BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 142: 22 ½ ACTIONABLE Tips for Beginner Real Estate Investors With Josh and Brandon!

Episode Date: October 1, 2015

WARNING: We’re sorry, but there is no way you’ll be able to listen to today’s show without taking MASSIVE ACTION immediately after! Today on the BiggerPockets Podcast, Josh and Brandon bring you 22 (and a half) of their all-time favorite ACTIONABLE tips for building your real estate empire, especially if you’re just getting started. This show will leave you with a serious list of direct, actionable next steps that you can start implementing in your real estate today. Get ready because this show is going to change how you do real estate. You’ve been warned! In This Episode We Cover: The actionable tips to help you take off as a real estate entrepreneur Tips for posting on Craigslist Why you should analyze 3 deals every single day What to look for in a local real estate agent A great way to connect with local real estate investors Why house-hacking a great strategy for newbies The real estate books that matter The importance of knowing your credit The two phrases to eliminate from your vocabulary The importance of giving your agent your criteria Why you should consider using yellow letters The strategy of walking for dollars How to formulate a roadmap for success Why flip shows video are great How to continue your education in financial literacy What podcasts to listen to And SO much more! Download the Whole List (all 22.5!)  Links from the Show Craigslist BiggerPockets Marketplace BiggerPockets Webinar BiggerPockets Calculators BiggerPockets Meet The Best Real Estate Books Ever AnnualCreditReport CreditKarma BiggerPockets Keyword Alerts BP Podcast 141: 7 Ways to Find Incredible Real Estate Deals with Chad Carson YouNeedABudget BiggerPockets Perks This Old House TV BiggerPockets #AskBP Podcasts BiggerPockets Youtube Channel Books Mentioned in this Show Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey The Book on Investing with No or Low Money Down by Brandon Turner What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow… And 36 Other Key Financial Measuresby Frank Gallinelli Tweetable Topics: “Never buy a property when you only analyzed it just in your head.” (Tweet This!) “You’re the average of the 5 people you associate the most.” (Tweet This!) “Everybody has unfair advantages.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Brandon and Josh Josh’s BiggerPockets Profile Brandon’s BiggerPockets Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 142. 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 Dork and host to the Bigger Pocket. It's podcast here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon Turner. What is going on, big guy?

Things are good. I finally moved into my new house. We've been talking about the last few weeks here on the podcast, and I'm... Congratulations. Thanks. I'm in, and that's why I'm sitting on the floor right now. If you're watching this on YouTube someday in the future, you'll see that I'm actually on the floor leaning against a wall, because I don't have a desk.

Keep it classy. I know. The other house, I had a desk built in that I built for my Kia parts, and it was cool. And today, I'm like, I don't have a desk. I've been working on my couch. So, you know, I'm keeping it classy here on the floor with my awkward wall behind me. That's all right. Nice.

Yeah. Today should be a good show, though. I'm excited to talk about actionable stuff because, you know, I'm all about action. So I'm just sitting here waiting to see if you're ever going to ask me how I'm doing. I'm never going to ask you how you're doing. Really? So I'm excited to talk about actionable tips. Hey, Josh.

Hey, what? Aren't you excited to talk about 22 actionable tips today for, beginners. I am completely and utterly excited. Good. Good. Okay, so how are you doing? Oh, thanks for asking. I'm glad you thought of that on your own, man. I'm good. I'm a thinker. Things are great. You know, we brought on a new team member last week, which was very exciting, a new designer, UI guy. And his name is Josh, and he's pretty fantastic. And it's exciting to have somebody who could come in and help us really start to, you know, reshape and redesign. kind of the look and feel that is bigger pockets, modernized a little bit.

So I know I'm not alone and being excited about it. Yeah, no, it should be good. The only thing I don't like about it is his name is Josh. So it gets confusing. And I'm always like, there's two Josh just so I get confused. I set to cry and, you know, nothing gets done. We had to make him take a new name. We probably should just maybe legally change it too.

That's a requirement for working at BP. Nice. Nice. You cannot be called Josh. That's the rule. All right. Well, let's get into this thing. Yeah, today's going to be a great show,

22 actionable tips for beginner and advanced real estate investors. And before we get into it, let's take care of a few little bits of business here. First of all, guys, thank you so much for supporting Bigger Pockets. Thanks so much for listening and sharing the podcast with people. We really appreciate it. I just ask for your help once again in helping us get the word out. And that's to please leave us a rating and or review on iTunes. Go to iTunes, look up the Bigger Pockets podcast.

leave us a rating and review. Those things really, really help us. Please do that. You can also leave us ratings and reviews on slips and stitch or SoundCloud, some of the other audio players. And that would be awesome. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off. And suddenly your day is all cleanup, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently, without the usual bottlenecks.

It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact, so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card, or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress. Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes,

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Legally, 100% IRS compliant. That's instant cash flow improvement. Cost segregation guys is the number one firm nationwide, specializing and identifying these faster depreciating assets in your property. They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50 states from remote cabins to apartment complexes. So if you own investment property, this is a no-brainer. So visit costsegregationguise.com slash BP for your free proposal and find out how much you could save this tax season. All right. Well, let's get to today's quick tip and then get to the meat of this.

