BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 104: How to Build a Scalable Real Estate Business and Design an Incredible Lifestyle with Todd Whiddon

Episode Date: January 8, 2015

Real estate investing has the power to change your life. Today on the BiggerPockets Podcast, we chat with an investor who’s tried his hand at everything from house flipping to new construction — and much more! Our guest Todd Whiddon shares with us how he is building a massively successful business while still making big plans to achieve the life of his dreams. Listen for tips on how Todd has handled failure and come out the other side stronger for it, as well as his input on successfully building a solid team and managing a business. Whatever avenue of real estate investing you’re focusing on, don’t miss out on this episode! It’s sure to leave you inspired and motivated to take your investing to exciting new places. In This Show We Cover: How Todd got started in real estate after the collapse of this multimillion dollar company. The story of his “two starts” in real estate Flipping property after the crash The ins and outs of Todd’s “live and flip” strategy Why you might want to run a real estate business like a cabinet business Tips for building a top notch team How to successfully manage a business Problems Todd has faced in his real estate career The huge flooring mistake Todd made when he started flipping houses The details of how tax sales work Lessons on performing due diligence on a property How to transact a business the right way Plus MUCH more! Links From the Show: BiggerPockets’ Files Diary of a New Construction Project Global Leadership Organization BiggerPocket’s Flipping Book BiggerPocket’s Support (email) Diary of a POP TOP Second Story Addition Project – Todd’s Amazin BP Forum Thread Books Mentioned in the Show The Book on Flipping Houses: How to Buy, Rehab, and Resell Residential Properties by J. Scott The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss The E-Myth : Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen Connect with Todd Todd’s BiggerPockets Profile Todd’s LinkedIn Profile  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 104. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Dorkin. Host. The Bigger Pockets podcast.

Hey, with my co. Host. Mr. Brandon Turner. What up, B. What up, Jay? How you doing? I'm good. How you doing?

I'm good. I'm good. It's that time of year out here in Washington where it's depressing and the sun doesn't shine, but that's all right. So it could be pretty much any day of the year. Pretty much. Okay. How about you? How's Denver treating you?

It's good. It's cold again. I, I'm a little sick. So, you know, I'm a little whiny about that. but, you know, above and beyond. You whiny? No. Josh Dorkin doesn't whine. Never.

No, never. Well, whatever. Get over yourself, dude. Get over yourself. No, anyway, things are good. Yeah, this is our second show of 2015. That it is. And so hopefully all you guys listening have gotten the ball moving, gotten your goals put together.

You guys are motivated and excited. And we've got a really exciting show. So let's kind of get into this thing. Brandon, why don't you give us today? Today's quick tip. Quick tip. All right, today's quick tip is, if you've not yet checked out the BiggerPockets Fileplace, you should do at biggerpockets.com slash files.

And you can go there and download free files like ebooks or forms or I think there's, I don't know, what else is in there. Spreadsheets, there are like little analysis things in there. There's marketing tools, all sorts of stuff, hundreds of files in there. And go there, check it out and download some good stuff today. Yeah. And if you've got it. files, a secondary tip

is if you've got any cool files that have helped you with your business, your processes, things like that, that you want to share, go to the file place and upload them and let other people get access. Obviously, share only stuff that's yours that you own. If you're sharing stuff that's not, you know,

obviously we have to pull it down. But please, you know, help other people out. The files that are up there are really, really helpful. And so big thanks to those people who have gotten uploaded their files. There you go. And just as a quick pro benefit of the week,

pros can actually download quite a bit more files, I think unlimited actually. So if you are a BiggerPockets pro member, you go download a whole bunch of files. And if you're not, upgrade at BiggerPockets.com slash pro. And to clarify, anyone could download files. Oh, yeah, it's per week.

Yeah, there's just a cap on it. Awesome, awesome. All right. Well, so today we've got Todd Whitten from the Atlanta area, correct? We do. And he is awesome. He is really awesome. He's got a great story.

It was actually a cabinet maker that was making like, you know, I don't know. I think he did $15 million in sales. And then that dropped with the economy. So he started flipping houses and doing some real estate. And now he's, I mean, he's got a pretty massive operation. He's an adventure traveler. Yeah. He's doing all sorts of cool, exciting things.

And the thing I liked best about today's show was, you know, his focus on systems processes. And, you know, I think there's stuff in here like a, you know, for pretty much anybody. If you're a wholesaler, if you're a flipper, if you're a buying. whole guy, you know, you're going to get something out of the show, so definitely pay attention. So why don't we jump in on this thing and get it going? For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real,

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Baseline fixes that part of landlording, the financial chaos. Their banking and AI bookkeeping system automatically tags every time. transaction, updates cash flow insights in real time, and builds the reports you need for tax season. You can even automate transfers and move money around without paying wire fees. It's just cleaner. Sign up at baselane.com slash BP and get a $100 bonus. Baselane is a financial technology company and not a bank. Banking services provided by Threadbank. Member FDIC. Let's bring in our guest. Josh, would you like to introduce our guest? All right, Todd. Welcome to the show, man.

Yo, yo, what it is, what it is, gentlemen. Hello, welcome. I don't know what you said, but it is. It is. It is. It is. what it is what it is, my friend. You come to Atlanta and you learn how to speak with the native. Nice. Nice. Nice. Yeah. All right. All right. Awesome. Well, good to have you. We have heard good things about you. And we're definitely excited to chat with you and learn more. Well, hopefully we'll have enough content to fill up five or ten minutes here. So hopefully, hopefully. I don't know about that. Cool, man. Well, what's your story? Tell us kind of the quick and dirty. So they're quick and dirty, and I guess I actually kind of have like two starts in real estate. So the first start, I was kind of like I was literally born into the business.

So my grandfather was a developer, roads, bridges, golf courses, lakes, dams, all that kind of cool stuff. My dad was a builder and my mom's a landlord, single family commercial. And when I came home from the hospital, my dad and my granddad were actually in the process of building some multifamily. family apartments. They had finished one building. So I kind of came home into the unit that they had finished while they were finishing out the rest of the project. So that's kind of the official starts. So you were born, you were literally born into it. Literally born into it. So this is my destiny. Like I have no other thing. I've got to fulfill this thing. That's cool, man. That's cool. All right. And what about the second one? You said,

you said, uh, this happened multiple times. So, so you were reborn. That was the official start. So then there's like the start of, hey, like real estate is a business or whatever. So graduate from college, started my own kitchen and bath business, you know, going strong. And then this thing called like the real estate crash happened. And we went from literally about $11 million a year to $2 million a year like that. And it wasn't like a slowdown. It was just literally a crash. Yeah.

So when you drop about eight figures in annual revenue, like, you know, you got to cut back on some things and one of which was my paycheck. And so it was like, you know, what do I do to make some in meat? And like early in my 20s, like I'd done like some live in flips. So just buy a house, do all the work myself and sell it. Not really thinking about it being like a business. It was just something I enjoyed to do. So when I was like, hey, you know, what are we going to do to make some extra cash? that was just kind of like the natural thing that came to mind was like, well, let's just

do what we did, buy a house, fix it up, sell it, and see if we can't make a buck or two. Nice. Nice. And the whole live and flip thing is just buying it, living in it, fixing it, and selling it afterwards, yeah? Yeah. So just being an HDTV addict, it was, you know, just kind of like seeing like, hey, I want to do that and I know how to do that. So it's just, you know, and it's a great excuse to, like, buy tools you don't have. I need a tile this bathroom.

Let me go buy a tile saw. I need to do that. Let me go buy that. And it was just really just an exercise if I just like fixing up properties. And, you know, I'd naturally sell them when I'd want to move somewhere else. But it was like, wow, like I just made a ton of money. But didn't really think about it, you know, long term or anything. It was just like a natural byproduct of what I did.

