The Bold “From Dreamer to Doer” Blueprint for Building Wealth and Impact with Diego Corzo

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Mattias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent, it’s Mattias here. I just wanted to introduce our guest. We have Diego Corzo coming out of Austin, Texas.

Diego is perfect for this podcast. Diego started off reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, as many people do, decided that real estate was the journey, and now is both an investor and an agent. I won’t tell his whole story in this intro because he’s about to tell it to you firsthand.

But Diego is an inspiration, I’m sure to many, and has had a lot of people reach out to him because he shared his story, and it’s a good one. So definitely check that out. So a little bit of an update for our world.

Erica is still out with her recovery from her meniscus surgery. It’s been incredibly painful. We’ll be a week out tomorrow, the time of recording.

And she has been doing what she can to help around the house. I think it drives her crazy not to be able to do things. Of course, the kids are all kind of missing her and what she normally can do.

They’re all kind of having to get used to this current reality we’re in and how we’re limited. Everybody’s been a little bit stressed, a little bit frayed. At the time of recording, this was Monday, so we’re just coming out of the weekend where people were home, and we had to, yeah, just kind of survive.

But we have been incredibly blessed by our community. It’s been really, really moving to see how many people have stepped up to help us, and I feel so fortunate for it. It reminds me of what Erica has talked about often.

I think we’ve mentioned this a couple times in the podcast as well, but the importance of having a third place. Ours has really been our gym, our CrossFit gym, and we’ve been in a tribe there, and those people have shown up from that community to really support us. We’ve had other people outside of that community as well.

We’ve had family, of course, help us as well, and we’re blessed to have family around that can. But it’s just really incredible that we’ve had the gym owner came and was at our house from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., I think, on Friday, and we’ve had somebody that just showed up out of a casual conversation, showed up on a Saturday, and 15 minutes from the conversation starting to help for a few hours, and it’s just been crazy the amount of love and support we’ve gotten. So the concept of the third space is really, you have your home, you have your work, and then you have a third place.

And I think a lot of people probably get that at church. That’s probably a really good place to get that. I think that you can get it in a lot of different places, and you might have more than one third place.

You might go to church, and you might have a gym, for example. I would just say the difference that I feel in this gym to maybe a different type of gym is that you go through classes, and you kind of build a different bond because you’re doing the same thing with people. So if you go to the gym just to lift weights, you might have people that show up around the same time that you kind of small talk with.

You might help them, but they’re all doing their own thing. And you may not really become friends with those people, but if you go into a class where you’re all doing the same thing, you have that extra guidance, you really develop a different level of bond with those kind of people. And I think it’s partly due to the things that you endure with them, which sounds terrible if you’re not in some of the exercises.

But you feel amazing after you do something really hard, and then you feel like you are connected with somebody after you do something really hard with them. And so if you are an agent, if you are an investor, if you think that networking has anything beneficial in your life, even if it’s not related to if you happen to get sick or need support, and you need that extra help, even if it’s just to have another community, it’s such a good place. It pays for itself in dividends.

I would argue you get into better shape, you’re gonna be more motivated to exercise consistently, and you’re gonna have a new friend group. And I think it’s such a valuable thing to do. So if anybody’s here listening and needs an extra push to try something like CrossFit, I think Orange Theory is another great one.

I’m sure there’s cycling classes, Zumba, I mean, there’s all sorts of things like this. I’m sure yoga classes are similar. It’s just a new entrance to a new community that I think is so valuable.

And we have felt incredibly blessed, because this has been a hard season for us. It’s been challenging. And it would be, I don’t know how we would have done it if we didn’t have this community supporting us.

So that’s my little plug. Go out there, be healthy, exercise. We are social creatures.

We are meant for tribes. A gym class is the perfect size for your tribe. And so I can’t recommend it enough.

It’s been such a big piece of my life since starting something similar to Orange Theory like five, six years ago. And I just, it’s such a huge piece of my life. I would love to have something like this consistently forever.

And I’m hopeful, I know that I’ll be a better person happy-wise, stress-wise, health-wise, community-wise because of it. So find your third place. That’s all I gotta say about that.

So now moving on to Diego. Diego is, again, he was actually in DC for a conference. So we could have almost met in person.

