Five-Star Empire helps its clients to improve their finances through real estate investments and business ownership, allowing them to concentrate full-time on what matters most.
Collaborating with an Inc. 5000 company, Five-Star Empire is the brainchild of Michael Huggins, who made $1 million in 14 months working part-time in the real estate industry. Begun nine years ago, Five-Star Empire helps its clients to leverage their assets in ways they didn’t know they could. This is where the company’s innovation lies: in changing peoples’ understanding of finances.
“People need to know what banking is, what credit is, what retirement accounts are, what life insurance is,” Michael says. “And not just what these things are but how wealthy folks use them versus average folks who were simply never exposed to them.”
Five-Star Empire simplifies these concepts for its clients, enabling them to see opportunities for passive income that they may not have previously considered or even known existed. Another facet of this education lies in combatting their preconceived notions about money.
“Many people think that if they are rich, then it makes someone else poor,” Michael says. “They then don’t do the necessary work of making themselves financially independent—even when that’s exactly what they’re working toward in their life.”
It’s a story that Michael himself knows well. He worked hard in school, earned a degree in automotive/diesel technology, and took a job as a mechanic. He’d ticked all of the boxes required for the American Dream—but it wasn’t working. His fifteen-hour days didn’t provide him enough to even be able to afford his own car. (The irony of working as an auto mechanic and not owning a vehicle was not lost on him.) Michael turned to real estate and his perspective changed. So did his life.
In his first year, Michael brokered two short sales that earned him enough to quit his jobs. He began to see all of the ways real estate could be leveraged to earn a living, but more importantly, how it could be used to offer clients the same freedom he had found.
“For example, I taught my grandmother about velocity banking and she decided to use it to pay off her house,” Michael says. “She actually had to explain to her mortgage broker and her personal banker how that works, but once she pays off her mortgage that way, she’ll have a lifestyle increase, even though she’s in retirement and on a fixed income.”