All right. All right. So today's quick tip is simply to do one of, okay, so what today's show is about 22. I'm backing up. I'm not retracting. I'm just, I'm backing up to preface what I'm about to say. Today show is all about actionable tips. Like every single thing we're to talk about today is something you could physically go out and do today. So our quick tip, quick tip is every single day for the next 22 days. I want you guys to do one of these tips. And if you want, you can go to biggerpockets.com slash show 142 and you can download all of these tips. You can in a little check sheet, checkmark sheet. And you can check them,

off as you do them over the next 22 days. Checkmark sheet. Checkmark sheet. Is that what we call it? I don't know. Checklist sheet. I don't know. Come on.

Yeah, I don't know. All right. Let's do this thing. All right, guys. So here we go. Today is 22 tips for beginner and advanced real estate investors. Let's start with number one, Brandon. Number one, that's a great one.

It's go post on Craigslist right now. Right now. You are looking to buy houses in your area. I'm going to actually add to that. Sure. I think we may cover this later, but go post on bigger pockets too in the marketplace. Post on the Craigslist or on the bigger pockets marketplace that you are looking to buy houses in your area. And then set an alarm on your phone every week to renew that ad.

I use Siri for reminders for everything. If Siri went down, I'd be in deep trouble. I wouldn't know one to change my underwear. Yeah, me too. Well, not that. But anyway. But yeah, so get out there by putting it out there. you're just opening the door up for folks who may have these opportunities for you.

So, you know, put it out there and it will return. I don't know that there's much more to add to this one, but it's pretty basic. But you'll set those reminders because you'll forget about it. Yeah, the review thing I think is key. Like a lot of people will go out and they post an ad on Craigslist, but then it drops down the rankings. So just every single week on Monday morning, 9 a.m., go and hit that renew button on Craigslist, and it pops back up to the top.

I talked to a guy yesterday. I was giving him a ride home, and he was telling me I was looking for a house for him and his wife, but he needs something really, really inexpensive, like maybe a mobile home or something. I said, well, go on Craigslist. And he's like, I never thought of that. I'm like, just once a week, go renew that ad over and over and over. And it might take six months, but you'll get a deal. Yep. Awesome. Good tip. Good tip. All right. Number two, branded. Number two, and this is something I say every week on the BiggerPockets webinar, which you should probably join me at next week at biggerpockets.com slash webinar. You can sign up.

But this is the tip I say almost every week there. So you've heard it before if you've joined. It is. Analyze three deals. every single day. And that might seem like a lot to you if you're just getting started. But I really want to encourage everybody to analyze three deals every day. Once you get good at it and fast, you can do it in five minutes, you know, a piece. Just a quick analysis of three deals. You don't have to necessarily buy them all.

But the more you analyze, the more you'll end up making offers on. The more you make offers on, the more you'll buy. It's just a funnel. So every day. And it's not just that. It's the more you analyze deals, the more you can start doing that stuff in your head. So you can look at a deal. you can see the numbers and say, oh, yeah, I mean, you can start getting better at ballparking,

speed things up. And, you know, never encourage people to just, you know, do it in their head before buying a property. You definitely want to run the numbers. But at least it helps you screen through. You know, if you've got a big, fat list of opportunities, it'll just help you filter out much more quickly. And by doing it every day, I mean, you make it part of your routine. A lot of investors say, well, I don't know what to do. I'm new.

And I don't know, I'm scared. Well, you know what? you can be scared all day long, but if you're analyzing deals, you're actually working towards your education. You're making yourself smarter. You're making yourself a better investor. So get out there and do that.

It's a great way to go. And you can use the bigger pockets calculators to do that. Find those at biggerpockts.com slash calc. We've got analysis tools for house flips, for buying holes, and for wholesale deals. So definitely jump in there and do that. Perfect.

I couldn't add anything more to that. That's great. Okay. Number three, You want to take it? Oh, yeah, sure. Okay. All right.

Number three, find an investor-friendly agent who also invests. A little caveat there, guys. So you want somebody who's actually an investor themselves. Pick up the phone, call five local real estate brokerages. Tell them you're looking for a real estate agent who's also investing in real estate themselves and ask if they've got agents like that. If they don't, keep calling. Keep calling.

Keep working the phone and get out there again to do that. the more likely you are to connect with these folks, the better your opportunities, again, for advancing your business. I mean, an active agent who is investing is going to be your best ally, especially if you're, you, I can't talk today. Oh, my God. They are your agent. Yes. I, you don't, like, my agent is not an investor currently. Well, he sort of is, I guess you could say. But anyway, like, you can do it without an investor, like an agent who invests. However, if you're just getting started, especially, I just think an agent who also invests is so valuable because they're going to help you see those things that you would have never seen.

