BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 209: Flipping 83 Homes in the Last 18 Months with Kevin Carroll

Episode Date: January 12, 2017

Is small thinking holding you back? Not after this episode! Today on the BiggerPockets Podcast, Josh and Brandon talk with Kevin Carroll, a real estate investor who decided 18 months ago that he wanted to start flipping houses… and has done 83 flips in the past year and a half! Perhaps most impressively, Kevin did most of these flips out of state utilizing strategic partnerships — a strategy that just might change the way you think about real estate forever. Sit back and prepare to have your mindset expanded and let “big thinking” take over. In This Episode We Cover: How Kevin went from a straw-built house to flipping 1,000 houses What a bank-owned product is How he built a system that works What you should know about probates How to think like an investor instead of an agent Things that could screw up a deal The two components that make a deal successful Why you should consider holding costs Buying properties offsite Insight on quality control and scaling the business How to stay ahead of the flip Why he partners with real estate agents Why his partners need him His favorite deals and why The bad deals he’s encountered Thinking big when it comes to setting targets Who your friends are so important And SO much more! Links from the Show Path to Purchase (visit your dashboard) BiggerPockets Forums Gobundance Books Mentioned in this Show The Real Book of Real Estate by Robert Kiyosaki The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber MONEY Master the Game by Tony Robbins A Journey to Financial Independence by Kevin Carroll Tweetable Topics: “Everything is based on relationships.” (Tweet This!) “I’d rather spend $2,000 more and get the flip done a week sooner.” (Tweet This!) “One of the important things you can do for a contractor is to pay them immediately.” (Tweet This!) “Who you hang out with will dictate your level of income, your level of success.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Kevin Kevin’s BiggerPockets Profile Kevin’s Website (with his spreadsheet) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If we do that by putting $40, $50,000 into a house and then sell it back, I like to say it's kind of a win for everybody. The bank that sells the asset wins because they sold the property. They don't want it. The real estate agent won because they got, you know, a portion of the profit. I win. My investor wins. Home Depot wins. The new buyer wins because they are getting a beautiful new home.

And the bank wins again because they're getting a mortgage again. Like there is no lose in this situation. This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 209. 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. To the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-hosts, Mr. Brandon Turner. What's going on, man? Hey, nothing's changed since the last time we talked because that was like yesterday. That was yesterday. But no, things are good. That is not true. Not too.

Okay. There is something. Oh, Josh shaved. I didn't even notice that. He no longer looks like a homeless guy. This is great. Not that I have a problem with homeless people. I love homeless people.

But you are aspiring to be one. I'm working on it, you know. It wouldn't be a bad thing. Hobbo-shek, is that a thing? Yes. Okay, good. That's what I'm striving for in life. So anyway, how you doing?

What's new in your world? You know, still dealing with family chaos and all that drama. You know, unfortunately we've got somebody who's been pretty sick. And, you know, we're dealing with that. It's hard. It's very hard. And I get it, you know, how tough it could be on families. But yeah, look, work is good.

Bigger pockets had an epic year. and we're now into the week two of 2017. So hopefully all of you guys that are listening, hopefully you guys have gotten all your plans done for 17. You've started to execute on it. And if you haven't already done that, I definitely encourage you to sit down with your partner, your spouse, whomever else, yourself,

and really plot and plan what you're going to do this year and start setting goals for yourself. What do I need to know? Like if you've never done a deal, hey, I need to answer a couple of questions. What market am I going to be in? How am I going to finance my deals? what strategy am I going to undertake? Start figuring those things out, start putting them to paper, start planning and organizing them.

Speaking of that. What? That is a perfect lead-in. Maybe you meant to do that on purpose. Wait, there's a lead-in? It's leading to today's... Tip. Tip. All right.

It's quick tip, Brandon. Today's quick tip is we are excited to launch something that we just released here on Bigger Pockets. And it is called the path to purchase, or PTP. It's a new feature on BP that gives users an interactive step-by-step guide to purchase your very first rental property investment. Scott Trench, who's been on the podcast before, and he's a real estate investor. He's also one of our team members of Bigger Pockets. He actually, on this interactive guide, will walk you through every aspect of your first investment.

And best of all, it is free for all BiggerPockets members. So go to your dashboard, go to BiggerPockets.com, log in, and click the button. you'll see it there. It's about the path to purchase to get started. Pretty awesome. You guys are going to love this thing. That's great. It's great. And yes, there was a good lead in. But if you don't have an account on BiggerPockets, this is create a free account today at BiggerPockets.com and you'll be able to get access to that outstanding tool. And we've got lots of plans to improve upon it already.

So we're really excited. And then those of you who have done deals already, you know, what are you going to do next? How are you going to scale? Yeah, and you should try it out. Why not? Yeah. Cool. That is today's quick tip. You guys, this is show 209, the Bigger Pockets podcast. You could check out the show notes, biggerpockets.com slash show 209.

