Husband and Wife Team Rack Up 8 Units While Househacking | Nick & Sam Riccio

In this episode, Dalyn Hazell sits down with Nick & Sam Riccio to discuss house hacking, how they've been able to house hack really expensive homes and explode their net worth and take real estate careers full time.

Husband and wife team Samantha and Nick Riccio began their investing journey in 2017 with a small condo in East Boston. Since then, they have acquired 8 additional units in Boston, and have done large-scale renovations on all of them. In the past year, their equity in their properties well surpassed $1M and due to the sizable amount of equity & cash flow, they both were able to leave their steady W2 jobs and pursue their passions. Nick is now a Residential Loan Officer at Fairway Mortgage, and Sam is a Licensed General Contractor. As co-owners of Eagle Hill Homes, their construction and design business, Sam handles all things client-facing, construction and design-related, while Nick spearheads all business operations and development. The couple is continuing to invest in their own portfolio as well as help other investors and aspiring investors, secure and finance their properties as well as renovate them to ensure they will become a cash-flowing asset.

Key takeaways from this episode: 

02:40 - Starting real estate at an early age

07:59 - Why choose house hacking

11:04 - How to start house hacking

11:57 - The benefits of getting a realtor agent 

13:57 - Refinancing strategy

15:03 - Improving units through renovations

19:16 - Getting more money back on the refinance

20:53 - The highs and lows of managing a property while living in that property

22:58 - A general contractors role in real estate investing

26:22 - A mortgage loan officers role in real estate investing

Tune in to learn more valuable information from this episode!

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Connect with Guest, Nick & Sam Riccio:

Sam’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samanthalriccio/

Nick’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_riccio_/

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dhazell24/

Email: dalyndhazell@gmail.com

Transcript

Introduction  0:00  

This is the real estate investing for Freedom podcast, where we bring on the experts to teach you the golden nuggets of real estate investing, so you can escape the rat race and start living life on your terms. Now, here's your host Dalyn Hazell.

Dalyn Hazell  0:21  

Hey, what's up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the show. Today's episode is with Nick and Sam Riccio. And they are a husband and wife investor team out in Boston, and they have a really cool story on House hacking, how they've been able to house hack these really expensive homes and explode their net worth and keep all these multifamily units as they hop from House hack to house hack, they also have a lot to share in regards to taking real estate careers full time meaning, I think it was Sam, she used to be a marketing manager. But now she has moved into being a general contractor, it's still something that pays the bills and that she's passionate about. But it's also related to real estate and can help them pour back into the business. So that actually leads me to today's gold nugget of the day. Maybe you are not satisfied with your current job. And maybe there's an opportunity for you to become a general contractor or a real estate agent or an appraiser or an inspector or a leasing agent. I mean, the list goes on, and what you can do to still make a living, but also have it complement your real estate investing business. So think about that. For me in my life, it was like I was doing taxes for real estate investors. So I was kind of already in that space, but not at the same time. And I knew that if I change careers that my income would go way, way down and have to learn a new skill set. So sometimes it's not advantageous for you. But just thought I'd throw that in there as in case you need that extra nudge or in case you get that inspiration from Nick and Sam today, that it is a viable option. And that's what they did that's working well for them. Nick, on the other hand, is a loan officer. So he's in the banking space for his real estate investing business. So with all that being said, Here's today's episode on House hacking with Nick and Sam Riccio. Welcome to the show, Sam and Nick Riccio. How are y'all doing today?

Sam Riccio  2:20  

Good. Thanks for having us.

Dalyn Hazell  2:22  

You bet. This is my first show with three people on. And so it'll be a different dynamic here. I'm looking forward to it. So all speak at once, Nick or Sam. When was your aha moment real estate that really got you started and got you on the path where you are today?

Nick Riccio  2:40  

Yeah, so I think we started at a fairly young age, I was telling you off air, but I'll tell the audience so we, Sam and I met at a really young age. It's sick, like 16 years old. And I think at that point, I was already really interested in real estate. I don't know why, but I was starting to get hooked on it. And so early on, we knew we wanted to get into it.

Sam Riccio  3:07  

Well, he knew he knew we wanted to get into it. There's always one right. So Nick now.

