In partnership with

Same AI software. Wildly different results.

Every company in this dataset bought the same AI capabilities. The difference in results came down to one thing: whether someone inside CX owned it.

One beauty retailer made 202 workflow updates in 30 days — refining as policies changed and new questions came in. Companies without a named owner saw performance stall or decline.

Read the data on what separates AI deployments that work from the ones that stall, and the four questions worth asking before your next AI investment.

See the data

🚚 From $89K in Debt to $200K a Year: Dion McNeeley's "Boring" Blueprint 🏘️

Draft — RE Riches relaunch edition #1

Hey RE Rockstar,

Rich here from RE Riches. I stepped away for a while. I'm back — and I'm starting again with the kind of story this newsletter was built for.

Today's subject didn't inherit anything, didn't flip a mansion, and didn't get rich fast. He was a truck driving instructor making $17 an hour with $89,000 of debt and three kids. Ten years later he never has to work again — and he did it with fewer properties than you probably think you need.

Meet Dion McNeeley.

WHAT WILL YOU GET TODAY?

✔️ Trace Dion's climb from $89,000 in divorce debt to full financial freedom.

✔️ See the exact house hack that cut his housing bill from $1,500 to $300 a month.

✔️ Learn the "Binder Method" — how he raises rent and keeps his tenants happy.

✔️ Understand why 17 units beat 170 when you want your life back.

INVESTOR SPOTLIGHT OF THE DAY

Meet Dion McNeeley,

A Marine, a former police officer, a truck driving instructor,

And now one of the most quietly convincing arguments in real estate…

That you do not need to be extraordinary.

You need to be consistent for ten years.

His story isn't about a genius deal.

It's about a boring system, run patiently, by a guy who freely admits he's lazy.

HERE'S THE BREAKDOWN

Dion's starting line was not a good one.

Marine Corps, then a police badge — laid off during the recession.

By 40, he was a single father of three,

Carrying $89,000 in bad debt out of a divorce,

Teaching truck driving for $17 an hour.

His first taste of being a landlord went badly.

He moved into an apartment and rented out the house he already owned…

To a friend.

The friend left without notice.

The next tenant paid $700 of the $1,000 rent.

Most people quit there. Dion did the opposite —

He decided the problem wasn't real estate,

It was that he'd been doing it without a system.

So he bought a duplex with 5% down on an owner-occupied loan,

Moved into one side,

And rented out the other.

His housing cost dropped from $1,500 a month to $300.

That single move freed up $1,200 every month to buy the next one.

Then he just… repeated it.

By year six he owned seven units throwing off $2,700 a month in pure cash flow.

In January 2020 he bought a fourplex in Spanaway, Washington for $600,000 with $120,000 down —

A deal that now produces roughly $1,700 a month,

And has appreciated by over $1 million.

He retired in 2022 with 16 units.

DION'S BLUEPRINT TO SUCCESS

Dion's whole edge is that he refuses to be clever. Three rules do most of the work:

• House Hack, Then Repeat: Every acquisition was a small multifamily bought with a low-down-payment owner-occupied loan, lived in, then rented out in full when he moved to the next one. This let him buy at 5% down instead of 25%, and it turned his largest monthly expense into his savings rate. It's the slowest-looking strategy on paper and one of the fastest in practice.

• Buy Boring, Buy Local: Side-by-side duplexes only — never stacked units. Two bedrooms, a garage, washer-dryer hookups in each unit. Properties spread at least ten miles apart but all within an hour's drive. He deliberately diversifies tenants across military, Section 8, and working or retired renters, so no single economic shock empties his portfolio at once.

• The Binder Method: Instead of mailing a rent increase notice, Dion sits down with the tenant and hands them a physical binder — comparable listings in the area, plus his own costs: mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance. Then he asks what they think is fair. Tenants routinely propose the increase themselves. The result: near-zero turnover across his entire portfolio, and rents that stay at market without a single hostile conversation.

BACK TO DION'S STORY

Here's the part that reframes everything.

Dion spends roughly 20 hours a year managing his portfolio.

Not 20 hours a week.

A year.

Today his 17 units generate somewhere around $200,000 to $250,000 annually,

Against personal spending of about $50,000.

He earns four to five times what his life costs.

And he didn't get there by scaling to hundreds of doors,

By raising a fund,

Or by chasing the next hot market two time zones away.

He got there by buying one small building at a time, in his own city,

Keeping his tenants long enough that he almost never has to fill a vacancy,

And letting thirty-year fixed mortgages do the compounding quietly in the background.

He's since taken the same approach to his family —

His son went from $54,000 in debt to debt-free in a single year.

LESSONS FROM A SELF-MADE MILLIONAIRE

LESSON #1: YOUR HOUSING BILL IS YOUR BIGGEST WEAPON

Most people treat rent or mortgage as a fixed cost.

Dion treated it as the first thing to attack.

Cutting $1,500 to $300 didn't just save money,

It manufactured the down payment for the next deal, every single month.

LESSON #2: THE FIRST DEAL IS SUPPOSED TO GO BADLY

A friend who vanished. A tenant paying 70% of rent.

Dion's entry into real estate was a near-total failure.

The difference between him and everyone who quit,

Is that he concluded he needed better process, not a different asset class.

LESSON #3: TURNOVER IS THE HIDDEN TAX

Vacancy, make-ready, listing, screening — that's where small landlords bleed.

The Binder Method works because it replaces a demand with information,

And treats the tenant as someone capable of doing the math.

Transparency is cheaper than turnover.

LESSON #4: BORING IS THE WHOLE STRATEGY

No hard money. No refinancing merry-go-round. No out-of-state gambles.

In Dion's own words: "Boring is sexy because boring gave me freedom."

Ten years of ordinary decisions beat one year of extraordinary ones,

Because only one of those is repeatable.

Dion McNeeley is proof that financial freedom in real estate is not a talent problem or a capital problem — it's a patience problem. He started at 40, in debt, in a job he didn't love, and bought five deals over ten years. That's it. That's the whole trick.

If Dion could start at 40 with $89,000 of debt and a $17-an-hour job,

The question isn't whether the math works.

It's which of your monthly expenses you're willing to turn into an asset first.

Hit reply and tell me — what's stopping you from making your housing pay for itself?

I read every one.

To your comeback,

— Rich, RE Riches

The content of this newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. Conduct your own research or consult a financial professional before making investment decisions.