From NFL Athletic to Real Estate Agent

um why not give that a shot so I um started um recording some games because that wasn’t even normal to do you know so I had to like set that up where like I recorded my own games and I started putting some highlight tapes together and uh luckily enough here now I always have to get a shot out the University of Wyoming um gave me uh gave me a shot like you know they actually called me and uh flew me in on an official visits like have we seen your tape love what you do uh you’re a great athlete and all that and yeah sign me um without ever seeing me play in person sign me to a a full ride uh football scholarship wow you go into that story too because I’m always curious like how how the Cowboys and Laramie a little little Laramie Wyoming found you in Germany other than they saw your tape or how do they so um interesting story too so one of my good friends um Oliver showbo was also from Germany he was there a year before me and he had some connections to the head coach back then uh Dave Christensen was the head coach at Wyoming at the time and he one of his former players was my buddy’s coach in Germany you know so it’s always about connection right it’s always relationships and um um so yeah Oliver was at Wyoming at the time and he was kind of the one who showed them my highlight tape um and kind of got the ball rolling that way but yeah so that’s really what it was like um showed in my tape and they liked what they saw and it was crazy they flew me in from Germany for a weekend and uh it was I was it was I blew my mind you know like this whole College atmosphere just like being around on game day or something like I had never seen you know I’ve played Small Town Football um in a foreign country and then seeing uh major D1 um college football and being there on game day and the excitement around it that is something that blew me away and um yeah definitely something I decided right then and there I want to be a part of and that’s how I got to Laramie Wyoming wow okay I’m jumping ahead a little bit because then I want to come back to your transition in college to the NFL but that experience you you’ve seen it probably like no one else what was it like your first game running out in Laramie and War Memorial Stadium in front of say 30 000 people versus that first game in the NFL in an NFL stadium how do they but maybe the first one was like crazier right audit so that’s uh I love that question actually um first college game the nerves were probably even higher I’m not gonna lie that was uh my very first game um in college was um we played against uh Weber State back then it was a night game actually and I started right away it was a true freshman I started outside linebacker and just that like I said it was the first time experience all of this so all the emotions came up the Goosebumps and then you know starting for the first time it was it was it was everything you know that was that was amazing and then I at football it was for me a little gradual start so you know because I um fast forward a couple years I actually tore my ACL my senior year in college so I got drafted being heard actually so it took me a while I was around for game days so it took me a while to actually I didn’t start my first or play my first game in the NFL until week 10 of my rookie season so by then I was somewhat already used to the lights the crowds you know um but it was still special you know like you know strapping on because you know play I was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys putting on that star on your helmet for the first time and just um it was a home game in front of you guys ever been to ATT Stadium the atmosphere is unreal 80 plus thousand screaming fans um yeah that was definitely absolutely an incredible moment too but I think you know I put I put college at number one that’s cool that’s a cool perspective coming from Germany to that those different levels so absolutely well tell us Mark so you kind of touched on a little bit kind of how you transitioned from college to NFL but I’m curious like let’s go back to you’re in Laramie you’re going to school uh maybe tell us a little about what you were going to school tool for and and were you thinking about business where you think about real estate then and then and then we can transition to how you actually made a jump to the NFL but right so I was definitely always business uh in that mindset of doing business so I actually got my degree in um in finance and uh in a minor in economics so I was um the original plan was always being uh into some sort of financial management uh being a wealth manager along something along those lines but then um yeah so then going into the NFL just kind of like changed my perspective because you know I understand that wealth management is still a lot of relationship building but it’s it’s it’s also it’s it’s still an office job so you’re gonna sit in an office at some some um extent of time and I was like no I don’t know if I want that I don’t think I wanna you know sit in a in an office and on a desk and crunch numbers and looking at charts and all that I said yeah I want to be out and about I want to meet people I want to uh kind of like be my own boss and do what I you know kind of like you know put my own thing together so that’s kind of where the slowly but it didn’t start until um until I was in the NFL by like the year two or three um when I kind of started forming this real estate idea because you know it’s so crazy like you know for everyone to understand like the NFL is like this little fraternity right and like every day after practice you just sit down in the locker room the locker room is unreal it’s it’s the coolest atmosphere you just sit down with a group of people