If you are a new listener to the show or if you've been listening forever and have not yet taken a moment to help us, the guests of the show and Bigger Pockets, we would love for you to take a moment to leave us a rating and review. Those ratings and reviews are really helpful. So if you're on iTunes, just click on leave a rating and review.

You can do that on Stitcher, SoundCloud, and other places as well. So if you have not yet already, please do subscribe to the show. There are two kinds of real estate investors, those who have reviewed their insurance, and those who think that they have. Most don't realize their coverage wasn't built for how they actually invest. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC-held properties. These gaps surface only when filing claims.

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Today's show is awesome. I'm really, really pumped. This guy is really scaling his business. It's fantastic. All right, guys, today's guest is Kevin Carroll. Kevin lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two kids. He's been in the real estate business for eight years. Kevin and his team have sold almost a thousand units in that time as a real estate agent

and his team and has flipped 83 homes in just the last 18 months. In order to do that, Kevin has built a real estate unit. cool system, and we're going to talk about that and dig in on how he made that happen. So listen up. It's pretty cool. And let's get to this. So, all right, Kevin, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Yeah, thanks, guys. Yeah, this should be fun. So I know your story already, Kevin, a little bit because you and I have been buddies for a little while, but the rest of, yeah, the rest of the BP audience doesn't know who you are where you came from. So why don't we just start there? Somebody forcing that upon you? I like, I mean, does Brandon have something against you or

something? No, no, not at all. So let's hear the story. Where'd you come from? How'd you get into real estate? I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, and I grew up in Northeast Ohio, and I left Ohio. I had a business there, and I sold it, and traveled the country, and I found

a piece of land out in Tows, New Mexico, and I moved out there, and built a straw bail house out of mud and straw, off the grid. Wow. Yeah, so taxes are five bucks a year, so it's pretty steep. Yeah. Oh, my God. $0.50.

Twice here, yeah. Let me ask, because I don't know much about it. I knew you lived in like a weird house down there, but like... This is in Taos, not like, you know, mid-Africa or anything. It's in Taos. It's off the grid, like out by the Earthships out off past the Gorge Bridge and stuff out there. So, yeah, I met a buddy there that knew a lot about natural building, and I know how to piece together a house. So between the two of us, we figured it out and out there in the desert.

And there's no code or anything. It's just totally unpermitted. Yeah. We'll need photos for the show notes, by the way. You got to send us something. We've got to see this thing. Yeah, that's awesome. So it's got straw bill walls and it's passive solar design.

So even in the middle of the winter, with no heat, it will not freeze. It won't get below 40 in there. So it's pretty neat. Yeah. So actually, we say straw built. Like you're talking about real like straw bills. Yeah, like, yeah. Hay and mud.

Two foot thick walls, yeah. Wow. It's fascinating. Yeah. Okay, I do want to see some pictures. Yeah, I will. I'll send them to you guys. So that was fun.

And so from there, I went to Bend, Oregon to visit a friend or to learn about straw bale houses, building them to actual to code. And I met my wife. She was at a mutual friend's house of ours. And so then I went back and forth to Boise a few times and came here. And then I was going to be a business broker because I love growing companies and stuff like that. And in Idaho, you have to have your real estate license because there's no other really

place to, there's not very many business brokers here. So I got my real estate license, decided I'd rather do that. And I met my business partner at Keller Williams, the first week and shook hands. And we've been partners ever since. And last eight years, we sold about a thousand houses together. So, yeah, have a small team. And so that's like the, that's the short version of how I became a real estate agent. And cool.

Yeah. So that's awesome. I was going to say, so you became the successful agent, the thousand houses is nothing to sneeze at, obviously. presumably you built a great team in order to do that. But you're not just an agent, right? And you're not just a guy who builds houses out of mud and soda cans and straw and corpses. No, so a few years ago, we flipped a couple houses as well.

And then about a year and a half ago, I got introduced to a new bank-owned product. And the lady that explained it to me showed me where to look for them, how to find them. And then I have friends in a networking group that across the country I've known for a long time. And so they, you know, what I finally realized was when you sell a bank home property, you know how to flip a house. They've taught me how to flip a house. They give me the asset. I go check it out. I tell them what to fix.

I get it fixed. I tell them what to list of that. They list it way higher than that. And then I sell it. And then we lower the price usually and then we sell the home. So I've literally flipped a thousand houses for. banks and I finally realized that and I said like okay I'm going to do this and now make real money so a year ago 18 months ago I raised a bunch of cash and started flipping across the country

about 83 houses in the last like 15 18 months wow that's crazy yeah yeah can you explain because you said you know you learned about a quote new bank owned product is that something different than your typical REO not really it's you know that A lot of, so when I found this one particular product, it led to designing the system and then now we find them everywhere, right? So just like everybody looks for properties on the MLS and wholesale and off market and auction sites and at the trust. I mean, everywhere you can buy assets. That's where we're looking now. But it was just the catalyst to get everything started and going.