So, yeah, I love that tip. I think that's very important for newbies. And really quickly, you know, some people may say, well, why not just get any agent? You know, don't they all know the basics of investing? And the answer is no. Straight up, you know, they don't require you to learn how to evaluate deals, how to, how to understand what investors are looking for when you sign on to bring them a real estate agent when you get licensed. That's not a requirement. So somebody who, understands the business, somebody who's attuned to the needs of an investor is drastically going to improve the likelihood that you're going to be successful. I have used bad agents

in my early days who didn't know much and didn't know how to evaluate. And it's not good. It's not helpful. And I think one of the leading causes of people getting bad deals is listening to agents who don't know anything. I think you're absolutely right there. A lot of times newbies will come to me and be like, my agent sent me this deal. Do you think it's a good one? And I'm like, that's like the worst thing I've ever seen. Like that thing would, I mean, like, it doesn't, yeah, anyway, I won't go on. But it's just ridiculous to say how bad. Because agents like, well, it's a beautiful kitchen.

Oh, it's such a nice front porch. Oh, so lovely. Yeah. And I'm like, you're a stupid agent. All right. There's hyacinths in the backyard. I don't even know what that is. Look it up.

Okay. Number four, connect with a local real estate investor who is doing exactly what you want to do. If you want to be a house flipper, go find a local real estate agent who was a house flipper. If you want to be a landlord, go find a local landlord. If you want to be a wholesaler, go find a local wholesaler. Whatever you want to do, go find somebody who's in that same niche and doing the same strategy that you want to do. And a couple ways to find them, you can go to a local real estate agent and ask the agent, hey, can you recommend me a good landlord in the area, a good house flipper? I just want to connect with them. You can do that. You can also go on

bigger pockets.com slash meat, M-E-E-T, not meat like beef, but meat as then I'm going to go meet you. Thank you for the clarification. Yeah, you know, I don't want people buying bigger buckets beef. It's, you know, it's not very good stuff. So go get some bigger pockets.com size meat, find something in your area who's doing what you're doing and check it out. Awesome. Great tip. Great tip. All right. Next tip. Number five, consider house hacking. You guys have probably heard us talk about this before. House hacking. Look for duplex, triplexes, quads, run the numbers. The essence of house hacking is you're living in a small multifamily that you can get traditional financing on, and you're living in one of the units.

The other units, you're renting out to tenants. You've got training wheels now. You're getting experience working with tenants. You're getting experience managing a property. You're getting all sorts of experience, just kind of being a real estate investor. The nice thing about house hacking is you've got somebody else in there helping you pay down your mortgage. So you're both paying down your primary residence and this rental property at the same time. it's phenomenal. It's a great strategy. People love it, love it, love it, you know, since we've

started talking about it on bigger pockets. And it's really probably one of my favorite strategies for new investors. Yeah, my first house ever, well, my first rental house ever, I did a live in flip, but my first rental was a duplex. I lived in half, rented their house half out. My mortgage payment was like $620 a month and I rented the front house for $6.50. I mean, it was awesome. I sell to pay obviously water and garbage and, you know, those kind of things. So it wasn't quite living for free, but it was pretty darn close. And, you know, I moved out of that property. When you move out of a house hack, you don't have to go get a refinance. You don't have to get a new loan. It just, you stay with it. And now all of a sudden, that property you were living for cheap or for

free is now a cash flowing property for you. If you do the numbers right, not all properties. And you rent the other units to other people. Yeah. Yeah. And I like to think of house hacking like training wheels for real estate investing. I said that already. Did you? Thanks. Yeah, were you listening? I wasn't listening. No, so here's why. So something goes, I don't think you did. I'm going to listen to the edit later. I think you're wrong. I did. I like to think of this idea that like, you know, you can't, yes, you could fail if you're

house hacking. You could do something wrong. However, like the fact that you're living there and there's hopefully really good cash flow because you bought smart, it just like it helps you so much. The risk is so much lower. And you have that long term, hopefully 30 year fixed mortgage or 15 if you want to go that route. I know.

I love house hacking. I think everyone should do it. Great. Cool. Are you done? I'm done. Move on. Fantastic.

All right. Tip number six. go to your local library. Yes, they still make those things, folks. They do. Local library. Go to your local library and check out three real estate books. I'm going to add to this. I'm going to say three real estate and or business books. Sure. I mean, at the end of the day, running a real estate empire is running a business. And I think business books are certainly helpful. You want to read those cover to cover before you watch another TV show. Get out there. Stop wasting your time. Stop. Just. Just.

burning and melting your brain away watching television. Yes, I know House of Cards is the greatest show on television today. However, take a break from it. Get out there, read some books. If you don't have any time, which lots of people are saying, oh, yeah, I'm too busy to read. Okay, well, then listen to audiobooks in the car. Well, hold on. Before you listen to an audiobook in the car, you've got to listen to the Bigger Pockets podcast in the car. But once you're done with that, go ahead and listen to those audiobooks in the car. You can go to www.biggerpockets.com slash best books for a list of Brandon Turner's 21 favorite real estate books. They're all pretty good real estate books. I mean, most of them are pretty good.