Nick Riccio  3:14  

Yeah, I know. And so we sort of Sam got on board. And then we kind of did everything we needed to do over the next several years to position ourselves to do that. So yeah, I think early on, we definitely decided that we wanted to pursue real estate.

Dalyn Hazell  3:34  

Right? So at age 16, you're 16 I mean, I can't really think of a lot of 16 year olds who are thinking about real estate. So was it something you saw your parents do? Or a family member? Or what kind of thing started that journey? 

Nick Riccio  3:47  

Yeah, it's a good question. So my family has absolutely nothing to do with real estate. No, nothing about it. They've been in one primary residence basically their whole life. But I don't know, I came from a very blue collar, middle class family. And I think just at a young age, I started to think like,  how can I do more? How can I achieve more?  I think both of us just wanted more. We knew there could be a better way and at that time,  just simply Googling and I don't even think like bigger pockets or anything was big at that point. But just Googling you know how to do that,  real estate came up and then that's what we set our focus on.

Sam Riccio  4:33  

But it was a long URL as long but from  Nick mentioning it to me, we're at we were in high school, in that I was like, Cool, yeah, talk to me. I'm  10 years old and at that point,  we talked through it like we went to college and once Nick graduated college, I was a year behind him. He started working, started saving money and moved in with his parents. I was like, No, we're doing this like now. Now's the time and I think that was like Guess my aha moment of like, at that point, bigger pockets was the thing. And,  the Internet was more widely used. And I was Google doing my own,  Googling and figuring out kind of like his vision because he'd had it for so long. And I just had it. And at that point, yeah, we essentially both once I graduated college, moved into his parents basement, and I started saving every dollar we had, and then bought our first property. And we were like, Alright, here we go. It's gonna work or not.

Dalyn Hazell  5:30  

awesome. Yeah, it's great when you can get both spouses on board. And so are you guys both frugal by nature? Or is one of you a higher spender than the other?

Sam Riccio  5:41  

So I'm definitely frugal by nature. Um, and I, I was the one that kind of like, showed Nick that because growing up his mom was really the one being like, neither of our parents was in the position to say money wasn't an object, but that family where it's like, it's fine. Do you think it grows on trees? Then I kind of turned Nick into the frugal one. And then now he's like, weirdly more frugal than me. So now I have to like, bring him back there. So it was over. So yeah, exactly.

Dalyn Hazell  6:15  

Yeah. Well, so did you guys both have in mind to be directly involved in real estate going forward? Or was it one of you who wanted to be more active in one if you wanted to be a more passive role?

Sam Riccio  6:30  

I mean, I guess I would say in the beginning, and so we primarily house hack, which is for someone that doesn't know essentially using your investment property as your primary residence, whether it's like a two family property and you're renting out the other unit, or can even a single family renting out another room, but subsidizing your mortgage with rental income. So when we had our first property that we had to renovate and land to run any units to get them ready to be able to rent them, because they weren't really in rentable condition, we took a two family property to a three family, wow, living in it, and renovating it. And we knew nothing. So at that point, it was more. So how much money do we have? And how much money can we save before both super involved, and we kind of just started hands on tackling this renovation, doing everything we could and learning how to do from YouTube. Nick's dad was in the trade. So he taught us a ton. And we were just like, we need to,  Penny pinch. And then after that renovation, I think we thought long and hard about okay, like, what did we enjoy from that? What do we want to do moving forward? And then what do we like? not want to have hands on anymore? So, that was a big learning experience for us.

Dalyn Hazell  7:46  

Right, so you started very active, and actually from actually doing the work yourself? And so what made you choose house hacking as the strategy that was gonna build your foundation?

Nick Riccio  7:59  

Yeah, so I think for us, it was probably twofold. One was, we were, we were already very cognizant of trying to reduce our living expenses. So we could save and invest. And so that,  right off the bat, house hacking was appealing because it was going to allow us to get in the game and, and keep our expenses low and all that. And then,  the other part is, the reality of it, is we're in a really expensive market. We, quite honestly, like the only way we could get in,  without raising money and doing all that. So, so using our own funds. That was kind of our only option. Right?

