Raising Financial Freedom
Raising Financial Freedom
Helping And Teaching Real Estate To The Future
#044 Is real estate a good form of investment for families? Should kids be learning about real estate from a young age? Spoiler! The answer is yes.
Meet Whitney Chaffin, a speaker, investor, philanthropist, realtor, and mother who provides people with second chances through real estate. In this episode, Whitney talks about the first steps to take when teaching your kids about real estate investment and getting them involved in this wealth-building asset class. Whitney highlights the impacts she’s been able to make in her community as a result of her investments and shares powerful resources you can use to educate yourself about real estate investing.
“The biggest thing is honestly personal development skills. As you get into the real estate side of things, you really learn who you are because this business is not easy… When you start to see how this business and these traits can really allow for you to have that financial freedom, it is very hard to go back to the workforce and so you get this motivation that you won’t settle.” -Whitney Chaffin
Many people think that real estate is a rich person’s game, but as Whitney says, it’s not about being rich, it’s about being smart and thinking differently. Whether you want to invest in real estate, stocks, or cryptocurrency, financial literacy and education is the first step to financial freedom. Are you interested in learning how to invest in real estate and make it a part of your child’s financial freedom? Check out Whitney’s recommended resources below and connect with her to learn more!
If you enjoyed this podcast and know someone else who would benefit from it, we invite you to SHARE it & RATE/REVIEW it on our website, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re tuning in from!
Stay tuned for more episodes coming your way!
Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about Whitney’s Place
Learn more about Elite Legacy Education
Join the Real Estate Mamas
Donate to Place of Hope
Email Whitney: whitneychaffin@legacyea.com
[00:00:00] Eric: Another day, another good show. This is raised in financial freedom and I am your host. Eric yard today is a good day, and I'm glad you're here with us. My guest today has a newborn baby that's right. A brand new mom. She is here with us today to show us how she helps people and plants that help Hutch.
[00:00:20] Through real estate. So what you'll learn today is some of the beginning steps on how to help your child learn real estate and get them involved in this wealth building asset class. Our guest today is Whitney Chaffin and she helps people get a second chance when it's time to purchase a home. Now we've all made mistakes, whether it's financially or with the law.
[00:00:42] And then after those mistakes, now there are new hurdles for that person. And this is the problem that Whitney is tackling with Whitney's place.org. She is here to shed a few thoughts about that and also how she plans to get her newborn involved. So now [00:01:00] let's get into some sponsors before my new producer.
[00:01:03] Ah, come on guys.
[00:01:06] Host daughter: Um, get
[00:01:06] him
[00:01:17] my
[00:01:17] dad is taking too long to start the show and I'm taking over as the producer. So let's start the show.
[00:01:29] Introducer: Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have it all financially do well off parents simply hand their children money or is there more to this welfare? Welcome to raising financial freedom, the pocket. We are here to talk about everything you never knew to teach your children when it comes to starting their financial future, the principles behind wealth and methods that are out there to teach your child about personal financial freedom.
[00:01:53] There was no real tricks to earning other than money. We are here to discuss, teach and grow with you. Raising [00:02:00] financial freedom, the podcast with your host and concern pair, Eric yard. Let us get right into today's show.
[00:02:12] Eric: Now, whether you are involved in real estate or you're not, it can be hard getting your child enrolled for once again, this is your child and they have their likes and dislikes. So getting them involved in this asset class can have its difficulties depending on the child, this falls into Whitney's wheelhouse.
[00:02:30] So I wonder how she's going to go.
[00:02:33] I
[00:02:33] Whitney: think the first thing is honestly going to be just taking him around, doing what we do. So like I'm a real estate agent as well. Um, I, so far he's already been on showings with me. I had a listing recently. He came to every appointment with me and that's probably what I'm going to continue to do because that's what my parents did.
[00:02:50] I know my fiance say anything and he was always with his dad. Who's also a general contractor and it's coincidentally, he's a contractor still today and I'm in real estate. So it's [00:03:00] obviously that worked. So that's probably what we're going to do is just continue to bring him around. We do want to have more children.