But yeah, get out there and make sure you're constantly reading and educating yourself through books and audiobooks. There you go. There you go. All right. Number seven, start working on your credit. Your credit's going to matter. Even if you want to invest with no or low money down someday, your credit is going to matter someday, start working on it today. So the tip today, number seven, is go to annualcredit report.com and go and get your free credit report. Now, that's not your credit score. It's just a credit report, but it'll show everything that shows up on your report.

And it's a government-run program. It's not one of those, like, cheesy, like, you know, late-night TV commercial, you know, get your free credit report when you sign up for a free trial that's going to charge your money. This is, like, actual, like, government-free, annual credit report.com. You get your report, look it over, make sure there's nothing weird, make sure you're, you're happy with what it looks like. You know, then you have an accurate picture of your credit, how the creditors see it. And then also go to credit karma.com, C-R-E-D-I-T-K-R-M-A, credit karma.

I'm a huge fan of that. Not a sponsor for the show or anything. I just really like Credit Karma. And it'll actually give you your credit score, and you can monitor that over time. It's not like one of those free trial things. They make their money off selling you to credit cards. But don't buy the credit card. Just go get your free credit score at Credit Karma and monitor it monthly.

Every month you should be going up higher than it was the month before. Nice, nice. Yeah, and just to reiterate, annual credit report to come, that is the site. Don't go to the other ones. That is brought to you by the U.S. government. It is free. You're limited to. I forget how many searches per year.

I think it's like three a year or something like that. Yeah, something like that. But, yeah, that's the one you want to go to the other ones. There's all sorts of catches too. But anyway, go there. Awesome. All right, tip number eight, join a local RIA club or attend. meetups put on by Bigger Pockets members.

So go to the Bigger Pockets website, look on the local real estate networking forum on bigger pockets for a local meetup, start your own if there's not one in the area, or real estate investor associations in your area. Now, keep in mind, some of them may be designed for, you know, upselling you, things like that. Not all of them are, but some of them are actually run as a means to upsell you. So be prepared. Go with your wallet.

it's out of hand. But yeah, get there and network. This business is all about meeting people. The more people you know who are doing it, who are successful, who are making moves, the better your opportunities to do so. So definitely get out there and join and or attend local meetups. Yeah. I'm a huge believer in that whole, like, you know, the famous quote that says, you are the average of the five people you associate with the most. I think Jim Rohn said it and Tim Ferriss says it. Well, I guess since I associate with you, I'm in trouble. I know, you are in trouble. Like, I think about who do I hang out with the most in my life?

Those are the people I'm going to be like. And so is that a good thing or a bad thing? You're going to be short and Jewish. You're going to be tall and hairy. I don't know. In your dreams. All right, number nine. Tip number nine, this is something that everybody who's listening right now,

if you're driving down you in your car right now, you can make this your today's tip that you're going to do right now at this very second. Here it is. There's two words I want you to eliminate from your vocabulary, especially when talking about real estate. The words, I can't. When you say, I can't do anything, it shuts your brain off. You know, I learned, you know, this was kind of brought to attention when I read rich dad, poor dad the first time and it totally changed my life. But this idea that I can't do something

shut your brain off. You're no longer thinking. When you change that word, change it to how can I? You know, I can't buy a property. Well, how can I buy a property? I can't afford the down payment. How can I afford a down payment? Everything you do change I can't to how can I and your life will turn upside down. I mean that for everything, not just real estate. You know, I can't grow two inches. No, how can you grow two inches, Josh? Oh, you can't. You're stuck short. You went there. Yep, you're stuck short and Jewish. Sorry. But that's okay. That's okay. You can be short. But no, almost every area of your life, there's a way to do almost everything. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't.

Ask, how can you? There you go. There you go. All right. And I'm going to add to that. One of the things I hear people say besides, I can't is the problem is. Oh, yeah. And it drives me absolutely mad.

The problem is, blah, blah, blah. That's great. Congratulations. You identified the problem. What is the solution? So I don't want to hear the problem is. I want to hear, all right, there's an issue. I found the solution to said problem by A, B, C, D, and E.

The other hand, it bugs me is when people say, well, sure, for blah, blah, blah, it works. Right. Like, well, every one of the podcast guests, people are. That works for Brandon. Yeah, well, you know, yeah, if I had a, you know, a rich uncle, then I could invest too. Or, oh, it must be nice to have that. Like, yeah, everybody has unfair advantages, everybody, including every one of the listeners today. So don't use that as an excuse.

You can do whatever you want to do. So go and do it. Well, I had a disgusting beard like Brandon and I, too, would have, like. I don't have license tics. Come on. All right. All right. Number 10, call up your real estate agent and ask them to set you up with auto emails whenever a new property is listed. This is just so simple.