Dalyn Hazell  8:49  

Right. And for those who don't know, you're in Boston, so yeah, it's typically a very expensive market. And so you got into house hacking, almost out of necessity because you could combine your personal residence and investment property in one, when you started that journey, when you knew that you were going to do house hacking as a strategy. What was the first step for you in that?

Sam Riccio  9:11  

Um, I mean, I think probably Nick can speak to that was just like the loan piece because that was, I guess, probably the first piece it was like looking at our I mean, again, this was when I,  probably wasn't fully on board. And I was like, how, how are we supposed to do this? These houses cost a lot of money. So I'll let you kind of speak to get that in line.

Nick Riccio  9:31  

Yeah, I mean, we, I think a lot of it was we put a lot of time and effort into it at the time. It's funny that we're all still saying this, but at the time the market was really hot and competitive. So we were losing out constantly on properties. So like, I think one I mean, I have that sort of personality trait that like once I want to learn something like I just Will obsess over it. So that is what I did. And then I think our repetition of continuously losing out on properties, we learned so much every time. Even though we weren't getting the offers accepted. We were learning about running numbers and analyzing and what's a good deal? What's not, that by the time we were able to get our hands on them, like, we started to know our markets so well and knew what a good deal was, like, kind of right off the bat.

Dalyn Hazell  10:30  

Yeah, because that repetition gotcha, gotcha. So did you have a really good agent alongside that helps you analyze deals and get those first few offers in.

Sam Riccio  10:40  

So in the beginning, we did not, honestly, we were like closet investors that hadn't invested yet. Like, we were actually probably afraid to reach out to an agent because it felt too legitimate. You know what I mean, when you have this, like a dream behind closed doors, no one really knows that you want to do it. Our parents were like, what you don't want, like a single family home, or you're not going to go rent an apartment type of thing. So the first property we use,  it was the first property we purchased was a condo and it was really just not an ideal situation, it was more so just because we couldn't get into a multifamily you kept losing, As Nick said, losing out on deals, we're at the point where, like we need out of this basement apartment, as lovely as it is, we need to at least go through a purchase and like see what it's all about. And it was in a really up and coming area in Boston, East Boston, specifically, which at that point was a little more underdeveloped. And we were like, alright,  it'll appreciate purchasing the condo, and then six months later, we ended up getting the house next door that was actually attached to the condo off market so as to go off that with a realtor. Um, we didn't use a realtor for that one. And then finally, at that point, we had fully renovated that one from a two family to a three, that was that one. So at that point, we were living in one unit, we had three rentals, and it was time for the next one. And that's when we really were like, Okay, we're in this we need to get a good realtor relationship. And that's when we sought out a realtor that we knew was really trusted in the area. And we've been working with him ever since. So game changer for sure. But at the beginning, yeah, we were just I guess naive and afraid. But it probably would have,  in retrospect, maybe helped us win some of those offers, we kept losing?

Dalyn Hazell  12:31  

Yeah, it's really hard to put yourself out there to friends and family at the very beginning, or, or even agents? Because it's like, well, what if I change my mind or I fail right off the bat, then they're just gonna see me as a failure. But if I stay in the closet, I'll be fine. Oh, yeah. So I completely understand. And just that pressure of like needing to get that first property because you were living with your parents. I'm sure that was a difficult time. For sure. Now, we've talked about a couple things so far with the house hacking: getting the loan product lined up and getting the agent. I want to circle back on the loan product. Did you guys do the traditional, like the FHA that everyone talks about three to 5%, down on the house hacker, or what was that?

Nick Riccio  13:14  

Yeah, exactly. So we did use FHA? for that? I think we were able to put 5% down. And we've since actually continued to use FHA on our even more recent purchases. So yeah, it's been, it's been a really good fit for us just using that FHA low down payment. And then really, yeah. Renovating refinancing.

Dalyn Hazell  13:43  

For all those listening in and myself included, I'm curious to know, on the refinance, is that into a more traditional, like, conventional loan, because it's my understanding that you can only have one FHA loan at a time?

