From Injured Athlete to Real Estate Power Broker

if I played, I got injured.

And I never quite recovered.

So what that taught me being an athlete is,

“you have to be able to pivot and transition”

when I couldn't find the job in March, build a choice after college. I decided to get into the real estate game. I never looked back at her since. - Kai Lyman Joseph is a resilient, ambitious,

and purpose-driven real estate broker, entrepreneur, and the founder of Royale Ruby Realty. Drawing from her journey of overcoming adversity through entrepreneurship, she helps individuals and families build wealth

while empowering others to pursue financial freedom and lasting legacy. - I said, well, hey, you have a lot of people who don't know. People in my community and my circle. So why don't I teach them and show them how to gain real estate,

knowledge and obtain housing, whatever they want to do in real estate, I can help them with it. My goal is to help under-privileged communities and let them know that it is possible for them to have home ownership.

- The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome back to another episode. I sat here today with Kai.

She's a real estate broker, innovator, entrepreneur, like all of us. And doesn't make really cool. She helps under-privileged communities. So a very specific niche there

with a great purpose behind it. And excited to dive into today's episode. Kai, welcome to the show. - Hi, thank you, Rudy. - So tell us, there's a lot of real estate professionals out there

and people doing in this industry.

“It's blown up, I think, since COVID everyone wants to be”

especially Miami, everyone's a realtor, you know? - Excellent. - So tell us a bit about yourself and why you're different and the mission behind it. - Well, I am a new broker.

My goal is to help under-privileged communities and let them know that it is possible for them to have home ownership. So that's my goal in my mission, in my career. - Yeah, but you've been in this industry for a long time.

Tell us about how you got into this. - Well, Kevin said this because I graduated from college of Wayback Win and my couldn't find the job. So my mom was in real estate and she basically, you know, say, hey, why don't you try, you know,

mark being a market broker and I tried it, loved it, and then our transition to the other side of the game, which is the real estate side, right? - Yeah. - And before that, you're a collegiate athlete.

- I was a collegiate.

- Tell us about that and I'm always fascinated

any lessons from sport that you've learned like translating to your success today. - I agree with you. I was a top-to-top aspect coming into the college from my small community in Dallas and Bill Louisiana.

And I chose to go to LSU. - What sport, sorry? - Louisiana State University LSU. So I joined their Women's Basketball team. I played, I got injured.

I like, within the first couple of weeks. - Basketball for you. - I got injured, a lot played basketball. - And I never got quite recovered. I had four surgeries, major shoulder surgeries,

and I never recovered. So what that taught me being an athlete is,

“you have to be able to pivot and transition, right?”

So I was able to, when I couldn't find the job in my field of choice after college, I decided to get into the real estate

game, and I never looked back ever since.

- And what made you, you know, you've been doing that a while, but what made you kind of go through that, and now focus on these under privileged communities, what gave you that passion? - Well, we're gaming that passion,

'cause my mom was a teenage mom, and I watched her struggle, right? So in real estate, my grandfather was into real estate, and I just thought, hey, you know, why don't I try to make a better way for myself?

And I was able to purchase real estate at a very young age, and I saw a way it was, you know, lucrative, and then I started, I said, well, hey, you have a lot of people who don't know, people in my community and my circle.

So why don't I teach them and show them how to gain real estate, knowledge and obtain housing, whatever they want to do in real estate, I can help them with. - Well, let's stay there for a thing. What are a few tips, someone's listening,

maybe can apply to them, right? What are some tips you give people? - Oh, make sure, well, credit first, right? Maintain your credit, a established credit. - Yeah, Bill, and what to do with it.

- I've always liked, you know, I'm new to America, I wasn't born here, and credit's not such a big thing,

you know, and I had to, even though I was very successful, you know, making millions of dollars at the start from zero here and make my credit, and it was very frustrating, 'cause it was like, I could buy a housing cash, but I wanted to mortgage it, and I couldn't...

- You could not mortgage it, it was crazy. - That's an important lesson that you have to have credit first. It doesn't matter how much money you have,

“if you want to purchase something in the US, right?”

You have to have your credit. - And a lot of people having ignored credit, and then especially in under-privileged communities, it's this kind of toxic cycle, 'cause they have to have credit or ignore it, so then whenever they get anything on a loan,

they're paying crazy, for cents, and interest,

that's great, it's not really a fool, and then they never get,

and then they never have cash flow to get out of it or pay off the credit. - Right, so it's a never-ending cycle, right? - Right, so it's just them how to break the cycle, and how important it is to keep the maintain,

and then we can, you know, move up you buy your first home first, and then you do maybe a rental property, multi-use. - And so on and so forth, so... - Well, I need to, you know, also, you know, I always talk about banks and credit cards,

they don't make any money off me. - Right, right, right. - They make money off the millions of normal consumers, right, that are, on 20%, they're on pay. - That's the point that they're living in paycheck to paycheck,

and, you know, I, you know, I learned more recently, I can't remember the stamp, but it was a stamp out of the general sort of population, not an entrepreneur, but I think basically, on average,

“I think it was 20 grand in credit card debt, right?”