Basically, give your agent your criteria. What is it that you're looking for? If you don't have a criteria yet, a set of criteria, then create it. Figure out what is it that you're looking for. What is your focus? Do you want single families in the 20 to 13th, 13th? $30,000 range if you live in Detroit. You're rich man. If you live in New York City, you're in a cardboard box. But call up your real estate agent, ask them to set you up with those automatic

emails whenever a new property that meets your criteria pops up. And then you can go in there and make offers or evaluate obviously first and then make offers. Real life story. Yesterday, I had an automatic alert come in from my agent because automatically it was listed. It was a fourplex for $79,000 in my area. Like absurdly cheap. I mean, even in my cheaper area. It was absurdly cheap. That's pretty absurd. Yeah. So I texted my agent right then and said, hey, I just got an email about this property. Can we go look at it? He said, no problem. So he called me back and we're going to go look at it today. Then he texted me like an hour later. This is yesterday afternoon. Text me an hour later. I said, hey, I called the agent. There's already multiple

offers. What do you want to do? I said, throwing an offer. I was like, I'm an offer before even looking at it. I'll put an inspection contingency in. But I know that this property is going to be a killer good deal. So anyway, I did that because I had an automatic alert. Now I'm in the running for it. And we'll see. So we don't know if you got that. We don't know. You'll find a find out next week. It actually, yeah, we'll find out next week or the week after, I don't know. All right. I can't wait to hear the horse. Or by the way, I made an offer site on scene on the property with 17 homeless people living in. There may be, but for 79,000 for a fourplex, I will fight the homeless man. All right. There you go. There you go. All right, number 11.

Number 11. Write your first yellow letter. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean it has to be yellow, but that's the phrase we typically use in the real estate industry. A yellow letter is a letter you write. handwritten, but not always, that you send to potential motivated sellers. And it might say something simple like, I would like to buy your house or I'm looking to buy a house in your area. I can pay cash or I buy houses for cheap or whatever you want to write. There's a lot of different examples you can find in the Bigger Pockets forums and what to write. But just write your first yellow letter. Sit down and write one letter. Very, very simple task and then go find somebody to send that to. That's your one tip for today. And, you know, obviously yellow letters, the idea of using yellow

letters is to scale. You're setting hundreds, maybe thousands a month. But just as an actual tip today, go write your very first letter and put it in the mailbox to somebody who might be a motivated seller. There you go. There you go. Yeah, there's always this fear to get started, this fear to kind of get that first one out. Once you do it, once you get that first one written and sent, you know, then you've overcome it. You've done it. Now you can figure out how am I going to do this en masse in order to get more opportunities. Of course, if you are interested in getting more opportunities, if you just want one property and you're done, we'll find that one property and be done. There you go. So there you go. Right on. All right. People love to call real estate passive income,

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by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Tip number 12. Choose a farm area, target market, desired location, and then drive to that location. So basically, you're trying to figure out where is it that I want to focus my efforts in looking for real estate for investment purposes. You want to become familiar with what is sold already, what needs work, gather up a list of property addresses and see when the last time they sold was. Send letters to anyone who'd owned it for more than five years. You want to basically, you want to know that area called. at the end of the day, this farm is your farm. This is your backyard. This is where you're investing. It may not be

necessarily right in your backyard, but you need to know anything and everything about that area and the properties that sell and rent in those areas and that or those areas. You should be able to walk into any property, look it over. And once you've gotten to know the area, without even trying, you can probably get within an order of magnitude, the price, the cost of repairs, things like that. That comes naturally over time by studying and getting to know your farm area. And that happens by seeing every property that's available in that area and studying what's sold and what's currently selling and things like that. Yep. And so closely related to that as tip number 13 is after you drive for dollars, that's the idea of driving around the neighborhood, you're driving

for dollars. After you're done driving for dollars, go walk for dollars in that neighborhood. I mean, we all could use a little bit more exercise in our life. We could all use a little bit more time to listen to a bigger pockets podcast episode or a, how many steps do you have, how many steps do you, man? Yeah. That's not good. But then again,

you're at like 12,000 over the last seven days. I lost my charger for my Fitbit in the move. That was in Charlotte, wasn't that? I brought it to Charlotte, but I brought it home, I think, and I just lost it somehow when I got home. But anyway, yeah, we could all use a little bit more walking steps in our day. So go walk in neighborhood and you just see so much stuff. I've been walking, like, trying to find a different neighborhood every day when I walk.

And, like, I always found, like, I didn't know the house was for sale or, hey, that looks foreclosed on or that is vacant. Like, you find all these things that when you're walking, you can really kind of investigate and go, you know, peep through the windows and do creepy stuff like that. And it's amazing. Yeah, don't peek through the windows and be creepy like Brandon. No, don't do that. Don't do that. That's bad. All right.

Yeah. And it's good for your health, right? It is good. It is good. It's a win-win, unless you're creeping like Brandon. I don't. I don't creep. I only...

Locked in the pokey. All right. Number 14. All right. Number 14. Set your keyword alerts on bigger pockets for five of your local city names. So if you're in Denver, for example, you may want to set it for Denver. Aurora, Golden, Westminster, Centennial.

I don't know if anybody other than Denverites know this, but set those local areas, those city names. That way, you're likely to find out about events. You're likely to find out about conversations. that revolve around things that are happening in your farm area, in the place that you're focusing on. And you can jump in and get involved, meet other local investors, you know, online, meet them basically in the real world, and get out there and improve the likelihood that you're going to get that local network built up.