or like you were in the sauna or in the hot tub whatever it may be and you just talk about life and life goals and ideas and what you do for Investments and this and it’s unreal like the ideas that’d be thrown around right because everyone has a little bit of money so it’s like you always pick each other brains like what is your life goals or like how how you invest your money and what do you do so that’s when uh one of my good buddies um he started um investing in real estate in his hometown which is a college town he started investing early like his you know this rookie or second year in the NFL so he had like three or four rentals um early on in his career and I said wow that is so cool and he started talking about it and kind of planted that seed in my head I was like wow that is such a cool way to like um generate wealth and like hopefully you know generational wealth down the line so that’s kind of how it started for me the whole idea and share to you I know the name but who who was the guy because he was a Montana guy right his name was uh Brock um he he’s from um where’s where’s Montana at University of Montana yeah Montana state right wasn’t even Bozeman no he exactly so he is from Montana where it he’s from Missoula but invests in one in Belgium yeah right so it was always confusing so he is from where Montana state is uh but he went to Montana got it okay got it and now and now we invests in he said he was buying rentals right in Bozeman at the time when he’s in the NFL correct yeah yeah um so his sister was still um going to school there and um yeah so he he bought her they did some house hacking with her bought her um I’m not sure it might have been a fourplex she lived in one unit with her uh with her roommate rented out the other units and then I bought a couple multi-family units out there and yeah I did well with that and um and he is actually it’s funny too uh he was the one who suggested um Rich Dad Poor Dad to me for the very first time yeah and that was in 2016 and remembers like hey you got to listen to this book and he actually sent me the audiobook and uh that’s how things say I got rolling and the funny thing is I just I know that was the start for you as well I just finished listening to it like a week ago like every once I was like the fourth time I listened to it man such a good book and really always a good time to listen to it yeah such a good reminder yeah yeah so yeah that’s how that’s how it all started and yeah it’s great you know and I’m you know finally now that I actually done with playing football I kind of got the ball rolling because you know during my playing times I was still too busy with um you know I have a young family you know taking care of all that but now that I’m you know not in football anymore I actually had time to pull the trigger on a few things so it’s been good it’s been fun processing cool yeah let’s dive into that a little more but just I want to highlight though with Mark what he just told you guys is again this a lot of people I think can relate to that Mark and and they maybe couldn’t have they might have thought oh like NFL players they’re not thinking like they’re not talking to their co-workers essentially learning from them seeing how they’re doing it having those conversations and then basically again them also turning onto the book that’s super cool they turned you on the Rich Dad Poor Dad because they get I think a lot of people can relate to that same story or maybe their co-worker or somebody’s telling them to go listen to this and they haven’t yet maybe that’ll kind of motivate them to go read it but that’s cool you just started hearing that from other people that were doing it in the locker room and then you started taking action so so go a little bit more though what did it look like though so you’re still playing in the NFL right um and I guess go ahead let people know kind of how many years you played in the NFL and then what did it look like after you read Rich Dad Poor Dad and you were hearing these different ideas what did that kind of process look like and I know you just mentioned that you didn’t take a ton of action until you got out because obviously you were all in on football and making out as long as you could but I’m just curious what it looked like after that right uh so yeah just uh quickly about my career so I got drafted uh by the Cowboys um to Dallas here in 2015. I’m I only played here for a couple years so I spent the 15 16 part of the 17th season unfortunately I I tore my uh um my Meniscus had some knee issues um and they um released me the beginning of the or like beginning of the season and then by week two I was picked up by um San Francisco 49ers and I spent the next five years out there which um just as a side note that was the best thing that ever happened to me in terms of um what that did for my career and my relationships and um yeah no it was it was great um so no hard feelings there against the Cowboys because we still call Dallas home by the way so we we made this uh home base so we still reside uh here in the suburbs and we’re of North Dallas but um yeah San Fran really has special a place in my heart as well and yeah spent some great five years out there but um yeah what was what was the other question sorry yeah just curious so once you kind of read Rich Dad Poor Dad sounded like that was around 2016. like what did it kind of what were some of the next steps before you left the league right when you’re right you didn’t have time to really get into real estate investing but I know you were still thinking about it absolutely yeah so um so it was it was after that point that I actually have in um was kind of developed the mindset of I need to actively do something with my money because as bad as