[00:03:06] My fiance wants a football team, so we're probably going to have at least five, maybe more. Each one that's probably what we're going to do is make us a family affair. And then when it comes to like the actual education side of things, what I'm working on right now is a curriculum for teens and young adults.
[00:03:23] So with the company that I am contracted to elite legacy education, we're working on just different platforms and my best friend and I, who's also a mom and she's also a real estate investor and real estate agent. We just created the real estate. It's our website. It's like our own little brand and that's where we're going to start.
[00:03:39] We're going to have the videos and things that really speak to the children at their age about money and about time and about assets, liabilities. That makes it fun. And then from there, hopefully he starts to read the same books I did, and it just gets that itch and in making money. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:03:56] There's even ways that you can start self-directed IRAs for your kids, and there's [00:04:00] ways they can earn money and it can go back to the IRA. And there's, there's just so many things I don't wanna get too much into taxes and stuff, but there's so many things available for your children to be able to start investing as a kid.
[00:04:11] It doesn't even have to be real estate. Maybe they start with crypto. It's simpler. And then that money you take and you put into those state, or maybe you, you create them a savings account that you just start putting that birthday money in and the Christmas money or holiday money or whatever. And then when they get to a position where they actually understand it, you teach them how to leverage that money to get an asset.
[00:04:30] It's going to make them. I think the thing, I don't know if this is a saying, or if it's just something I've embedded in my mind, but it's always been in the thought. It's a rich people's game. And while I agree that many rich people have real estate, it's not so much about being rich. It's about being smart.
[00:04:46] It's about thinking smart and about thinking differently. I think people historically have been like, oh, that's for rich people, but it's not everybody needs a place to rest their head at night. And. There's so many different strategies in real estate that pertain to everybody. And [00:05:00] one example was I had a friend who was incarcerated and he was spending four years in prison.
[00:05:04] So I sent him a copy of rich dad, poor dad when he was in there and some other other books. And he realized, holy cow, when I get out, I could actually do a strategy called wholesale. And he, he joked with me one day and he's like, this is drug money. This is the type of money that you would make if you were selling drugs illegally.
[00:05:21] Oh my goodness. Why have I not done this? And it's, it's just that thinking process. They all think that you have to buy a house, rent it out, or buy a house, fix it up and sell it. But there are like 17 different strategies in real estate that you could do to make
[00:05:32] you
[00:05:32] Eric: money. Well, you're saying no, this is all good for, uh, how is this going to help me?
[00:05:38] Cause I'm not necessarily in. Well, if you want to get involved in real estate and pass that information on to your children, like Whitney just said, it's a mindset. And with that change of mindset, there is a beginning,
[00:05:53] Whitney: first thing they should do. I would say personally, get educated, go either. I'm [00:06:00] with a company called elite legacy education.
[00:06:01] And I speak on that education because it's, I'm a student of it. I'm a product of it. My dad's a product of it. That is obviously the first place I would recommend somebody go. Even aside from that, if you're not in a position to actually take courses about learning, how to write. First thing is read a book, read rich dad, poor dad.
[00:06:16] That's the first book I read that changed my life. There's another book called thinking, grow rich a hundred percent. I should read that book. Those are the things that will get you in that right mindset of seeing the world in a different light. And then from there you would actually have a better understanding of what your next step should be.
[00:06:31] Be. My first day, second thing is I would start looking into other investing strategies too, not just real estate, because you'll see that some of the strategies actually. So you can do lease options and real estate, and you can actually do options in the stock market. So it's just understanding both sides of the coin.
[00:06:46] One is having a child and being able to be financially free and be with him. Do you know, having that time to be with him, but I would say the other thing is after I made a bunch of money in 2019, I wanted to do something big and I'll preface the story real quick. [00:07:00] So when I was 21 years, I lost my best friend to a heroin overdose.
[00:07:05] And when that happened, I became super depressed and started volunteering actually, because I read a book somewhere along the line, the lines that said volunteering and giving back can actually help you with depression. So I did that. I started working with a bunch of nonprofits and the first non-profit that I ever worked with their name is place of hope.