You can do that at biggerpockets.com slash alerts. That's a biggerpockets.com slash alerts. And here's one more thing to add to that. we now have the ability to set a marketplace only alert. And so if you go to bigger pockets.com slash alerts, you could put in, you know, Westminster, right? You put that in and then you do marketplace only and then set it up. If you're a pro member, you can do a text message.

So here's what I did for that. I set up, what was it, Seattle and multifamily, a dual keyword alert. You can do two. And then I have it set. So it only alerts me with text message if it's in the marketplace. So what does that do? It means if somebody lists a property in the marketplace and it is a multifamily family in Seattle, guess who's the first guy going to know about it? This guy. So there's a quick

tip for anybody, especially if you're a pro member, you can get that text message thing. It is key. I love that thing. And you can use those text messages for any kind of keyword. You know, if you're a business and you want to know about things that are happening in your industry. So you're a self-directed IRA company. You may set up self-directed IRA as a keyword. Set it to text alert you. You need a pro account to do the text alerts. And then you, you know, you can be the first company, the first person to jump in there, respond, help people out and get your brand out there. And also, and also just to wrap up the thought, you already kind of mentioned it, but, you know, we mentioned earlier about local meetups, go to those local real estate

clubs, a local bigger pockets, kind of get-togethers. How are you going to know about those if you don't have an alert set for your area? So if you're putting on an event, put some keywords in there, you know, like this is going to be in Denver and if you're from Aurora, you should be here, right? So then people who have a keyword alert set for that, we'll get notified. So, anyway, Well done. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. You're welcome. Number 15. Come on. Number 15. All right. This one, the tip is, we talked about this last week with Chad Carson on episode number 141. But it was a great show. It was a great show. Yeah. If you guys have not listened to that yet, go back and listen to it. Phenomenal advice on how to find properties. But one of his tips was about eviction records. So, and I love this tip anyway, and this is just fantastic. If you're just getting started and you want to find a good source of motivated sellers, go find out who's being evicted. and talk to their landlord. Now, how do you do that?

Go to your local county. Whoever's in charge of the evictions at your county, every county is a little different, but go to your county, ask who's in charge of evictions. It's all public data and find out anybody who's had an eviction in the past six months

and then look up the property address or look up the landlord or whatever and go and do some research, call every single one of them or send a letter to every one of them. Those people, there's a very good possibility they want to sell because they're tired of dealing with these crappy tenants.

There you go. Great tip. Great tip. All right, number 16, check in. check in at the courthouse steps and learn when the sales are held. Then go to the next one. Meet everyone who's there,

find out who they are, what they do, ask them a lot about themselves and their businesses, be the newbie. They'll love you. People love talking about themselves. People love talking about their business model,

how they're successful, things like that. Courthouse steps are really, really great place to go, find people. And the cool thing is you can watch and see who's actually winning these bids. Study from the guys who are successful.

and then actually go and do your own analysis afterwards. Did they overpay? Figure up maybe why. Is there a reason why they're overpaying? What is it that they're doing? Because you know what? The guys that are winning, the auctions may not necessarily be the guys that are the good real estate investors.

So you kind of have to do your homework and figure that out a little bit. Yep. Yeah, but I just think I love the idea of just going to the courthouse steps. Whenever they have, usually it's like weekly or maybe monthly, whenever your courthouse does their foreclosure sales and just go and hang out there and go meet people. It's a great way to do it. it's free. All right.

Number 17. Let's see. Number 17, contact a local lender and tell them about your financial situation. So talk to a mortgage lender or something. And don't just tell them what you want, but ask them what you need to do to get to where you want to be, if that makes sense. So if your goal is to go get pre-qualified for or go get a loan for a fourplex, go tell them, I want to buy a fourplex.

What do I need to do? Let's talk now and give me a roadmap to get to where I need to be. be able to qualify for what I want. I mean, the lender's going to do that for free because they want your business eventually. And you'll get like this very step-by-step roadmap of where exactly you need to get to. It's just so simple. You had very few people do this. But yeah, if you're getting started, go do that today. Go meet with a banker somewhere and talk about what you're going to do. Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that local professionals in our industry, their jobs, you know, are to service you, to help you out, to give you title companies, you name it. These guys

want to help you. They want you to be successful because they want you. to then use them down the line. So don't feel guilty that you're going to call these people up and not necessarily work with them right away. Now, granted, you shouldn't be working with people and using them. You should use them with the intent of actually work with them with the intent of actually using them down the line. But getting to know them and building a rapport

is a great way to go across the industry. That it is. That it is. All right. Number 18? 18. All right. We're legal.

This is one, you know what? I'm sorry. What? What? What did you say? I don't know what you're talking about. No, right. Just checking.

