My 2023 Fails & Wins And Ahead To 2024

Last week I wrote about how I’m viewing the macro landscape for 2024, largely based on the trends and momentum that took hold in 2023.

For me, analyzing things on a macro level is a great way to make sure I’m doing the right things on a micro level.

In short, are my day-to-day actions inline with the trends I’m seeing?

You can fight trends and momentum or you can ride them. One is far more profitable than the other. So I like to make sure macro themes are tailwinds rather than headwinds.

But beyond that I also want to recognize the themes and trends that dominate my personal life and see which are worth continuing to build upon and which need some serious intervention.

I’ve decided it makes the most sense to break this exercise into three categories: personal, professional, and financial.

Each category is extremely important to me and my family. I imagine that’s true for almost everyone. So I’ll look at each, give it an overall grade and summary for 2023, and think about what needs to be improved for 2024.

Again, this post is a pretty big departure from what I’m usually writing about. And if you don’t see value in it I completely understand. But thinking through our goals and progress like this is important if we want to continue improving. 

So hopefully it’s useful for your own goals and progress. Let’s dive in!

My Personal Life Sucked In 2023

Grade: C-

About a year and a half ago we decided to uproot our family from the Detroit Metro area to California’s Central Coast.

This was our goal for a long time. And it’s why we were so aggressive in building our Detroit rental portfolio. 

We knew it would come with some setbacks both financially and personally, but it’s clear we underestimated the sheer magnitude of the disruption.

Some of the big challenges we’ve dealt with in 20203:

Home Renovations

We intentionally purchased a home that needs a lot of work and updating. I’m a big believer in doing that while you’re young enough to have the energy and shoulder the stress.

I even wrote about this strategy of forcing equity in your primary in a recent blog post.

The reality is we’ve made very little tangible progress on making our house our home. 

We started tearing things up when we initially moved, then realized we wanted to do a lot more than we initially thought. 

We were able to get the boys’ rooms done but a lot of things remain half-started.

And yes, both boys have bunk beds. This was negotiated as part of their Michigan exit severance package.

Kaitlin scraped the popcorn ceilings. I ripped up the carpet and put in the puck lights. Then she put in the flooring, baseboards, painted and decorated.

As we started on the rest of the house we quickly realized it made a lot more sense to build our ADU before messing with all the other parts of the main house. 

So we’re now living in a construction zone. It’s been this way since we moved and it’s taking a toll. 

Ideas/Goals

Getting the ADU done will be a massive win. 

Financially it will be a big win, and I touch more on this below. But beyond that it opens up the ability for us to work on our yard and main home. 

Right now the holdup with the yard is trenching utilities in areas that we’ll likely want to hardscape. So waiting for that to be done is key.

We were able to make some significant progress cleaning up our mess of a backyard and putting in a retaining wall. Again, Kaitlin did 90% of this work while I was recovering from knee surgery.

The wall is pretty much done now and extends about 80 more feet to the right than is shown in this photo. We’re glad to have that behind us!

Since we’ve already made it through the ADU design and permitting process, and we’ve now broken ground, getting it done should be pretty doable. 

The challenge will be to also get the front and back yards done. But I think we can do it. 

Renovating the main house will likely wait until 2025. We can live with that.

Knee Surgeries

I don’t know the exact amount of time but I spent at least 3-4 months either largely immobile or hobbling around. 

After about a year of increasingly annoying knee pain I finally went in to have it checked out. It came to a head when I was playing tag with about a dozen kids at the park, darting and dashing around. 

My knee was so bad the next morning I could hardly get out of bed. Turns out I had some severe cartilage damage that could have been caused decades ago.

After an investigative arthroscopic surgery it was determined I was a candidate for the MACI procedure. They extracted some cartilage, regrew it in a lab, and then implanted it into my knee during a far more invasive surgery.

I’m still recovering and about to the point where I’m feeling happy about undergoing the procedure. It’s been 3.5 months and full recovery is about a year.

This definitely took a toll on my mental state and put more work/burden on my wife in 2023.

Ideas/Goals

There was nothing I could do to prevent my knee pain. 

I could have not done the surgery, but for me that really wasn’t an option. It was slowing me down and taking away from being able to rough house with my children and other day-to-day activities.