- Right. - And they stay in that debt, their entire adult life. - It's entire life. - So they're paying, you know, it's crazy. - A lot of interest and compound interest, absolutely. So what I do teach them is use the credit card, right?

Because you want to keep it, you don't want them to close it now, what you pay it off every month, yeah. - And that way, you don't pay any interest, but you still get the opportunity to use it, and you want security, there's benefits to it,

as long as you don't pay the leverage, and you know how to use it. - That's right, that's correct. - Yeah, yeah, and I think it is so important that financial, almost, you could call it financial literacy, right?

- Absolutely. - Absolutely, they don't teach it in school, they don't teach it to people, and I think it's great. - I wonder if it's on purpose though. - I'm sure, I mean, I'm sure, yeah, from sure, yeah. But it's great, I mean, that has to be taught somewhere, right?

And parents, you know, most parents haven't learned it, right? 'Cause, you know, half of this didn't exist 40 years ago, right? And now it's really our generation, like, 40 years ago, you couldn't buy something on fashion over and get a credit card at the same time, right?

- Right, right. - Which sounds very attractive when you're young, and you're trying to buy all these clothes, and I had one staff member one time,

tell me I'll never forget, she was like, you know,

she was like, yeah, I just buy everything on the afterpaying corner, the full pay thing, and I didn't even know what that was, and I was like, that's just like, that was like, that's a terrible idea,

'cause you know, by an $80 close, $50 close, on a full pay, you know? - Right, just setting you up for, you're digging a deeper hole, it's, yes. - Because when you need to pay your rent,

but they're pulling out from those pear shoes you bought last year, you know, that doesn't make any sense. - Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. - But that's how they make them on rent, you know? - That's right, yeah, make it off me

that pays the shoe and cash or whatever, right? They make it off to people that get stuck on these crazy plans. So I love how you help and fix that. So let's talk about the housing, you know, we skimmed over at the end, but it's really great.

You kind of have a bit of a stepping stone for buying properties, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- All of this in maybe your first roof over your head,

and then actually you can start getting passive income from rentals. - That's correct. - Can you break that down, how you advise people? - Well, okay, for my buyers,

most of them are first-hand home apartments. - Yes. - So they have to kind of, - And then rents your rents your rents. - And then rents your rents your rents.

- They're going from renting, or living at home one mile, or that, and that, and so they buy their first home. So your house begins to build equity. So it seems to me about equity. - Boy, it's funny in America just to jump in.

I came from England where everyone's goal is to buy a home as quickly as possible, 'cause you're kind of tall, right? Meaning, if you rent, you'd pay in zero off. - Right.

- You just, it's a cycle, right? - Right. - Where in America, I mean, the stack is 50% of people rent. - So they rent for 20, 30 years. It's like, hey, could about the same amount as a mortgage

and paid off your house, right? - That's correct. - 'Cause you don't have to, it's not your forever home, right? - Yeah. - So, to the process, and that's what I have to get them

to understand as well. You're in the small apartment, but when we go look at houses, they want this, oh, I want a huge backyard.

“I want, you know, you have to, it's stepping stone, right?”

I know you have to pay for it, or you're responsible for making the payment, but I'm trying to teach you how you can build and get that mansion one day. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, and just in the sun, hey, pay 40 grand off this over a few years, that should deposit for the bigger house. - That's correct. - That's correct.

- Just rolling on into the next office. - And it gets bigger and bigger, yeah.

people like the instant gratification of, hey, I can, I want this apartment, I can't really afford it, but I can get it signed off on anyway, and over leverage, whereas when you get in a mortgage, the banks are much more screwed on this

on what you can actually get, right? 'Cause they get landed with the debt, if not, I'm trying to foreclose and say, whereas a rental, this is, you know, they'll do some checks and back grounds and rough calculations,

but they'll let you over leverage much more, 'cause they can just kick you out and get someone new. - But then that's a way that they can retain that particular tenant as well, right? Because they're constantly over leverage,

so you don't have any savings in order to buy your house. - Yes, of course, you stay in a rental forever. - Yes, so it applies to renters too, who aspire to own.

- Yeah, yeah, I always used to say,

I was like, live below, live at home, if you can, and just say, well, your money to get your first down payment, I bought my first house at 19. - That's why I say, I lived at home. - You beat me.

- Yeah, well, I worked free jobs for two years and bought my first house and then I kept rolling all my profits into my next house, and my every year I was buying a new house. - See guys?

