Mindy Jensen: Alex Preziosi came on the podcast about 2 years ago wondering if she could quit her W-2 job and go full-time into being a real estate agent. Today we’re gonna hear an update and what Alex’s next major milestone will be. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my loves-to-hear Finance Friday updates co-host, Scott Trench.
Scott Trench: Thanks, Mindy. That’s a great intro. Please don’t quit your job nearly as aggressively as Alex did here. We are so excited for Alex’s third time returning to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. She has been on episode 395 and then again came back on episode 589. And it’s probably been several years. It’s been 2 years since we last talked to Alex. So I’m going to recap both of those for you here, but you should definitely go and check out those 2 episodes to see this awesome progression of a journey going on in real time. So without further ado, welcome back, Alex, to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast.
Alex Preziosi: Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me back. Three-peat. Just to set the stage, I’ll go ahead and summarize what we talked about there.
Scott Trench: My friend ChatGPT was very helpful in summarizing those 2 episodes and helping me prepare this. But basically, the first time we chatted was in episode 395. What was that, like 2022, somewhere in that range?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, I think so.
Scott Trench: Yeah. So, and how old were you then?
Alex Preziosi: 29, I think I was at that time.
Scott Trench: Awesome. And at that point, you had about $138,000 of income, and that was part salary, part real estate commissions, and then part project commissions. You had about $120,000 in cash and $37,000 in a Vanguard brokerage, $6,800 in a 401(k), and $11,000 and some other change there. And your question was basically, how do I get to FI by age 45? Is that a good recap of that?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, sure, at the time. Mm-hmm.
Scott Trench: The central problem at that point was that you had all these options, all these things going on, and we needed to focus on a couple of objectives. And it was basically like the real estate agent commissions were one part of that, and a house hack specifically with the focus of an assumable FHA or VA mortgage. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened between that episode and the second one we talked about in 2024?
Alex Preziosi: Sure, okay, so at that time I had been renting, but did want to buy a house hack property in the town that I was renting in. Probably within that year, we found something in our town here in North Jersey. Found it off market. I was marketing and also looking for things on market too. Found something, you know, relatively under market value, put a lot of work into it, ended up living in one unit and renting out the other one. And that’s where I am right now as well. So still living in that property.
Scott Trench: Awesome. So bought a house hack and then you came back in 2024 and you brought us new numbers. You said your income had gone from about $138K to $184,000, this time with $68K from your W-2, $96,000 in your real estate commissions, and a $20,000 bonus. And you were spending only $50,000, in part because of the house hack. That left you with $120K in cash, $306K in taxable brokerage, plus Roth 401(k), Roth IRA bonuses, and then $367,000 in equity in this house hack. Does that sound about right?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Scott Trench: Awesome. And your central question at that point was, should you quit your W-2 job, which came with a pretty brutal, I think, 2 or 3 hour commute down to the Jersey Shore?
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, pretty bad.
Alex Preziosi: And you wanted to go full time as an agent.
Scott Trench: Or you were thinking about going full-time as an agent. Is that right?
Alex Preziosi: Exactly.
Scott Trench: Yeah.
Mindy Jensen: I was going to say her commute was 4 hours plus round trip, 3 days a week.
Alex Preziosi: Yes, Mindy.
Mindy Jensen: It’s not 1.5 to 2 hours. It was like an hour and 45 down and 2.5 hours back, 3 days a week. My first thought was quit.
Alex Preziosi: I do think shortly after we talked, I did— I don’t want to say negotiate down, but I ended up going twice a week, and that made it a little bit more helpful until actually doing the full transition, which was probably like another 6 months to a year after that. I was pretty convinced that that was gonna be on the way out after the conversation, as if I didn’t already know the answer to that myself.
Mindy Jensen: That’s the whole reason we do Finance Fridays. “Oh, I really don’t like this commute.” And then you say it to somebody else who hasn’t seen you do this commute, and you’re like, that’s an awful commute.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah.
Mindy Jensen: Get rid of that job. There’s another job you can find that’s making that same money for far less of a commute.
Alex Preziosi: For sure.
Scott Trench: You know, the question was, can I quit my job and go full-time as an agent? And ChatGPT sums up me and Mindy’s entertainment-only, of course, advice in this particular episode as this: both said yes, unusually emphatically. Scott’s argument was that she generated $96,000 in commissions part-time while commuting 12 hours a week, has 5 years of commission tax history, spends almost nothing, and has 2.5 years of expenses in cash. He suggested she pitch her boss first, who is also her broker, on shifting towards selling instead of admin work, since that would also benefit him more. You know, there’s a couple other things about, you know, does self-employment impact your— talk to a lender before doing that, because it may impact your loan qualifications. Look into a mega backdoor Roth or solo 401(k). Think about cost segregation or depreciation timing, and then max your HSA and save your receipts for later reimbursement. So that was our entertainment for you on that particular episode. What ended up happening in the next year or two since we last chatted?
Alex Preziosi: I ended up quitting. I gave like 6 months notice, so I ended up going down twice a week for that 6-month period. Ultimately, yeah, left. I’ve been full-time, I guess you’d say full-time. A lot of times, I guess I’ve come to the realization in retrospect that I’ve really just been working 2 full-time jobs for the past 3 years, right? Or 4 years. But I’ll just say I’m full-time only real estate, you know, commission realtor for almost a year now. It was last November I had finally— and at that point, I felt comfortable because of the cash position and other factors. And it was just kind of time for me, yeah, to kind of take the next step and see what I could do being full-time. Yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at right now.