[00:07:22] And what they do is they actually have children who are aging out of foster. So if you're 18 years old and it's country, and you've not yet been adopted, you could actually age out of the system. And if you age out of the system, you have little brothers and sisters who were still in foster care. You're either going to take responsibility for them, or you're going to be separated.
[00:07:41] So no little boy or girl really wants to be separated. And what place that hope does is they would take all those kids in so that they don't have to be separated. And so that they have a roof over their head. So I really fell in love with that mission. And I told myself if I ever get to a position where I can give back financially, the first nonprofit, I want to get back to his [00:08:00] place of hope, because now I spent time with all those little kids there.
[00:08:03] I literally saw myself almost like an out-of-body experience. I saw myself. Becoming happy again. I saw myself overcoming that depression. So play some hope, basically saved my life. And for a very long time, I did not have the resources to give, but because of what I was able to learn and what I've been able to accomplish through my.
[00:08:22] For the first time in April, I want to say it was April 16th. I think it was 2019. I donated $25,000 to place the hope. And when I did that, they actually built a library and they filled it with financial education books and they named that library after me and my family.
[00:08:41] Eric: Education, you could start with education.
[00:08:44] You don't need no fancy school or program could start with the meeting books. And at the same time, we're learning, you're feeding little breadcrumbs to your child along the way, as you just heard, Whitney has a very big heart when it comes to real estate and helping, uh, where [00:09:00] did this start and how did she get to this point
[00:09:03] Whitney: up in a family of real estate investors.
[00:09:04] But my dad was also very hard working. He'd find jobs when I was a kid. And I'm not saying that as an exaggeration, he literally had five jobs, but he also was investing in real estate. So I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. I was actually in Ohio, but I was born in Pittsburgh right on the border.
[00:09:20] And so my dad worked at a plastic plant. He had a. Um, he was a personal trainer. He did odd end jobs. He was a handyman, basically owned real estate, all these things. So I grew up understanding business, at least seeing it from a business owner standpoint. So I never really wanted to work for somebody else, but I didn't really know that.
[00:09:40] Until I was an adult and I realized I didn't like working for someone else. So I liked the idea of entrepreneurship and taking your own matters into your own hands and creating your own destiny kind of thing. But you don't know that sometimes when you're just growing up and you see your friends getting a job here or getting a job there.
[00:09:56] So my original plan was to go into TV and then I [00:10:00] realized there wasn't a whole lot of money. The path that I was taking, it wouldn't take any very long to get there. So I did a lot of odd end jobs until I had enough pain in my life that I was really ready to make a change. I hadn't experienced a lot of hardships and a lot of heartbreak, a lot of just negative things happening in my life.
[00:10:17] The job took me away from being able to cope with a lot of those things. And I know it's weird to say, but it's, I felt like. Into the dollar, your nine to five, your, I was working beyond nine to five. I was working like 80 hours a week and I was making pendants. And when there's gotta be a different way.
[00:10:33] So forty-five years old, I had the epiphany that I did want something else. I called my dad and I had told him that I wanted to learn about real estate and he kind of chuckled over the phone and was like, if you're going to do. You have to go get educated because I don't, I'm not going to sit here and teach you what I know you can take in these courses.
[00:10:50] So I started actually getting educated through an education company where I actually learned about financial education and it was the exact same classes that my dad took when I was only [00:11:00] 11 years old. So he was an investor, but he taught himself through this education stuff. And you have to go out there and seek that educator.
[00:11:06] But he was not willing in a good way to just give me the real estate and giving me the money that he's built. He said, you need to learn how to do this because God forbid, if something happens to me or your mom, or we have a global pandemic and the whole world shuts down, what are you going to do? How will you be able to stay on your own two feet?
[00:11:22] So he pushed that. Financial education on me and I took them into my own hands to learn it. And then to solve the problems that you're talking about with Whitney's place. That was really my, my passion for why I wanted to be a real estate investor. And that is helping people who need a second to. We have so many vulnerable populations out there who maybe they were in a position when they were 18 years old, that they were selling marijuana.