So, I mean, 83 houses in the last year and a half is kind of crazy. Like I had never heard of anybody that quickly scaled up. to that massive number. So, I mean, that's kind of what we wanted to drill into today is how do you do that? And like, how did you even, I mean, like, maybe that's even a bigger question is like, what, what made you instead of just saying, you know what, I'm going to go out and flip this one house. Like, why did you start with, I'm going to make a system to flip houses nationwide? Well, that's what we first thought was, well, I can do this in Boise, but I can only do six a year.

You're here. The market's so hot. There's so much competition. I mean, even the guys at the real, at the trustee sales, they're paying cash. are fighting over houses and they're making five grand when they're done if they're lucky. And like, that's not a way to make money. So there was just not that many here. And so we said, well, what if we go up north to Cordillane?

We know someone up there. You know, and like, oh, my gosh, I have a friends all in Chicago. What if we go all the way to Chicago? What if we go all the way to the East Coast? Where do we have friends? And we started looking everywhere. And then we said, okay, the asset managers taught me how to flip houses. So I just thought, like, what do they want me to do?

And then I just designed a very similar system for all my friends. And I took out a lot of the inconsistencies and the things that handcuffed me as an agent from their standpoint. I got to have three bids. I got to, you know, like I can only do a certain amount of work. I took out all that stuff that inhibits them from actually making real money. And I gave a lot of the power to the real estate agent my partner on the ground. So I don't look at them as a real estate agent. They're my partner.

So they don't make a real estate commission. They're not an agent to me. They're my partner. So they make a portion of the profit of the deal. And by doing that, it enabled them to think about this as if it was their own property. And so they make decisions differently because every dollar they make, they get to keep a part of it. So it took a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities off of me and put it back to them, which they should be making those decisions on the flight anyways.

Sure. So we designed a little one-page Excel spreadsheet, and I'll give it to you guys all for free. You can use it. I can analyze the deal in five minutes, now that I have this, and I'm used to looking at it. That's awesome. And then from there, we run the flip sheet. I buy the property. They manage the renovations, and they sell the property.

And at the end, we do a side-by-side comparison of what do we think was going to happen and what actually happened, and how can we get better? What do we do good? What do we do bad? Stuff like that. Okay. So good now. You're counting on people who you may not have ever seen them do this type of thing before, right?

So like, these are all my friends that I know do hundreds of bank owned properties a year. They have contractors and systems. Yeah, I know all these people. Okay, got it. So I just want to go back a second because, you know, this is what we do on the Bigger Pockets podcast. We try to learn and we try to teach people how to how to do things. So again, I'm going to pry. You know, we talk about this REO product, this top secret product.

I mean, you know, what's the difference between this and any other REO that's out there? Nothing. No, there's nothing. There's no real secrets to it. You know, it just was a new product that came on the market. And it's all out there in front of everyone to see. There's no secret sauce or anything like that. So if I go in the MLS, this is like an REO gets listed, it might be one of those REOs.

It's just you've kind of created this system. whereby you found a way to work with people at a distance to take those properties and rehab them, flip them, you guys get a piece of the action and go from there. Is that kind of the just? Okay. Yeah. I mean, everything is based on relationships, right? So some of these, this product is out there for everyone to see.

But, you know, if you buy a bunch of them, they give you more information than everyone else has. This is the way the world works. Yeah. So, I mean, we just have VIP relationships with some of these. these big banks and things that they know I'm going to perform. And so they give me more information. And I think that's, I think that's huge, right? When you can start doing this at scale like you were doing, like you can go to some of these people and be like, hey, you know, talk to me before

you, maybe, is that what you're doing? Like, before you listen with an agent, maybe come talk to me first? I mean, do you do stuff like that? Well, we could. I mean, you know, we have cash. We can close in three days. So we have options like that. And so a lot of the, and the more we're able to analyze these things, the better we can get. Sure. And if you focus more in on like, you know, bidding on properties, like at auctions, have you been in NOLS, like, hey, this is just everybody's? I mean, like, where do you typically find these things at? In Chicago, we wrote 100 offers on the MLS and got one. It just didn't work. And so, you know, different strategies in Florida, we've had really good luck with probate leads. Okay.

So there's a lot of people that are passing away in Florida, apparently. So, you know, it happens down there. It's like Florida, Arizona is like the death belt. Yeah. So, I mean, that's where you go, I guess. That's funny. So, you know, and there's a lot of people that just their mom lived there, their dad lived there, and they don't want to clean it out. They don't, you know, they want to go down and get a few of their things. And then we'll just take and, you know, clean it up and sell it. So we can be an option for people like that as well. And just try to think creatively, like what do they need, right? How can we help them? And just like anything, you make your money on the by side. You know, you got to get a good deal and then just work through the renovations and the sale and stuff like that. Hey, Kevin, we haven't done a probate show in a long time or a show where we've even kind of dug in on probate. So I'd love to, if you don't mind, because you brought it up, you know, get a couple questions in and find out.