it sounds I was like you know I was making decent money as a as a early 20 year old kid and I’m like okay what am I doing and I stacked it in my bank account which is obviously the worst thing you can do and then I heard what some people have done with their money yeah true true right um but I you know I started investing you know I found a financial advisor and we started investing and I told him from the beginning you know there’s some is there some funds where we can baby go into real estate and you know and they they did Implement my wishes there and so I at least was not actively but I inactive like I would passively investing into real estate I’d say right and yeah fast forward uh five six years later um so officially retired in 2022 my last game of my career played that was the NFC championship game of the 21 season which was played in 2022 January of 2022 right that was my last game and then um after that I was like okay now what because I have a hard time just uh sitting around doing nothing you know I’m just just like natural as a football player that was my whole life so I’m a go-getter I need to work towards a goal say okay what comes natural to me it’s like that real estate is fun that’s that’s a passion of mine that’s something I want to pursue full-time right so I figured okay um what should I do so I was like okay naturally I have a few buddies in the industry let’s um get my real estate license right I was like okay um I figured that’s the next step so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past year now I’ve been uh working as a real estate agent mainly on the residential side but uh my main passion is absolutely uh dissecting deals I’m connecting with other real estate agents like I work even though I’m a real estate agent myself I work with a lot of agents who have great connections with um investors so I could connect a lot with other real estate agents that bring me deals even though I’m my own agent myself you know so it’s always about Connections there’s not a rivalry that’s not like your competitiveness it’s like hey we all trying to we’re it’s we’re all in this business together you know it’s all about um you know if you eat we all eat you know like um we are all can share the pie so um no it’s been great honestly this year just like uh networking getting to know people um I hang out here at uh I’m part of this club it’s called Cowboys Club it’s at the at the star here in Dallas um where there’s a lot of wealthy people hanging out and you know just networking meeting people you know me being a former player like it is it is crazy to think about but it it does I would say like you know it opens some doors right yeah yeah which is um which is not nothing you know I I’ll take for granted but it’s pretty cool like you know just like um getting to know some of these people and you know share some of their wisdom and there’s um you know there’s some big players out here in terms of what development um about development or like multi-family housing like multi-multi uh billionaires I’ve talked to and it’s just like seeing different different perspective because I’m just in the beginning stages of of this career but seeing the end goal or like you know people who have really made it um just like bronze my Horizon uh shows things in a different perspective and that’s you know it’s been it’s been very fun yeah that’s super cool Marcus and you can see you’ve always had it right like you were doing it in the NFL when you were a rookie you were learning from vets and seeing what the how they’re invest in their money now that you’re out of the league you’ve you’re again trying to level up and surround yourself with these people and I can only imagine the doors that it’s opening and just the connections and just very true that’s a great point because you know even yeah since I’m a rookie I always try to like you emulate right the the the All-Pro the the pro bowler in your in your room right just like hey what does he do and what does he do so great that I that’s where I want to go so what do I need to go to get to that level so obviously you do what works what you know with someone who’s gotten there has done so you know that’s exactly what I’m trying to do in business now yeah cool another thing I know if just yeah that’s good stuff Mark another thing you shared with me before and I think it’s really cool for other people to see it’s just kind of how you manage your money when you first got to the league right versus and I’m just curious your mindset because I think that’s where it probably all comes from for when you came into the league and maybe got the first signing bonus like what did you spend it on I I know what you didn’t didn’t spend it on but how did you what was your mindset then and how you basically built built more wealth to where you could actually now you’re really prepared and then I’m curious the follow question is how has that helped you kind of roll into real estate right right um yeah great question so I’m you know like I mentioned I’m one of uh Four Brothers right um my parents don’t come from a lot of money I would I grew up um I would say very humble you know we didn’t we didn’t um have anything in excess it didn’t lack anything but you know we didn’t we didn’t have a lot of money but that whole mindset is something like I just carried throughout life that I really don’t need a lot to be happy so once I’ve got to money a little bit it’s like okay I still honestly for the LA for the first two three years in the league I I lived like I was still in college like I was I still had my one bedroom apartment I with my signing bonus which back then it was I think it was seventy thousand dollars so I said okay I bought a car I bought didn’t buy anything fancy I bought