[00:11:48] And now they're going to face 30 years in prison for selling a job. That's now legal in many states as an individual. I'm not condoning that and I don't make it political, but what happens is these individuals go to prison and [00:12:00] taxpayers will pay to keep people incarcerated for crimes like that, where you may go.
[00:12:05] Illinois and the, in one city in Illinois, you're facing 30 years in another city, you're facing three. So it's just like a matter of where you are. And so when that happens, people finally do have the opportunity to get out of prison. Now they've got this criminal record attached to their name, not to mention taxpayers have been paying.
[00:12:21] Anywhere between 20 and $90,000 per year per person to keep people incarcerated for crimes like that. So you're talking about a lot of money that we're paying for individuals who probably made a mistake and it needed a second chance. So then when they get out and they have his criminal record attached to them, it's very difficult to find a job and find a place to live at least a safe place to live.
[00:12:40] So what I've been able to do through my real estate, investing in my education. Is be one of the people who can provide that second chance. And so I started with what you would call a sober home or recovery and all the halfway house, it's all kind of interchangeable. And that was in August of 2016. And then since then I've shifted into incarceration and helping returning citizens [00:13:00] because there's really a need for that.
[00:13:02] And there's a lot of funding available to help those individuals who need that secondary are you basically
[00:13:06] Eric: handholding throughout the whole process and showing them what can be done or showing them the possibilities. Of where they could end up with when it comes to housing.
[00:13:18] Whitney: So yes and no, I say yes, because I have I say no, because I'm in a position right now where there's actually a ton of support around me that I don't have to do all of the stuff by myself, but I'm still definitely a resource for people.
[00:13:31] So at the beginning, what happened was we owned a property and I was kind of that. House manager person where I could kind of coordinate, um, you know, the, the person, once they come to our house and getting a job and getting food stamps or graduating high score or whatever it is that you needed to do at that time, I was that person doing it.
[00:13:50] But then as time has kind of evolved, you start to see other organizations that are doing great things. And so now what I can do. Basically have a property [00:14:00] and rent that property to an already existing organization and be the person that's helping them. Or I can be the one that's providing the housing and then kind of sell out the, the support because there's a lot of groups here, especially in south Florida that, that have those kinds of resources where they do job placement, they do resume building and they already have the infrastructure, um, just more on the housing side of it.
[00:14:21] So, um, the answer is yes and no, you can kind of decide how you want to do it.
[00:14:27] Eric: Real estate can be intimidating, but as you keep added, there's a set of skills that you start to pick up and of reality of the situation starts to set in. You start to see it's simple, but not. And you will have your bumps in the road to go through.
[00:14:44] I think
[00:14:45] Whitney: the biggest thing is really honestly, personal development skills. And I feel like as you get into the real estate side of things, you really learn who you are because this business is not easy, I will say. And when you do get into it, you got to have six skin. [00:15:00] So you become a little tougher and in all the right ways, you really develop just your independence.
[00:15:06] Uh, financial side of things like you're financially independent. And when you start to see how this business and these traits can really allow for you to have that financial freedom, it is very hard to go back to the workforce. And so you get this motivation that you won't set it it's oh, it's almost like JZ says once you've had Floyd and Yon, it's hard to go back to hamburger helper, and that's pretty much how it is at this level.
[00:15:28] Once you start to acquire those skills of personal development and you see your value and you understand the value of. It is difficult to go back to that. So I say that, but this stage, the motivation there, the determination and stuff that would be there. And then when it comes to actual like literacy, that's all gonna depend on the individual and how much they really learn, but how much they take in and how serious they take it.
[00:15:47] Because like I said, you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make them drink. So if you just teach them the system and show them the value, we hope that they can take that into their own heads. And then from there, the skill set is incident. There's so many different ways that you can [00:16:00] acquire so many people.
[00:16:01] You know, the one thing my dad did that I really appreciate is he never really forced it on me. I think as parents and I'm learning this, that you can't. You know, four stays on your kids. Cause a lot of times they won't do the exact opposite. And so my dad would triple in things that would give me a sense of why I would want to be financially free in a sense.