Like, you know, for example, what is probate? Sure. You know, why are, you know, why would somebody in probate want to sell to somebody like you? And how do you, you know, how do you find these people? How do you market to them? You know, if you can kind of dig in a little bit, that'd be great. Yeah, I'm not a super pro at it yet. But the basic idea is, say, you know, someone in your family passes away, when somebody has to get rid of all their assets and distribute them to the errors and things like that, a lot of times it goes through something called probate and there will be a certain person in charge of all their assets.

So, you know, all that stuff is public record. So you can go and you can find it in the newspaper and then you can go down to the courthouse and actually find more detailed information on who the errors are and, you know, who's in charge of that. And then you can send them a letter. There's lots of probate letters. There's also lead sources out there, yellow letters direct.com, places like that that you can tie into your lead sources and then just send them automated like mail that that's just basically says, you know, sorry this happened to you. If you need to sell your home, you know, we have cash. We can close in a week. It can help you with anything you need.

Stuff like that. So and then you just set that stuff up on automatic drip and, you know, eventually people need help. And they get to a certain point. And they're like, bills are coming in and they need to sell stuff. So to get that stuff in, a lot of times they may or may not have other assets that can help pay for fixing things up. They may not. And they're just like, this is the only thing we have a value and we don't have any money to do anything to it. It's like, okay, well, here's a cash offer.

And you can just go about your day. I mean, when you're in that position, your thought is, hey, I don't want to sit around and eke out every penny. It's how do I get out of this thing, quick? How do I get cash in hand so we could start paying bills and start taking care of what we need to take care of, right? And the truth is, like, you know, if it was your relative or something and you have six brothers and sisters, if you sell it for $10,000 less, split up over all the different people, does it really matter that much? It was money you probably didn't have anyways. So, and it may just be easier to not have to deal with it. So that's kind of what I think.

And we just try to be a resource for them. So how do you do that without appearing disrespectful? You know, like my dad passes away last week and today I get this big ugly letter, you know, in the mail that says, buy your house for cash today. You know, like, it feels like that would be disrespectful. But at the same time, you want to let them know, hey, we're here for you. We want to be a resource to you. Yeah, it has more of a, we're here to help. If you need to sell your house, you know, call us.

We can help you. It's more like that. So it's not, you know, we're a crazy shark. It's like, what do you need? And we'll try to help you get that done. So that's just the attitude we take. Isn't that, I mean, that's. I think some of the most successful investors we've spoken to who market directly to the sellers,

you know, who don't buy it on market. You know, that tends to be the approach, right? It's, you know, I'm not here to take advantage of you. I'm here to help you solve your problem. So I'm assuming big part of your job is also being a psychologist, right? Helping kind of dig into these people. Not me. I mean, it's mostly my agents on the ground that do that stuff.

I'm just kind of like the orchestrator. So I found the money and I do the back end stuff. And then I just kind of give advice to them. So, yeah, if I do it here locally, I am. But like as a almost like an asset manager, you know, when you have 45 projects going on across the country all at once, like that's about all I, you know, me and my staff can handle. So, yeah. So I'm curious, how do you structure this? So, like, you know, you're an agent.

Obviously, you're licensed. So you're allowed to get referral fees. and things like that. It doesn't work that way. You have to think not like an agent. Think like an investor. So for me, say we do a house and we make $50,000 profit when the thing's done. The money, so the person that brought the money makes 35% of the profit.

I make 25% for managing it, orchestrating it, and then the real estate agent gets the rest. So they get the majority share of it. Got it. And they make 45%. 40. Yeah. Is my math wrong? He makes 25%. They get 35%.

They get 30% and they get 40. Yeah. So the real estate agent gets 40%. So they get the majority of the profit. It ends up being, at least if you're thinking like an agent, ends up being, if you do it right, at least two times the regular commission. And you have full control and I'm not a pain. And I'm not going to say I don't want to fix something like a normal seller.

We're here to make money. And so if you need to spend $10,000 to make $15 or $20, let's look at it and make a decision and move on it. So can you walk me through the process? Like you go, like, you know, I don't need all the details, but you know, you go and you find a property, right? Or the agent finds a property. Yeah.

So they go, they analyze it. If they're new to me and I don't have too many deals with them, I'm going to want them to get an actual full repair bid. Okay. And every once in a blue moon, I actually might do a home inspection, a pre-home inspection, but most of the time not. I just put a fudge factor in for that stuff. We're going to fill out the flip sheet, and then I'm going to need to see some after-repair value comps. So what's the thing going to sell for when it's done?