That's cool. So did you make a ton of money on those first few live-ins or how'd you do? Yeah, the crazy thing is, like, looking back on the unintentionality of what it was, like, those were some of the best deals I've ever done. And granted, that was probably just a product of the market. I mean, that was like the early 2000, so you really couldn't not make a profit. Yeah. But, I mean, definitely there was some pretty nice returns to be had back in the day, for sure. Nice.

Do you recommend other people kind of get started that way? Like, looking back, even in today's market, do you recommend new investors get started with a live and flip. It's a safe way to kind of hedge your bet, so to speak. So you obviously have to have a place to live. So if you take the place you need to live and you have that expense anyway and you force appreciation, so kind of like in a fix and flip business, that's what we're doing. We're taking something and we're making it into a better product by doing something to it. So even if you like totally bomb out, suck, don't make a dime, at least you made the place you're living more enjoyable to live in. Yeah. So for anybody just kind of like, you know, starting out,

I'd say that's definitely a safe way to kind of get your feet wet or put your feelers out there, whether that's something you like to do or not. Yeah. Nice. That's one of those like, you know, house hacking techniques that I talk about all the time because I love that strategy. Every house I've ever lived in has been a, you know, either a small multifamily or it's been a live-in flip. I mean, every one that I bought, including the one I'm in right now, we're still kind of fixing this one up. We're almost done with it. And I'll probably get it done and I'll move to the next one. It'll be the same thing. Just because I love that idea of being able to kind of capture that appreciation or on the multifamily side, the cash flow and combine that with your own home. I mean, if you got to live in somewhere anyway, you have to pay your bills anyway, might as well make some money doing it.

So yeah, I think it's a cool strategy. Yeah, anyway, okay, so live in flips. You did that. That worked out really well. You looked back at you were doing cabinets. Is that what you said? Yes. So my dad was a builder and kind of naturally segue from that like he did some windows and doors and then got into like kitchen and bath cabinetry. So when I went to high school and college kind of had a weird story there, but like I went to night school and worked full time for him and his cabinet business. And so graduated college, sent out a bunch of resumes.

and nobody replied back. And I was like, huh, what am I going to do for a living? Nice. And I knew, I was like, well, you know, I know the cabinet business and I've always, like both my parents have always, they've been entrepreneurs, like my mom owned a uniform shop. I just kind of grew up in business. And I never really saw myself working for somebody else.

But, you know, I just figured, hey, maybe I should. And I was like, well, I know I can make this happen. I had some great ideas when I was working. for him. So somehow talked my parents into a little bit of money and started my own cabinet company. That's cool. That's cool. Okay, so you went from cabinets, then the market crashed, 2007-ish or whatever hit. Your business dropped out and you decided I'm going to get into flipping. So how did you go from I want to get into flipping to actually becoming a real estate investor flipper? Can you kind of walk us through that journey? Sure. So, you know, first deal,

kind of like thinking like, hey, you know, how can we do this? First needed some capital. So talk my dad out of 50K and then was talking to a friend of mine who also was like you know had some interest in kind of getting into the business he talked his dad at a 50k so we had 100,000 to get out there and make something happen um you know talked to a couple agents you know nobody's really given us the time of day and we've finally just found a house that you know put an offer in somebody actually accepted it and it was like well cool like we're we're actually doing this so just still kind of coming from the background of the live-in flip you know we both did most of the work ourselves got it all fixed up put it on the market and like boom it sold the first weekend we

were just like oh my gosh that's fantastic and what year was this um 2010-ish okay okay right on i think so it's like we're kind of well into the crash so you know that was back when you know looking back now with hindsight it was hard to screw up in 2009 10 you know 10 coming into it like stuff is so cheap and the inventory of houses are like you know product somebody could move into you know our strategy is almost like the same we could you know buy something fix it up nicer than any other house in that neighborhood sell it for less expensive than anybody else living in that neighborhood already so if somebody was going to buy in that neighborhood it was a new no-brainer they were buying our house okay so your strategy was to have the nicest

house at the cheapest price and take just smaller margins on your flips. Yeah, pretty much. And it was, I mean, margin-wise, like, just because of the nature of the B, since we were buying stuff so distressed, you know, still pretty nice margin. We could come in underneath everybody else that had bought, you know, pre-crash, and they had zero equity, and they just had to, you know, they couldn't sell for what they needed to to compete with us. Right.

And us having a superior product. It was just, you know, sell, sell, sell. Sure. That's awesome. That's great. So you did all your work yourself at the beginning here, you said, right? Yeah. So the first flip and even just like the living flips, it was just kind of a natural extension of, hey, like, that's just what we need to do. Yep. Yeah, as I said, it's not very scalable for the level you're at today, though. No, not at all. And it's, you know, it's something in talking to people getting started out, you know, it just needs to be like, you know, what do you want your business to be?

If you just do this because you enjoy it, hey, I like working on stuff, then. and by all means, you know, do the work yourself. But to actually build a business or something that's scalable or something that you can go on vacation or something that, you know, you can pass on or sell to other people, you have to be able to a system and build a business around, be it flipping or whatever that real estate is. So after we sold that first flip that was kind of like an intentional, like, hey, let's kind to do real estate investing is a job and it's sold, you know, kind of the lights went off. And it's like, well, let's take everything we've learned, you know, building a successful

cabinet business and apply it to real estate. And that's kind of where the real estate business, quote unquote, got started. Sure. And maybe we can talk on that. I mean, what does that mean to run a business, like a real estate business like you run a cabinet business? So it's, you know, with any business, it's, you know, building a team around you of people. that can do things better than you can. And you as a business owner, you know, really mapping out, you know, what I want to, you know, what I want this business to be, defining, you know, what it is I want it to provide for me.

So something that, you know, I'm real big into, you know, family spending time. I've got little kids and I want to make sure that, you know, during this time of their life, like I'm there for them. And if I want to be there for them, I can't be at my job sites at 6 a.m. you know, wondering if the concrete truck showing up, if the lumber is delivered, all the stuff. So, you know, I kind of began with the end in mind. And I took a look at, you know, here's how I want my life to be. Here's how I want my lifestyle to be.

And kind of back that up to, all right, well, here's the stuff I need to delegate. And here's the amount of money I want to make. So, you know, just kind of started hiring people, putting people in place contractors and systems to make that endgame of reality. So, you know, the advantage you had, though, is that you came in with a business and you came in probably with a pretty good salary that you paid yourself. And so you had the financial wherewithal to do a lot of that, right? For somebody who wants to get started and flipping, and, you know, they've got the resources potentially to buy the property, to pay for the maintenance. Do you, I mean, do you recommend building up more capital to get into flipping so that you can potentially pay staff and have that team or you know is that just something that worked for you and and you know obviously if you can scale up and systematize it so that you can start you know putting a team together then then great so two things there on the the capital side of things you never want your capital to exceed like what you have going on at any one given

time. And it's funny because you talk to so many people and that's, you know, one of the biggest hurdles getting started is, you know, getting capital to get going. But then the opposite problem is having so much capital coming at you. It's like, you know, you hate turning money away, but at the same time, it's, you know, with everything I have going on now, can I take this person's capital and effectively deploy it, you know, quick enough and effectively enough to get the type of returns I need to, you know, pay them what they're looking for and it not just be a burden on my business of, oh, my gosh, I've just accepted, you know, 100 from this guy, 300 from this guy and 400 from this guy, and I've got $700,000 that I got to figure out

what to do with. Yeah. You know, that might sound like a good problem, but it's a problem that, you know, you have to think about in your business. So it's like, don't let your capital coming in, go with, you know, exceed from what you can do with it. And you're talking about private money there, correct? Private lenders? Yeah. So private lenders and like now our business is kind of expanded like we've got private money, we've got bank money and we use both for different things. Yeah. But, you know, kind of going back to, you know, somebody just starting off, building, flipping

as a business, you know, we really shoestringed it from the beginning. It wasn't like we kind of said, oh, we have a startup fund of $200,000 that we can use as operating capital to hire these people and do everything. It was really just building organically. So the first piece of the puzzle that we got was our project manager. That was the, you know, I looked at, you know, from the lifestyle perspective, like I, you know, don't want to be at job sites all the time. I don't want to be running crew. So that was the first thing that it's like, I want to delegate is the construction side. So friend of a friend, I knew somebody.

