I was a top-to-prospect coming into college. 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 a job in my field of choice after college, I decided to get into the real estate game. I never looked back every second. Kai Lyman-Joseph is a resilient, ambitious, and purpose-driven real estate broker, entrepreneur, and the founder of Royal 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, in 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. My goal is to help underprivileged communities and let them know that it is possible for them to have home ownership. It spans the globe like a super high as cold into the eldest. Ready? All right, here. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the past. It's not over until I win. The Living Your Legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. That's extraordinary. It's impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Jordan, open. Chicago with the lead. You said Paul is the fastest man on the planet. You can live your dream. Hello and welcome back to another episode. I sat here today with Kai. She's a real estate broker, an innovator, entrepreneur like all of us, and does something really cool. She helps underprivileged 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, you know, there's a lot of real estate professionals out there and people doing, you know, in this industry. It's blown up, I think, since COVID. Everyone wants to be cursed, especially in Miami. Everyone's a realtor, you know. Absolutely. 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 underprivileged communities and let them know that it is possible for them to have home ownership. So that's my goal and my mission in my career. Yeah, but you've been in this industry for a long time. Tell us about, you know, how you got into this. Well, I got into this because I graduated from college way back when, and I couldn't find a job. So my mom was in real estate and she basically, you know, said, hey, why don't you try, you know, being a market broker. And I tried it, loved it. And then I transitioned 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 athlete. Tell us about that. And I'm always fascinated. Any lessons from sport that you've like translated into your success today? I agree with you. I was a top prospect coming into college from my small community in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. And I chose to go to LSU. Okay. 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. That's basketball for you. I got injured. A lot playing basketball. And I never 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. Yeah. Right. So I was able to, when I couldn't find a job in my field and I had no 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 all that and now focus on these underprivileged communities? What gave you that passion? Well, what gave me that passion because my mom was a teenage mom and I watched her struggle. Yeah. 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 where 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. So what does let's stay there for saying, what are a few tips? Someone's listening, maybe can apply to them. Right. What are some tips you give people? Make sure credit first, right? Maintain your credit, established credit. Yeah, built and wanted to do that. I've always like, you know, I'm newer to America. I wasn't born here and credit's not such a big thing in England. Whereas here it's kind of like everything, you know, and I had to, even though I was very successful, you know, making millions of dollars, I had to start from zero here and build my credit. Absolutely. And it was very frustrating because it was like, I could buy a house in cash, but I wanted to mortgage it and I couldn't. You could not mortgage it. That's correct. So that's an important lesson that you have to have credit. Yeah. First, it doesn't matter how much money you have. If you want to purchase something in the U.S., right? Yeah. You have to have your credit. And a lot of people having ignore credit and then, especially in underprivileged communities, it's this kind of toxic cycle because they have bad credit or ignore it. So then whenever they get anything on a loan, they're paying crazy percents and interest, which they can't really afford. And you can't afford it, yeah. And then they never get, and then they never have cash flow to get out of it or pay off the credit card. Right. So it's a never-ending cycle, right? Yeah, it's very bad. So I teach them how to break the cycle and how important it is to keep and maintain. And then we can, you know, move up, you buy your first home first and then you do maybe a rental property, multi-unit and so on and so forth. 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? Absolutely. That are on 20% right? That's a good point. And they're living paycheck to paycheck. Right. And, you know, I learned more recently, it's crazy. I can't remember the stat, but it was a stat about the general sort of population, not an entrepreneur. But I think they basically, on average, I think it was 20 grand in credit card debt. The average. And they stay in that debt their entire adult life. So they're paying, you know, this crazy amount 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 down, but you pay it off every month. And that way you don't pay any interest, but you still get the opportunity to use it and purchase the things you want. Yeah, when you get points, security, there's benefits to it. As long as you don't over leverage and you know how to use it properly. That's right. That's correct. Yeah. And I think it is so important that financial, almost you could call it financial literacy, right? Absolutely. Sadly, they don't teach it in school. They don't teach it to people. And I mean, it's great that. I wonder if it's on purpose though. I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure. Yeah. I'm 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? Right. Because, you know, half of this didn't exist 40 years ago, right? Absolutely. And now it's really our generation. Like, you know, 40 years ago, you couldn't buy something on fashion over and get a credit card at the same time, 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 and cloner, the forpaying. And I didn't even know what that was. And I was like, that sounds like. I just learned to. I was like, that's a terrible idea. Because, you know, buying $80 clothes, $50 clothes on a forpay, you know, it's just setting you up for, you're digging a deeper hole. Yes. Because when you need to pay your rent. But they're pulling out for those pair shoes you bought last year. You know, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, that's how they make the money. Right. You know, they don't make it off me that pays the shoe in cash or whatever, right? They make it off the 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 it at the end, but it's really great. You kind of have a bit of a stepping stone for buying properties, right? Obviously, 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'd buy it to people? Well, okay, for my buyers, most of them