And then I’m gonna go to Austin for a conference in a few months. Erica and I are, so hopefully we’ll be meeting up there. But Diego is an awesome, awesome story.

His background, everything that happened to lead him into the business of real estate, a lot of obstacles, things that people might have resigned themselves to not being able to do at all. He’s achieved a ton. So definitely recommend this podcast to anybody.

Is interested in sales tips and investing. So without further ado, here’s Diego. Welcome back to the REI Agent.

I am here with Diego Corto. Diego, thanks so much for joining us. You are usually out of Austin, Texas, but you’re actually traveling for a conference and closer to my neck of the woods.

We should have met up in person to do this interview. You’re actually in DC.

[Diego Corzo]
Yes, yes, thank you very much for having me here. It is a pleasure.

[Mattias]
Yeah, Diego, we talked a little bit before this podcast started, but you are a poster child for this podcast. And so I’m really eager to get into this. Let’s just start with how your journey began.

What got you into real estate in the beginning?

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, yeah. So basically, I’ll share this story. So I was in college and my buddy, Pascal, he’s one of my best friends, he threw me this book.

I was 21 years old and he’s like, bro, I just read this, you should read it too. And it was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And that book basically teaches you two things.

You can either trade your time for money or you can make your money work for you. So at that point, I knew that I wanted to build wealth in real estate. I just didn’t know how yet, but that I was gonna make it happen, right?

So fast forward a couple of years, I moved to Austin, Texas. I graduated from college. I got a job as a software developer in tech for General Motors.

And while I was at my job, I wanted to buy a property because I wanted to do what, after listening to BiggerPockets, I found about that podcast and they mentioned house hacking. And I was like, okay, house hacking will be my, the easiest way for me to get started by investing in real estate. So I found a realtor that was gonna be able to help me out.

But in that process, I have my immigration situation, right? So I am what Congress calls a dreamer. Basically means that I am undocumented.

So I couldn’t work or drive till I was 22 though. The DACA program allowed me to get a job and be able to get a social and a few things. So the lenders at that time, they said that, hey, because of your immigration status, we can’t give you a loan.

But that realtor, I felt bad that I wasted his time. Two weeks before closing, I was like, Victor, I feel bad that I wasted your time. Is there anything that I can do to help you?

I’m pretty good at tech. We became friends and I began to drive him around too because I wanted to build wealth in real estate, right? But I couldn’t do it yet.

So I got my license because I drove him around and I was like, this seems like I could do this. I could do this. So in 2014, I was able to get my driver’s license.

I mean, I’m sorry, get my realtor’s license in 2014. And I began, the person that I began driving him around, he became my mentor and I started my journey as a realtor. And I did that part-time up until 2015, which was when I quit my job and began being a realtor full-time.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. Hey, we have some parallels. Yeah, we have some parallels there.

I got my license in 2014 as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s interesting enough, we don’t need to go into this rabbit hole, but I know that, so I was actually born in Mexico to my father was a US citizen.

As a US citizen, my mother was a Swiss citizen. And interestingly enough, there was some concern about since I wasn’t born in the US, what might happen now? So not to go down that rabbit hole, but yeah, everything is good for you on that front.

And my really good friend is from El Salvador and he loves to joke about me being Mexican whenever we go out, because he doesn’t eat anything spicy. And so whenever we’re at a restaurant, somebody comes out, like, do you want some hot sauce to go with it? He’s like, no, no, no, he’s a Mexican.

[Diego Corzo]
Oh man, that’s funny. That’s funny.

[Mattias]
Anyway, let’s get back to real estate. So that’s awesome. Okay, so when were you actually able, you told me you bought a house, like a house.

When were you actually able to buy one then after you had done the business for a couple of years, because you need to have a couple of years of experience, right, to be able to?

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, so I actually, so I bought my first house six months after I got my license. And I found a lender that could help me buy a property, putting 5% down. I lived in the master bedroom and rented out the other three rooms.

So I began living for free. And that is what allowed me, basically gave me that headstart in investing in real estate. And then I did that every year because a lot of people think, number one, that you need 20% or more to buy a house.

And then that you cannot qualify for an owner-occupant loan, like that you need to live there two years. And even though that is true, you can actually do it once a year. So I began doing that again and again.

And then that’s how I, then by that time I began then, as we were chatting earlier, I began house hacking, then multiple homes, and I began increasing my income as a realtor. And I began to save as much as possible. So I was a big believer in sacrificing the big, like the big things up until later.

One of my first mentors, Adam Carroll, he said, build a bigger life, not a bigger lifestyle. So I invested more in experiences, in things, right, than just actual things.

[Mattias]
So you weren’t leasing a Porsche your first year of real estate, is what you’re saying?

[Diego Corzo]
No, no, I have my Honda Civic, Honda Civic and Honda Accord, and then I got a Tesla in 2020. But throughout those years, I was living below my means and buying properties.

[Mattias]
Yeah. Guys, this is exactly what my book is gonna be about. This is exactly what I preach.

Not everybody has the luxury of bouncing around from house to house. It becomes harder when you have a family, that kind of thing. But this is exactly it.

I mean, it is delaying your lifestyle, delaying your future rewards, et cetera, to build up that base first. And that’s exactly what you did. You know, I love to think about it as once you have your expenses covered, which, brilliant of you, you had your mortgage covered, that’s a huge one.

Insurance is another big one, right? I mean, we don’t have insurance, self-employed people, really good insurance anyway. And so, you know, you can work to different goals and you can set yourself up to have that income thing covered.

And then, you know, let’s say, okay, I need $5,000 a month to live. Let’s get that covered, et cetera. And then as you build that base of cashflow, you can kind of start enjoying things a little bit more, increasing things a little bit more, getting yourself a Tesla.

So you told me, yeah, what else have you invested in then?

[Diego Corzo]
Well, and here’s the thing, right? It is a mindset, right? That I began to, so I am part of a mastermind, a group called Go Abundance.

And they gave me an opportunity back when I was 23, 24, that they didn’t have to, but I found my way into a room of millionaires before I was like, I was a kid. And they heard my story, my immigration story of coming here when I was nine. And then I’m like, wait, so you couldn’t drive till 22 and you’re 23 and you’re in this room.

We wanna help you out, right? So they introduced me to the formula called becoming a 100 percenter, okay? And that is basically the formula that if your monthly expenses are $5,000, as an example, and you have passive income coming in at $500 a month, then you put 500 divided by 5,000 is 10.

So you’re a 10 percenter. It’s like Diego, if you focus on getting to a 100 percenter, you will get a level of financial independence and then you can do whatever you want afterwards, right? Because you at least have that.

Now, of course, the older you get, right? The more expenses, like you said, family and stuff like that, that does increase it. So maybe now it’s 10,000 or 15,000, right?

But the idea here is that you’re investing to become a 100 percenter. And if people like, this is something that they don’t teach you in school, unfortunately, right? But imagine if you just had that mindset that, okay, I’m either collecting bills or I’m collecting assets that pay for my bills.

That was the mindset that I had, just like you said. And so I began to, so for example, I began to buy some properties that will later give me that level of financial freedom, right? And buying some properties in Austin, I have a quadplex in McAllen, some properties in the Smokies and so forth, yeah.

[Mattias]
Oh, that’s so cool. I love that. It’s such a great way to live.

And people might dismiss that or because it’s hard and they don’t want to really do what it takes to kind of get there, that 100 percenter rule. And they might say like, I always want to work. I don’t really want to be retired, but that’s not the point.

You think about what you can do with your time and how much more effective you can be to pursue bigger, more fun things. Like you talked about now that you have a team. So some people might have a little bit of hesitation, reservation about doing that kind of thing because they’re going to be responsible for others.

They might be worried that they’ll distract them from their day-to-day business, their day-to-day earnings. But that’s just one example. I mean, you could look into having a passion for some sort of charity, something that you can make a lot bigger than yourself.

And without kind of setting this base, this foundation first, you’re really going to have a hard time achieving those things sustainably. So tell us about how you kind of got into building a team and what the timeline, the steps you took and all that.

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So my business partner and I, who’s not my business partner, he was first my mentor and he was very busy. He was doing 40 to 50 deals by himself and he was going a little bit crazy.

So I was like, hey, I need, I don’t have, so let me backtrack. So I’m a big believer in finding your unfair advantage and with investing too. So unfair advantage within business or investing, it can be people that have money, right?

You either have the money, you have the time, you have the network or you have the knowledge, right? So you should partner up with people that compliment each other. Because if you have the money and you partner with somebody that has the money, he’s like, well, what are we going to do?