Nick Riccio  13:57  

You're exactly right. Yeah. So our strategy has really been it's really more of like a burr method, but we're owner occupying and we're living through the renovations. So we're, we've been buying these really underutilized properties in rennet, fully got renovating most of them adding value like low, really, we've been adding either a unit or finishing basement adding beds and baths. So they've been fairly, like substantial renovation. So then we've had substantial equity on the other side that's allowed us to refinance out conventional do cash outs. And we've just kind of been rolling with that.

Dalyn Hazell  14:45  

Now, now I want to go to once you've acquired the property, you mentioned a couple of wild things to me and adding units. I mean, I've heard of adding bedrooms, but adding whole units is really impressive. So expound on how you're going through and improving these units through renovations and so forth.

Sam Riccio  15:03  

Yeah, so I mean, adding, so for the adding units and the property that we're talking about, we bought the condo then there was the property next door, it was three levels in a basement. And it was essentially one unit on the first floor. And then it was a buy level unit upstairs. So it was owner occupied. That's how we found the deal. The owner, basically, let us know, let us know who's moving or the tenant actually on the first floor, let us know that the owner was selling the property. And that's how this all happened. But he lives there with his family, which is why he needed to buy a lovely kitchen and living bathroom on the first floor, and then upstairs, how are those rooms? So when we walked through the property, we owned the condo on the other side, and it was three condos, and the house was the same footprint. So we're like hold on, we know, we know from firsthand, there could be three of these. And then also what we did was we went to the Boston Public Library, so in your local library and pulled the original blueprints of the house when it was first built, and it was built as a three family. So there we go right off the bat, we're like this was the three plumbing probably could be still behind the walls. At one point, for some reason, it was converted to a two family that was also on the assessor's website. We were able to go back and the blueprints were able to show us like, actually, there was a kitchen here at one point. And at that point, we said, okay, let's run the numbers both ways. What's it gonna look like? If we keep it as a two family?  We take the lower unit and we rent out the bigger unit. And what's it going to look like numbers wise, if we turn it into the three families, knowing that if the master plan of turning into the three units didn't work, we'd still be okay. Both numbers work, obviously turning it and turning the units into three units was best case. And that's what ended up happening for us. So that was kind of how we got away with that one.

Dalyn Hazell  16:53  

Oh, that takes a really keen eye to do what you did, go to the library, pick out that. And then  do the math. And so making that best financial decision. That's awesome. And so cool. What about the renovations? Because you said you're doing a lot of that yourself or your general contractor, Sam, so maybe you can speak more to this?

Sam Riccio  17:15  

Yeah. So at the time, I was absolutely not a general contractor. I was a marketing professional that had never used a power tool. And then during this whole situation, I kind of fell in love with it really, we both fell in love with aspects of it, Nick fell in love with the financing. And I fell in love with the renovation. And then both of us in 2020 quit our jobs, I became a general contractor and became a residential loan officer, we were both like, mid pandemic, what could go wrong. But speaking to the renovation, I guess,  as newbies doing it, we were definitely a little naive as to just like what goes into a renovation in general. I think that was funny enough, probably the biggest thing that scared me about doing it is like this is a lot of money. Because it's a lot of work, we don't know what we're doing. And what happens if  you uncover the wall, and you have to basically tear down the whole house, which isn't gonna happen. But  parents, friends, people scare you, you watch TV. And I think what I would say to people in general is like, don't be afraid of renovations. If you want to be involved, you absolutely can be and there's so many resources out there to help you. If you don't want to be involved, you can absolutely outsource the whole thing and hands off approach, and hopefully have a trusted contractor in your area kind of take control of that. But the biggest thing that we look to do for value add is essentially find some don't just take a one bedroom and renovate a one bedroom if you can help it if you can squeeze in another half bathroom, not even so much to get more rent but from  an equity standpoint and things like that, just kind of look for the value add.

Dalyn Hazell  18:54  

I'm sure that was stressful during that time, because  you're coming out of pocket with the downpayment and the materials, even though you're doing the work yourself, prices in Boston are the way they are. And so but then you were able to get all that money back and maybe even more with the refinance. Have you had a scenario where you actually get more money back on the refinance that you have invested in it like a trooper?

Nick Riccio  19:16  

Yeah, so our first one that we did, the one we've been speaking on, we were able to recoup funds for renovations, which were about 85,000 in that our down payment, and today, we're only we have $5,000 of our own money left in the deal.