a used car uh it was a Chevy right say hey if I never play a down in this league I at least I can afford this car so I’m very always like very conservative I’d say and I’m very careful with my money but that’s something also you know it also it didn’t bite me but it also it hindered me on some opportunities I’d say say but you know let me let me elaborate on that to him a little bit but yeah I was always very very um Frugal is the good word right um I just I just didn’t spend a lot of money and um I had to learn to it is okay to spend money on the right things right on assets you know obviously that is one of the lessons uh enriched that poor dad that you can spend you can spend money on things that make you money back so and that is something I I didn’t take advantage of for a long time I’d say you know but um yeah throughout throughout throughout my career you know there was some deals there were they were presented to me and I’m like now I’m just ah and they I was honestly like uh it’s a scared to like sometimes to like you know part ways with money it’s like ah I just want to hoard all this and The Horde which is uh which is I don’t think that’s the right approach because you know there’s a lot of times there’s the saying that the opportunity lives on the other side of fear right and sometimes you have to just say you know take that leap of faith and um and it pans out you know I mean you might not but you never know until you try it so um there was some um some some regrets but overall yeah I’ve been very very uh careful with my money which has has served me well I’d say yeah yeah well and because you led right into my next question is how you got comfortable then to pull a trigger on the first real estate deal because I think it sounds like you actually had some of that paralysis analysis by paralysis maybe while you’re in the league but when what made you is that what helped you overcome it when you’re ready hey I’m going to buy this first investment property even though I don’t necessarily know what I’m doing right yeah I yeah I just honestly just I was at the point just like hey I just I I really adopted that mindset it’s like hey you gotta you gotta just pull the trigger at some point you know you will never there’s never a perfect time you will never time to Market or whatever it may be perfectly sometimes you just gotta Jump Right In and that’s exactly what I did you know and I I was fortunate enough where obviously you know I have a little bit of money so I could borrow money against my stock portfolio so so to speak I I um paid cash from my first investment property which was a duplex that was a great learning experience honestly my first duplex uh because we I inherited uh tenants in there which at the time we thought you know I didn’t know much I said oh that’s great right already occupied it’s going to be cash flowing right away oh my goodness this is so wrong because there was some rough tenants it was it was pretty bad it was uh this young couple who had um called the cops on them multiple times there’s some uh um they had illegally um some some dogs in there they were illegally subleasing um you know one time I just showed up um and now hey I need to check on something and there was totally different people living in my place and yeah in my first one right first one what’s that look like though now like see you because I think this is important that people you didn’t know what you were doing you went through some hurdles but what’s that property look like look like now for you right so if like we had to like we had to threaten with uh eviction a couple times eventually we got him out uh thank God and then we went in and it was it was it was trash the whole the apartment was trash they left all their stuff in there um thankfully you know security deposit took care of everything um but yeah we renovated there we put uh quite a bit of money in there and made it really nice um thankfully the the neighbor he is a great tenant he’s awesome and elderly gentleman um who’s been super responsible with everything now we have a new tenant in there and we actually just got um we just closed on the refinance so I pulled my cash back out um almost got all of it back which is all you know which is the birth strategy right yeah yeah so um and now waiting you know looking for the next one we’re all that money into so no it’s it it was definitely a bumpy bumpy start there’s no doubt about that but I think something that is great just for learning experience you know like if you if everything goes smooth from the beginning you like okay you never you never know but like these these um these bombs definitely uh they Harden you a little bit and they definitely um that’s really the tough way to learn and the best way to learn by through experience I’d say so absolutely so what I think I want to highlight that she’s that you said Mark is on the um the way you took this down right so I think a lot of people this is a strategy not many people know about so what you I don’t know people caught this but Mark didn’t actually he had obviously some assets and some Capital to invest but he didn’t go take out cash to buy right you actually borrowed against your stock portfolio right and that’s where you got the money to pay so your money stayed at work in the stock market still gaining a return right and then you use that money and then to go invest it but tell a little bit more about why you did that because that is such a cool strategy that a lot of people could use yeah honestly because it is to my it is the best rate I could get you know if you compare to a hard money loan uh hard money I think at the moment um I mean you would know better than me by the probably 12 yeah 12 maybe 14 right right exactly so I so I