So there's two things that can screw up this deal. Your repairs go over, and your sale price comes down. So if you thought you'd sell for 260 and you'd sell it for 240, and you thought was going to cost 40 in repairs, and it cost $60,000, that $40,000 profit you just thought you had turned zero. Yeah, right. So that's the biggest thing. And then the next component is speed. When we did a lot of these, we figured out that the faster we can turn these things,

they're like hot potato, right? The faster you can fix them, the faster you can get them staged and photographed and on the market, the faster you can get an offer, the faster you can close, if you can use a chunk of money three times a year versus two times a year, it's a huge huge return difference. Yeah. So say the investor makes $10,000 profit on every house. Well, if he sells two houses a year with that same money, he makes $20,000, but if he

sells three houses a year with that same money, he makes $30,000. It's a significant increase in revenue. The faster we can do these things, the more everybody makes. I'd rather spend $2,000 more and get it done a week sooner. Like, what we've figured out is most houses cost us about $2,000 a month just to hold. So if everybody understands that, and we can squeeze a week out, can squeeze an extra two days out of something, like that makes a huge difference. Can you explain that?

Because that's something that people don't hear about on the TV shows. That's the stuff that most people who are just getting started in the flipping space don't even consider. Holding costs are a real, real cost. So what's involved in that holding cost? So in my flip sheet, it ought to be. calculates all that stuff. And it's not perfect, but it puts it on there so you understand. So when you go through the sheet, you're going to say, how long is it going to take to repair the house? And if it's a $20,000 rehab, it shouldn't take more than two weeks or so. If it's a $40,000 rehab,

it's going to take about $45 to 60 days, depending on your contractor. Because at that point, you're putting in new kitchens and bathrooms and stuff like that. Then you have days on market. How long is it going to take to get an offer? And then usually 45 days or so to close with a regular offer. So you've got this time frame. Well, you have insurance, you have all the utilities. If you have an HOA, you have taxes that are occurring monthly as well. And then any holding costs you have on your money itself. Explain that if you don't mind, just for those people who may not know. So for us to buy that many properties all at once, we use some hard money. And so there's a calculation in there for interest-only payments every month and the fees associated with that hard money.

So it's significant. On a medium-sized $200,000 house, it could be $8 to $10,000 total for that hard money. So for somebody who's going and flipping their first house, and let's say that property takes, not somebody who's working with you, but somebody who might be listening and they think it's going to take a month or two

and it takes four to six months, suddenly the carrying costs on that house, add up significantly and their profit could dwindle dramatically, right? Yeah. Yep. And so you have to have, you know, and any hard money lender is going to want to see you have at least six months of cash reserves to make those monthly payments. So you want to save up enough money that, you know, even in the flip sheet, we have a 15%

over budget for repairs. That always goes over that number. I mean, always. It just, it just, you start tearing into something and you realize, oh, man, this kitchen is shot and I didn't think it was and now it's going to be you know five thousand dollars more to rebuild it or the water heater didn't work and it it's a special one that's like 1500 bucks or things like it just happens every project every project ever done is like that like there's always like little things that yeah I would do at least a 10% if not 15% overage budget

because it things always go over that you just don't I mean you just don't you can't think of everything even the best contractor in the world can't think of everything when they're walking in and so you said the word a little while ago you you said a fudge factor. And I really like that. You just have to have the fact that, you know what, there's going to be things we don't know. Now, I want to dig in on this a little bit because you and I are kind of similar in this.

I don't usually do home inspections. I don't usually hire a home inspector. But a lot of people listen to this show are newer at real estate. And so I generally advise them they probably should when you're starting out. So why do you not and why might a newbie want to? Speed. I can't, I don't have time to order that stuff. Yeah.

I mean, I need my guys to walk in the house and 20 minutes later, tell me, me if we're going to buy it or not. So how do you, so, so I mean, what, how do you estimate those repairs? Like, how do you know exactly what's wrong with the property? You just rely on the contractor, the agent? The agent, yeah. I mean, if, like, they have similar experience to me, right? They flipped that many houses for banks. They know how much it cost to put a kitchen in. They know how much it cost to put a roof on. They know how much it cost to replumb the whole thing. Like, they know all those costs pretty, like just in the back of the brain. So they can guess pretty accurately. And with that 15% Fudge Tractor, we're usually pretty close.

Cool. And do you always, I mean, this, I was going to ask us a little later, but do you always make a profit? Or, I mean, how many of these deals have you ever lost money on? We lost money on three. Okay. Most of them don't turn out as good as we had hoped. But I don't usually go into a project without at least 30,000 profit. Okay. I won't, yeah.

So no matter what the deal is, if it doesn't make at least 30,000 profit on the flip sheet, I won't buy it. Because you can, you can get sideways really fast going into a deal hoping to make 20 grand. Yeah, it's very true. I know there's been times where I've tried to flip houses that were, you know, $10,000 profit. And then, yeah, I mean, that's one, one heating, you know, one heat pump and you're now, you know, it's done. So why do you think most don't turn out as good as you're hoped? I mean, why do you think you're more optimistic when you go into a deal than when you actually come out of it? The reasons I explained before, the repairs go over and the ARV, the after repair value comes down.

So you list it at 240 and it doesn't sell. Like, what do you do? You have to lower the price. You fix the whole house. It's beautiful. It's staged. So you have to lower it. And so we, like, we will lower it until we sell it.