Like he had lived in Georgia during the crash. He had to move out to Mississippi. And like he wouldn't get to see his family. It was like a really bad situation. So I was like, hey, I've got this opportunity. You can move back to Georgia. Here's what we've got going on with this flipping business. And, you know, it was a win for him, a win for us.

And it was just a, you know, kind of like an independent. contract arrangement. Here's, you know, a couple hundred bucks a week. Here's what we need you to do. And at the time, it worked well because, you know, we had a couple flip projects going and it was able to, you know, be able to built into the project and kind of self-sustain. And then as we, you know, grew bigger, had more funds coming in. We kind of branched out, started delegating more stuff. But even now, you know, just from a business overhead standpoint, we're super mean and lean, just from, you know, lessons learned from the crash going from the cabinet company, we had 60 plus people down to, you know, less than 10.

So it was like, that was like one of our biggest lessons learned on the way down was, you know, it's easy when businesses are successful to get fat and happy. And you can just throw money and throw people at things. And it's just like, as a business owner, sit back, relax. And it's like, yeah, this is fantastic. Yeah. And when something adjust or something, you know, doesn't. go right, you know, it's hard letting people go because it's not just, you know, impacting

a bottom line, that's impacting a family, that's impacting so many other lives outside yourself. So we really want to be careful that, you know, when we add people or places or whatever, that we're being really intentional about that. So, you know, you talk about the project manager as being kind of that core first guy that allowed you to step out a little bit, even though, you know, you hadn't even really started. But, you know, he let you begin. the business without, you know, getting to the sites first thing in the morning and doing all the stuff you didn't want to do. And that's, that's awesome. As you've kind of progressed, I mean, first off, how big is your team today? And then kind of can you, can you tell us who

you brought in next and so on until you got to where you are now? Sure. So that same project manager, he's still with us and he's really like the core backbone of the construction side of the business. Next, I brought on a assistant. kind of like handling quick books, and luckily she had a real estate license. So it was kind of like, you know, a double plus good. Here's somebody that can do the books. And, you know, I've got my license too, but they can take all the calls and stuff that like a license, quote unquote person is supposed to take. So that took a lot of just the paperwork, the busy work, like off of my plate.

Yeah. And then as we've kind of grown into more projects, a lot of times we'll bring on, you know, partners of projects. And every time we do a partnership deal, it's kind of taking a look at, you know, what am I bringing the table? What are you bringing to the table? And we'll kind of, you know, divvy up responsibilities and stuff along those points. But now it's really just me.

I've got two kind of operational partners. my dad, another guy that used to be in construction a while back and a project manager and we're out there doing what we do. Nice. Nice. Nice. You mentioned kind of like partnerships. What do you mean by that?

Like what kind of, how do you use partners like that? I mean, are you talking about like just financing partners, like equity partners? Are you talking about actually like doing a deal together? Both. So we've got some, you know, financing partners that will basically just be, you know, just that. like they're just providing the financing on a certain deal. And then we have other partners that we will actually, you know, take a look at a deal and it'll be, you know, not only like an equity partnership, but they're, you know, providing some other

aspect, be it, you know, expertise or just kind of coming in on a, you know, bigger project or a different project that we haven't done before. We'll do those types of arrangements too. Okay. Okay. And I know I know you did one with kind of our mutual. friend Jay Scott, right? You did a new construction. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about kind of what that was? Yeah. And Jay and I've actually, we've done several projects.

The first one was the like the Diaries, the New Construction Project on, you know, Jay did a fantastic thread on bigger pockets, kind of detailing the whole thing out. And it was just a, you know, at the time, I'd never done a new construction project. He never had done one. We both kind of knew we wanted to do it. A couple deals came along and, you know, say, hey, you want to take a look at these. And the funny thing was like, so there was the house that we did the diary of the new construction project on. And there was another one not too far from there that I bought almost simultaneously. I showed, you know, both them to Jay. We kind of talked about it.

And he was like, yeah, let me, you know, I want to do this house. And literally not three days later, a tree falls, smashes and destroys the other house. Oh. I was like, Jay, you chose wisely. That's crazy. That's crazy. So, and for those people listening, we'll point a link to the diary on the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 104. And it's awesome. It literally is this thread that walks you through like the purchase all the way to the, yeah, the tear down and the construction and the sale of this new construction project. And it doesn't leave a detail out. It's if you've ever considered doing some kind of new build. even flip or even as a landlord, you got to check this thread out. It's fantastic and it's got

hundreds and hundreds of posts in it. So definitely worthy. So what did you do with the property that the tree fell on? So that one, that wasn't the only problem with this house. If I kind of compiled all like the horror stories of my real estate career, probably about 70% of them can tie back to this other house. Oh, nice. So not only did a tree fall and like obliterate the house. So that kind of like took it off my burner for a couple months. I was having to, you know, deal with the insurance and all that. And it was just kind of out of side out of mind. So then I go to, you know, we get the insurance settlement and go to actually like start rehab. I go to pull the permits and I'm like, huh, like the description's not matching up. So it turns out like I actually

I bought the house. And if you can imagine just like this huge fenced in yard, it was fenced in from the street all the way back. But apparently I only bought half the land this house was sitting on. How on earth did that happen? So there was some less than honest sellers and a less intelligent buyer, that would be me, that didn't really do my proper due diligence. And like they acquired the property through a tax sale. And, you know, way back in the 20s or 30s, whenever this house was built, the person bought three lots. They built their house, you know, almost in the middle of the three. But the city of Atlanta, like, split that into two tax parcels.

So when they, like, the homeowner died, you know, there's nobody in her state. So, of course, you know, it went in to, you know, be sold at a tax auction. And they bought the parcel that had the house primarily on it, not the other one. And so, long story short, like the closing attorney, we closed, with, he kind of knew all about this and it turned into this big mess and it was just like, you know, what do I do? So I had to, you know, learn like, you know, what is a tax sale? Like, how does one acquire something that, you know, could possibly be sold at a tax sale? I ended up going to the tax sale. Luckily, nobody bidded against me. I purchased the tax deed to the property

and talked to another investor, ended up selling him the deal. The deal that, you know, the deal. that was one of those like, you know, I could have held on to it, built it. It would have been a fantastic lot, but I didn't want to see that on my whiteboard. I was like, you know, like, that project is just cursed. Yeah. Yeah. So, so how would somebody avoid that? I mean, what, what can we as investors do to make sure that we don't end up buying a property, buying a house on a third of the, the lot that the house actually sits on? So, you know, I look at that as like, you know, many lessons learned. So as part of our due diligence, process now, we always make sure, number one, like, you know, your contracts make sure they

always reference the true legal description of the property. Never, you know, having your contract, I'm buying one, two, three, Maple Street. Because one, two, three, Maple Street might have an oak and an elm that you don't know about on there. So always make sure that, you know, the actual true legal description, the meets and bounds, say this property goes 50 feet that way, 100 feet that way, blah, blah, blah. Make sure that's referencing your contract. Then, especially if you're going to do like new construction or like any type of addition, something that you're not just improving the inside of a house, like, hey, I need to know my setbacks.