The whole experience did make me realize, even more, how important health is. I stay pretty healthy, but like all of us I could be doing more. 

I’ll be working out more regularly in 2024, something physical therapy has forced me to do. 

I also find myself thinking about what other surgical improvements I could make. Lasik has been something I’ve wanted for a long time but always feel like I don’t want to spend the money.

Given everything we have going on in 2024 I probably won’t take that plunge still. But I’ve been openly talking about it as a 2025 goal.

Zero Vacations/Breaks

Although we have family closeby, we get zero help.

That’s tough. It’s even harder when you’re surrounded by people who get a LOT of help. 

As a result, it’s been nearly two years since Kaitlin and I last took a vacation… a 4 day trip to Mexico City (from Michigan).

And that was the first vacation we’d had since our baby moon to Thailand. 

That baby will be 8 years old in June. And I have a bad feeling we’re well on our way to one vacation in a decade.

That’s a hard realization for someone who grew up traveling a lot and loves to do so.

Something here needs to change. And I don’t believe finding a babysitter is the answer. We tried vetting one in 2022 but most folks ended up flaking.

And a babysitter just seems like a bandaid on a gushing artery.

Ideas/Goals

Kaitlin has a planned girl’s trip to Florida with some Michigan friends. That will happen in late February and is something awesome for her to look forward to.

As crazy as it sounds, solo vacations might be our best bet for a bit. I’m trying to convince Nader to go to Mexico with me and just chill for a few days.

We’ll see…

My best option might just be planning more trips to Detroit. They are always insanely busy and not much of a vacation, but it does give me some time away to reset a bit.

We’re also talking about trying to do some local-ish trips with the kids this coming year. We’re far overdue for getting up to the Bay Area to visit some friends.

While trips with the kids isn’t really a break for us it might at least be nice for a change of pace.

Personal Life Conclusion

These are the themes that have dominated Kaitlin’s and my life in 2023. And it sounds pretty grim. In fact, I was going to rate this category an ‘F’.

But then I think about the quality of life improvements that we’ve set ourselves up for. While we don’t get help from family, we’re at least much closer to a lot more relatives on Kaitlin’s side.

We can visit, spend holidays together, etc. and our boys love doing that. The weather here is far better than Michigan and we have an overall fantastic quality of life outside our day-to-day challenges.

For that, I am grateful and know we made the right choice in moving.

The tough part, and this also applies to the “financial progress” section below, is that we hit the reset button on a lot of personal life stuff when we moved.

We’d already gone through the big live-in remodel in our Troy home. We had a gorgeous yard and we were even thinking of putting in a pool to further improve quality of life in the hot summer months. 

But we traded all that for weather and being closer to family. Ultimately, I’m glad we did but it’s not without its challenges.

Professional Life

Grade: B-

While I started a small company in 2010, it’s been on the decline for years now. This past year is when I finally decided to start moving on from it.

I’ve also been getting increasingly involved in real estate since we started investing in Detroit in 2019.

While 2023 was a tumultuous year for me professionally, even starting in complete disaster, it ultimately ended on a high note.

Getting Fired From My New Job

In November 2022 I was still figuring out what I wanted to do professionally. My small company was dying, that was clear. And I needed something to do.

But I didn’t know what.

I badly wanted to continue leveraging my real estate experience and recall telling Kaitlin what a shame it was that we’re wasting our network in Detroit.

Ultimately, I took a job with a small real estate tech company as a Project Manager. It seemed like a great fit, but I hadn’t worked for someone else in some 15 years. 

The company was also far more messy and disorganized than they had led me to believe.

The entire thing was a massive adjustment, one I did not take well to.

Long story short, I was fired within 3 weeks. And I felt more relief than anything.

But the same day I was fired was the same day we had our initial meeting with our ADU architect. I needed the W2 income to fund that project and I had no idea what we were going to do.

We decided to just keep moving forward, hoping things would work out.

Ideas/Goals

I am not cut out for a W2. 

This should have been obvious, but I thought maybe the real estate spin on this company would make it palatable. 

After college I spent a couple years playing poker professionally. That’s what paid the bills. Then I traded foreign exchange at a hedge fund in Chicago before quitting to try doing it on my own.

It didn’t work out, so I moved back to California and held a contract position until I landed something permanent at a crazy management consulting firm.