Sam Riccio  19:35  

We bought that for like 630 Yeah, so I think we put in the 40 for down payment 85 for renovation.

Nick Riccio  19:45  

Yeah, yeah. And then our, the one we just completed, so it's a little quirky, but we didn't pull out all of our cash that we could or needed to, but we were fortunate we purchased For 840,000, we put in about 180,000. And our appraisal, we actually had two done, we had both were right around 1.7 million after repair. So that we were able to take out a substantial amount. But when we left,  we saw a lot of money in the deal for sure. A lot of equity in the deal for sure.

Dalyn Hazell  20:25  

Right, right. Yeah, there's that balance between how much cash flow I want to pull out so that I can have good cash flow, which is what we start in real estate to get. And so I think that's really, really prudent of you. Now, as far as the property management side, let's talk about that a little bit. Because I'm sure not all your tenant stories have been glorious and perfect. So,  explain the highs and lows of managing a property while you're living in that property?

Nick Riccio  20:53  

Yeah, I think, I think for anyone, anyone who has done it would understand how uncomfortable it can be. And I think it's important to be upfront and honest about tax if there's a huge benefit, obviously, to the owner financially and all that. But living with tenants,  it certainly poses challenges, I think, for us, the biggest thing we have really tried to stick to is,  not being friends by any means, but being,  very, like, fair, approachable upfront.  and we've had a lot of really hard conversations. But I think at the end of the day,  there's always exception humans who just don't understand regardless, but  most people,  as long as you communicate, effectively,  you're, it's fair, and it's,  the right,  you're doing the right thing, even if it's not good news, or what they want to hear, most times we found,  people it turns out, okay, yeah.

Dalyn Hazell  22:12  

Yeah, it's, it's that whole thing, we can't control other people's behavior, we can only control our reaction to it. And so if you, if you exude that confidence in that, it's a delicate line, because you have to be firm, but you also have to be friendly. And so you have to stick to the lease,  enforce the rules, but also be a good landlord, and neighbor, and neighbor. Yeah. So awesome. Let's talk about your roles. We touched on briefly that, Sam, you're a GC now as a full time job. And then, Nick, you're a residential loan officer. How do you think that dichotomy has helped advance your real estate investing business?

Sam Riccio  22:58  

Yeah, I mean, it has been, I think, honestly, a bigger transformation for our real estate business that we probably thought going into it, it wasn't like, Oh, we're going to do this, and then it's going to help us. It just kind of happened that way. So I mean, I guess from a GC standpoint, kind of contradicting myself, but when I got the license, it was all just use this for us,  we didn't think we're gonna go in which always happens, right? We didn't think we're gonna go and start this business and start taking on client projects and doing all this stuff. So I was like, I'm gonna get the license. I'm super into it. Mine as well. And then we can use it for our renovations moving forward. weird timing, the Universe works in weird ways. Like a week before I was about to take the exam. Someone had reached out to me and said, Can you renovate my house? I know you renovate your own houses, we had,  put it out on social media, wondering if you could do this for me as a project manager. It's like, Well, funny enough. I may be a general contractor in like, two weeks, so I'll keep you posted. And then,  I was afraid of course, I was like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to mess it up. Nick pushed me to do it. In the best way possible is like just seeing what happens. And of course,  I loved it. And then the ball started rolling. So then we have been doing multiple client projects ever since. And that was just early in this year. So that started in March. And we,  full steam ahead ever since doing full bat renovations, three family homes, single family homes, so it's helped our business so much because we've only done what we've done. We've only seen what we've seen for our own projects. In seeing it,  being on this other side where I'm being exposed to so much more. I'm dealing with so many different subcontractors. I'm also learning how to kind of be that middleman between the subcontractor and a client. And then from a design standpoint, which I really enjoy. It's really fun to be able to work with clients with different designs. styles are wanting  XY and Z for their home, which, for us, the tough part has always been, I always have Nick in the back of my head going, it's a rental, it's a rental. So like, how about marble countertops? He's like, how about not, um, we are lucky in the Boston Market here that we had,  it's a, I would say, a luxury rental in the sense of like, we're putting in,  nice appliances, and  everything stainless steel, quartz, countertops, all that. But there's a level that now I get to play with the client design style, that's been really fun. But overall, I think it's just for me, personally exposing me to, to way more than I would have ever seen. If we didn't get into this, I'm definitely grateful for that.