It's really critical, you know, where I can go on this property. Make sure you get a survey done and make that, you know, like an exhibit to your contract. and then as an investor, do your own due diligence, make sure they meet up. So I look at my deed. It says I'm going, you know, A, B, and C. Make sure that survey, you know, have a highlighter in your hand and literally go through the survey, making sure that everything lines up and you know exactly what you're purchasing. So there's no way that you can, I mean, there's no simple way to kind of automate that

or, you know, when you get a title policy, does that kind of cover you? I mean, what can people really, I mean, like, to me, it's like, you know, hey, I want to buy this property on the purchase contract. Do you really want to make sure you're reading that purchase contract thoroughly? And but the question is like, what if the purchase contract had on it? You know, hey, we're selling, you know, one through three main street, you know, and it didn't have the parcel identification on the contract. What would somebody do at that point? Or what should they do? You kind of end up like in my situation where, like, you, I bought.

something that wasn't what I expected it to be. And then you have to go through, like, you know, how do I fix this problem? So luckily I was able to, you know, fix the problem by purchasing the tax deed and, you know, putting it together. And, you know, that wasn't the end of it. Like, you've got to wait a year. You've got to do all this legal mumbo jumbo to actually perfect the title and make it happen. But, you know, I was kind of fortunate. And I've talked to a lot of people that have ended up in similar situations of you didn't quite purchase what you think you were purchasing and then it's just the sky's the limit to the horrible bad things that could happen to you in your pocketbook. Oh yeah. So, you know, you've just got to roll with the punches

and do what you can to pick yourself up and limit the damages on that type of transaction. Sounds horrible. Well, thank you for sharing though. I mean, it's, I think it's helpful for those people who didn't even know this was possible. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can, you can definitely lose a dollar or two out there for sure. Well, and I think, I think that's kind of one of the, kind of going back to the whole business idea you're talking about flipping as a business, right? Like, not every business transaction is going to work out. So, I mean, like, if you're kind of person who flips one house a year and you rely entirely on that income to survive and that one deal goes bad one year, you lose all your income. But if you have a business that works multiple flips and you have, you know,

systems and process and people and you're doing things, if one goes bad, the other one's kind of cover for you. Same thing is having one rental property versus you know, a dozen. If something goes vacant, you can still survive. So I can just kind of ties that in a little bit. But let me shift gears a little bit and ask you about your experience and like to that today. I mean, how many deals have you done now and what do they look like typically? So we're well north of 50 now and it's been a pretty good mix of fixing slips and it's kind of evolved over the years like this year just as a whole. Like we're doing a lot more like luxury new construction. We just started like our first pop top project where we're taking the roof

off a house, building a second story on it. And we've got a couple of those going now. So we've done wholesale deals, buying holds, you know, kind of our, or at least my philosophy is like the more types of deals I learn how to do and the more tricks we have in our tool bag, you know, the more, you know, deals when they come across my desk, like, you know, I can take advantage of, you know, in some way or another. It's not just limiting ourselves to, oh, like, we're only going to, you know, fix and flip cosmetic rehabs or we're only going to do this. It's, you know, just trying to expand in our experience and expand our deal base so we can take advantage of, you know, whatever type of opportunities we see.

And you keep saying we. We is that you and your company, do you have a partner also? I mean, I know we talked earlier about partners, but is there like a partner in the business itself and the core business. So pretty much everything is a we. Like I try not to take credit for anything because definitely like

I would not be where I am today without the we. Sure. Okay. The we is everything from transactional partners on individual flips to like just like is the

business as a whole. So kind of this year's we transitioned into like a more new construction type entity. We brought on another partner that had a ton of experience in new construction and is kind of like, you know, just taking the business in bigger and bolder directions than, you know, I ever would. So, you know, definitely I'm a big proponent of, you know, going further faster by bringing on team members, partners, anybody that I can like, you know, get into my inner circle to

take me where I want to go. Yeah, makes sense. Make sense. You talked about pop tops. That happens a ton in my neighborhood here in Denver and you know, you got these 1950s houses that people are just, you know, taking the roof off and thrown another story on top and cleaning it up. Tell us a little bit about that as a strategy. You know, what kind of property would be ideal for something like that? what are kind of, I don't know if you could potentially talk about the numbers on a deal that you've done, a pop on, and yeah, just fill us in a little bit more on that. Sure. So like this first pop top deal, number wise, like acquisition, I think we paid like 220,

225. And like the homeowners actually, you know, as an off market deal, they were wanting to, you know, kind of live in their same area. But the area was so hot any time a house would come up, like it was just instantly gone. So it's like to them the idea of, you know, they wanted a headache or like the stress of selling their house. You know, they wanted it sold, but then they wanted to, you know, sit back relax and be able to, you know, purchase like where they wanted to go. So one of the agents we worked with, like she brought us a deal and it was just kind of one of her friends that had

been talking. So we purchased from them. They rented it back from us for two to three months. And then they moved. So our out. price, like we've actually got two or three projects going on in the same side of town. New construction comps, you're like in the high fives to 700s, and we kind of looked at, you know, if we can put a semi new product into that same market range, like we can probably hit the low fives without, you know, too much of a stretch. So our out price is 525 and our rehab, I think is going to be somewhere in like the 150 to 175 range, kind of depending on like we're building the detached garage,

who it wasn't part of the original plan. So that's kind of adding to our rehab cost. So hopefully it'd be at least a six-figure payback at the end. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, it's more profitable than I thought. I mean,

do you think that's just because you got an incredibly good deal on that? Or are those fairly typical for pop tops? Well, you know, here again, like whether it's a pop top or, rehab or like a tear down, it's, you know, it's all about like, you know, what is that, you know, what's that end game? So like this part of town is in town Atlanta, but it's an incredible public school system. So it's so in demand for, you know, somebody to be here like, hey, I'm not having to spend $15,000, $20,000 a year on private school for each of my kids. I'm willing to pay a premium for, you know, a house in this area. And, you know, people want that, that new house.

They want the energy efficiency. They want the high ceilings. But, you know, they can't get that with the existing product in that area. So it's, you know, then it's the question of, hey, do we just tear this down from scratch? Or do we look at doing a pop top? And, you know, this one could have gone either way. Like, we honestly bought it with the intention of just bulldozing it down and just, you know, doing a buildback. But we just really wanted to try and do a pop top.

So it's like, hey, like, numberwise, it looks like. could work and, you know, let's see, let's just give it a shot. So that's kind of how this turned into a popped off. So you go into this with the experience of having rehab flipped houses. You went into the new construction project, diary project with the same experience. Do you think it would be foolish or wise of a new investor to pull together a project? project like a pop top or a new construction belt? Or should they wait until they've got a little more experience? Well, I think it all just depends on like the team you have around you. So, you know, any new investor like, you know, when they're coming, like I always like, you know,

kind of talk to them, like, you know, what's your background? Like, you know, what do you feel comfortable with or what are like the holes in your team that you need to fill to, you know, do what you want to do in real estate. So, you know, depending on who they have. So for us, like, got my GC license, you know, I've got a little bit of experience in, you know, building stuff back. But like one of our framing crews, like this guy, like, that's all he does is pop tops. I mean, that's just, he wakes up, he pops the top, he goes to bed, he does it again tomorrow. So, you know, just kind of, like we've used him on some smaller flips, just doing some framing, some deck builds, and kind of talked to him about that. And, you know, if I didn't have

