So that’s kind of the.

I don’t really have anything to sell, that’s you ever want to talk or any of this stuff kind of hits home, that’s those are the places to reach out.

Mike Hambright (24:49.825)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (24:54.35)
Cool man, well we’ll add links for all that down below here. So good to see you buddy, thanks for sharing some time with us today.

Mike Webb (24:59.331)
Absolutely, anytime.

Mike Hambright (25:01.006)
Awesome, awesome. Everybody hope you enjoyed today’s show. We’ll see you on the next one.