Does it Actually Work?
It’s probably the question I’m asked more often than any other.
Whether I’m a guest on a podcast, speaking at an event, or simply talking with someone over coffee, sooner or later someone asks it.
“Axel, this all sounds interesting. But does it actually work?”
I haven’t written about this directly in a while, and the question sounds different today than it did a few years ago. It used to come from curiosity. Now it usually comes with a built-in objection attached: rates are still high, prices never came back down after the run-up of the last few years, and the whole idea of buying rental property sounds like something that worked for someone else, at some other time, before the market got this expensive.
I understand why people feel that way. There are also countless people on the internet promising financial freedom, passive income, and early retirement, and most of those promises sound too good to be true. Many of them are.
So rather than giving you another theory about why real estate still works even with rates where they are, let me tell you my own story, including what the numbers actually look like today, not a decade ago.
It Started With a Problem
I retired from the military in 2002, and my pension started the moment I did. That part of my retirement was never in question. But around 2010, after founding my consulting company, I found myself facing a reality that many entrepreneurs eventually discover: outside of that military pension, there was no structured retirement system built into my new career. My consulting income was mine to manage and mine alone to turn into long-term security. If I wanted financial freedom beyond what the pension covered, I would have to build it myself.
At the time I was living in San Diego, and it didn’t take long to see the problem. Southern California real estate is expensive. The kind of cash flowing residential property that could actually replace an income was priced completely out of reach in my own backyard. If I wanted to build a portfolio that produced real monthly income, I had to look somewhere else.
That’s when I discovered professionally managed, turnkey residential real estate in other states.
Turnkey simply means the property is fully renovated, already rented to a qualified tenant, and sold to you by a company that also manages it for you afterward. That last part is the piece most people miss. A true turnkey provider handles the renovation or new construction, the sale, and the ongoing property management all under one roof. You’re not piecing together a contractor, a real estate agent, and a separate management company on your own. You own the asset, the same organization that built and sold it keeps running it, and the rent shows up in your account every month. That structure is what made it possible for me to build a portfolio a thousand miles from home without it becoming a second job.
I wasn’t searching for the next hot stock. I wasn’t looking for a lottery ticket. I was looking for a system, and I had no commercial interest in real estate whatsoever at that point. I simply wanted to solve my own retirement problem.
We purchased our first investment property in Santa Fe in 2011, out of state from San Diego, and from there I continued adding carefully selected residential properties over the following years.
The First Time Freedom Number
Very early on I asked myself an important question.
“How much passive income would I actually need to live the life I want?”
Not to become wealthy. Not to buy yachts. Just to become financially independent.
My answer was surprisingly modest. I was already receiving approximately $3,000 per month from my military pension. I calculated that an additional $2,000 per month of net cash flow from investment properties would bring my total monthly income to $5,000.
That became my first Time Freedom Number. Not a net worth goal. Not an account balance. A monthly income goal, because bills are paid with income, not with theoretical net worth.
Something Unexpected Happened
As I continued investing, friends, colleagues, and business owners became increasingly curious. They wanted to know how the process worked. How to find properties out of state. How financing worked from a distance. How turnkey property management actually functioned. How someone living thousands of miles away could safely own rental homes without ever seeing them in person.
Eventually I found myself answering the same questions over and over again, and that ultimately led me to found Ideal Wealth Grower in 2015.
The mentoring program wasn’t created because I wanted to sell real estate. It was created because people wanted someone to guide them through a process that had already worked for me. Our goal has always been simple: help people adopt the mindset of an investment business owner, then walk beside them as they purchase their own professionally managed, turnkey residential investment properties. By the end of the mentoring program, they haven’t just learned about investing. They’ve actually done it.
Adjusting the Goal
Like everyone else, inflation eventually changed the math. In 2022, I increased my Time Freedom Number from $5,000 to $6,000 per month to reflect rising living costs. Goals should evolve as life changes. The important part is continuing to build toward them.
Where Are We Today?
Today, halfway through 2026, my portfolio consists of eight professionally managed residential investment properties. I’m intentionally not including properties owned by family members here. These are only the investment properties that generate rental income for me.