that piece of the puzzle in place, like, I probably would not have, you know, a, you know, attempted that until I, you know, knew more about it or had that. So having that guy on our team, I was like, well, you know, I think we can pull this off. Let's go do it. But for anybody that's just, you know, hey, I just want to go pop a top or, hey, I want to go tear something down. It's like, if you don't have the, like the resources and the contacts in your inner circle, like, you know, you might bite off more than you can chew. I think that's great. I think it's great. You know, I think a lot of people stop and say, hey, you know, I can't. I can't. do that. I've never done a deal. I don't have the capacity to go ahead and do that. But, you know,

by teaming up with the right people and just, you know, building that knowledge base, you could pretty much do anything is what you're saying. I mean, obviously, you're probably going to get a smaller piece of the pie due to your lack of knowledge, unless you bring in maybe lots of capital, all the financing. But, you know, if, you know, I said today, hey, I'll want to go and build something or pop something, you know, and I know nothing if I could grab you and Jay and some other guys or whatever it is, you know, who've done this before, you know, why not? Absolutely. And it really just comes back like, you know, like one of my all-time, like, favorite quotes or like things to think about is, you know, whether in real estate business or life is like

the question of how. It's like, how do I answer that question of, you know, I don't know how to build new construction. Well, you know, how do I do that? And it's, you know, do I need a contractor? Do I need money? Do I need time? Like, what are the things that I don't have? And how do I get those things? Right. And the people that can successfully answer that question and plug in those pieces to, you know, what they're lacking themselves are, like you said, you can do anything. Whether new construction, pop top or, you know, start some, you know, internet business. Yep, yep. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios.

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slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is much cheaper than learning the hard way. Um, cool. Let me ask you go back. You kind of touched on this a minute ago, but how do you decide on a project if you're going to rehab it, pop top, or tear it down? I mean, you got a house in front of you. Is it just numbers and math? I know on the pop top, you just wanted to go with it, but, you know, typically how do you look at the three? So it's, you know, at the end of the day, it is just like, you know, numbers and math. So in time, because time is such a great cost to business, whether it's my own capital that's invested in a project or an investor's project or, you know, capital invest in for a project, you know, carry costs, especially on like these bigger projects are such a

huge part and a huge number of the equation that, you know, time really comes into play. So, especially like inner city, you know, Atlanta, where we've got permitting offices, if we acquire something today, it might be, you know, nine months before we have something to sell. And that's a huge piece of the equation. If it's just like a simple rehab, you know, we can be, you know, boom, in and out in a couple weeks, a couple months, like, you know, that we're not going to get as much on the back end. And like, so this pop top is kind of like a quasi of the two. Like, we don't have near like the time in permitting and planning that we do it on a new construction. But because we're changing more than just like, you know, paint and carpet, like we're, you know, raising the ceilings to, you know, nine or ten feet, we're opening up the floor plan.

We're creating a product that's, you know, more close to a new construction. product, but we're able to do it on a much faster timeline. So it's really between time and dollars, like what's our shortest path to the most dollars? You know, a lot of people, I'd say especially the new guys, don't really consider time. You know, it's one of those things on a rehab, on a build, on a tear down. You know, those, that's that factor that you've got to figure out, right? You've got to figure out. figure that. It's kind of like on the buying hold side, a lot of people want to say, hey, I'm going to, I'm not going to account for property management because I'm going to manage it myself. Well,

that's a cost. It's your time. And there is a cost and you should apply it. You know, you should factor that in whenever you're, whenever you're purchasing a buy and hold property. Well, the same goes into play on these other types of properties on flips and builds. The time factor is huge. It's huge. So, you know, what advice do you have on that on factoring time? Because I think that's one of the places where people often get it wrong. Absolutely. And the biggest thing that, you know, they don't realize is, you know, there is a cost and that cost is an opportunity cost to be at your capital or your time. You know, so many people like, oh, you know, I use my own money on this deal. So, you know, like, should I hold on to it another six months and see if it sells or

whatever and it's like you know no like sell it now get out you know lose money on this deal whatever you need to do to to move on because you know when your capital's tied up in point A not making you any money you know you're not making a return on projects B C and D that you could be out there making happen right now yeah the same thing goes with time like people like oh well you know whether it's I'm doing my own work on this project or you know I'm going to you know lick all these letters and stamps and do this myself It's like if that's not your highest and best use, you're not, you know, making yourself all that you can be. You're just, you know, you are losing money by not deploying your physical and mental self in its highest and best use.

Preacher, brother. Amen. No, that's awesome. Cool. That's awesome. Let me go to one more topic. Finding deals. How do you get them? And is that changing in your market today?

It pretty much changes every day. So over the years, like, we built a pretty good network of agents, of wholesalers, and just putting the word out there, like, you know, hey, we do real estate, you know, here's the type of stuff we do. And, like, I've got my real estate license, so occasionally, like, I'll find a deal. So we've got a pretty good network and a pretty good diversification of deal flow. and now, honestly, the biggest challenge we have is a prioritization of deal flow because it's literally every day is just stuff coming down the pipe. Hey, look at this, look at this, look at that. And I could spend all my time every day just looking at deals people calling me that day,

but, you know, it's just a sense of overwhelm. So it's, you know, putting those deal filters in place, you know, knowing like, hey, here's the stuff I'm looking for and being really disciplined about that because, you know, otherwise it's just like, oh my gosh, like I couldn't do any deals because there's so many deals flying at you. Nice. Nice. Cool. Well, so, you know, I guess I want to ask, do you have any other, you know, you told us some interesting stories? I mean, what was like outside of that property, that one property that was just a nightmare with the tax liens? I mean, do you have any other horror stories

or anything interesting, fun that you want to share? Well, you know, I think a lot of the hard stories kind of go back to, you know, also like, you know, how do you want to, you know, be successful in real estate or how do you want your reputation to be, you know, taken in? And it's like, you know, are you in this for the short term? Like, hey, I just want to make a buck on this deal. Or are you in this for the long term? Like, you know, I want to be somebody that's known in the city

and from agents as somebody that stands behind their product and, you know, it does the right thing. So, you know, looking at like, you know, dollars lost or like, oh my gosh, like, I can't believe that happened. It's, it all kind of comes back to, you know, beating this game for the long haul. Like, you know, we've learned, you know, kind of with that in mind, you know, if we're going to provide a warranty and stand behind our work, we need to use, you know, contractors that have been in business a long time that also kind of had that same philosophy.

We need to use products, you know, from national manufacturers that, you know, have a warranty, like, pretty close to, like, when we first got to start investing, like, we maybe had done, like, three or four deals. We found this discontinued flooring it, like, you know, one of those flooring discount, whatever centers. It was just, I mean, it looked amazing. It was so cheap. It was just like, oh, my gosh, like, this is God's gift to flooring, and we're buying all of it. And we literally, like, you know, bought, like, four or five pallets of this stuff. They, like, shipped it into our warehouse, and we were just putting it everywhere we could. Well, the only problem was like, I don't know, maybe like six, seven months

after we installed all these houses with this flooring, like the top layer of the floor started peeling up. And it wasn't just one house. It was like all these houses. So it's like, what do we do? And we replaced a lot of flooring. And it was just, you know, it's not like we were required to do that or anything else, but it was like, you know, if this is what we're going to, do and who we want to be like we're going to have to to eat it to you know be successful. Did you say did you say you warranty your flips as well? Yeah. So, you know, and with that there is a we're obviously not like warrantying the whole entire thing. So on our flips like we always always even though like you know up front

we say oh there's no home warranty included. We always kind of like make that like a point of negotiation that we make the other party think that like they won something even though that like we're pretty much going to force you to buy a home warranty just from the fact that takes so many of the little headaches off of hey you know the HVAC isn't working this that the other like you know I'd rather you call you know them than you know burden our staff and you know in past that it's always just like a judgment call it's you know granted like you know our philosophy or like what we're going to do, we're going to get in there, we're going to take care of all the issues we know about, all the issues that we see and do the best job we can. But as

anybody in this business knows, you're not going to find everything. You're not going to know about everything. And like, you know, a house, even if you build it from scratch, is far from perfect. So, you know, when issues arise, it's just a judgment call of, hey, you know, I just put myself in the buyer's shoes. Like, if like, hey, I bought this house from this guy. So if I flip it around and it's like, hey, if I bought this house from them, is it right for me to do this? And sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. How far out would you go? I mean, you know, I take both sides on this one.