All right. Go print out your bank statement for the last three months. Then divide every single expense, every one into categories. Then look and see exactly how much you're spending in every category on average for month. For example, Brandon spends like $8,000 in Starbucks a month. Seven. Which is why he needs to walk for dollars more. Once you've printed this.

out organized it. Decide where you can trim. We can all trim the fat guys. Everybody, it doesn't matter how rich you are, but we can all trim the fat somewhere. So decide how you can trim what categories where. Then write down your new budget specifically and stick to it. And I shouldn't be the one giving this out because I'm very bad at this. However, the advice is good and you should listen to me and do it and make me feel guilty because I'm not doing it. For help, we work with a company called you need a budget. It's YNAB.com. That's YNAB.com. You can use, you need a budget to help you kind of get organized and get this all together. And if you are a Bigger Pockets Pro member, you actually get a discount at BiggerPockets.com slash perks on the software. Even if you don't use that software, use something else, but get that budget figured out because, you know, a lot of people say, oh, well, I don't have the money. I don't have anything to get started. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. Well, everybody. could trim the fat somewhere. Yeah.

I've told the story before, but I'll say it again real quickly. Back, I don't know, probably five years ago, six, maybe seven years ago, I don't know. I had a, I don't know, 20, 30, whatever I was a baby. No, so my wife and I, one day, we, I think we read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Maker over, and I was, and he's all about budgeting and, you know, being frugal and whatever else. So I sat down, we worked out our budget. We took out our last three months bank statements and looked at exactly what we were

spending and we realized we were spending a thousand a month more than we were making. Like a thousand a month more than we were making. And so like I was wondering where all my money was going. How did you not know? Yeah, because I had a bit of savings. And so I like we didn't realize that like, I mean, more money was going out than came in. And so like we sat down. we created a budget. We even went to the envelope budget. Like we had this group of like 20 envelopes. It was like car fund and it was all cash completely. And like we had to do that to get on track. And we were able to cut like $2,000 out of our budget. Like I mean, we were only making like, I don't know, three or four thousand a month anyway. So like we cut like a ton out of our budget like

overnight and I didn't even notice any change. It was just like subtle little things here and there made a drastic difference. And that really was like kind of a starting point between like where I was being totally irresponsible with my money to where I am today, which is still fairly irresponsible with my Starbucks money. By the way, is that money still buried in your backyard like, beep, beep, it is. It is still all buried there. That's what I do with my money. I'll be there with my Yeah, no problem. All right. So that connects to tip number 18 and then connects to number 19, which is use that extra money that now you have because you have a budget and set up automatic transfers from your checking account to your savings account the day after your paycheck comes in. So whatever, however you make money, the next day, take all the money out. So for example, if you make $4,000 a month and when you did your budget, you figured out you could live on $3,200 a month. Automatically deduct that $800 a month and go throw it in the savings account because that is going to to be your down payment in the future or it's going to be your reserves when you get into investing. You need money to invest in real estate, whether or not you use somebody else's or not,

you should have some kind of financial foundation. And so start that today, set up that automatic withdrawal from your account. And it'll be gone. You won't even notice it missing, but your net worth is going to start growing. Hey, Brandon. Yeah. If somebody wants to start investing, though, with low and no money, how might they start? You know, it's not possible. Next one. Just kidding. All right, you can get the book on investing in real estate with no and a low money down, which is all about the different strategies that I've used to invest using other people's money. You can get that at biggerpockets.com slash no money. Right on.

Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. And by the way, you can get anything that's in that book. You can find for free on BiggerPockets.com. You just have to do the work and dig around. If you want it all in one little book, it is a powerful book. People seem to like it. It's a powerful book. Right on. All right. Number 20. We were almost done. We are almost done. And I like number 20 a lot. I actually did a lot of this in my early days.

Yeah. Well, can I do it? No, you can't. All right. Start watching YouTube or this old house reruns. Watch all those flip shows. Watch as much as you can about, you know, on video and television about what's going on the real estate business, on people kind of working in real estate.

Chances are if you've never owned a property and have no tools, no knowledge, these things are going to help you out a little bit. Now, granted, keep in mind that many of the flipping shows and many of the scripted programs on television are going to have lots of nonsense in there. However, you start to learn a few things. This whole house is amazing. Yeah, I love this. The tutorials are phenomenal.

You can go to their website and they've got great tips and tutorials there. Go on YouTube. Anytime I need to do something in my house, I go on YouTube. I look up videos on, you know, how to fix a swamp cooler, how to, you know, whatever it is. How to tile. I don't actually end up tiling. I hire it out. But it's good to know the basics of how to do something. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of this old house. I wish I could watch more of it, but I don't watch much TV anymore. But that was one of my favorite shows. I love that show. So, all right. Number 21. We're almost, we're almost done wrapping up. Number 21 is begin today educating yourself on financial literacy. So what that means is understand the difference between like operating expenses and capital. expenditures and financing costs and...

What are the differences since you're talking about it? We're not getting into that right now. Just take six seconds. Okay. So capital expenditures, also known as CAPX, are those big items that happen every so often, like a parking lot or a appliance as a roof. Well, the parking lot needing to be repaid. Yeah, repaid. Those big items. Operating expenses are more of like, what does it take to maintain your property on an ongoing

basis, the repairs, the maintenance, the vacancy, stuff like that. And so those are all expenses that you have to. deal with. And things like, I mean, yeah, understand how to figure out cash on cash return and all that good stuff. So if you're wondering how that all kind of works, there's an excellent book by one of our former guests on the podcast, one of our very early guests named Frank Gallinelli. He wrote a book called What Every Real Estate Investor needs to know about cash flow and 36 other key financial measures. And when I first started investing, that was one of the early books I read. And it just gave a really good foundation for what all those things mean, cash on cash.