I eventually burned out after working 100 hour weeks there, played poker for another couple years, and then worked as a contractor for Charles Schwab. 

I ended that when I started my small company in 2010 and haven’t been employed since.

For some reason I thought I could hop back into the W2 world, but the reality is I’ve never been able to do that.

I guess sometimes we need to relearn lessons.

Detroit Real Estate Mentor

As this all unfolded I was talking a lot with Nader. For years he’s been bugging me to come work with him. Finally, I figured why not give it a shot.

Professionally, it’s been the best thing to ever happen to me. I’m doing something I love, helping other people invest in real estate, and having an absolute blast on a daily basis working with one of my best friends.

If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up!

It’s been a perfect fit. I get to continue to leverage all the hard work, connections, and knowledge I’ve built in Detroit since 2019. 

And I get to mentor people and help them navigate the same path I took. It’s insanely rewarding and I hope I get to continue doing it for a long time.

Ideas/Goals

All I really want to do is keep doing what I’m doing. I helped 33 investors get started in Detroit in 2023. I hope to double that in 2024.

I need to make it back out to Detroit at least 3-4 times this year. I was only there twice in 2023.

My plan is to keep writing long form blog posts once a week this year and obviously continue the weekly newsletter. But I’m also planning to start getting active on a couple social media platforms (X and LinkedIn).

Finally, I’m planning to get my Michigan real estate license in 2024. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do with it yet. But I know I’m doubling down on Detroit this year and, given that, it only makes sense to get my license.

Laying Off Employees

I had to take the first step toward winding down my business of 10 years in 2023. 

In April I had to lay off all of our small handful of employees.

That REALLY sucked. 

The company is still running and generating a bit of cash, but there’s a lot of mess and loose ends to tie up yet.

It was hard to finally say, “this isn’t working” and essentially put the key in the door. The company has been what’s defined me for over a decade and it’s a hit to the ego, for sure.

Ideas/Goals

I need to officially wind down my small company and square that all away. I hate to do it but it will also help me officially move on.

I’m sure this will entail a fair bit of paperwork and a bunch of stuff I don’t enjoy doing. But it has to be done.

Professional Life Conclusion

If I just keep doing what I’m already doing I should have a very rewarding year professionally. I’m hoping that I’m grading this as an ‘A’ next year.

The only thing that dragged me down in 2023 was the tough start. That said, there are always unknowns. And while I am an optimist I also know that lots can happen in a year.

Financial Progress

Grade: B+

This is by far where we’ve made the most progress this year. 

But if you’d told me I’d end the year with this being my strongest category, after being fired from my nice new W2 job, I’d be in disbelief.

Luckily things worked out and we now have a very clear path to not having to depend on any active income.

Nearly Financially Free

Our ADU build is the big X-factor here. 

While our Detroit rental portfolio brings in a great chunk of rental income, it’s not quite enough to get us over the hump to financial freedom. 

But the ADU, operated as a short-term rental, will get us there. It basically took us all of 2023 to get through the planning and permitting process. And we’ve had our fair share of hiccups along the way.

But it’s exciting to finally be making visible progress. 

Ideas/Goals

If things go as scheduled we will be done with the ADU sometime in April. But I’m not convinced things will go as scheduled.

Our gas company is telling us it will take 8-12 weeks to relocate our meter. 

Ummm…

We’re hopefully going to figure out a way around that. 

But even once the ADU is done, remember, we’re only whiteboxing it. We need to do the finishes ourselves so we can get it up on Airbnb. 

The ultimate goal would be to have that done by the summer months, but I’d be happy if we can get it finalized by the end of the year.

The garage is down now and we’re moving forward, so that’s encouraging.

New Detroit Project

Our big win this year in Detroit was finally finishing up our Detroit Land Bank (DLBA) duplex that I won the auction on FOUR years ago!

The whole thing needs a blog post or two and I intend to do that soon. But we finally have the rehab done, both units rented, and the DLBA has released their interest in the property.

And while we have the ADU taking up most of our capital and time, I can’t help but think about what’s next.

Ideas/Goals

I would really like to do another Detroit project this year. 

And at this point I lean more toward doing duplexes than single-family homes. We now have 8 SFHs and 2 duplexes, so I’d like to better balance that mix.

I also feel like the pros outweigh the cons for buying duplexes for us at this point in our investing journey.

Here’s hoping I can convince Kaitlin that we should tackle something new in Detroit this year! 🙂

Dividend Portfolio

I love real estate, and I’m not sure I’ll ever stop investing in it.

But I might…

I could see a point in time where I just get tired of it all and want something even more passive. Dividend investing is about as passive as you can get, and I also have a passion for the stock market.

In fact, when Kaitlin and I were figuring out how we were going to be able to afford moving back to California I initially gave dividend investing a hard look. 

The problem is you need so much more capital to achieve the same amount of cash flow. Today I can do 10%+ unlevered cash-on-cash returns in Detroit real estate. And I can absolutely obliterate that with leverage or BRRRR’s.

There’s no leverage with dividend stocks and you’re generally looking at 4% CoC on the high, but safe, end.

Ideas/Goals

In an ideal world my dividend income would match my real estate income. 

That way, if I really do grow tired of real estate I could just pull the plug. Even if I don’t want to do this it’s nice to have the option to slow down a bit.

It’s the whole progression of moving from super active income (W2) to “passive” income (real estate) to something truly passive like dividends. 

I plan to write about this in the future. So if you aren’t already on my newsletter you should be:

In 2023 I set out to start a dividend portfolio, investing about $27,500 across three different stocks. I’m taking a pretty unique approach to it all and I plan to detail it in the future if there’s interest.

My goal in 2024 is to at least double the dividend portfolio. It won’t move the needle for us much today in terms of cash flow, but it’s not about today.

Stock Investments

I like to think I’m still young enough to be in the wealth accumulation phase of life.

Real estate is fantastic for that, but so are stocks. I also have a passion for stock trading. 

And following my macro themes for 2024 I’ve given a lot of thought to how best position for opportunities in the public markets.

I want to make sure I have some stock market exposure outside our retirement accounts in 2024. We had drastically pulled away from investing in the stock market when we went all-in on Detroit real estate.

And regardless of what the stock market has done since 2019 I am thrilled we made that decision. Our real estate investments have been fantastic and that experience has made me a far better investor in other areas than I would be without it.

Ideas/Goals 

But I’m now starting to dabble a bit more in the stock market, more so on the active trading front. The idea here is to use this sort of as an active income that I can eventually dump into more real estate and dividend stocks.

My main play today is a bet on the crypto space, primarily through Coinbase stock ($COIN). Again, I called this out last week as one of my themes I’m seeing that may dominate 2024.

And I actually put this in motion in late October when I purchased a decent chunk of shares at ~$77. The stock is now trading at about $158 as I type and was as high as $185 just two days ago.

The challenge, or goal, now is just to hold on. 

I believe we will see all-time highs for Coinbase stock in 2024. That would mean a price of $400+, and I’d like to have the mental fortitude to allow that to play out.

And if I can hold the stock for at least a year I’ll only be paying a maximum of 20% capital gains tax. That would be huge!

Wrapping It All Up

Five years ago my wife and I owned zero rental properties.

Zero!

That’s so insanely difficult to fathom today. 

And when I sit back and think about that… It was not that long ago. It makes you realize how much can happen in just five years.

When I contemplate that my mind quickly shifts into wondering what the next five years will bring. 

The truth is I have no clue. I understand that now because there is zero chance I could have predicted the events of the last five years.

This gets lost with a lot of folks. 

Most everyone is focused on today, and they want to see immediate progress. But progress happens slowly, and then all at once.

One thing I do know is it takes sacrifice. This is another thing people seem unwilling to accept or acknowledge.

We all want to be financially free or work optional or to have $10,000/month in cash flow from our investments.

But what are you willing to sacrifice for it?

The Bizioreks should be financially free here in 2024 but we’ve been making a lot of hard sacrifices since we decided to relocate to Metro Detroit in 2017.

That’s seven years. 

And it will be another two years or so before our primary home is renovated and we really feel like we can chill a bit and enjoy things.

Almost a decade… Do you have it in you?

If you’re reading this you probably do. Let’s stay in touch, grow together, and hopefully my progress can help inspire and fuel yours and vice versa. 

Here’s to a fantastic 2024. We’ve got this!