You know, having not flipped a house, you know, but having purchased a house that had issues, you know, I know that my job was to hire an inspector and the inspector is supposed to go through and look for everything. I've never bought a property where the inspectors found everything. And I always curse and yell at this inspector in my own head. I'm always like, you know, this SOB, you know, how do you miss that? And, you know, and then I'm typically left holding the bag and I've got to deal with it, right? So, A, I think it's awesome that you do warranty it to some extent. But how far would you take it? You know, are you going to go six months a year?

I mean, if I call you in three years and like, hey, this thing that we all miss, you missed, the inspectors missed, and I missed, you know, that's a major problem now. You know, are you going to come in then, or is it kind of like, eh? So, like, take our new construction, for instance. So, like, just in our market as a whole, like, it's just like there's an understood and just kind of like the market standards, like a one-year warranty, and that's on a complete new build. Yeah.

And even though, like, the flip stuff, I kind of use that like as a barometer, but it really just kind of goes back to, you know, it's just a material. material defect is this, you know, something else that like nobody would have known. And you just, you just never know. Like a good example, a flip we did a couple years ago. This is when we actually hired like an outside, like we didn't GC this one ourselves. We hired a different contractor to like do this renovation for us. And we're literally like, you know, showing up doing the final punch out, you know,

touching up paint and we finished the basement on this house. And the GC superintendent was like, hey, you know, this basement's been leaking the whole time you've been doing this rehab. I was like, actually, I did not know the basement has been leaking the whole time we've been doing this rehab. And I'm just finding out about this now. And like, the basement's finished and there's walls and floors. And he's like, yep. And so the homeowner is like, you know, standing right there.

And they're like, well, what do you mean the basement's leaking? So, like, you know, me is the investor and the homeowner is the person buying it. is like, what are you talking about? So, you know, the home inspector, you know, this is just like one of those like perfect storm types of things. So he, you know, obviously like the homeowner's like, hey, like I'm concerned like there's like a leak here in the basement. So what does he do? So during the course of the home inspection, he turns on the hose bib and lets it run the entire few hours that he's there. So, you know, it's not just like, hey, here's a little bit of rainfall and it leaks a little bit, this guy probably just put like 10 years worth of rainfall into our basement

in the span of two hours, and it just way flooded. So here we are at the last minute. You know, they've got their home inspection. We've got the contract. Like they actually, you know, put a contract on this house early on in the process. So this house is like customized to them. It's got their tile, their wall colors, their countertop colors. You know, this is their house. And what are we going to do? So, you know, we sign a letter at closing. We closed the house. And actually we come back in after the fact, rip out the entire wall, we put in a really expensive internal drainage system and make it where like the basement doesn't leak anymore. But, you know, that was, I think, like, nine grand out of our pocket, you know, after closing

for something that like, you know, it was just like, oops. Yeah, that's crazy. And that sucks. That really, that's unfortunate. And my last question on this line of discussion here is, what did you do with the contractors. I mean, you know, I would be livid. And frankly, I'd be livid at my project manager for not having caught that either. Yeah, and we obviously never used them again. And it's a shame because like it, you know, it's kind of a friend of a friend and it looked like it could be like something, you know, a great relationship going forward. And it just, you know, didn't work out. Like that wasn't the only major, major issue we had with these guys on several different projects. And it was really something we couldn't even fall up like our own project manager. Because at the time, like the whole reason we hired this other contractor, you know, we had so much going in different parts of town that like, you know, he was covered up on his own stuff.

And it was just kind of like, you know, we, yeah, this was almost like, you know, like a full service GC. Like they were basically quarterbacking it. They were bringing in their own subs doing the whole thing. Whereas, you know, even now, like our project manager, like we'll hire quote unquote contractors or quote unquote GCs to do bits and pieces of jobs. But we're, you know, we're quarterbacking it. We're pulling the permits. you're kind of coordinating the whole thing. But, you know, this one, they were, you know, basically just shooting us pictures every now and then. And, you know, the idea was they hand us

the keys when they're done renovating it and we sell the house that didn't work out that way. Right on. Right on. All right. So we're going to move on to the fire round. But before we do, I wanted to ask one more question. Your bigger pockets profile said you are a world adventurer. What does that mean? So, you know, kind of like a hobby or a passion of mine is, you know, travel, but not just, you can only spend so many weeks a year just laying on the beach sipping fruity cocktails. That's not true. There's no limit to how long I can do that.

You're just hard enough when you get there. There you go. My limit's like a week. All right. So what does that mean? What else do you do? So, you know, it's traveling to, you know, places and experiencing things you just don't normally do.

So like, I prefer like third world countries. So be it, you know, Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, like something to where it's, you know, it's not just a vacation, but it's a challenge. It's like, you know, I don't really speak the language. I don't really know the culture. And I want to, you know, do something. So, and I've actually been fortunate enough to do like a really cool, like, you know, kind of coupling vacations with like, you know, bigger and better. So I've produced a rock concert in Eastern Europe. I've gotten to go to Ukraine and T.E.

small business skills to aspiring entrepreneurs. And so it's like the best of both worlds. It's like I'm getting to take a vacation, but I'm actually getting to apply myself and better other people and all those things kind of coming together. Nice. That's really cool. Really, really cool.

Like with the Ukraine thing, if there's anybody out there that has a heart for business or a heart for helping people, I found this organization is called global leadership. And what they do is basically take business people here from the United States. It's usually CEOs, sales managers, people that have great story to tell or like some tremendous business experience. You kind of go over there as a team, five to six people and put on like a business symposium. So everybody will kind of take their area of expertise.

You kind of come up with workshops. and the thirst for, you know, knowledge or just, you know, just the things we take for granted here in America of transacting business. Like, hey, like, I hand you a contract and, you know, I don't necessarily need to have my lawyer read it word for word. Well, over there, it's just not the same. So it's kind of eye-opening experience for an American entrepreneur, you know, taking things like, you know, trust and, like, the legal judicial system for granted. and, you know, teaching them, like, you know, skills, but then also kind of hearing, yeah, that might work over there, but, you know, that's not the way it goes over here kind of thing. So definitely anybody that, you know, wants to, you know, kind of help people out, check out that organization, and it's a really awesome experience. Oh, nice.

All right, we're moving on. It's time for the fire round. First question I have in the fire round is going to be. Where's all the enthusiasm? Sorry, you know. All right. Yeah, it's fine. Kind of flat, Brandon.

Like fire like exploded. All right, fine, fine. Here we go. Here we go. Let me do it the right way. All right, it's time for the fire round. Woo! Let's get it on.

Let's get it on. All right. A little much. That's pretty good. All right, you know, that's how I go. All right, my first question of the fire round. This comes from the forums, and I just grabbed it just now. The question is, do you have any good, I know we just passed the holiday season, but I'm

asking it anyway. Do you have any good gift ideas or things to thank your contractors? Any way to thank a contractor? think a contractor. Well, I think that would depend on the contractor and, like, you know, what it is, you know, how could I use this gift as something to help them in their business? You know, did they need, like, a tape measure? Maybe they've, you know, miscut some things over the year. Maybe they hadn't done what they need. So I'm going to buy this guy a laser tape measure to kind of further his career. We actually just had a, like this pop top. I get a call. It's like, hey, the inspector here and he, we've got to rip off the entire roof again because the howl, is built two feet too high. I'm like, what do you mean the house is built two feet too high? It's like, well, I just watched to measure it like, yeah, he said the house is, you know, 37 feet too high and we can only be 35 feet. And I was like, well, did you measure it?