Those investments generate approximately $3,500 per month in positive cash flow, and I mean that literally as positive. That number is what’s left after paying everything: mortgages, insurance, property management fees, property taxes, and maintenance reserves. It’s not gross rent. It’s what actually lands in my account. Combined with my military pension of roughly $3,300 per month, my total monthly passive income is approximately $6,800 every month.
More importantly, that income arrives whether I’m writing an article, recording a podcast, traveling, spending time with family, or simply taking a Tuesday afternoon off.
Here is the part people usually assume changed with higher rates, and it didn’t. The rule I’ve always used to evaluate a property is simple: monthly rent divided by purchase price should land somewhere close to 1 percent. One of my own properties makes the point well. I bought it for $87,000, and the rent started at $850 a month, just under 1 percent. Today that same property is worth roughly $144,000 according to Zillow, and the rent has grown to $1,300 a month. Measured against what I actually paid, that’s still close to 1.5 percent. Measured against what it’s worth today, it’s closer to 0.9 percent.
What people don’t realize is that I rarely hit a full 1 percent even back when I started, long before rates were where they are today. The ratio doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be strong enough that rent covers financing, management, and maintenance with room left over. That was true in 2011 and it’s still true in 2026, higher financing costs and all. What actually changes with rates isn’t whether the rule works. It’s how carefully you have to underwrite each property to make sure it still does. That’s a harder job today than it was a decade ago, but it’s not a different job.
I want to be honest about one part of this rather than gloss over it. Higher rates do mean a lower starting cash flow than the same property would have produced a few years ago. That’s simply math, and pretending otherwise wouldn’t serve you. What doesn’t change is the underlying principle, and what people also forget is that the financing you start with isn’t the financing you’re stuck with. If rates come down later, refinancing is always on the table. I’ve refinanced my own personal residence twice already when the opportunity made sense, and the same logic applies to investment property. You underwrite conservatively for today’s rate, and you let a future refinance be the upside, not the plan.
What Does $6,800 Actually Mean?
Whenever people hear numbers like this, they often imagine luxury. That’s actually missing the point.
Suppose someone spends around $2,000 to $3,000 per month on housing, whether that’s rent or a mortgage. That still leaves roughly $4,000 or more each month for everyday life: transportation, food, healthcare, travel, gifts, hobbies, and saving.
Is that billionaire money? Of course not. But for many families, it’s enough to live independently of a paycheck altogether, not just stop worrying about the next one. And that’s where the real value lies. We’re not looking for a bigger paycheck. We’re looking to not need one.
The Goal Was Never To Become Rich
People often think our mentoring program is about buying houses. It isn’t. The houses are simply tools.
The real objective is building a diversified portfolio that gradually replaces the need to exchange your time for money. Residential real estate forms the foundation because it produces dependable cash flow and can be acquired using leverage, and the turnkey model is what makes it manageable even when the properties are nowhere near where you live. As your financial foundation becomes stronger, diversification into additional asset classes becomes possible. Every investment has one purpose: to move you closer to your own Time Freedom Number.
What Time Freedom Really Means
This is the part that many people misunderstand. Time freedom isn’t about never working again. It’s about never having to work again, and those are two very different things.
Today I still work. I write articles. I host podcasts. I coach clients. I develop new ideas and build businesses. But I do those things because I choose to, not because I need another paycheck to cover next month’s bills.
That freedom changes everything. You can choose who you work with, which projects deserve your energy, when to take a vacation, when to spend time with family, when to say yes, and perhaps most importantly, when to say no.
That, to me, is what financial independence really looks like. Not luxury. Not flashy cars. Not showing off. Simply having complete ownership over the most valuable asset you’ll ever possess: your time.
That’s what we call your Time Freedom Point.
After more than fifteen years on this journey, both personally and alongside hundreds of clients, I can confidently answer the question I hear so often.
Yes. It works.
Not overnight. Not without discipline. Not without setbacks. But if you consistently build the right portfolio, stay patient, and focus on long-term cash flow instead of short-term excitement, reaching your own Time Freedom Point is absolutely possible.
And it doesn’t stop there. Every one of those mortgages gets paid off eventually. When that happens across an entire portfolio, cash flow stops being a comfortable monthly number and starts becoming something else entirely. I’ll save that conversation for another article.
Because that’s exactly what I’ve spent the last fifteen years doing.