Mindy Jensen: So clearly your financial position has improved after leaving this 12-hour-a-week commute job. I want to caution anybody who’s hearing this and saying, “Oh, I should just quit my job and be a real estate agent.” I’m a real estate agent. I think being a real estate agent is great. It’s a great way to make a lot of money. But the market has slowed down a lot, and there’s a lot of circling factors that are pointing to it may slow down more, because interest rates may go up more, because inflation is going up, yada, yada, yada. How has your specific income— I mean, obviously you’re doing great, but you also have more time to spend on it. Have you seen a lot of impact in your market or your specific job? Like, are you having to hustle harder and work harder to get clients, or has it not been impacted as much as some other places in the country?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, it’s a good question, Mindy. I think overall that is the sentiment, that it is like a harder market to make money overall. But also, to your point, for somebody to say just jump in and become a real estate agent, it’s probably way harder for them than even for, say, me, because I’ve really been doing it part-time, say, for that 6-year period, right? As a result, I have past clients, I have referrals. That’s a big chunk of my business still. And do I feel like I’m hustling harder? Eh, I don’t know, maybe. It’s just that it’s my day-to-day now, so it’s kind of just part of the routine as opposed to like trying to, say, squeeze it in and having to do it at night and having to do it on lunch or whatever it is. So I’m investing more time, I think, just naturally. And I’ve also been investing a lot more money into those things too. And have seen some, you know, ROI on that, you know, generally. But yeah, I’m pretty much on track to double my income from the part-time input. So overall, I can’t really complain being, yeah, first year, first year, quotation marks, full-time, you know, in real estate. So.
Mindy Jensen: I think that’s awesome. I think a lot of people will say, “Oh, being a real estate agent is so great,” and it is, but it takes a long time to get up to that, being a real estate agent is so great.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, definitely.
Mindy Jensen: And you have 6 years of experience, 6 part-time years, but there’s still 6 years that you have been there selling real estate. Scott, what did you say? Her income went up from like $120,000 or $140,000 to $180,000, and that’s all real estate commissions.
Scott Trench: That was by the time we talked to her last time. What is it now?
Alex Preziosi: That was with my W-2 and my real estate agent commission. So I think at that time my real estate agent commissions were about $100,000, say, and then with my other, say it was, you know, a little under $100,000, so about that $180,000. Now, since I don’t have that W-2, I’m, as of right now, at $100,000 in commissions this year, so in September. And then I have a few closings in the next couple of months, and I’m hoping to do more, obviously. But I’m tracking for $200,000 at least in commissions for this year.
Scott Trench: That’s net commissions? Is that what you take home?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, that would be what I take home, not including taxes. So, you know, that’s always a toss-up, but that would be, yeah, my GCI pretty much.
Scott Trench: We don’t usually come in and say, “Quit your job,” you know, in there. It’s just that in this situation, when we talked to you last time, that commute and the relatively low income compared to your commissions and your cash position and your low spending and your house hack just like made all the stars align of it was obvious in the sense that your job was actually a huge opportunity cost to you compared to this pursuit. And there’s always a risk associated with those, but the odds were so overwhelming, given that context and the 5 years of history, that it made that a relatively easy analysis. I don’t want to get people confused that, “Hey, quit your job and go into this stuff.” You know, it can be really, really hard. If you had quit your job and had gone into your first year getting your license, for example, you could have had a complete zero for the commissions this year, or 2 closings at most, you know, or something like that. It’s the fact that all those things were stacked up in your favor here that made that a big advantage. Is the pace of your closings accelerating over the course of the year, or did you start out strong and it’s slowing, or has it been relatively smooth?
Alex Preziosi: I would say it’s pretty consistent. There’s been maybe 2 months this year that I didn’t have commissions, and then the other months I’ve had 1 or 2 at least. So it’s pretty consistent. Yeah.
Scott Trench: Okay, awesome. And what are you doing with the cash? How are you managing your finances in a general sense now that you’re an entrepreneur and have the jitters about where the next paycheck will come from?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, so I think, to also talk to your points about, yeah, not just quitting your job and trying to become a realtor or whatever the case may be, I think the confidence from my position is also the fact that I had that kind of cash stash that was at least, say, a year of what I knew my expenses were, or even more than a year, really. So to answer your question, Scott, what I’ve been doing is a lot of the same, but I am paying myself from that savings account. So I kind of just have my weekly distribution into my checking account. That’s like roughly what I need on a monthly. And then when I get a commission, I distribute, you know, X amount in tax, 40% then in my cash account, and then 60% in the brokerage account. So I’m still like pretty heavily investing in my brokerage account because I guess one of my big intentions overall, but especially this year, was to get to as close to like $500,000 in principal, like invested, because at that point I feel like I don’t have to save for retirement anymore. And everything else I could allocate towards real estate. I could allocate it towards, you know, I want a shore house one day, right? So it’s like I don’t need to sacrifice my current lifestyle or position to do those things because I’m pretty much set already, like for the future. So with that being said, I’m maybe like $50,000 short of that goal. But overall, I’m pretty confident that I’m all right. Like my 65-year-old self is okay. So at this point, I could like do a couple of other things with cash and not feel worried about it.
Mindy Jensen: Hey, Scott, what do we call that when you have enough money invested that you don’t have to save for retirement anymore?
Scott Trench: Coast FI.
Mindy Jensen: Coast FI. Alex FI. Alex is Coast FI or so close to Coast FI.
Alex Preziosi: There you go.
Scott Trench: Yeah.
Mindy Jensen: One of the things we talked about is that you wanted to add a couple more rentals to your portfolio. Have you done that over the last couple of years?