So even if we lose money, we're not in the business to hold these particular houses in that model. And so, you know, all in all, though, if you lose four or five grand on like one, we lost a couple thousand. They're not major. I have one selling. Probably the worst one we did. I have it's selling tomorrow. And we've held it for 10 months. which is wow yeah so we fixed it and we didn't the guys in Chicago did it and they do an amazing job

and they just missed on this one so we fixed it and it was in a really nice area and the finish quality wasn't as good as it should have been and then it got 50 showings and no offers and I'm like guys what's wrong and like well the windows are old and the roof needs done I'm like take it off the market and put windows on the roof on it and put it back on the market yeah so so we did and then we listed it back, you know, higher, and then it came down and down and down again. Kevin, isn't there like a danger, though, at scaling at such a rate where, you know, I think there's kind of like a level, right? There's a balance between speed and scale and then quality and profit, right? So, you know, my question is if you, you know, sure, you can scale infinitely,

not you, but you being anybody, right, can scale infinitely. And, you know, now suddenly, you know, now suddenly quality control tends to get hit and profit, you know, you start to make less and less money or your profit opportunities drop versus if you were to kind of step back, slow it down a tad, you know, have higher quality control and potentially even make more profit doing less properties. Is there that balance? And how does that work? There is. And that's kind of the attitude we're taking this year. So we want to do about 50 this year. So not 85. And we want them to be quicker and, you know, shoot for nice, solid base hits so that, you know, we don't, I think I just went to a conference and one of the guys there said, we won today because we didn't buy a dog.

So we want to look a little bit closer at them. But there's a balance, right? I mean, if you analyze everything perfectly, you're going to miss deals. They just, they go away that fast. A lot of the wholesalers put properties on the market and they're sold within three hours. So you don't have time to think about it overnight and get your contractor in there and do all that stuff. You just don't have time. So the more you do, the better you'll get at that.

And usually, you know, in Boise, when I'm looking at a house, I can tell within 20 minutes if I want to buy it or not. And then put it in the flip sheet, five minutes. I don't know exactly what I can buy it for. And so it just comes with experience, though. I'm going to push back a little bit if you don't mind. I hope you don't mind. So again, like, you know, we've done lots of shows. I've talked to thousands and thousands of investors over the year.

And obviously, time is a factor. But, you know, again, I'm going to give you a little pushback on that, you know, time buying the dogs, you know, statement that you made. I guess my question, again, is, you know, if let's say you miss out, you know, you said you're going to drop 85 to 50, right? So certainly you're going to miss out on probably. more of those dogs, so to speak, ideally. But how do you then, how do you improve, if you're going for the same level of speed, how do you potentially improve your quality control at the same time?

Is that possible at all? Yeah. There's a lot of ways to improve your systems, right? So that hard money I talked about is really expensive. Yep. You know, in that deal, it's a $10,000 in there. That would be nice to be able to keep that. Yep. You know, so are there other ways to find money that isn't that expensive? Yes. So I'm working on finding ways to not have that expensive money. I have a national discount at Home Depot that like Fannie Mae and the big boys do.

Like we're working on strengthening those discounts so we can buy product cheaper. You know, working on getting the contractors, you know, in the different areas. So, example, in Chicago, Right now I have a $90,000 remodel going, biggest one I've ever done. And it's a two-flat, so it's one house on top of another one. So my guys on the ground are working with the contractors because there's two kitchens in that thing. And there's, you know, four bathrooms. But they're just on top of each other.

So when the guys that are doing the drywall, he's doing the top one, then he's doing the bottom one. Like he's coordinating those things so they happen quicker. Yeah. And anticipating that the city inspector needs to come out next. and anticipating those things so we can get them moving quicker. Because a lot of those, there's so many things that can slow down a project. Just making sure that all that stuff is you're getting on the list and you're getting ahead of stuff so that that's the key. So there's always room to improve.

And that's the thing that I'm going to work on this year is maintaining those relationships with my key people that I can get the product from. And then doing what I can here in Boise to find cheaper money, get cheaper products, make things go quicker. and so that we can all make more money. I love that answer. You know, I'm not trying to push too hard, but, you know, I think it's great. I think it's important because, you know, clearly you've thought this stuff through. And obviously, it's extremely helpful to somebody who might be new on their first or somebody who's trying to scale up to, you know, X amount per year.

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If you think property management is expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a five-figure problem because no one caught it early. That's expensive. A good property manager isn't overhead. Their protection against small mistakes turning into big losses.

And that matters more than ever in this economy. That's why I like mine. Unlike other property managers, Mind manages your property like an investment. They obsessively measure the things that matter for your bottom line. Things like occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score, and they have the results to prove it. Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is much cheaper than learning the hard way. Yeah, you know, one thing you mentioned a second ago too is this idea of you got to stay ahead of the flip.