We don’t have the knowledge, we don’t have this, right? So Victor, my business partner back then, he had the knowledge on the market, he had the network and he was building so that he can have the money, right? At that point, I had all the time in the world.

I didn’t know anybody in Austin, I did not know Austin, but I was like, okay, this is perfect because you have your network, you have the clients, let me work them so that I can learn. And then as I build my network as well. So I leverage him, he leveraged me.

And then it wasn’t until a year, so I did all the buyers, like I was doing all the showings, the buyers, everything, and we had a split. And then I read the book, the image. And that book basically like that book for me was like, okay, I need to put everything into checklist, I need to do this, do that.

And then we hired somebody. He became our office manager or like transaction coordinator. And then it wasn’t until 2020, like 2019, 2020.

By that time, I had done 33 deals by myself, Victor was doing another 50. And we were about to do our own separate deals, splitting the one admin. But what happened was I shared my story of how I had like 20 some doors by the time that I was 29.

And he got featured on Bigger Pockets. That podcast got a few people to call me, they were like, Diego, how did you do it? You’re a dreamer, you’re undocumented, and we wanna learn more.

And a few people, one of them was in Austin, his name is Andres Bustamante. He gave me a call and he was 23. We went to lunch and I was like, dude, you’re just like me, I’m 29, you’re 23, I can mentor you.

Like I can help you buy, do the properties, do the house hacking and all of that stuff. And he was an agent as well. So then I go to Victor, I’m like, Victor, we need to create a team.

He’s really good, you have somebody else that wants to do this, let’s work together. And so in 2020, we became the number one team in our Keller Williams office. We sold, I believe it was like to 89 million or 96 million, something like that, 2020.

That was my best year. I did 56 deals by myself and I had another 2,500 contract by the time the year finished. I worked a lot and that’s when I was like, okay, it was just me and the transaction coordinator.

So then after that, in building the team, Victor and I began working our clients with the other agents in the team. So then that’s when we didn’t give them leads, we gave them clients that they can work, right? And we were the number one team four years in a row in our market center.

And then in 2024, last year, we moved from Keller Williams to Realty of America. And we’ve been with Realty of America ever since. We are, I’m one of the founding agents of the company and we are now 1,600 agents in 13 states.

So we made that shift, we made that move. It is incredible. And our team now, fast forward a couple of years, we are 17 agents.

Last year, we sold over 300 homes and if everything goes well this year, we should sell around 500 homes with the team. We have admins.

[Mattias]
That’s amazing. Wow, what a story, man.

[Diego Corzo]
I started driving him around and I was like, hey, I think I can do this. And then now we have this team and what’s cool is the culture that we’ve built. And the go-getter culture, the, hey, we do what it takes.

We don’t have excuses. And we’ve attracted everybody into the company, like into our team. We’ve never made a, like we’re hiring or anything, but we make everybody read if they haven’t read yet, the Miracle Morning, how to influence and influence people.

The Seven Levels of Communication. Those are some really good books to make sure that, the number one, we really care. We put our clients first.

We call it, if you make a mistake, you don’t fail. We call it a class or a lesson. So I’ve taken the refrigerator class that I forgot to include it on the contract or the curtains, curtain rods.

Yeah, like different classes that we take as realtors, where they’re like, oh my gosh, I have to pay this for the client. And we always do what’s right for our clients.

[Mattias]
Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. Those are great, great resources, great books to read for sure.

And what a great, yeah, core concept for the team. And it sounds like everything you’ve done has been really organic growth. Do you do heavy marketing to get leads?

Do you pay for leads? Or is this all kind of based on your spheres?

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, so what’s crazy is that we’ve done everything through referrals and social media. So we don’t pay for any leads. We don’t do like the whole Zillow or like realtor.com, Facebook marketing or anything. We just do social media. For example, we have a guy, his name is Julio. He does YouTube videos.

And we just hold them accountable to their goals. It’s been really cool to see how they’ve been sharing and everybody has their own thing, right? That’s what’s really cool.

We just give them the tools and the accountability to make it happen.

[Mattias]
So what’s that look like? Are they sharing through your team account or are they kind of creating their own thing within the team brand for that?