Alex Preziosi: So it’s funny, right after we chatted and scheduled this, we got under contract on a property last week. So that would be our second rental property if all goes well. It’s also in our town. It’s a 3-family, and it’s definitely a big purchase. Very big purchase. The numbers are maybe not for everybody because this intention is truly to maybe make a little bit of cash flow. It’s not going to cash flow very much, especially if you consider, say, the purchase price and the cash that will be invested, etc. But it’s more of just the long-term hold play here. So yeah, that’s like very new as of last week. So that would be our second rental property that we’re hoping to add.
Mindy Jensen: Okay. You’ve said “we” and “our.” Who is this?
Alex Preziosi: Me and my husband. That’s him right there.
Mindy Jensen: Oh, on the cover of Forbes.
Scott Trench: That’s awesome.
Mindy Jensen: So, yes.
Alex Preziosi: So it would be our property.
Scott Trench: Is that new from last time?
Alex Preziosi: Oh, yes. We got married last September. It’s actually our anniversary this coming weekend. So that was another thing that happened, I guess, right? In the last year.
Mindy Jensen: You’ve been busy.
Scott Trench: Yeah, that sounds like a kind of key update here.
Mindy Jensen: You had to quit your job. You didn’t have any time to work.
Alex Preziosi: A lot of things. A lot of things.
Scott Trench: Did you combine finances? How are you thinking about it?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, so we don’t really have combined finances. It’s just a little bit easier that way. He also has a daughter who, you know, he provides for and everything like that. So it’s just a little bit cleaner for us to have— we both go over our finances together, but it’s kind of just separate. Like, all the accounts are separate. We do have a joint account for this house, the next property, for the sake of like an operating account, but overall, he’s also self-employed as well. So just like cutting that up, it’s not as easy as like if we both had a W-2 and, you know, distributed it into an account equally. So yeah, we just keep it that way.
Mindy Jensen: Okay. So with this joint account, I am fascinated by this, and I want to ask everybody who has this joint account and then separate finances, how do you decide what portion of each person’s income goes into the joint account? Is it 50/50, or is it based on how much you make versus how much he makes?
Alex Preziosi: So it’s really very much just for the sake of like our mortgage, taxes, and insurance. So like, for example, right now our mortgage payments, everything considered, is about $3,600. So it’s really just like half of that. We both have it automatically going into the account monthly, and then anything else is kind of separate.
Mindy Jensen: Okay. It sounds like you guys have thought about this, discussed it, and come to an agreement. “This is how we want to handle our finances.” And I love that for you because you’ve had that discussion. My husband and I never talked about money before we got married. And like, “This is my job.” But also there were context clues that gave me the idea he’s on the same page as I am. Like he didn’t have some fancy car and he wasn’t renting. He had an actual house because he didn’t want to throw money away on rent. So there’s a lot of things, but like, we never talked about it. And now I come to this podcast and I’m like, “I can’t believe we never talked about money.” I mean, we’ve made up for it, don’t get me wrong. We talk about money all day, every day. That’s like the top topic we have. So I love that you’ve come to this decision, because I’ve seen various comments from people, you know, who aren’t in your marriage saying things like, “Oh, one bed, one bank account.” Or “If you’re going to be married to somebody, you should trust them with everything.” Well, you know what? Those are great for you, but those aren’t great for Alex and her husband. So leave you out of Alex’s marriage, because this is Alex’s marriage and she could do whatever works for her.
Alex Preziosi: I appreciate that.
Scott Trench: It’s also not even a trust thing. It’s just some people’s preference.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah.
Mindy Jensen: And like you said, he’s got a daughter. It’s cleaner and easier for you to do this this way, and it works for you. So great.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah. I think I’ve seen other, like, critical videos of married people Venmoing each other, and people are icked by that. And I’m like, I Venmo him all the time. We’re always just splitting stuff that way, but it just works for us. That’s it.
Mindy Jensen: If it works for you, if this is something you’ve discussed, then who cares? Those other people aren’t in your marriage.
Scott Trench: We spent way too much time on BiggerPockets Money judging the judgers already. So, you know, there’s that. Yeah, you think it’s icky, then we think you’re icky. Just kidding. Let’s go back to the numbers here though. So where is your net worth today?
Alex Preziosi: Okay, so my net worth, considering also my house equity— it’s probably a little bit more than this, just for the sake of my last appraisal, that’s what I’m putting it at, is $1,076,221.
Mindy Jensen: The double comma club!
Alex Preziosi: Woohoo!
Mindy Jensen: Welcome!
Scott Trench: All right. Yes, we love it. And where were you when you started, or you first came on the show?
Alex Preziosi: Oh man, if I went into my Excel sheet— oh, actually, maybe I have a— let’s see, ’29, I was at $382,000.
Scott Trench: 2019?
Mindy Jensen: At age 29.
Alex Preziosi: 2022 at age 29. Yes. And that was no real estate or anything at that time.
Scott Trench: And I think what’s so awesome about your story here as well, in the real estate sector in particular, right? You were an agent and that was your job too, both as an agent and in the administrative function. And you’ve house hacked all since 2022. These are not low interest rate last decade numbers. This is your path unfolding in real time in the much more challenging environment since then. So that’s phenomenal. And that changes a lot of the perspective that almost all your agent growth has come in the tougher market that we have right now. Okay, so we have a million bucks, we just got married, on pace to make $200K self-employment income, we’re $50K away from Coast FI. That’s awesome. What’s next? What’s going on in the future here?