And I found if there's anything that's, I mean, I'm really slow at flipping. I'll admit that. Like when I flip a house, like I just got done with a flip one of our most successful ones. But I mean, it was a $40,000 rehab. It should not have taken that long. But it took four or five months just to rehab the thing. And I look at, and I had one contractor doing the whole thing. And I look at why.

And I realize, like, so much of what I do when I flip. And a lot of newbies make this mistake, too, is that we don't get ahead of the flip. And I'm not first admit, I'm not the world's best flipper because it's more like, okay, now we're done with this section. Now what do we do next? And then it's like, okay, well, oh, next we got to get the drywaller. Better call the drywaller. Oh, I'm three weeks out. Okay, well, wait for you to, you know,

then the house that's empty for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I'm bad at that. How do you stay ahead of it? Here in Boise, in particular, when I do a flip, I have like three or four main contractors that I use for everything. One of the keys, one of the most important things you can do to a contractor is pay them immediately. Yeah.

So I've been a big proponent of that forever. If a guy gives you a bill, you give them a check right then. Yep. If a guy faxes you an invoice at midnight by 8. day the next morning the check sitting on my desk ready for them. And the reason you do that is because if you call that drywaller and you say, hey Joe, I need you to come over tomorrow and do that drywall, he says, okay, I'll stop what I'm doing and do that for you because I know I'm going to get paid immediately. Yeah, that's great advice, by the way. So I've done that for my whole

life and we've found that it, especially with smaller contractors that, you know, they don't want to remember that people owe them money. They don't have a full-time bookkeeper. They can't, Yeah. They're not good at that. They're good at doing their skill. So we make the invoices for them. We pay them. I mean, we just make their job easy, so they don't have to do that stuff.

So when we do a flip here, if it's like a $25,000 fix, you know, 900 small items in the house, I don't even get a bid for my contractors anymore because I have done business with them for so long. What do you mean you don't get a bid? You just, they keep going. Yeah, they just, they, I've done so much work with. these guys. I know how much they're going to charge. And so I just say, get all eight of your guys and get over that house. You know, and I give them as much notice as I can. And they get over there. And those guys, it's amazing. They, like, so this is like my handyman guy that does like all kinds of

stuff. Their crew works like a fine-tuned machine. He's just like the screamer guy that just screams in different directions. And they grub out the house in like four hours. All the carpets are ripped out. Like, if we're taking out cabinets and stuff, that stuff is in their dumpster. I mean, and they got one guy over here painting, one guy fixing this light switch, one guy going to the store to get new parts. You know, some guy mowing the lawn, one guy trimming the weeds. And that, we just pound on it until it's done. So that project for us would take about 10 days. I mean, we just hammer on it until it's done.

I give him $20,000, like I give him a $10,000 check when he starts just to buy parts. And then when he's done, you know, I square him up the next day. Let me ask you on that then. When you bid a project, do you always have the contractor bid in, or even when you do bid anyway, do you always have them pay materials? Do you ever do materials separate because you can get a better discount at Home Depot or, you know, whatever? Or how do you work that usually? It all comes back to speed. So you can be, you can penny pinch and try to get something on sale, but it costs $2,000 a month to hold that house. Yeah. So if you hold up your project to save $50, you just lost the $500. Yeah.

You know, even more than that, you made this point earlier, and I think it was fantastic, where, you know, if you can do two flips a year or three flips a year, that's like, so I used to look at it. Yeah, huge. I used to only look at it in terms of what you just said a second ago, which was, hey, this house has cost to me $1,500. For example, this house costs me $2,000 a month. So, but I can save $2,000 by doing drywaller A versus drywaller B. So, but, you know, the cheaper guys a month and a half out. Well, I'll wait for that month and a half because it's going to save me in the long. No, it doesn't because I'm doing less projects overall.

I think that's super important of that. It's more than just holding costs too. It's holding costs and opportunity cost. Yeah. And, you know, are you holding up your project in the busy selling season of the summer? Yeah. Like, I missed the selling season of the summer and I have houses I still own now because I miss the summer selling season.

Like, oh, you know? Yep. So, I mean, and we're going at such a speed that we learn really fast. Yeah. And I think that's key, right? Like, you're always, I mean, even a guy who flips 83 houses, you're still learning on every project. You're still trying to figure out how to make it more optimized. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. Hey, Kevin, so, again, and I know I asked this before, but like, I'm still trying to see it. Like, you, in your market, I get you having the, you know, the screamer and dealing with all that stuff, right? And I know you said the only way to work with partners at a distance is to find guys who have done a lot of deals, right? But, you know, have you had a situation where you've had to stop working with one of those partners because they just weren't fast enough or to the quality that you wanted? Yeah. I mean, you know, you give somebody one and see how they do and, you know, and then if they do really good and they communicate really well and their contractors are on it and organized. And people are at different skill levels as well.