[Diego Corzo]
We have a team brand, but each of them is basically an individual agent that they can go out and they do their property tours. We show them how to share. Like we make everybody, they have to share three stories a day about being a realtor.

And we tell them is like, whether people like it or not, perception is reality, right? So we’ve had times where it’s a brand new agent, but for two weeks, they’ve been sharing three stories a day, whether when they either shadow us or we make them do their first 10 days, we make them do three sample offers so that they know how to write offers and stuff like that on their own so that the buyers call them. So they post, writing an offer, writing an offer.

And so people see them later and they’re like, dude, you’re killing it. And it’s like, well, they don’t know that I had any, like, hey, I’m just getting started. I don’t have clients, right?

But people think that, and then this means that they get top of mind when somebody does it. So then they get introductions. Hey, this agent is killing it.

I’m gonna, he’s a buddy of mine. He will help you out. And that has happened a few times.

And it’s just by them taking action and showing. We make the team members also as they’re starting out, go out there and check out the new builders that are in the suburbs or within Austin. And they have to post on social media about it.

That way they know what’s out there. They know the incentives that the builders are doing. They’re getting educated.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that’s really cool. Forgive me if you mentioned this, but how has your admin changed or grown since onboarding this many people?

[Diego Corzo]
So right now we have one lead admin. He does a little bit of the hiring at times. And then he gets, so we found the best one, we got him through Cyber Backer.

There’s a website that they come already trained. That’s our main one. And then from there we found the other ones offline, like through onlinejobs.ph, stuff like that. And then we, so we have two that are on the finance side that they’re submitting like our green sheets, like our stuff for the, so that we can get paid right as agents. We have two covering that. We basically have, for our agents, we have from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. There’s always two admins available. So that everybody’s on a WhatsApp group with all the admins and they have access to them from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wow, okay.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s really cool. Yeah, the power of the internet, right? I mean.

Yeah. It’s pretty amazing how.

[Diego Corzo]
That becomes our transaction coordinators are there, right? Like all of our admins doing that. And then we have one that does like the, like the just listed, just sold the marketing, the graphics, stuff like that.

[Mattias]
Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That’s really cool. So as you’re, what does your day look like now?

So you’ve got multiple things. So you’re co-owner of a new brokerage, right? That’s a national brokerage, right?

[Diego Corzo]
It’s national. Yeah, it’s national. We’re opening California, Texas, Chicago, Virginia, the whole DMV area, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and then in Kansas City. And then like we’re opening Kansas and Missouri and we’re opening up in Florida soon. Okay. Nevada, we just opened.

Okay. And Arizona as well.

[Mattias]
So that’s good. So that makes up time. You’re an agent, a team leader, and I assume you’re still investing, right?

You’re still.

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right now, I’ve transitioned a little bit more into hard money loans for right now, just so that I can worry about the team and the growth and make sure that my emphasis is worth on that and just maintaining my properties as is. Later, I’ll go back to continue investing, but for right now, I’m just doing hard money loans.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mattias]
So how do you keep your mind right as you do all these? Those are all big endeavors.

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, the main thing is, right, is leveraging the right way, right? And this is one of the things that I learned from David Osborne, one of my mentors. And I’m still working on this a lot from that perspective, but it’s having that mindset that we have to go from, I do it, to we do it, to they do it.

And for me, I’m in that point of, I’m in the we and the they, right? But it’s been, like I am in a lot of meetings and stuff like that. And then the other thing that allows me to leverage my time is that with the team, for example, we have something called the second agent.

That is what has made our team, that’s like the secret sauce for the team, and I’ll share it here with you guys, is that, so an agent, let’s say me, not just that I’m a team leader, but it started, we basically give, because we don’t have leads, right? Like, it’s not like I give an agent in my team and I’m like, call these 10 people and see one of them answers and becomes one of your clients. No, it’s more, hey, my friend just called me or somebody found me on Instagram.

I already spoke with them or speak with them with me. They will become our client. And when a new person calls me, I always tell them, hey, one of the things that I do, just because the Austin market moves quick, I work every family that I help, I help them with another agent in my team.

They have experience, they’ve been doing this for a while. This gives you the benefit as a buyer, knowing that two agents are gonna be on a text thread so that we are there to answer any questions at any time. We will be in communication with the listing agent, the two of us will be in communication with you at all times.