And he said, well, I saw him do it. And I was like, we'll just measure it anyways. And so sure enough, like the inspector like mismeasured the roof line of our house. And, you know, we took the laser tape, shot it and we were, you know, five feet under where we needed to be. so that inspector will definitely be getting a laser tape measure in his Christmas goodie bag this year. That's awesome. That's awesome. What should a flipper do if they run out of money on a half-finished flip? So obviously you have to take it to the finish line. So you have to take a look at, you know, how do I get this done? And it could be something as simple as like, hey, I'm out of money. It's half-finished.

Is the as-is value something that I could, and you never know. You might be able to make a buck on the, as is value of where you have it now, or is it, you know, underwater like I'm going to lose money? Is it something I could go find, you know, another investor to bring into the deal and, you know, bring in his capital to, you know, take it. Obviously, you're going to get a smaller portion of the pie, but something may be better than nothing. Nice. Cool. I like it. Let's see. Should I fix and flip a house to pay for my upcoming wedding? I've never flipped a house before. I need money to pay for the wedding. Should I fix and flip to pay for my wedding?

Now, I don't know if you're like, talk to my wife to get this question. I actually have real word experience with this. So my wife and I, like right before we got married, you know, needed some money to pay for our wedding. Well, she had a house and I had a house. And I was like, well, hey, I can, you know, it's kind of like property brothers. Let me come in here and I can fix this place up and, you know, sell it. and we're going to pay for our wedding, you know, with the profits we make from flipping your house. Well, this was like in 2007.

And so we put a bunch of money into her house to sell it, put it for sale sign in the yard, and the crash happened. So I actually still own that property today as a buy and hold. So the answer would be no. Do not flip a house if you want to pay for a wedding. You just never know. whether it be a market correction or a deal gone south, you never want to base your future or anything else on a transaction. That's good.

That is good advice. I didn't think of it when I wrote the question, but I actually had, or when I grabbed the question and wrote it here, but I actually had the exact same situation where when we were getting married, we didn't have any money for the wedding. And so I did my first live-in flip, and I used all the money and it paid for my wedding.

So I actually, it worked out in my case. But I sold mine. It was also 2007, right? but I sold mine like as we were like looking over the, the pit, I guess, of where we were about to go. So I got out at just the right time. But anyway, yeah. Way to put salt in the wound there for.

Yeah, it worked out pretty good for me. I don't know if you were a good contractor and a good flipper. You might have done all right. But, you know, I just sucked it up. But I really, the moral of the story there for anybody out there is, you know, whether you have a wedding to pay for or anything else, like, you know, this business is so unpredictable. you just you never want to stake your family's future, your business future, anything else on, you know, a single or even like multiple, you know, it's just, you just never know. So it's, you don't want to, you have to take calculated risk and you don't want to put all your eggs in a basket at the last minute and have them come crushing down.

Makes sense. Make sense. True word. All right. Last, last question for me on this, the section of the fire round. I want to flip a project that has. six-foot basement ceilings. Any ideas? Well, are you wanting to have a basement in this house you were flipping with six-foot basement ceilings? I don't know. It's not my question. I'm just, you know, regurgitating what was, you know, I'm just a talking dummy here that just they put in front of me and I have to say it. So I, yeah, I don't know the intent here, but.

Hey, let me read, let me read the entire question. This is from Brandon Sturgle on the forums. He said, I have a potential investment property for rehab that has good potential in the main living area, but the basement ceiling is six foot high. The space is not realistically usable. Anyone have any access at rehabbing similar properties? It seems like the cost to make it presentable outweighs any potential increase in ARV. That was the actual question. Like we've had a couple projects right now we're working on like similar.

And actually both our pop top projects, you know, they have, you know, a basement that you would not consider. we couldn't convert it into living space. But it is great storage space. So, you know, we're packaging it, marketing it is, hey, look at all this extra storage space you get that you wouldn't have, like, if it was a slab house or a crawl space house. But, you know, the same kind of thing, like our cost to dig the basement lower and or raise the house office foundation and make it a livable, you know, eight or nine foot basement, you know, the number doesn't work out to make that livable space. So take what you have, you know, put some real estate speak on it and turn it into a positive and, you know, let it be an enhancer, not a profit detractor. Cool.

Fair enough. That's a good answer. All right. My final question of the fire round is a little self-serving, but that's all right. How do you use bigger pockets? Or you can kind of rephrase it as what value has it brought to you? So, you know, literally like throughout the years, like, I mean, it's been such a great resource. it. You know, just starting out, it was kind of like a sounding board for, you know, just, I want

somebody that knows what they're doing to tell me what I'm about to do is a good or a bad idea. And just the relationships that it's brought about, like, from meeting Jay Scott to, he recently just countless other people, sources of money, it's just been an incredible tool to further our business in every way imaginable, for sure. That's awesome. Cool. Cool. All right.

All right. Let's move on to the world famous. Famous for. There's no guns in this one, Josh. Oh, whoops. All right. The famous. I need to add some for the next go, right?

Yeah, we might. I don't know. The famous for. Maybe some cannons and some. Yeah, maybe. Like pirate music. That's what I'm thinking. It's going to be amazing.

All right. Famous for number one. What is your favorite real estate related book? Favorite real estate related book? That would have to be the. Jay Scott book on flipping houses. Yeah, the book on flipping houses. Excellent book.

Which can be picked up at biggerpockets.com slash flipping book. That it can. All right. Next question. Josh. Next question is, what is your favorite business book? So,

favorite business book? I'm actually talking to your assistant Hillary, and I think this question needs to be changed to, what is your favorite business book other than the four-hour work week? Whatever, man. Listen, the book is solid. I've read it. I continue to get grief over this book, even though I finished it months ago. Whatever. Whatever. Next question. Interview, interview over. Drops Mike. Okay. All right. So anyway, four hour work week. Is that your answer? And why? Yeah. It's fantastic. But like, since so many people, and justifiably, like, it's a fantastic book. Like, it just gives you the mindset of, you know, setting up your business outside.

yourself and everything else, but just kind of get outside the box and do something different. I was like, well, let's go E-Mith. But then a lot of people say that too. So I'm going to give a shout out to David Allen in his book, Getting Things Done for the GTD method.

There you go. I like it. Are you a successful GTD user? It's hard. Absolutely not. Because I tried and I failed too, by the way. I strive for it. Like, you know, I get my Evernote set up and I've got all these like short hands and action symbols and this, that, the other. And it'll work great for a week.

And then it just gets overwhelmed. But it's something that eventually I'll figure it out and get things done. Well, what I find about the getting things done system is like, we should probably just get David Allen on the podcast. That'd actually be a really fascinating podcast. But I don't know how investors can use. Yeah, how do you use getting things done? But anyway, so we can work on that later. But yeah, so my theory is this. If you only do like 20% of what the GDD system kind of is. If you just did a very small portion of it, that alone will do like a ton more for your business

and for your life and organizing than if you do nothing. You know, because I feel like I do maybe like 10 or 15, 20% of what I wish I did. But still, like just like the mindset shift I had when I read that book and some of the little organization things I have today. Even in like in my Evernote, I have my, you know, sort of like my next actionable step.