Dalyn Hazell  25:45  

exposing you to more than you were at your marketing job, right?

Sam Riccio  25:50  

Absolutely. More than being a being in marketing, for sure.

Dalyn Hazell  25:55  

Although there are some parts of real estate that help with marketing, if you know marketing you can acquire properties faster.

Sam Riccio  26:05  

come in handy. I'm not gonna lie. It was good for what it was now,  we're glad where we are, but I use the skills for sure.

Dalyn Hazell  26:13  

What about you, Nick, are you as a mortgage loan officer? I mean, are you writing like your own loans? Or how does that all work? I'm totally foreign to that field.

Nick Riccio  26:22  

Yeah, yeah. So. So I work for a company. And so I mean, I work with my own clientele. And then our company lends the money for the mortgages,  conventional, FHA stuff like that. But yeah, it's been, it's been awesome. I think the biggest thing that's been like a soft benefit is,  when I'm talking to my clients, like I always had, like the end,  I also could add the investor hat. But now, like,  just from sort of osmosis, I'm very comfortable on the construction side, too. So being able to, like, lend that side to clients, when they're trying to make these financial decisions, understanding what a renovation cost, budget, all that stuff would look like. I think it's like, helped me a ton. And then I think even Sam has already experienced like, the same thing with my, with my job and skill set, like, she can talk to the clients about like, it even just from her investing as well, but like,  it is worth it to do X renovation, because it's going to increase value and, and things like that. So being able to speak to that I think has helped both of us.

Sam Riccio  27:35  

And the people that you're meeting. Yeah. Maybe that but it's like, I feel like the communication with the amount of realtors and people like we never would be talking about many people.

Dalyn Hazell  27:48  

Oh, yeah, you have, I mean, your ears on the ground level of this entire industry with your roles. And I think this is very inspirational to a lot of people who maybe their husband and spouse duo or one of them wants to get involved. The traditional way would be one of them gets a real estate license. And I think you all realize that that probably wasn't your first choice. And so you went to these different directions. And that's, that's,  you're leaving the, the, the real estate agent to their duties, and you're doing,  the GC and the residential loan officer, you're doing those well. So we all have our different interests and skill sets. And you're capitalizing on that. Awesome. Any last remarks on like? Well, let's talk about where you're headed, because you've got multiple house hacks. I mean, where are you at now? And the last question will be, where are you headed?

Nick Riccio  28:36  

Yeah, so we, so like we said, we actually just closed on our most recent house hack, like two weeks ago. And that's going to be another,  probably substantial renovation for us. So we're working through that and going to be living through that, which will be interesting. And then and then from there, I mean, it's really hard, we kind of change our minds frequently. We definitely are looking,  we've amassed quite a bit of equity at this point. So we,  we talked about maybe doing some larger things, we'll definitely be moving away from owner occupied, but it's just a matter if we're going to scale up unit counts, or if we're going to stay local, where,  the number the we wouldn't be able to scale number unit number wise. Or if we go out further outside of our area, maybe we scale unit count. So we're a work in progress. We're still trying to work through the numbers on what actually is a better scenario for us. The hard part for Ross is now that we have so much like boots on the ground here locally. That to move outside of our market is a whole nother project where we've just really established ourselves here locally.

Dalyn Hazell  30:08  

Yeah, you're in a good place, but also a difficult place because you're at a crossroads,  because house hacking you, you can only get one per year, at least I'm told. And, and so you obviously want to expand beyond just one per year, because you've got the momentum. And so it's a good problem to have.

Nick Riccio  30:26  

Yeah.

Dalyn Hazell  30:29  

Awesome. Well, Nick, and Sam, you've been inspirational. For all those who are looking to get into house hacking. This last portion of our show here is called the triple threat. And we ask the same three questions, each guest. The first question is, what's the app resource or tool that's been the biggest game changer for your business? 