And they always say, oh, that’s great, right? But then that means that I don’t have to be as heavily involved, but it gives ownership to the other agent and now they get to do almost everything of the deal. I am there reading everything, right?

If I can go to the inspection, I do. If not, it’s not as necessary. I show up to the first showing and then I let the other agent go with them, right?

Letting them know that I’m there and I’m answering and after they end the day of showing, so I’m like, hey, which one did you like the best? Blah, blah, blah. But I don’t have to be there.

Sometimes, like I said, I’m in the inspection, most of the times I’m not. And then I am there at the closing if I’m in town. For whatever reason, I’m out of town, the second agent goes and the second agent can go with me to the second, to the closing.

That gives the agent also the opportunity to share as if it was their client, right? So it gives them experience, it allows them to share on social media a lot about the transaction, gives them lots of wins and then that has helped them. Like we have agents that started as my second agent, right?

And now they’re doing 40 deals or more a year with their own second agent, which is pretty cool. So we let the agents basically create their own empire within our empire and that’s been pretty cool.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s awesome, that’s a really cool strategy and a great way to start leveraging others and benefiting from the team, growing bigger than yourself. I gotta ask, if you never got into investing, if you never did that, how do you think this all would look now? Like do you think it’d be as possible to be a realtor to begin with, would have been as possible to build a team, to start a national brokerage, et cetera?

[Diego Corzo]
If I never started investing?

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Diego Corzo]
So it is, I mean, I will have a lot of cash in the bank if I never put it into investing, right? But no, I think that the investing gave me that experience of being able to know, like it just gave me a lot of knowledge. And when the opportunity came up to help people that reached out to teach them, like to help them how to invest and stuff like that, I leveraged the aspect of doing so many deals as a realtor, right?

Because let’s say an investor, they have five properties, right?

[Mattias]
Great.

[Diego Corzo]
They probably saw 20 properties to buy those five. And I’m just giving you an example, right? But when I have bought X amount of properties, but I’ve also did like 75 deals just in 2020, right?

It gives me the opportunity to review so many appraisals, so many inspectors, conversations, negotiating deals. It just gave me a lot of experience that gave me the opportunity to making it easier to share my knowledge. I would say that without the investing, I wouldn’t have gotten on BiggerPockets, for example.

So yeah, but it was a combination of leveraging one. So one of my main things for me is resourcefulness. I’ve been a big like resourcefulness and work ethic.

Those are the two things that have set me apart, I would say that are my unfair advantages there. I believe that I would have gotten to where I am now, but with a lot more work. Yeah, but that’s a really good question.

[Mattias]
I was just curious if having that cashflow, having that, I mean, I’m sure the net worth piece, especially going through the pandemic, owning multiple properties would have increased tremendously as well. Even if you don’t feel like you have the money in your account, it’s funny how as an investor, you can feel really cash poor.

[Diego Corzo]
Oh yeah, that is like, yeah, you can be like, there is no cash.

[Mattias]
But I’m just curious if it also gave you the confidence that like, you have these things taken care of with cashflow, you have whatever percentage you are, you don’t have to share. That, okay, yeah, I can take this risk, quote unquote risk. I can start this national brokerage, I can jump out of Keller Williams, I can create this team.

I was just curious if that also kind of helped, if you think.

[Diego Corzo]
What helped a little bit was knowing, so I’ll tell you this, because of the fact of how I shared my story, like on social media, and I began to help a lot of people coming, looking at things from more from the abundance mindset, as a realtor, and I hope that it doesn’t sound cocky or anything, but when you’re a realtor and you know, and you’re good at what you do, you know, like, cause I’ve had this conversation with some people and I’m like, look, like I know how to make money. So I can just go out there and do it. If I want more money, I can, like I know what I need to do to go out there and do it, right on the active side.

And so when you know that and you internalize that and you’re like, okay, it’s like, if you know that you can go out there and work and make money, then mindset wise, you’re like, if I feel like I don’t have money right now, then I know that I can just go out there and do it. And it’s like right there. I don’t know if you want to call it the law of attraction or whatever, right?

But there was one time that I was, that I wanted to give an example to one of the agents in my team. So in Austin, there was, the Austin market went crazy. Like it went up 40% during the pandemic and it came down 20%.