just refinanced so that’s been about what six months so I I took the money out for six months against my portfolio and that interest rate is what’s a variable interest rate it depends on the FED fund rate but it’s uh one percent plus the FED fund rate the FED fund rate at the moment I believe it was like it’s a five percent maybe maybe five and a half so it was six six percent so I borrowed the money just way cheaper than anywhere else I could get you know it’s it’s cheaper than a HELOC it’s cheaper than any anywhere you know so and it and it’s just so easy like I tell my financial advisor Hey listen I need I don’t I don’t know let’s say three hundred thousand dollars and that money is in my account a few hours later like it goes like this yeah to set that up with your with your financial advisor to have that call it this line of credit was it easy is it super easy yeah it was really yeah simple like I just told them like they actually like made me aware of that um a few years ago that I um I installed a pool here my in my personal home and back then I was during covid that the fund rate was really cheap the the fund rate was uh I think it’s a quarter of a percent so I borrowed uh money for myself at one point two five percent and bought a pool in my pool and bought yeah and build pool in my yard so it is it is absolutely crazy obviously since it’s it’s gone up quite a bit but yeah that’s the first time I I heard about um this it’s like boring on margin and yeah been using it ever since and I uh I bought I used it on my second property as well so just refinance the last one paid paid some of that back right and then um in the meantime I I bought another one too heck yeah yeah cool that’s where I’m going next but I just want to highlight again so he left his money in the market it’s still been or I mean it’s been going as the market goes but the other thing is the taxable event right because sometimes if you go sell stock because alternatively you could go sell your stock invest that in real estate but when you do this there’s no taxable event because you didn’t actually you didn’t touch your stuff I mean you borrowed against them but you didn’t liquidate them right absolutely I think I think isn’t it still a loss like it in the books it’s a loss so it’s actually tax deductible right I know the interest that you paid on that line of credit would definitely be a yeah tax deductible so yeah it’s definitely I mean it’s it’s um if you able to do that and you have the stock portfolio I think that is a no-brainer like in terms of the the benefits in in terms of um right now where the rates at I think that is the cheapest way to borrow money right now yep love it so tell us what else you’ve done though Mark since you bought that duplex if you’ve mentioned you bought a couple other ones but what have you done and then give people a feel for that kind of time range of when you bought that first one or where you’re at now right um so my financial advisors you know told me yeah this is the amount you can play with so spend some on the first one so we still had some money left over it’s like okay might as well keep looking that’s honestly that’s what I spend most my time on just looking for for deals and uh since the first one uh worked out pretty good the first duplex I was like okay let’s stay in in the duplex realm and and keep looking for that I found my other um my other property when did we close on that uh probably a couple uh probably a month ago about a month ago so it was about six months six months later it took me a while to find the next one but um yeah it’s about six months later I I found this next one in um it’s in Irving Texas another duplex uh honestly it was it was uh this is I like this one a lot just you know it’s in a good area it’s close it’s uh close to Dallas only about a 15 minute drive to Dallas um it is about 30 minutes from Fort Worth so right in the middle of you know two big cities but it’s still uh the Suburban feel um you still in a quiet area so put actually quite a bit no I mean I wouldn’t say quite a bit but we put some money in to renovate that make it really nice because I wasn’t sure if I’m gonna flip this one um right now I think we are decided on in this one but um it’s probably nicer than you average than your average rental but yeah no we we made it quite uh made it quite nice and um should be ready uh only have a little cleaning work done so should be ready to hit the market here and hopefully in a couple weeks or so and yeah I’m going to rent that one no I’m excited and then yeah hopefully we start then we start probably start that um that refi process with that one as well and pull it out and then we have a nice uh chunk of change from both refinances and then hopefully that’s my goal my personal goal is I want to you know try to scale this up and then maybe go from duplexes up to uh four plexus and or like into um commercial property it’s like four units Plus or you know above four units where um you know just you know just shut up always trying to up the game a little bit yeah well I love the position you’re in mark because again you were want to call it Frugal whatever you want to call with your money while you were making money in your W-2 and that could be anybody could be just you don’t have to be in a NFL player to have a strong W-2 but you spank that and now you’re ready and now even though rates are high like prices are starting to drop there’s less buyers but now you’ve got this kind of War chest ready to go and go buy stuff and so right yeah and I’m a big proponent of like you know I’m honestly I’m not that worried about the interest rates yeah sure I’m gonna take less of a profit here probably for a year or two but then um you know you can always refinance or