- Yeah, it works, yeah. - But I, because I, for some reason, got in my head, I hated the idea of rent. It's just like, burning money to me. So I was like, I want to own the house

and people rent the houses from me and pay my mortgage, which I think is a misconception that people believe and want you purchase a house that you can never sell to them, right? Like, people in my community,

they may have a misconception about how what ownership means. You don't have to pay for it for 30 years.

“You can sell it if you want to take the profits.”

- A moment later, you can sell it. - That's right, you can't. So that's my mission is to teach private to literature. - It's interesting, so that's a big misconception, like if you buy this now, that's my forever.

- Or, or if they fall behind on payments, they don't realize that they can sell before foreclosure. - It's so much, yeah, yeah.

- And I've never had to deal with it,

but I've learned, like, actually looking at buying for close houses, the banks give you actually a lot more leeway than you think. - Absolutely. - They don't want to go into foreclosure, because they lose money, and it's a whole legal thing.

So yeah, I think they actually probably give you more leniency than rental rents, they just replace, you know, just give you another place. - Yeah, yeah. - You know a lot about real estate.

- Yeah, I've been in, it's been my like side passion for me as my passion for literature. - So I always, I think it's a great place to part, you want to talk about it too, like explain into people too. They generally real estate over the last 200 years

appreciates in value, because land is not, we're not growing more land on the planet up.

“- You know, that, that's, that's what it scares me.”

- Yeah, yeah, especially in Miami Beach and towns and cities, it's always gonna generally go up in value of it. - Yeah, it's three on average, three to five percent of here. - Yeah, exactly, yeah. So, so you live for free and, you know, you're not living free,

but you're paying off into something that should also appreciate that. - That is growing. - Yeah, yeah. - So, a couple of questions, you know what?

What if someone's bought their first house, they're listening,

and they have a passion for real estate, or they've been interested in investing? How do you advise on that side? There's actually getting mal of cash flowing properties. - So you would use the equity in your home.

So it would depend on the value versus the balance on your mortgage, and they would just take the money out in the home equity line of credit, or a second mortgage, and they would take the money, the equity, they would pull out of their home,

and they would go and purchase a duplex, that's the amount of you in your money. And you can use the income or the potential income from that amount of you in it to apply to your income. - Yeah, yeah.

- So you can purchase the house, even though you don't own it yet. - So it's pretty cool. - Yeah, it's just, I mean, it's one set click, it should click. - But everyone like, you know, when you buy a rent,

I've had rental properties in England for 14, 15 years now. I'll not pay the penny into, I mean, I'll just say maintenance and stuff, but I've profited every year. The house was doubled in value over 15 years,

and I've paid off off the mortgage in the same time. It's like, you can't get better than that. - Yes, because my mom has been so wonderful and knowledge about real estate, I started when I was 23, my husband and I.

And we have nine properties, nine. - We don't have 15, we have nine. And we've learned, and we've profited every year as well, and our mortgages are very, very low. - So, and now if you wanted to go and buy a big 10-unit

moody family, you have the leverage to, the credit, all of it to go do big a deal. - Absolutely. - Which is where you make real money. - That's certain, yeah, that's certain.

- The real money, yeah, good. So, last good with questions, people, you know, I mean, this is a good kind of baseline masterclass

“on just how to get into the real estate property ladder, right?”

Which is, you know, I do a lot of more advanced investing and multi-family and stuff,

They need to learn how to do this,

and, you know, it's kind of the biggest expense in life is probably gonna be a random mortgage, right? - Yes.

“- So, as I understand in this and get in it, right?”

And then obviously it's generational too, 'cause if you pay off a house over 30 years, your kids have an instant advantage than if you rent it.

- And you rent it up, yes, yeah.

- I agree, and I try to teach my clients that as well. So, that is the big, you get a lesson when you come and you do business with me. - Yes. - Are you choose to do business?

- Yes, that's great.

“- So, where do people learn more about you?”

Learn more about this, can they follow you

and you give these tips online? - Absolutely, I may start a podcast of my own. I'm inspired by you. And they can follow me at Instagram, at Kino's Real Estate, that's Kino's Real Estate.

And all about Real Estate LLC.net, that's my website. - Good, well, I hope you keep going and impact and educate millions of people in America in the world, especially America that need to hear this,

“especially in the places where they don't hear this, right?”

- That's really the rule time for me. - Yeah, when you become a big entrepreneur or your friends are doing Real Estate and you learn this stuff when you stuck trying to survive, you're not hearing this or this stuff, right?

So, it's great that you're doing that. So, I love that. That's what this is all about. So, good job to you, and thank you. Guys, go check her out, obviously,

and learn about Real Estate. And obviously, if you're in the area and need help making purchases and properties, you know who to call. So, that's a wrap.

Keep working hard, have an impact and I'll see you guys soon, take care. - All right, thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)