And I have my someday maybe kind of a folder in Evernote because I organize things in my head that way now. And just the concept of next actionable step, I think, was huge for me when I read that book. So anyway, I like your choice. Good job. Absolutely. I just Evernote itself as a tool. It's so great for real estate investors because not only can you capture the pictures of like, you know, you're strolling through Home Depot or you're strolling through like another house that one of your competitors is doing.

It's like, oh, I like that backslash, you know, just being able to like capture all that information, filter it and find it later is just an incredible tool. Yeah, nice. Nice. All right. Hobbies other than travel. We talked about that part. Yeah, so travel is the main thing. And here recently it's just been kids, kids, kids. So be it little league games, just making sure I'm, you know, spending time with them.

Because that's, you know, something critical, I think, for all, you know, entrepreneurs is, you know, like what's truly important in life. And you can get out there, you can kill it, you know, make a bajillion dollars. But you can never buy back. the early years with your kids. So, you know, really, you know, another one of those kind of begin with the end games in mind. And, you know, if you've got a small family, you're thinking about having a family, you really need to take a look at your business plan, your life plan, and organize it in a way that, you know, you're never going to get those early years back.

So how do I make sure that I spend the most time with them that, you know, I just money can never buy? Do you travel with your kids, by the way? Yeah. So our oldest and it's something that like people look at us like we're silly, but we'll load up the swagger wagon with all three kids and, you know, head out to the beach or up to the mountains. We love to go camping. I was talking about the adventure travel. Like, you know, you go to Ukraine or, you know, I don't know. Somewhere else. I haven't quite taken them to any third world yet, but that's definitely on the map. Our youngest, we just had four months ago. and we're not quite ready to venture to West Africa. Oh, come on, come on.

Little early. Well, congratulations on that. Yeah, congratulations. That's cool. That's cool. I, you know, I don't have kids yet, but I always swear that someday I will be the parent that's, like,

got the kid on my back hiking through, you know, like the Great Wall of China or something. Like, I want to be that guy someday. Until you try and carry your kid on your back for, you know, a half mile and you say, yeah, that's not going to have. You know what? That's why I work out today. So I'm preparing for them.

So here's another. quick tip as far as like, you know, bringing your kids camping. I love to camp and I love to bring my kids camping. And, you know, camping is great because it takes you outside of your element. You know, you're not in your day-to-day routine, but there's a drawback to that. So, you know, at our house, you know, there's bath time, there's bedtime, there's jammy, there's all these things. Well, camping, there's campfire and there's beer and more beer. And you don't kind of get in your routine. So like the first time I took my son camping, you know, bring a buddy, we're having a good time. And it's like, all right, son, let's go to bed. We're sharing a sleeping bag.

I forgot to put his pull-up on. And let's just say, I'll look up excess moisture in the sleeping bag. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Fabulous, man. Great story. Yeah. All right. All right. Final question of the world famous, famous for. And that is, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? I think it goes back to that question of how and also just, you know, having a plan. Like so many people, you know, they might be a dreamer, like, oh, you know, here's my goals, but, you know, they don't have a plan to accomplish those goals. So, you know, whatever it is, you know, you're looking to do, whether it be, you know, getting started in wholesaling, fixing and flipping, you know, number one, write your goals down. But number two, you know, work backwards. Like, what is the plan? Like, who are the people I need to do? You know, the people I need. to meet, you know, what are the appointments I need to make? You know, what are the investments of my education, all these other things that I need to do to prepare myself to actually

make that, you know, dream of reality. That's great. That's great. All right. Well, Todd, this, this has been a really, really fantastic show. Lots of, lots of good information. You know, before I ask you about how people can find out more about you, I need you to just say, just say, just say, cool whip. Whip. You did it right. There was no cool whoip. I was waiting for the cool whip.

Is that an Atlanta thing? Is this kind of like one of those like drawer and draw? Something. You know, it's one of those southern things that you always hear. The cool whip. Bust out the cool whip. Yeah.

Oh, well, I thought I'd hear it, but I didn't. All right, man, we're working people. I tried. Where can people find out more about you, bud? on the front porch, drinking sweet tea. So on bigger pockets, that's probably like the preferred place. And I don't have enough friends for, or enough time for the friends I have now. So probably just hit me up on LinkedIn.

We'll just kind of keep it on a professional level. Nice. Cool. Nice. Awesome. And well, thank you so much. And we definitely appreciate your time. And it's been a lot of fun hearing your story.

And anybody who wants to ask a question to Todd about, this interview or anything else, you can also post on the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 104. All right, Todd, thanks a lot, man. Cool. And actually, I've got a quick, quick question that, like, I probably ask for, like, the greater good of the bigger pockets community. I know I have this question, and hopefully there's an answer to it.

And if not, then, oh, well, this is always going to be it's going to be. So way back when, when I first made my Bigger Pockets profile, like, I had to make, like, a username. And I probably should have just, like, made it like my name. like at Todd Wooden, but I didn't. I was somehow stuck in like video game mode. And my video game guy is like the Duke of Death. And I was like, that's probably not like a good thing to be like

the Duke of Death on this real estate site. So I just shortened it to the Duke. So if I want to change it now to something different, is that possible? And how do I do it? That is possible. You would contact our support team at support at biggerpockets.com. and they will take care of you

and they will ensure that the Duke becomes Todd Wittin. Todd Witton. It's just kind of a hard made to Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we'll get you taken care of. Yeah, and anyone listening, if you guys ever have questions

on using the site or any needs that you want, just hit us up at support of BiggerPockets.com and the team will take care of you. We got a couple people doing support for us and they're fantastic. and can help you out with anything you need. There you go. Appreciate it, guys.

Todd, it's been fun. Thank you so much. Take care. Thanks, man. All right, bye. See you later. All right, guys, that was show 104 with Todd Whitten. Again, big thanks to Todd for coming on board.

I really, really enjoyed that show, and I hope you guys did as well. Yeah. I know that in my business, I feel like that is the area I struggle with the most, is turning into a business versus how I've always done things, right? So I love shows like that. I'm like, oh man, there's so many ways that I should be doing things differently and better. And it's kind of inspiring. So anyway, I definitely got a lot out of it.

Yeah. Yeah. And listen, I mean, it's so easy to get overwhelmed and say, oh, there's a million things I want to do. And since I didn't do all million, I'm a big fat failure. And that's not true. I mean, if you listen to these shows and take away one thing and, you know, implement one thing to improve your business, then it's worth. You know, it's worth listening to and it's worth the time. So definitely, you know, stop and think about some of this stuff.

And, you know, I'll challenge you to that, Brandon. You know, don't go and make a list of 20 things because you're going to pull your hair out, right? You know, pick one or two and go with it. Yeah, there you go. I pull my hair out anyway, but, you know. Yeah, well, you know. Yeah, I got a haircut today. Did you see that?

You know, I did not notice. It still kind of looks like a rat's in us. So, you know. Don't tell my wife that. She cut it. Oh, it looks really good, Heather. If you're listening, this is, you know, well, well done. Well done.

Thank you. All right, time for me to go. So with that, guys, listen, thanks for listening to the show. Thanks for being a part of Bigger Pockets if you're not already an active member of our community jumping, create an account at Bigger Pockets.com. Otherwise, we'll see you around social media and we'll see you around next week for the show 105 of the Bigger Pockets podcast. You know, you forgot to say? Nope. If you haven't given us a review or rating yet, iTunes, come on.

Okie dokey, if you haven't yet given us a rating or review, please. do jump on iTunes and leave us one. It does help us a lot. And we definitely appreciate all the feedback and take it all to heart. So thank you so much. All right. Thank you people. Hi, Brandon. Thanks. I'm out of here. All right. This is Brandon. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the height, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from bigger Pockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets

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