IRL, all that stuff. It's a great book. Great book. And we've got tons of articles on all those measurements, any of the terms that you just heard. If you just go on bigger pockets, search for the terms, you'll find articles and articles and articles all about it.

So check it out. All right. We're here. It's sad. This is the end. This is the end. This is the end. The doors, man.

I don't know. You don't know it. You don't know. Oh, well. All right, number 22. You're too young. Yeah. Yeah, the doors.

What? Didn't a Val Kilmer play? Oh, I don't know. Man, really? That's all I know. Number 22, listen to the other 141 podcasts on Bigger Pockets. Now, seriously, guys, these shows are awesome. Maybe not this one when it's just Brandon and I.

You know, they're not as good as when we bring on amazing guests. They're okay. But you guys, I mean, if you haven't listened all the way through, we have some unbelievable shows. We've interviewed some incredible people. And it doesn't matter what your experience level. I mean, I've spoken to folks who've been in the business for decades who say even the early shows, the shows, not the early shows, but the shows with the newbies are helpful.

They help to kind of reinvigorate, re-motivate, things like that. So listen through. If you haven't done that already, check out the rest of the BiggerPockets podcasts at BiggerPockets.com slash podcast. And they could listen to another set of podcast somewhere. too, right, Brandon? Like the Ask BP? Yeah. So the Ask BP podcast was a daily show. We're taking a break from it right now, but we went 100 episodes. Everyone just answering a question. So if you want to read those or listen to them or watch them on YouTube, go to BiggerPockets.com slash Ask BP. And also if you subscribe to that in iTunes, you'll know when the new episodes come out again. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. I'm going to add tip 23. It's totally self-serving on the rest of this. But number 23, the bone. If you're not subscribing to our YouTube channel, subscribe to our YouTube channel. We put out a fair amount of new content on YouTube, and you can go to YouTube.com

slash bigger pockets and subscribe and get all of our new video content whenever it comes out by doing that. That was kind of like 22 and a half. Yeah. So we could title as 22 and a half tips. There you go. There you go. All right, man. We just came up with the title.

Good job. Nice to do. Yeah. You want to take us out? Yeah. It's a little short. but let's get out of here. That's what she said.

Wow. Really. Sorry. All right. Yeah. Get it to collect yourself. This is a family show. Aren't you a youth minister?

I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't say anything. What? All right. I apologize for my child of a co-host. But with that, I hope you enjoyed the 22 tips, guys. We love you guys.

We love that you guys. listen to us and put up with our nonsense every single week. And some of you yelled at us and some of you love us. But, yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks for coming back. Definitely, please share Bigger Pockets. Share this podcast with your friends. Let people know about us. Put it on your social media. Put on Facebook. Hey, I love Bigger Pockets podcast. Hashtag, Brandon, I need something clever. Nothing. I can't think of it. Oh, I can't think on this bar. Stag, Brandon, I need something clever. That's the, that's the hashtag right there. All right, there you go.

Brandon, I need something clever. We'll start looking for that one. Share the podcast. Get it out there. Help spread the word, guys. And thanks for being a part of our world. I have one more. I have another half tip.

Oh, for Christ's sake. Come on. This is the end. This is my last thing I'm going to say today. This is the rambling clothes. No, this is really good. So, okay, so when you, people are listening to this right now, they're like, okay, well, I got a couple good ideas.

There's probably six people left listening right now. Probably, right? But they're like, I got a couple good ideas. I'm going to do this one or this one, right? And then they're in their car driving to work. And then they get to work and they're like angry at their boss and their coworkers. And they forget everything. And then they go home.

Why is everybody angry at their bus? I don't know. People are always angry at their bus. And so here's my tip. I want you guys to go on the show notes page for this show. And in the comment section, I want, we're going to hold you guys accountable here. I want you actually in the comment section, write which tip you're going to do today. So go to bigger pockets.com slash show 142.

That's S-H-O-W-142. and in the comments section, say, I'm going to do tip whatever. You can also review the whole list right there of all these tips. You can even print out a little worksheet that we put together for you. And I think that's my final tip. There you go. You know, it's funny. This last week, we had a comment on one of our videos on YouTube.

And it was the comment of the week. It was Bigger Pockets, colon, pissing off employers since 2004. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. We take some pride in that. I mean, we want you to be good at work, but, you know, we want you guys to do well, become financially independent. And, you know, maybe someday leave your jobs if you so desire.

So that's it. All right, guys. Well, it's been a lot of fun. Thanks for listening. Sorry for making you put up with all the bligety blas that I couldn't get out of my mouth. And I'm sorry that I had Brandon as my co-host yet once again. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. All right, guys, have a great week. We'll see you next week on the bigger. We'll be there for you next week. I still can't do it on the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm Josh Dorkin, 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 BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. And no, I'm not drunk. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand-new construction homes, 10% below market value,

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