But there was a period of time where builders were, they did what they wanted to do. Sometimes they’re like, hey, no more investors. Now, yes, investors, this and that.

And one time I told my friends, I mean, the agents, I’m like, do you guys have to share on social media things that are going on in the market and put it in a way, hey, if you have questions, send me a DM and I’ll send you more information. So an agent shared that these two communities now have like three homes available for investors. And so I’m like, guys, you guys have to do this.

So I did a story on Instagram. I’m like, hey, for any of you investors out there, there is a new community X. They have three homes available for investors.

If you’re interested, send me a DM. I sold one house, right? So somebody reached out and I helped them out.

I’m like, this is a way that I show the team. I’m like, you just have to put it out there. So I have that mindset, but it’s because I’ve read the books, I’ve done the work.

A lot of internal stuff on the personal development side that, yeah, that has helped.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s really cool. It’s a great example of how being in tune with the market and how you can provide value to others, really.

I mean, that’s what you’re doing when you’re sharing that information to your sphere. They follow you as an expert and you showed them an opportunity that somebody was able to take advantage of. So that’s, yeah, that’s really cool.

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, and you have to care, right? One of the things is that I don’t think of myself as a salesperson, as a realtor. I think of myself as an educator.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Diego Corzo]
I’m educating the families that I’m helping on how they can better sell their home or buy a home. And then that education side builds trust. When you build trust with people that may found you on social media or that you don’t know, right?

But the conversations about building trust really helps. So for example, if I have a person that calls me and they said, hey, Diego, John told me that you’re out, that John gave me your information. He said, you helped him out.

I’m looking to buy a home. I’m like, oh, great. What did John say about me?

Oh, John said this, this, this, this, this. So they’re already saying that I’m great. I don’t even have to say anything about that.

I may like edify that, or I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I might say, oh yes, this is what we did for them. They were very happy. Then I mentioned something about like helping them more as a family, blah, blah, blah.

And you build a rapport and you build that trust. They say, great, what are you looking for? And then boom, the conversation starts.

[Mattias]
Well, and this is exactly the example or a good reason why working warm leads is in my opinion, better than completely cold leads. Everybody’s coming to you at this point with some sort of desire to work with you, to talk to you about what it would look like. You’re not calling them and you got their information because they got kind of scammed into clicking a button on Facebook or whatever.

And now they’re like, why are you calling me? And you’re not starting at that point. You’re starting at a point where they’re like, hey, we heard that you’re awesome.

We had people that really enjoyed working with you, or hey, we really enjoyed your content that you put out online. And we had some questions about X, Y, Z. It’s a totally different conversation.

And for me personally, that’s the route I wanna do. Those are the conversations I wanna have. I don’t wanna be fighting for trust.

Because I mean, you said that you are building trust still, and that’s important, but it’s a very different conversation to build that trust if there is a warm introduction.

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, and you can do the same thing. Like, of course, if somebody is like cold, cold, cold, that’s fine, right? And of course, we’ve had those people, but if they find me on social media, they’re a little bit cold.

But if they say, hey, yeah, I found your social media, I always say, hey, that’s great. What did you like about my social media? And like, oh, I like the way that you share about this, that you’re using very knowledgeable.

Oh, cool, what else? And then boom, right? And then from there, then we start that conversation.

But it’s those subtle things that make it, that builds on that trust.

[Mattias]
Yeah, 100%, that makes a lot of sense. Diego, do you have any golden nuggets you could share to our listeners? If you have something that is great about living a more balanced life, getting started in sales, getting started in investing, or just in general?

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, one thing that I would say for anybody that’s an agent, right, that wants to work with investors, I put this acronym that I learned from one of my friends, it’s called SCALE, okay? So when you’re helping investors as an agent, use SCALE. So S stands for strategy.

What is the strategy that’s gonna help with that investor? C is capital, A is the analysis, L is the lead flow of the deals, and then E is execution, right? So S, the strategy that’s gonna help that client, C, how they’re gonna buy it so that you can give them the right resources, DSCR loan, house hacker, owner, occupant, whatever.

Analysis, you wanna make sure that you’re analyzing the property, whether how the investor wants to do it, mid-term rental, short-term rental, long-term, co-living. And then L is the lead flow of setting them up in the searches so that you can find those properties, and E, help them buy it.