[00:16:21] But I think the biggest thing my dad let me do is he let me get a credit card from when I was 18 years old. And a lot of parents may cringe at the thought of that because their 18 year old go out there and blow money and to mismanage it. But he had enough faith in me to be able to. To make my own mistakes.
[00:16:37] And the reason I bring all credit cards is because credit cards are a great way that you can actually buy real estate. And that's how I started was with building my credit and having this huge availability. And my dad used credit cards when I was a kid. To buy real estate and he became a multimillionaire doing so.
[00:16:52] And I don't want to make claims or anything on the podcast of numbers. So I'm not going to say that, but he used a credit card to buy real estate and his life has never been the same. And [00:17:00] so he encouraged my brother and I to get a credit card at 18. It was like, learn how to use this. And we knew the story of how he used it.
[00:17:07] But now at 31 years old, I have 17 credit cards. And I say that probably because each one of those is. Each one of those becomes a tool for investing a tool for business, a toll for whatever I need to make sure that things are getting where they need to go in my business vision. And I think that's one thing I'm definitely gonna instill in my child is understanding the power of these tools around us from an investment state.
[00:17:34] Because you can certainly use a credit card as consumer, but if you use it for as an investor, you can totally change it.
[00:17:40] Eric: Now for Whitney, the sort of skills that she obtained is a total game changer for.
[00:17:46] Whitney: I would say the biggest thing is learning how to move money. And I say that because when COVID-19 happened, I was, I was very financially well off at the beginning of 2019.
[00:17:57] I made more money than I ever did in my whole life. I [00:18:00] bought a zoo six Corvettes, a hundred thousand dollars. Like I did all the things that we probably shouldn't do, but it's because I was in a position to do. And then when that happened, COVID hit the whole world shut down and I was not able to do all the things I was doing.
[00:18:14] So people were not being released from prison, which meant I didn't have any tenants in a property. I was no longer speaking because the seminar world was shut down. So I literally had zero income for a year now. And some have managed somehow have been able to have money still floating and coming in and still paying.
[00:18:32] I've never missed a payment. I did not have to file bankruptcy. I didn't have to do any of those things because I truly believe of my financial education. I've understood how to make money in crypto and the stock market when real estate was taking a bust. And now you have properties that are extremely overpriced, that it's very hard to, to cashflow.
[00:18:49] It's very hard to have an income coming in on those, unless you're doing something socially creative housing, multiple people wonder what. Or doing something like Airbnb, and then you have things like Airbnb even shutting down. So [00:19:00] I think honestly, moving money is my best skillset and I've been doing it my whole life.
[00:19:05] That's probably the most valuable thing I've learned is how to leverage other people's.
[00:19:09] Eric: And there it is. Financial literacy puts a big bow on this. It came to her rescue and she uses this in order to stay afloat, whatever asset class you choose to teach it. Real estate stocks owning a business crypto education, which has financial literacy is the foundation to everything financially
[00:19:32] Whitney: the last couple of years.
[00:19:33] And we're now in 2022, I think over the past couple of years as a nation and a population we've experienced things that we've never really experienced before, or maybe have brought to light things that we weren't aware of. So I feel while all. Craziness is happening in the world. I think now more than ever, people are wanting their children to have a better understanding about money and about financial freedom and about really taking things into their own hands.
[00:19:58] The reason I say that is because [00:20:00] when COVID-19 happened and the entire world shut down, the question was really, how am I going to make a living? How am I going to eat? And if you only know one way to make money, or you were at an employer, a job where an employer shut down for however many weeks, Eden years now, you may have been one of those people that that was truly affected financially.
[00:20:18] So I think maybe now people are waking up a little when it comes to teaching our children, though. I don't know that people know even what to do. So as much as they want their kid to have a another way or a better way. I think maybe there's just this lack of, or maybe disconnect between how to actually do that.
[00:20:36] Eric: The end of the day. This is why we here at raising financial. We here to help you help you or child. You never said it will be an easy road, but if nobody else does it,
[00:20:47] Whitney: I think if you're a parent right now who doesn't have maybe a positive result with your decisions in business and money, as much as it may be a little painful, maybe use that as an [00:21:00] example for your kids.