you know then by the time once the real once the rates come down there’s gonna be such high demand for um for for buying so if you want to flip it then so you know the interest rates is definitely nothing that scares me but I think it’s definitely creates opportunity if you if you have some funds yep love it and the other cool thing Mark is doing and I love it because you’re a lot I’m like you Mark I like looking at numbers Mark sent some deals to me and I’ve kind of looked at them um but I love so it looks like you’re now talk more about kind of what you want to do moving forward because it sounds like you’re starting to look at some multi-family deals and as you mentioned kind of stair step your way up right right right right yeah definitely I’m I’m trying to figure out how to really scale this thing right so um the goal is um ideally that I could be a real estate investor full-time right and in order to do that um obviously I gotta um get a bigger portfolio and I’ll try to scale it up where get multi-family units like um I’m talking you know you tell me it’s like I don’t know like 50 60 100 because there’s there’s guys in in in uh in um the locker rooms I talked to Trent Williams as one of the best uh left tackles in the NFL talk to him a lot about that he owns um at the time I talked to him last he owned 500 unit complexes so he owned um what is that over 500 doors wow yeah just yeah you know obviously that is a whole different kind of scale but um something something like that right I think that is the direction where I would love to go where like you just scale this up you know maybe um sell one of the duplexes roll That Into You know a four Plex roll that eventually into uh 10 Plex and just like build build the portfolio up that way yeah yeah I think it’s such a good way to do it Mark because yeah you can I mean some people try to jump and some people say yeah just why don’t you just go for the 101 right away but you’re not learning all those hard lessons along the way that you’ve got to go apply you’re gonna apply your lessons for your duplex to your four to maybe your 10 and maybe your 30 unit and agree I agree I think it’s crucial yeah yeah cool well let’s wrap it up kind of final question mark what would you kind of say to people who um maybe aren’t or just kind of conservative or maybe like you were right because when you first said you’re like hey I don’t want to depart with this cash I want to hoard it I want to like I worked hard for this and I got it like what would you say to those people that are just need that little push over the ledge to get into real estate right yeah correct right no I would say first of all I get I get it I get where you’re coming from but um I think you’ve got to always uh approach it from the point of okay you understand that inflation is something that is going to happen regardless right so if you not using your money and if you just have it sitting there you actually losing actively losing money you know you’re buying power goes down by not having your money in some way or capacity work for yourself right so I think um just with that information alone you should be like okay I need to earn at least three percent a year in order to not lose any money and I think um just real estate is just such a safe vehicle you know it’s been proven over and over over time that it is even outperforms and it’s more steady than the stock market over time so I believe for me personally it’s been great I I I I I under yeah I think it’s it’s important to definitely do your own due diligence and in finding good deals but I think some uh is real estate something tangible something you can see you see that you own that something that will never go out of style people always need uh homes and um you know shelter um I think it’s just just a no-brainer right it’s just something that um that will there always always be there and always be be in style I’d say love it man well cool we’ll wrap up there mark appreciate you coming on I think you’re a great example of of somebody who’s um didn’t know it all about real estate but got into it and I just I love how you’ve taken your competitiveness you’ve taken just your like well like understanding numbers and looking at things like logically and also just yeah I don’t know the wanting to grow and wanting to keep it going right so you’ve done it you’ve done awesome stuff I think you’re going to continue to do great stuff in real estate and anyway I just think it’s a cool example to share with people that hey you don’t have to start investing at a super young age but whenever you start get started and just start making those little moves and like you said you’re going to be well on your way to a goal to where you’ve got you’re just your active income from your rentals is going to be enough to support your family before long right that’s the goal absolutely no I appreciate that uh it’s always a pleasure I love love talking real estate love connecting with like-minded people and you know this this is definitely a pleasure as you may have learned by tuning in to this episode of Gregor sense the easiest way to make real estate investing hard is by going at it alone so as you continue learning and seeking knowledge of the industry I want to encourage you to build relationships with other professionals who are passionate about real estate whether that’s an agent a business owner or a managing investor like myself there are Pros that want to see you succeed and are willing to help you by sharing their experience you can always reach me by visiting Casey gregerson.com and scheduling a call I look forward to connecting with you and continuing to share my experience with you here on Gregor sense mobile until next time I’m Casey Gregerson thanks for tuning in