and people learn at different rates. So, you know, a good agent and a team is doing other things as well. But this now becomes twice as much profit as their other stuff. So if they have some resources, they can push them this way and they realize that they make more money doing it this way. And it's funner. You know, I love work with my friends and making everybody money. You know, one quick point to add on there is this is something I learned from you. And I kind of got it from you is the fact that you said you work with real estate agents a lot who do your flips.

and one of the reasons why, because those agents know a lot of people. They know the contractors that are good. They know the ones that suck. So even just to the tip for everybody listening to the show right now, whether you're a flipper, you want to be a rental property owner, whatever, talk to real estate agents for connections

because they know who's doing good work and who's not. They know who to call for the bank repos, all that stuff. Yeah, I've been relying on my agent a lot more since you told me that a couple months back. I can't, yeah, like a real estate agent is really the only partner I can work with because a contractor, you know, is really important,

but they don't know what the house is going to sell for. And it's way too complicated. Like the only person that really works, I made one exception, and he's a good friend of mine, and he did an amazing job. But other than that, like, it's really,

you know, the agent is the key component because they can see all the pieces. Like the contractor can see what it takes to fix it, but they don't know what it's going to sell for or what we can buy it for. Like that agent is the one that will know, that. And I never underestimate the value of a real estate agent. Some people think agents are, you know, are not useful. But these guys keep me out of trouble every day. They keep me out

of the bad neighborhoods. They keep me out of areas that have too much inventory. You know, these guys have my back. And I, and I appreciate them for it. Yeah. Nice. So what's the main reason, Kevin, that people would want to even work with you. I mean, if you're taking 25% of the profits, they're getting, I mean, the money guys getting a bunch of money, they're getting 40 at the end of the day. Why not just go do it themselves? They don't need you, right? Or why do they need you? Go ahead. If you have $10 million, go ahead. So you think it's the financing. It's usually the financing. You know, most people don't have the money. And, you know, it's that or they don't have access to the deals or the systems or the knowledge. Or, you know, for them,

there's zero risk. I'm taking all the risk. Yeah. And if they have access to more deals, usually, you know, they cap out it. They don't have, like, even me, I don't have enough money to do 100 deals or once. So, if they... I'm disappointed by that. They'll get there. The thing is, there's no risk and there's a lot of reward for them, and they can do this at more scale.

So, you know, we have 10 houses with a couple of different people right now, and they're doing them in mass. And so they can leverage those to their team. They can just add it into their... their pile, which is, you know, it really gives a lot of more revenue. And then they get access to more deals as well through some of the systems I have and things like that. So that's essentially why you would be a good partner is because you've got the systems, you've got access to the financing, and you can help them improve upon everything that they're doing. Yeah. I like that.

And that applies again also to people listen to this show right now. Like, why would somebody want to, you know, why should you partner with somebody? If you're just getting started, like I recommend partnerships all the time. For sure. Yeah. Find somebody who knows what they're doing who has a system, who knows the money people. Who cares if you get 40%. Yeah, don't go into your first deal and lose $30,000 and never be able to play again just because you wanted to keep all the profit. Get your feet wet. Go do 20 deals and then maybe do one by yourself. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So, you know, you've done a whole lot of deals yourself through other people. What's been your favorite deal so far and why? The easy ones are my favorite.

right? So we bought one in Boise and we made $60,000 profit in three weeks. And all we had to do to the house was put some new appliances and clean the carpets. I mean, like, that was an easy one. Too bad they can't all be like that. I know. I know. So the easy ones are good. Well, I really enjoy the renovation process and bringing up the neighborhoods. When you add curb appeal to a house and you fix it and you put brain. new kitchens and bathrooms in it and you bring it to a state that like a new homeowner is going to come into this house and they're going to have everything new is going to work good for them for a long time like I don't want this thing to turn into a bank owned again like my goal is to help bring up the neighborhoods so if we you know if we do that by putting $40,000 into a house and then sell it back I like to say it's kind of a win for everybody the bank that sells the asset wins because they sold the property they don't want it

The real estate agent won because they got, you know, a portion of the profit. I win. My investor wins. Home Depot wins. The new buyer wins because they are getting a beautiful new home. And the bank wins again because they're getting a mortgage again. Like there is no lose in this situation. Yeah.

That's great. That's great. Well, what about bad deals? I mean, you mentioned earlier you lost money on a few deals. Do you have any stories in particular where you're like, man, that was just a crappy deal? I've got one going in Renton, Washington right now. And so usually I've been. partner with an agent, but that one is a one hour plane ride. And my brother-in-law lives there.

So I got the bright idea. I'll just do it myself. So found it, a contractor on Craigslist, mistake number one. And then had him start renovating the project and giving me like text update photos. Well, I went there a couple weeks ago and it's a disaster. Other disaster. Everything's about 80% done and done shoddy. Whoops. So I gave him. Eggs list. Literally take my crew from Boise and drive there and fix it. That's what you're going to do? Yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah. January second, we're getting in trucks and we're going there and we're going to pound on it until it's done and then we're going to come home. Nice. Well, you still make, serious. