Renting vs Owning in Las Vegas: How To Escape The Rent Trap

It would have been easy for me to continue renting vs. owning in Las Vegas. This is my story.

In this photo, I’m about 12 years old and we all look like we could use a little sleep. By the time I was 16, we had moved over 40 times in 7 different states. My dad was a rock & roll musician and my mother an artist. Nothing will get your kids to leave home faster than making their life miserable. At 17, I was done sleeping on the couch in a mobile home and started off on my own. 

That experience was the best that could have ever happened. I was free at a very early age to make my own decisions and to shape my own beliefs. I was really driven. Perhaps it was because my mom told me I could do anything I wanted or maybe it was just the fear of being poor.

There was no rope around me when I left home and I had the privilege of being free at an earlier age.

Renting vs. owning in Las Vegas or anywhere else on the planet was not a situation I ever wanted to experience!

The college conspiracy: A college degree won’t help you escape the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas.

Everyone has been brainwashed to believe a college education is necessary to become financially independent.

College is a fabulous place to learn how to drink and chase women.  College doesn’t teach you the fundamentals of building wealth.

A college education has little to do with renting vs. owning in Las Vegas!

You do not need to have a higher education to become wealthy or own your own home!

Owning a home is the first step in building wealth so quit renting vs. owning in Las Vegas ASAP!

My wife and I were drowning in debt.  I looked around and was surrounded by a lot of very wealthy individuals so I started looking into their backgrounds. 

I discovered that many of them were not as smart as me, came from even more difficult childhoods and what’s even crazier, didn’t make much more than I did. “What was their secret?”

I had this epiphany, “There must be a trick to becoming financially independent. What is the secret ingredient to becoming wealthy?“ So I started reading about how people become wealthy.

I learned at the ripe old age of 25 was that owning a home was the key to building wealth. 

So my wife and I just did it. We sacrificed and saved as much money as we could. 

After about a year, we bought the only thing we could afford in California. It was a 2 bed one bath condo in an absolutely terrible neighborhood.   We were so broke we had to get a room mate to help pay the mortgage. We also ran our first business out of this 2 bedroom condo and there some nights we couldn’t go to sleep until one of our employees finished working in our bedroom.

The point was we believed we could own a home even though we were drowning in debt.

Step one in escaping the rent trap is actually believing you can. 

Myth #1 – You have to make a lot of money to escape renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Wealth is a function of how much you save. Not how much you earn. To illustrate this, we can use some extreme examples. 

Remember this guy? Michael Jackson? This guy earned over $4 Billion dollars in his lifetime. At the time of his death he was making $219,000 per day. The reason he kept performing was that he was broke! He spent more than he made. He spent money on crazy stuff like chimpanzees and shiny shoes. Check this out. The house he rented in LA cost $100,000 a month!  

Michael Jackson earned $219k a day and couldn’t escape the rent trap.

Owning a home has nothing to do with how much money you make.

Myth #2 – You have to start off with a lot of money to escape renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Let me tell you a story about one of my investors. This guy grew up in the streets of Calcutta. Despite extreme poverty, he managed to get a degree. He was then able to leverage that degree to immigrate to Canada where he put himself through school and got another degree in nuclear engineering. After years of saving money, he contacted us in 2010 in search of investment properties.  In the last decade, his investments have soared and the rents he receives is more than handsome.

By the way, he is absolutely the nicest guy you will ever meet. He volunteers to help others and has a fulfilling life with his family. He’s a classic example of someone who started with nothing and  built a small fortune in real estate.

He went from growing up in poverty to eventually escape renting vs. owning in Las Vegas!
Nothing Outside of Yourself is Stopping You.

Owning a home is about how much money you save. NOT about how much money you start with.

You Have to Believe

Myth #3 – You need something you do not currently have in order to escape renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Here are some other things you don’t need to escape the rent trap:

• A degree
• Fancy job
• A business
• Rich parents
• Rich friends
• Rich clients
• A nice car
• A wife
• A husband
• A dog
• A sandwich

You have everything you need right now to escape the rent trap and stop renting vs owning in Las Vegas

The process of saving money is your first step in escaping the trap of renting vs. owning in Las Vegas.

Habits

There are two components to saving more money.

Earning More Money 

Those extra earnings will go directly into savings. No matter how you cut it, earning more money means you are going to work harder or add another source of income. Here is just a short list of what you can start doing this week to earn more money. Will your life be harder? Absolutely. If you want to escape the trap of renting vs. owning in Las Vegas, you are going to have to suck it up and put in more effort. If you think you can’t. You won’t.

Saving What You Earn

Saving money requires the constant habit of putting away money. Today. Not tomorrow. Start today.  If you set up a saving process, it will make your life significantly easier. 

Contact your bank or go online to set up an account that automatically sweeps money from your bank account to your savings account. A good ruler of thumb is 20%. If you make $1000 a month, you need to save $200. Break it up into small chunks like $20 a day or $150 a week. You will be surprised at how easy it is to save money if you don’t have it in your hot little hands.

Did you know that if you saved $20 day for the next 2 years, you would have $14 thousand in savings? For most of you watching this video, that’s enough downpayment to purchase a condo. Just imagine that? In less than 2 years you could get out of this trap you are in for as little as $20 a day.

Saving $40 day gets you into a modest home. 

If you want some other ideas of how to either earn more money OR save money, google it or come see me. I help people just like you escape the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas to become financially independent. 