[00:21:01] Do you want better? I want better for you than what I have and not in a negative way. You want to believe in your children and you want them to believe in themselves. And I think all the things that we're fed in the world, there's just so much negative energy that, that goes to us. And I'm a big person in like the laws of attraction and affirmations and meditations and your subconscious.
[00:21:21] And what goes in your ear is very important. What you hear and what you think you'd be calm. So I think it starts with speaking to your. In a way that empowers them, but also demonstrates that they could have more, even as you are well off. I mean, you've done well for yourself. You still want to encourage them to do better, to have more.
[00:21:41] And so if what you've been doing has worked for you financially, I would mention that to them and start with that. If you're in a position where it hasn't worked, then obviously you guys gotta do something different. And in that case, that's what I would do is tell them I want different for you. And then.
[00:21:56] Start doing your own research as a parent for what your kids should [00:22:00] be learning and what you should be learning for yourself. Because the biggest thing my dad did for me is he did it and lead by example, and it's a monkey see monkey do. If you're in that age, zero to 11 timeframe with your kids, you've got a lot of hopes.
[00:22:12] Even if they're in that 14 to 18 age group, you still have that, but you may be a little more delayed in when they'll actually realize it. I learned this stuff when I was probably 14 years old and it didn't click until I was 22. You can do the math on the timeframe for that, but the sooner you can get it in their heads, the sooner you can do financial education on YouTube, just little things that go into their brain that give them that empowerment.
[00:22:33] I think there'll be a lot better off a lot.
[00:22:36] Eric: Whitney. I want to thank you for coming on the show and sharing so much good knowledge about real estate and how to get your child involved into real estate. Where can the parents continue this conversation with you and let us know where, what projects or what else you have going on for yourself in the future?
[00:22:59] Whitney: There's a [00:23:00] couple of places right now with elite legacy education and we are launching. Two very large, um, things I should say. So we have a lot of our platforms are being recreated. So I don't want anyone to go to one of those websites and then not have me respond. So the best thing to do probably right now is to actually reach me directly.
[00:23:19] And that would be at my, uh, my email address or follow me on Instagram. My Instagram is just at, with Tayfun w H I T C H a S F as in Frank, I N as in Nancy, I respond on there pretty often. Or I can be reached at my email address. Uh, Whitney chafing, legacy ea.com. That's w H I T N E Y C H a F F I N at legacy L E G a C Y E a dot.
[00:23:49] That would be probably the best way to reach me. And then as things develop and as new programs come and do all the things that we're working on within the company for teens and for young adults and for parents, I'll be able [00:24:00] to, to keep them informed of,
[00:24:02] Eric: thank you for coming on. The show was kind of an eye-opener because with her working with any asset class of real estate, she is earning an income.
[00:24:11] She is helping people. And then when the time comes, she will be teaching us. About the asset class. So she's basically killing three birds with one stone. What I've taken out of this discussion is that there are good people out there willing to go out of their way to help other people and give them that second chance that they.
[00:24:32] And to Whitney, that is a big kudos to her raising financial freedom wishes, the best to Whitney and her family, especially to the new addition who we suspect will be a future real estate investor. So like we've been saying this whole month, we've have a new way. Where it's simple for you now to leave a review right on the website and you don't have to jump to, uh, one of the pod players and leave a review.
[00:24:59] [00:25:00] I would say we'll take about 10 seconds to 15 seconds for you to do a review. So please go to. Leave a review, let us know how we're doing, let us know what changes you would like to see. And we could definitely use that feedback to help the show grow. So until next time, keep your kids safe and help give the gift of financial freedom.
[00:25:21] Introducer: We really hope you enjoyed this episode of financial freedom. The podcast stay connected with us directly through raising. Freedom.com. You could also join the discussion on social media, which you can also find links on our website. If you would like to speak with us, please send us an email to info@raisingfinancialfreedom.com and as always thank you for pushing your mindset towards a better reality.
[00:25:46] This concludes the most thought provoking portion of your day. Don't forget to please like, and subscribe to stay fully up to date until next time. Be kind to yourself and each other.[00:26:00]