are first time home buyers. So they have to kind of. Are they renting right now? They're going from renting or living at home with my or that and that. And so they buy their first home. So your house begins to build equity. So I teach them about equity. Well, and 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 because you're kind of taught right? Me in England, if you rent, you'd pay zero off. Right. You just cycle, right? Where in America, I mean, the status 50% of people rent. So they rent for 20, 30 years. It's like, hey, could have had the same amount as a mortgage and paid off your house by now. That's correct. Because you don't have to. It's not your forever home, right? It's stepping stones to the process. And that's what I have to get them to understand as well. You're in this 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 stones. I know you have to pay for it or you're responsible for making a payment, but I'm trying to teach you how you can build and get that mansion one day. Yeah, yeah. And just understand, hey, you pay 40 grand off this over a few years. That's your deposit for the bigger house. That's correct. And then you mention the mansion. Just rolling on into the next house. Yeah, just rolling on. And it gets bigger and bigger. Yeah. If you want it to. And I mean, also the problem is 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. Right. And in the mortgage, the banks are much more screwed on us on what you can actually get. Right. Because they care because they get landed with the debt. If not, I'm trying to put for clothes and stuff. Whereas a rental, it's, it's, it's, you know, they'll do some checks and backgrounds and rough calculations, but they'll let you over leverage much more because they can just kick you out and get someone new. But then that's the way that they can retain that particular tenant as well. Right. Because they don't, they're constantly over leveraged. So you don't have any savings in order to buy a house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you can get a rental for everything. Yeah. So it applies to renters too, who aspire to own homes. Yeah. Yeah. I always used to say, I was like, live at home if you can, or just save all your money to get your first down payment. I bought my first house at 19. Oh, I see. I lived at home. You beat me. Yeah. Well, I worked three jobs for two years and bought my first house. And then, and then I kept rolling all my profits into my next house. And every year I was buying a new house. See guys. But yeah. It works. I think because I, for some reason, caught 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 it's a misconception that people believe once you purchase a house that you can never sell it again, right? Like the people in my community, they may have a misconception about how or what ownership means. You don't have to pay for it for a full 30 years. You can sell it if you want to take the profits in moments. I'm not playing you can sell it. That's right. You can. So that's my mission is to teach financial literacy. So that's a big misconception. Like if I buy this now, that's my forever home. Or if they fall behind on payments, they don't realize that they can sell before foreclosure. Like 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 closed houses and stuff. 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 rent or rent. They just replace you. I would agree. You know a lot about real estate. Yeah. It's been my like side passion for many years. It's my passion for sure. I think it's a great place to park your money. You talked about it too. Explain it to people too. Generally real estate over the last 200 years appreciates in value because land is not, we're not growing more land on the planet earth. That part is scarce. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in Miami Beach and towns and cities, it's always going to generally go up in value over time. Yeah. On average, 3 to 5% a year. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So you live for free and you're not living free, but you're paying off into something that should also appreciate that. That's correct. Yeah. Good. 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? So how do you advise on that side is actually getting now 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 of the night home equity line of credit or a second mortgage and they would take the money, the equity they pull out of their home and they would go and purchase a duplex, let's say a multi-unit property. And you can use the income or the potential income from that multi-unit to apply to your income so you can purchase the house even though you don't own it yet. So it's pretty, pretty cool. Yeah. It's just, I mean, once it clicks, it should click for everyone. When you buy a rent, I've had rental properties in England for 14, 15 years now. I've not paid the penny into, I mean, obviously maintenance and stuff, but I profited every year. The house has doubled in value over 15 years and I've paid off half the mortgage in the same time. And so you can't get better than that. Because my mom has been so wonderful and knowledgeable about real estate, I started when I was 23, my husband and I. And we have nine properties. We don't have 15, but we have nine. We've learned and we've profited every year as well and our mortgages are very, very low. And now if you wanted to go and buy a big 10-unit Morty family, the equity, the credit, all of it to go do bigger deals, which is where you make real money eventually. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The real money. Yeah. Good. So last couple of questions, people, you know, I think this is a good kind of baseline master class 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 Morty family and stuff, but the everyday person needs to listen to this, right? They need to learn how to do this and, you know, it's kind of the biggest expense in life is probably going to be your rent and mortgage, right? Yes. So there's an understanding there's an getting it right. And then obviously it's generational too. Because if you pay off a house over 30 years, your kids have an instant advantage than if you rent it. Instant leg up, yes. Yeah. Teach my clients that as well. So that is a big, you get a lesson when you come in, you do business with me. Yes, sir. Or you choose to do business with me. Yes, great. So why 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 on Instagram at Kynos Real Estate. That's Kynos Real Estate. And all about realestatellc.net. That's my website. Good. Well, I hope you keep going and impact and educate millions of people in America and the world, especially America that need to hear this, especially in the places where they don't hear this. Absolutely. The rural towns. Yeah, when you become a big entrepreneur or your friends are doing real estate and you learn this stuff when you're stuck trying to survive, you're not hearing this sort of stuff. So it's great you're doing that. So I love that. That's what this is all about. Thank you. 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.