The process of fixing credit is your second step in escaping the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Fixing Credit

If you have no credit, that’s cake. There is a bunch on the web that shows you how to build credit with prepaid debit cards. 

If you have bad credit, work on improving it. Since you have been renting with us and paying rent on time, we have already been helping you build your credit. You’re welcome. 

Start with pulling your credit on any of the free websites like CredtiKarma.com or Experian.com . Look at all the mistakes you have made in the past and fix them. I’m shocked at the number of rental applications that have collections at less than $200. Really? You want to argue with someone over $200 while they destroy your credit? Just pay it.

There are agencies out there who specialize in fixing credit but you can do it yourself and get better results. Focus on the easiest ones first and then start knocking them out one at a time with a deletion letter from each creditor. 

Improving your credit is just like doing homework. Remember doing homework in grade school? Ya. Painful. Nothing fun about it. Work on it every weekend. Just carve out an hour and focus on one creditor at a time. 

TIP. CreditKarma will give you tips on how to improve your credit based on what you are doing currently. 

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the key to building credit is paying your bills on time. Need help learning how to pay bills on time? You can start by creating daily goals of having a certain dollar amount in your checking account and then using a calendar to pay those bills before they are due. A google calendar is free and you can put little reminders in there. Better yet is to to automate your payments and focus on making sure your bank account stays healthy enough to pay them.

If you don’t trust yourself with your bank account, get someone to help you or hold you accountable. Tell your best friend how much money you should have in your account each Friday and force yourself to send them a snapshot. 

No matter what you do, be sure to save some money for a rainy day. Let’s face it. Nothing is perfect and we need emergency money from time to time to make car repairs or take care of an emergency. You can use the same strategy for savings by creating a second savings account for emergencies.

Fixing your credit is an all important action step for escaping the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas!

Imagine your first home. Paint a vivid picture of what it would be like to escape the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas.

Imagine Your First Home

Imagine your first home, cut it out of a magazine, put it on your bathroom mirror and put a date on it. Below that picture write down how much money you have to have saved and write down 650 or better credit.

Here’s an interesting fact. People who put their goal in writing and see it every day are 10 times more likely to achieve it. It’s easier to start your journey when you know where you are going.

Just do it now.

Building wealth habits will help get you out of the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Habits

Putting aside money for your down payment and paying your bills on time to improve your credit are simply wealth building habits.

If you start working on those habits now, you will be surprised at how much easier your life will be. Wealth building habits don’t have to be painful and if you do it every day, it becomes natural.  Creating these habits will require you to change what you are doing now. Change isn’t easy but if you dedicate your intentions to changing your habits the rewards are endless. 

There are a lot of coaches out there and there is a lot of really good material on habits. Here are just a few I recommend. If you don’t like reading, get the audio version. If you can’t read or listen, surf Youtube.  If you have PTSD, ADHT, HIV, BLT or any of those other letters you think prevent you from learning, find an alternative.  Everyone is capable of learning new habits.

Consistent activity that has become a habit helps create the change that gets you out of the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas 

Mistake #1 – Pursuing The Dream Home – This can be a stumbling block that keeps you in the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Not going to happen. Let it go. Your first home is the stepping stone to your dream home. Your first home is just the launch pad to your next home. If you are really smart, that first home becomes your rental or passive income for later. You will be calling us five years from now to help you with your dream home while we find a stellar tenant. We are going to help you find a tenant who takes care of the property and pays rent on time. Someone just like you.

Mistake #1

Common Mistake #2 – Trying to Keep The Same Lifestyle Can Also Keep You in the Trap of Renting vs Owning in Las Vegas

Your new lifestyle is going to be hardest thing to wrap your mind around. Your first home will not be as nice as the one you are currently renting. The reality is, you will probably live in a worse neighborhood, a smaller or perhaps an older house than the one you are renting.

Same Lifestyle Won’t Work

I had an agent once who was so concerned about how other people thought about her she rented a nice home just to impress her friends and clients. She will never be able to escape the rent trap because of her fear about what people will think about her. You are going to have to suffer a little and do your time just like the rest of us who started with nothing.

Mistake #3 – Giving up too early will certainly keep you in the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Don’t Give Up

If buying a home were easy, everyone would do it. It’s just like losing weight. Trim people exercise every day and eat healthy foods. Buying a home takes continuous effort of saving and building credit.  Don’t let minor setbacks make you throw in the towel.

Mistake #4 – Afraid To Ask for Help – Seeking help will accelerate your escape from the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas

Ask for help!

Yes, you might be able to figure everything out yourself and make all the changes necessary to escape the trap of renting vs owning in Las Vegas. But chances are it will take a lot longer and you’ll miss out on many opportunities. Imagine the time it would take to learn how to fix the wiring or plumbing in your home. Getting help from an expert speeds things up!

Since wealth builds over time, the sooner you start, the greater your accumulated wealth. And getting help gets you started sooner! 

Smart, successful people seek expert advice.

You don’t need to feel embarrassed to ask anyone for help. Don’t stress about what other people think about you or how much you know or don’t know. We specialize in helping tenants just like you purchase their first home. Prices are finally dropping! You actually benefited by doing nothing these last few years!! Pat yourself on the back! Kudos for waiting!! 

If you want us to help you get out of this rent trap you are in, contact us today. We sincerely want to help you escape the rent trap. We can coach you through the process. No judging – just honest help. 

We can’t do the work for you but we can make it easier for you by helping you focus on the right things at the right time.  We will meet with you and start you on your way to financial independence. It will start with owning a home.