Alex Preziosi: Oh man. Well, I guess I’m gonna see how this purchase goes. That’ll be one thing. After that, I guess just business as usual. I like to kind of keep everything pretty simple and also really be in kind of like a work-optional mindset, at least. I find myself wanting to take time off, but I’m like, oh, I guess I have to service these people who need my help. But even earlier this year, I had a family member who really needed my help. She had an issue. I had to be there every single day. And this was a few months of doing this. And I felt really grateful that I was in a position where I was still working, but I didn’t have to, right? Like, I didn’t really have to. And it just made me feel really, yeah, just grateful that I was able to be there for her at that time, as opposed to really prioritizing money because I needed it or something. So, just always being in that type of a state. For me, obviously it looks maybe different than someone else, but for me it is really just having that money in my retirement account, just keeping it there. Ideally, almost always having like $100,000 liquid somewhere, or at least, you know, a year of spending liquid. Yeah, a couple of rental properties. But as long as I can maintain that, I think, you know, I’m just trying to live my best life, I guess.
Scott Trench: It sounds like what I’m hearing is you came in to the 2022 first conversation at age 29 saying you wanted to FIRE by 45. What I’m hearing is, eh, I just kind of want to maintain my coastable position indefinitely now. That’s where this has evolved to. Is that the right way to interpret what I’ve just heard from you?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, exactly.
Scott Trench: Okay.
Alex Preziosi: I don’t think I define any sort of FI number, so to speak, or have some kind of number that I’m placing on like, okay, now I can retire early. It’s really more of, you know, even on a year time span, it’s like, okay, what does this year look like? And it’s very predictable for me, right? So it’s kind of more of that, yeah, like having the flexibility and maintaining a work-optional type of lifestyle for the most part.
Scott Trench: Aside from your husband’s daughter, do you plan on having children?
Alex Preziosi: Yes, ideally.
Scott Trench: How do you factor that in? So I wanna challenge your worldview here of, I’m just gonna kind of maintain Coast FI indefinitely. You’re gonna have kids. I have a little bit of skepticism that that is going to persist into having kids. I think your expenses will go up at that point. What’s your response to my little challenge here?
Alex Preziosi: It’s definitely fair. And I’ve thought about it as well. And I think there’s also the aspect of creating this flexibility for that as well, like where I have to say prioritize maybe taking care of a kid over working. So I think that that is still on my mind, as I’m still trying to build up that type of a position. In terms of expenses, I mean, I don’t think I will know until I’m there. But, you know, if I have to scale back a business a little bit, I could shave off $2,000 a month today if I wanted to, right? So I’m hoping to still be at least aware and planning for the expenses ahead and being in a position where it’s not going to be a huge surprise to me, hopefully, if I have to have more invested for kids and childcare and things like that.
Scott Trench: Let’s do this real quick because this is fun. I built a dataset that I am not shy about repeatedly showing off here. And so here, let’s do this. This is at biggerpocketsmoney.com/budget. And where are you located? What’s the nearest metro?
Alex Preziosi: You could put Lyndhurst, New Jersey, Rutherford, New Jersey, whichever might come up.
Scott Trench: East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, that would work.
Mindy Jensen: Okay.
Scott Trench: I’m going to categorize you. Should I categorize you? I’ll categorize you as a couple with no kids for now. I’m going to put you in this bucket just because that’s where you may be in a few years with kids. I’m in the 35 to 44-year-old range here. At this point, median spend is about $8,000 per month. I imagine you’re coming in below that to some degree. Is that fair?
Alex Preziosi: No, not this year. Yeah. Well, I guess if I’m just counting, say, not my business expenses, because I guess that’s where it gets a little funky because my personal is closer to like $4,000 a month personally, but then my business expenses, I’ve invested a lot, like I said, so it’s closer to almost $2,500 to $3,000 a month depending.
Scott Trench: Okay, but those are business expenses and they would not be counted here.
Alex Preziosi: Got you, got you. Okay.
Scott Trench: It looks like I’m actually very close, considering that you’re a couple, and so half of that would be your spend there. And so let’s do a couple with kids. So we’re gonna do a couple with 2 kids, age 35 to 44. Now your spending’s going to go to $10,000 a month, and that’s before childcare. So if you want to work full-time to some degree, that spending’s going to go to $12,800 per month as a median level of spend in that area for a household of that type. Does that seem about right?
Alex Preziosi: I guess so.
Scott Trench: I think the next phase of your challenge here is thinking about how to cover that level of expense during the time when your kids are young. And what I’ll also say is you said, eh, I kind of want to chill and coast for a while, but your activity set does not seem to be doing that. Your activity set is an expanding, rapidly growing business that’s ramped to a $200,000 run rate this year. And probably all signs are full steam ahead for next year too, right?
Alex Preziosi: Oops, right?
Scott Trench: And we just bought another rental and we’re $50,000 away from covering retirement. So.
Alex Preziosi: I will say it’s more of, I guess, just the mindset about it, really just still trying to be aware of, okay, where my money’s going, when, where is it coming in, where is it going, and I guess that gives me enough peace of mind over even the numbers, if that makes sense at all. But yeah, so I guess it’s really just that because I agree with you. I’m like, even with this new purchase, I’m like, once again, oops, I bought it. Didn’t really intend to, I guess. But at the same time, I guess I’m trying to be light about these big purchases and just the position overall. And yeah, just not take things so seriously, I guess.
Mindy Jensen: I think you have been so focused on your numbers that once you hit this $50,000, you’re not gonna completely stop. You’re going to say, oh, I want to save up for this house on the shore. Okay, great. Maybe you funnel some money there. And then you decide, well, I want to just put a little bit more away for retirement. I want to just put a little bit more away. Now we’re starting to talk about having a baby. I’m going to put, you know, a little bit more into my year and a half of cash. So now it’s more like 2 years, so I have more of a cushion. I don’t hear you as somebody who’s like, ugh, thank goodness I could stop saving for retirement. I am so done with that. Now I’m going to spend all my money and just, you know, buy everything that I’ve never been able to buy before.
