Would you trade your wedding for a rental property?

Today's guest did exactly that, swapping vows for equity.

And now he's building a real estate empire long distance.

Feeling unfulfilled in the corporate grind, he made the bold leap to real estate investing halfway across the country.

And today, he's breaking down exactly how he did it.

Yeah. the country. And today, he's breaking down exactly how he did it. This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Ashley Care.

And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And let's give a big warm welcome to Dean at Pennhouse. Dean.

Thank you so much for joining today, brother.

Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. Dean, you started your journey unconventionally, trading your wedding budget for a house.

Can you walk us through the emotions of making that choice?

Yeah, I mean, it was, to be honest, it was a fairly straightforward decision for us.

I don't want to, you know, play the victim or anything. But my wife and I,

we never really felt that we were like big partiers or, you know, really had that like craving for a

big wedding. And we said, you know what, we both, you know, obviously, you marry someone that you have

shared interests and goals and a vision with. And we both had that kind of desire to start off on the right foot and set ourselves up for financial success. And we thought that was the best way to do it is, you know, we're very fortunate to have parents that were willing to contribute what they would have for a wedding. And even to have done that much, we were going to have a wedding. And so we found a house and it was a

great way to start this whole journey. Did you have any pushback from folks on like, man, you guys have to go like the normal traditional route? And if so, how did you kind of ignore those naysayers to stick with the plan that made the most sense for you? Yeah, you know, in hindsight, it's funny you bring it up because I think at the time there wasn't any pushback of like are you guys sure are you

going to regret not having a wedding? It was less so that and more so after the fact when, you know, you go on a trip or, you know, we went on our honey, like we saw it a honeymoon and stuff like that. And then people ask like, how was your wedding or where did you, where was your venue? And you go, well, you know, I didn't really have a wedding. And then you explain the whole thing of we used the money and we put it toward a down payment. We bought a house. And everyone's reaction is pretty much universally like, wow, that's that's so smart. Like, I should have done that. So it was actually, I think, pretty positive, like in, telling the story and not so much pushback in the moment, which is, I think, great.

Ash, I think that's just like something for our rookie audience to understand is when you're trying to do things that aren't normal in society.

And I'd say, like, building wealth through real estate is not necessarily normal,

right? Aside from, you know, your primary residence, a lot of folks don't invest in real estate

or think of real estate as an investment. So when you're doing something that's not normal,

sometimes you're trying to explain that idea to someone beforehand, right, before the results

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