Sam Riccio  30:47  

Okay, I would say and maybe it's cheesy, but Instagram has definitely been the game changer. We started our account. Before we had one house hacker like mine as well as connect with people. It has brought us deals, it has brought us subcontractors, it has brought us renovation clients, it has brought us loan clients, I mean, the amount of revenue generated from this free app in and inspiration and inspiration. And just like when we were quitting our jobs, I remember posting it and people were just met, like we have such a great community of people. It really makes us feel like we can do it. And I'm sure there's everybody else out there that uses it that probably feels the same. So Instagram, for sure.

Dalyn Hazell  31:29  

Instagram is good. Yeah, you got to pick one social media platform and really go all in on it. Exactly. See the fruit. There's the marketing. Yeah. What has been the biggest learning lesson in the last year?

Nick Riccio  31:45  

So in the last year, I would say for us, we, we've learned, kind of, I think the big thing from, I'll take it on a positive note is we've learned like we're capable of a lot more than we typically give ourselves credit for. And I think,  Sam and I both went through this over the last year to where,  you're taking big leaps of faith, and you don't, we don't always, we didn't always at least know what we were doing. But you just find ways and it's, it's incredible how your mind and body find a way to make things work when you're under pressure. So I think for us, it's just been where we are capable of doing so much, even when we feel like we're not.

Dalyn Hazell  32:36  

It's amazing when you break through that ceiling, and then there's another one, but then you have to break through that one. And then all the while you're just growing and getting to a point where you're just like I can do anything. Question number three, and this is my favorite, our podcast is all about helping others achieve freedom with real estate investing, whether that's financial lifestyle, or otherwise. So what does freedom mean to you? And I'll break this up, we can go either one of you, because the definition of freedom is probably gonna be different. So, Sam, why don't you start? 

Sam Riccio  33:09  

Yeah, so I mean, this literally takes me back to Nick being 16. and being like, this is why we need to get into real estate. But freedom for me personally, is the and I'm experiencing it now, truthfully, with this being self employed, but being able to truly make your own decisions, and live the life that you want, and not have to ask permission to do so. So whether that's being self employed, whether that's sitting on your couch all day, whatever motivates you, being able to do it, and then also,  on the flip side, being able to financially support yourself while doing that. So if you want to sit on the couch all day for the rest of your life, do you have enough money to make that happen? Or vice versa? If you want to be self employed, like can you support yourself in doing that?

Dalyn Hazell  33:58  

I can definitely relate with that. I went full time in real estate two months ago. And grass. Thank you. I love the fact that my time is not attached to money, um, as much,  I'm still doing things that earn me money, but it's not. It's not defined by the hour. Yeah, my time. My time doesn't have an hourly rate, like you and me right now. I don't care what my hourly rate is. And if anything, I have a much higher hourly rate because I know my potential, and it's just breaking that connection. And not many people do that. Yeah. Nick, why don't you go?

Nick Riccio  34:36  

Yeah, so I think for us, big thing for us. Freedom wise is really just like that time freedom. I think for us, we knew really early on, like what kind of our perfect life sort of looked like and we spent a lot of time drawing that out and mapping it out. And I think for us,  having the ability at some point when we start a family to be able to be available and be around and all of those things and be able to do it together. I think it's been huge for us versus being stuck in that job because you need to be able to pay your bills.  That's been a huge driving force for us.

Dalyn Hazell  35:19  

Well, good for you guys. It sounds like you're only on the way up and those aspirations will only get clearer and clearer and bigger and bigger. Perfect. Where can listeners get a hold of you? What? Drop your Instagram?

Sam Riccio  35:31  

Yeah, so our Instagram is at Eagle Hill homes. And we also have our website where we kind of have our past client projects, things like that you can subscribe to our newsletter and that just EagleHillhomes.com.

Dalyn Hazell  35:44  

Awesome. Very good. It's been an absolute pleasure having both of you on the show today. It's been a new one for me having a couple on. And I think people love the three way conversation. It's been great. So thank you.

Sam Riccio  35:56  

 Yeah. Thanks for having us. 

Dalyn Hazell  35:57  

You bet.

Outro  35:59  

Thank you for listening to the real estate investing for Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review and tune in next week for the next episode.