[Mattias]
Ah, that’s brilliant. Yeah, I love that. That’s great.

And what additional value you’re gonna give to clients, and I’m sure they’re gonna refer you out to others as well. They’re looking for something like that. That’s great.

Yeah, thank you. Diego, then what about a book? You’ve mentioned a couple.

You’re obviously a big reader. Do you have any current favorite ones that you would recommend or just some that are fundamental for people to read in this space?

[Diego Corzo]
Well, yeah, that’s good. I would say, so I mentioned three books earlier, right? But reading, The Miracle Morning is really good.

And then How to Win Friends and Influence People, Seven Levels of Communication. And then there was one more. I mean, just reading those books would set you up.

And if you wanna add another one, Think and Grow Rich. Really, really good book. But again, those books are really good in the way that they just help you think in different ways and apply them.

I feel like those books have been very, very impactful.

[Mattias]
They’re excellent books. They really are. And I’ve mentioned this a few times on the show, but How to Win Friends and Influence People was a, probably, that was my start into this kind of world and this kind of space of self-help, whatever you wanna call it.

It was weird at the time that, I felt like it had such negative connotations that you’re gonna read a self-help book, and I don’t know why. But that was my first one. And I joke with Erica all the time about wanting to drop off that book to somebody anonymously and just slide it in their mailbox, don’t put a name.

But I feel like they might need some of those skills.

[Diego Corzo]
For real, and they help. I mean, those are skills like, for example, I’m not the best at remembering names, but I try to ask them for their name, stuff like that.

[Mattias]
100%. And I think one of the big ones I like too, so I was in a behavior management or behavior specialist role when I was getting licensed and before in the school system. And I tried to mentor kids with some of these books as well.

Like I had them read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens version in a high school, which I actually really highly recommend if anybody. It’s easier to read than the adult version.

[Diego Corzo]
I can imagine.

[Mattias]
But anyway, we went through one of the biggest ones that I was teaching them and want other people to realize too is that when you make a mistake, that happens, right? Everybody makes mistakes, but blaming others and making excuses for yourself just makes you look bad. And if you take full ownership in that mistake that you made and say, that’s 100% my fault, even if you feel like it isn’t.

That’s 100% my fault. I’m so sorry that this happened. This is what we’re gonna do.

That makes them start creating excuses for you and you just look like a much better person at the end of the day there. So I think there’s some gold in that book for sure, even though it’s so old.

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, yeah, I agree 100%.

[Mattias]
Yeah, well, Diego, this is awesome. This has been such a great conversation. I feel like we’re kindred spirits from different areas.

Would you tell me anywhere people could reach out to you or find out more about you, follow you on social media, want to know who’s a realtor, etc.?

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, for sure. They can go to @realdiegocorzo, @realdiegocorzo on Instagram. That’s the easiest way to connect with me, to answer questions.

And for anybody that heard the podcast, send me a voice message or a video with one thing that you learned from me. That is a hack. I’ll give you one last hack that I would say for realtors.

You have to do it in a genuine way, right? But happy birthday. If it’s their birthday, sending them a video through Facebook or Instagram, Instagram is 15 seconds, or I think Facebook, I don’t know.

But like, you just need 15 seconds. And what I do is like this, right? So it’s like, hey, Mattias, just wanted to do this video to wish you a very happy birthday, have the hope that you spend it with your family, with your kids, and that you have a blast.

Take care. Boom, that’s it, right? But the amount of messages that you send is that I’ve gotten back that say, I’ve gotten so many texts, you’re the first video, thank you so much.

It’s like, it’s incredible, right? And it takes you 15 seconds. You have to genuinely do it, right?

But it’s sometimes saying that is much easier than typing.

[Mattias]
Yeah, and it does, it separates you. Are you putting that on their timelines or anything like that, or is that like a direct message?

[Diego Corzo]
Direct message.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s great. It’s a really good tip, thank you.

[Diego Corzo]
Yeah, for sure.

[Mattias]
Hey, Diego, it’s been such a great conversation. Like I said, kindred spirits, I really appreciate everything you share, all the gold nuggets. Everybody reach out to him or follow him for more.

But Diego, thanks again. I hope we meet in Austin soon.

[Diego Corzo]
Yes, for sure. Talk soon and see you there.

[Erica]
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit REIAgent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.