Alex Preziosi: No, I think that that’s a good way to put it, Mindy. And it may be— yeah, that kind of is the whole idea, is just the feeling that I’m still going to work. Like, I’m probably still going to work. It just is what it is. And I mean, I love my work and I like to contribute and I like to help people. So as a result, I’ll probably be making money, and just that the priority won’t be the retirement as heavy now. And it would be, say, a family or something else that money could be allocated to, into cash or into a shore house or something else. So.
Scott Trench: It’s interesting because you’re married and you’re planning on having a family, but you handle your finances separately. So let’s say that you were combined and your husband had a similar net worth, I don’t know, but your position might be $2.2 to $2.4 million, somewhere in that place. In that case, if he brought a similar portfolio to that, it changes the math pretty dramatically, right? So I think on the one hand, I’m coming at it like a million bucks is good, you’re doing great. But is it truly, can I really completely take my foot off the gas permanently if I’m just a few years out from having kids in an expensive area like New Jersey? I don’t know. That’s where I get a little antsy and you’re so relaxed about it. I think maybe that’s because I’m anchoring to— no, I would be more comfortable with a larger number in a married household. But that is your piece of it, and it’s more equivalent to an individual’s $1 million, which is clearly much farther along than the married couple.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, no, I understand. I think my thoughts in the immediate haven’t been as whole as, say, what things look like as a family. So I guess when I am speaking like this, it is in this next, say, year of my life where I could feel kind of comfortable where I’m at personally. I mean, my husband’s, say, income and the things that he has, I don’t think that that really factors into my feelings about my finances personally overall. But maybe when that conversation does come closer to the time of starting a family and having kids, maybe I won’t be so relaxed. Maybe, you know, I’ll feel a little bit more anxious.
Scott Trench: One question I have is when you go to work, you show up and you perform an activity almost the entire time, right? If you’re hardworking and a good employee, that’s what you get paid for, right? You show up for 8 hours and you get paid for those 8 hours of hustle. As an agent, it doesn’t work like that. The revenue-producing moments come at times. I’m sure responsiveness matters, but if you react to a client’s question quickly within a few minutes, you performed a great service, and 4 hours could go by and you could play video games or stare at the wall or work out or whatever it is, and the revenue is totally untethered from the time that you’re spending on that. Am I getting close with maybe something that’s gone on in your life in the last year since you left the active income part?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, I don’t really like to play video games, but other than that, I think that that’s pretty accurate. Well, I think, you know, Mindy, you could relate. There’s definitely both sides of it, where I’ve definitely had clients who I ran around with, I put a lot of work into it, I did X, Y, and Z, and nothing came out of it, right? And that could have been an opportunity cost of $20,000, right? And then there’s things that, to your point, Scott, the input is more of the actions that you’re doing and the prospecting and, yes, following up with people and being there for people rather than it being time. I mean, all those things take time, but it’s not like you’re being paid there. And, you know, my first job, I remember I was on YouTube much of the day, don’t tell anybody, but I mean, I was listening to BiggerPockets, okay? During that time it was educational, but it was not my work and I was being paid the same. That is a lot of it. You work hard for your money, that’s for sure.
Mindy Jensen: So yeah, it comes in fits and spurts.
Scott Trench: I speak from experience. I spent too much time in my first job listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos. So if anybody listening to this or watching this on YouTube is doing so on the clock right now, they are. I don’t know if there’s a safe way to let us know that, so don’t let us know.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, I don’t know, maybe not on your work computer.
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, yeah, don’t send it on your work computer, but you can let us know. We’re not going to rat you out to your boss.
Scott Trench: Fair enough.
Mindy Jensen: So Alex, you’ve kept your expenses pretty similar since the first time you joined us, around $3,000 or $4,000 a month for personal expenses, which is like $48,000 a year. So what is that, like 4 or 5 houses that you’re selling in a year just to cover your basic expenses? Which are not basic — that’s your “I want to spend this much money” expenses. So there’s a lot of people who think that you can’t be a real estate agent when you have a small baby, and that’s just not true. You can’t be a full-time agent maybe unless you’re putting the baby in daycare and having somebody take care of the baby for you, but you can absolutely be a 4- or 5-a-year agent with a small baby. You just work it out on the weekends.
Alex Preziosi: I think that’s a good point.
Scott Trench: I wanna challenge that a little bit, and maybe I’m just being a worrywart here. I was very aggressive last time we chatted and said, go quit the job and become an agent. But I’m actually gonna start to give you a little bit of, I’m slightly uncomfortable with where you’re at right now. I think you should finish the play in the next couple of years. Like, you can have a great time and all that, but I think you should finish the play and get a little closer to buying, if you’re thinking about having kids, because I’m not as optimistic as Mindy on this. I think that even if you put the kid in daycare for a couple years and want to be a full-time agent, I think that’s going to be hard, because daycare closes. And then people aren’t touring houses at 3 o’clock on Tuesday while kiddo’s in daycare. People are touring houses in the evenings and the weekends. And that’s going to be very difficult to do at the same degree with a little one in tow. There’s a situation here that evolves over the next couple years where things are going great, but then we’ve got to draw down a little bit in some of those years, or work something out, have a conversation about how we’re going to manage spending or income with the husband in those first few years with the kiddos. That could be a little uncomfortable there. I would actually encourage a little more caution from you on this one. Maybe like, I’m not gonna go crazy, I’m not gonna, you know, you’re obviously in a strong position. How many people would trade places with you, with a million-dollar net worth before having kids on your own? But I think the other side of kindergarten will feel a lot better, and at that point I think you fully take your foot off the gas here. But I just have that little bit of apprehension about the way you’re coming across, not with any of the numbers that are coming, given your stated goals. But that’s just one guy’s take on this.
Alex Preziosi: I appreciate it, Scott. It’s probably ’cause I just came back from vacation and I’ve got a little bit of a relaxed draw to my talk right now. I mean, I’m probably coming across more chill than is my reality. That’s definitely true because, you know, I’m still just as aggressive, tracking every single thing. Also, to Mindy’s point, I do think about, say, the future of, okay, well, if I could just kind of maintain kind of where I’m at right now with, say, 6 houses or 7 houses, right, can I do that with a kid? I think I probably could. At the same time, I see your caution as well. And like I said, I think at that point it would be a conversation between my husband and me, because, yeah, of course he is also making income and those sort of things, and that’s not being, say, considered here.
Scott Trench: Right.
Alex Preziosi: And it’s not, I guess, relevant for just the immediate, just talking about me right now. But I agree with you. I think that I’m never gonna work — I don’t think I’m never gonna work again, right? And I don’t think I intend to not work or retire early in the traditional sense of that phrase. It’s more of the optionality, or just flexibility, of it. But I also don’t see a time where I’m not working at all, if that makes sense, or if that helps a little bit.
Mindy Jensen: That makes perfect sense, ’cause that’s where I’m at. I will always be a real estate agent. I might not be active — like, I sell about a house a month, and that’s good for me. I don’t wanna sell 50 houses a year, that’s too much work for me. But about a house a month is great. I actually had one day where I had 3 houses under contract and then one closed, and it was, I was like, oh, I gotta make sure I’m doing all of this and all of this and all of this. And that’s too much, because right at the beginning of the contract there’s, you know, a lot of stuff going on. What I had meant was, Scott, she could sell 4 or 5 houses to cover her base living expenses, and she can do that while coordinating with her husband’s schedule. Oh, I’ve got to show houses tonight, can you be home with the baby? As opposed to just take your foot off the gas. I was a stay-at-home mom, that’s when I got my license, and Carl was working full-time. So I didn’t sell any houses that first year, but the second year I would coordinate with him. Hey, I’m gonna go show houses, so can you pick up the girls from school, or can you keep an eye on Daphne because she’s not even in school yet?
Scott Trench: It’ll be workable when you get to that point. Of course, it just may be a little harder than that, and it’d be a shame to let go of easy wins, which you’re not doing. So you’re crushing it. I probably just misread the vacation vibes there.
Alex Preziosi: That’s okay, that’s fine, you know.
Scott Trench: Well, cool. So we have a million bucks, we have a house hack and a rental property that we’re presumably going to close on in the next couple weeks. The business is thriving, got married, thinking about kids, million— I mean, it’s just awesome. So what is a day in the life like right now when it’s not active vacation?
Alex Preziosi: Well, let’s see, when it’s not active vacation, it’s— I go to the office every day. I prospect most of the day and, you know, go on appointments. And on Wednesdays, or sometimes Tuesdays or Wednesdays, I go to my grandma, I hang out with her the whole day. I just try to have some kind of a balance throughout the week, but I’m going on appointments every day, you know, and trying to just spend time with my family at night as much as possible, not trying to be out too much at night. That’s just generally, you know, I come across like this, but I really am working every day, in some capacity. And also different from the 9 to 5 that you mentioned earlier, Scott, as a realtor—and I’m sure you know, Mindy—you’re just always working. Throughout the day, the night, the weekend. So it’s a little bit different. The time is more spread out. So that’s just kind of the operation, weekly.
Scott Trench: Well, congratulations on the massive progress. Your actions are clearly paying off here. There’s clearly a really awesome entrepreneurial effort that is beginning to compound. I say beginning to compound because I think it will continue to accelerate if you keep doing what you’re doing on that front. And it just seems like all the stars are aligning for you right now, as far as we can tell. Is that how it feels?
Alex Preziosi: I appreciate it, Scott. I mean, feels all right. You’re making me nervous now, so.
Mindy Jensen: No, you directed the stars to align. This is what I’m going to do. This is what I’m going to do. This is what I’m going to do. And then you took action once they did. I think there’s a lot of people who listen to these podcasts and they’re like, hey, that sounds nice. You gotta do something about it too. And you have.
Alex Preziosi: I appreciate it. It’s hard too. I mean, I understand fear is a big component. I think fear held me back for a really long time in a lot of different ways. And, you know, moving past it a little at a time, as best as possible, strategically. If I was to give any kind of advice, it would be exactly that. Just don’t think that you could jump into something or get rich quick in one day. This was, say, 10 years to be here, and I still have work to do. So it’s just a day at a time. And yeah, you just gotta do your best.
Scott Trench: Your story is so fascinating because you had the clear goal of FIRE. The stars aligned really to go entrepreneurial. And you could argue that you might’ve even been able to make the move to being a full-time agent sooner than even the podcast we recorded 2 years ago. Is that fair?
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, it’s hard to say ’cause it’s like you never know what exactly could have been other than the reality of what actually happened. But I actually credit that time in my life, a big part of it, to—even though, yes, I was working 2 jobs—that very much allowed for me to accelerate, also with a little bit of a safety net, pretty aggressively in a short period of time. So I’m also kind of glad, in a way, that it worked out that way. So it’s hard to say, of course.
Mindy Jensen: And I think that’s the way to start being a real estate agent. If your mom is an agent and you’re joining her team, that’s different. But if you wanna be a real estate agent, start with the safety net, because there’s a lot of lean, no-commission months or years right when you start out, unless you’re really, really, really working hard and doing it correctly. And right now I don’t even know that somebody could start from zero and just take off.
Scott Trench: One of the things that I think is so wonderful about what you’ve achieved is I think that what you are doing right now is, in many ways, the real goal of a lot of BiggerPockets Money listeners, right? A lot of BiggerPockets Money listeners do not want to just retire. They want to earn some kind of active income post-FIRE, right? So this is from last month—this is a YouTube poll. Do you earn, or do you expect to earn, some form of active income to at least some degree after you FIRE—which is how I worded that—which can include side hustles, part-time work, business activities, managing a rental portfolio, etc.? 51% of 639 people who responded to this said yes, just an unqualified yes. Only 23% said no, 20% said perhaps, and 6% said no. And I specifically called this out because I got confusion last time—not really, aside from managing my semi-passive handful of rentals, right? But 51% want to do something along the lines of what you are doing. And I think this is really interesting because I’m not aware of a lot of good academic literature—sources, papers you can cite and refer to—that talk about what the dynamic of your situation is right now. We have a 4% rule for withdrawal, we have tons of conflicting but generally within a reasonable band research on what a withdrawal rate looks like if you’re not going to earn any active income. But how does active income, or the pursuit of it, and its uncertainty as an agent, for example, impact this decision to go and work for myself? When is it time to pull the trigger and actually make that move? Your situation from last time was so far past it, because—hey, I’ve got 2 and a half years of cash. Oh, and I’m house hacking. Oh, and I already make more from my agent commissions than I do from my full-time job. Okay, we don’t really need to do a very detailed analysis to say this is probably a good bet for you in this situation. But I think a lot of people’s situations are much harder than yours was, right? Imagine that you were making $175,000 at your job when you came on 2 years ago instead of $68,000. And imagine your commissions were $96,000. Same deal, right? That’s a big income—it’s actually a much larger and better income position than you were in, but it makes it a lot harder to leave that $175,000 base job. That’s a problem I’m really interested in uncovering right now. So if someone listening is in something like that situation, please reach out to me at scott@biggerpocketsmoney.com or mindy@biggerpocketsmoney.com. We’d love to hear that story and begin unpacking that problem. We’re probably not going to have the answer—it’s probably gonna be very conditional. But I think that there’s a circular component to the choice of “I’m not FIRE, I’m not ready to fully hang it up and never earn again, but I’m somewhere along this spectrum”—it’s, I may be approaching, past, or well past the time to leave active income, if that’s really my goal, and go into this uncertain world of self-employment or business-building or entrepreneurship. That’s what half the people listening to the show say they want.
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, but Scott, with Alex’s situation, she had set herself up to a point where she could comfortably or reasonably assume that she would be successful. This is not the same advice that I would give other people with different scenarios.
Scott Trench: That problem is what I’m interested in exploring, because if that household that I just gave an example of—$175,000 base salary plus some commissions—if they were spending $150,000 or $160,000 a year and had a $750,000 portfolio, I don’t know the answer, but I’d probably be very uncomfortable with them leaving their full-time job. And I’d say, keep grinding it for a few years. If they’re spending $75,000 or $100,000, maybe I feel very differently at that point. Maybe if they have 2 years of cash and $1.2 million, the answer changes still further. I think that that spectrum of problems may be what a lot of BiggerPockets Money listeners are going through right now in their households—some version of that. And I want to leave— the certainty and the upside, like that $175,000-a-year income earner that I’ve just made up here, is maybe making more in 3 years or 5 years if they stay at their job, because the prospects are good. Something’s gone right if you’re making an upper-middle-class income single-handedly in your job. There’s also upside in the entrepreneurial pursuit, and that’s where the heart lies to some degree, and that’s what they’re working toward. So I think that’s a problem I want to explore. And again, Alex, your situation, you made it so easy for us, because the answer was so clearly obvious—you should go for it—because the job was not paying very much, relatively speaking, and your setup was so ready for entrepreneurship or self-employment.
Alex Preziosi: Yeah, I think to speak to that—even for myself, earlier in my career when I really wanted to leave to be a realtor, it was probably many years. And I stayed for exactly that reason, right? I was probably making like $100,000 at my job. I wasn’t really making very much in real estate at that time. And to jump ship and take on some entrepreneurial risk felt very— well, I shouldn’t even say risk, because everything’s a risk. Even your W-2 is a risk, right? There’s no real certainty around any of it. But for the sake of your example, yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of people in that situation. And I think it’s just possibly taking the little bit of steps towards maybe exploring what else you want to do outside of your W-2, if it’s not something that you enjoy going to every day. And I think that’s a tough thing—seeing that you’re making $175,000 and it’s comfortable, but you’re not happy. And I’ve been there. So yeah, I would be curious to hear about people’s situations in that too.
Scott Trench: I think you get there by, one, building your wealth, getting closer to your FI number. Two, building up the side income stream as a side hustle if you can do it. Three, increasing your cash position or liquidity in there. And that’s a real problem, right?
Alex Preziosi: For sure.
Scott Trench: The no-longer-middle-class trap, the deferral dilemma that we’ve talked about here on BiggerPockets Money. I think it’s also circular with this, because if all your wealth is in the 401(k) and you want to go into entrepreneurship and leave the job, now you have a circle, right? Because there may not be any window to do the 401(k) conversion—you know, the Roth conversions, or 72(t), in a helpfully arbitraged tax bracket situation. Or if things go poorly, there will be, but that then crushes our plan. So I think there’s something there as well to explore in the liquidity. But you had the liquidity, you had the part-time job producing more income than the full-time job, and it was time to go. And now here we are, thriving a few years later, seeing it all work. That’s a function of your entrepreneurial spirit—conditions favorable—you’re going to expand the setup that you carefully constructed, perhaps well past the tipping point that made those conditions favorable.
Mindy Jensen: All right, Alex, before we leave, where can people find you and what area of the world do you serve as a real estate agent?
Alex Preziosi: Sure. You can find me on Instagram, Alex Preziosi Real Estate, probably. I also have a new Instagram, Jersey Girl Finance, if anybody’s interested. I’ve just been casually posting, not super growth-oriented right now, but it’s okay. Or LinkedIn, Alexandra Preziosi. Jersey area—Bergen, Essex, Morris, Passaic—just really anywhere. I’m based out of Rutherford. So yeah, appreciate it if anybody wants to follow or if I could help them out.
Mindy Jensen: Awesome. Alex, thank you so much for sharing your numbers and sharing your journey with us. It’s been a lot of fun to watch your success.
Alex Preziosi: Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.
Scott Trench: Will you come back on in another 2 years when you crest like 1.5 or 2?
Alex Preziosi: All right, yeah, maybe I’ll have a kid and it’ll be completely different. Everything will be upside down. So we’ll see. Never know.
Scott Trench: I think we’re 2 for 2 on these. But let’s see, let’s see—I’m gonna take another guess for 2 years from now. But I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to keep your foot on the gas.
Alex Preziosi: I mean, I guess.
Scott Trench: Next year will be even better. And the income will become large enough, with a couple of these investments, that the risk I am pointing out will really not be a major factor in your life by 2028 or 2029, if you do choose to have kids. That’d be my guess as to where things will end up, but we’ll see.
Alex Preziosi: I appreciate it.
Mindy Jensen: All right, Alex, we will talk to you soon.
Alex Preziosi: Take care.
Mindy Jensen: All right, Scott, that was Alex’s update, and wow, she is really crushing it. I think she’s doing a great job in her choices. I think it took her a little while to quit the W-2 job, but once she did, good for her. She’s crushing it as a real estate agent, and I think she’s the kind of person who will be able to weather the current and upcoming real estate agent storms, for lack of a better word.
Scott Trench: I was starting to worry, just because of the way she was coming across on the show, that the ambition was fading. And I think that 2 years ago, my enthusiasm for her going into being a full-time agent was partly because of the drive that I sensed, and the numbers and the trajectory that all seemed to be lining up for entrepreneurship. But that only works if it sustains to a certain degree, in my view. But on the other hand, she’s already got a million bucks and is clearly fine, clearly way ahead of most people her age by a huge margin, and is putting up numbers that say otherwise, despite her kind of relaxed attitude on the show. So that was my worry. What do you think—was I justified, or going too far on that?
Mindy Jensen: Oh, I didn’t get the not-driven attitude that you did. I think that she is just as driven as she was before. She did say that she had just returned from vacation, so maybe she’s still on island time, or wherever she was on vacation. But no, I think she is going to be just as driven. I think she’s got more time now to spend as a real estate agent. I think that you can do real estate agenting at her level, or a reduced level, when she has kids, with just a little bit of finagling with your schedule and coordinating with your partner. She is fortunate that she has a partner to coordinate schedules with. If he is willing to coordinate, I see no issue with her continuing to sell 5 to 10 real estate properties a year, which will more than pay for her current level of spending, and definitely pay for the slightly elevated level of spending once she has a kid.
Scott Trench: Yeah, I’m gonna walk it back and say, you know, we just had a relaxed attitude today on the show, but it’s clear everything that we’re seeing from her update, numerically and otherwise, is saying this is a thriving business that’s off to the races right now. So I’m going to walk that back and say, keep crushing it, Alex. You go, and we’ll hopefully talk to you in a couple of years, like I mentioned on the show, and see the positioning continuing to balloon into more and more optionality.
Mindy Jensen: Yep, I agree.
Scott Trench: Awesome. Well, should we get out of here, Mindy?
Mindy Jensen: Yes, Scott, we should get out of here. But my dear listeners, do you want more financial independence information? You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @BiggerPocketsMoney, and you can head over to our website, biggerpocketsmoney.com/fipro—that’s F-I-P-R-O—to check out all of our awesome FI partners.
Scott Trench: Yeah, and also a quick shout-out. We got mentioned on Reddit. Someone was asking about how you account for rising ACA healthcare costs, and someone linked the biggerpocketsmoney.com/healthcarecosts calculator that I built to do exactly that. So that was awesome—made my day. Thank you for whoever that was. I was pretty stoked here. We even got a criticism—that the calculator has some holes. It offers the bare minimum plan. Yes, it does—it’s a bronze and silver plan tool. I did not factor in the gold and platinum plans. This criticism is spot on. It assumes you will basically never use your health insurance. That part is inaccurate, in my view, about the tool. I do assume you’ll have out-of-pocket costs.
Alex Preziosi: Oop.
Scott Trench: I assume that you’ll have maximum out-of-pocket costs—MOOP—in a couple of years, and I allow you to assume that for 2 to 5 years of your journey there. So some out-of-pocket costs are baked in every year, of course, and then the maximum out-of-pocket costs, the MOOP, are assumed for 2 to 5 years, at your discretion, depending on how conservative you want to be. So that’s the tool there. And yeah, thank you to whoever shouted that out. That made my day. It was a good birthday present, actually.
Mindy Jensen: Well, congratulations, Scott, on getting mentioned on Reddit in a positive way.
Scott Trench: Thanks, Mindy. Should we get out of here?
Mindy Jensen: We should. All right, that wraps up this episode. He is Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen saying, gotta go, dodo.
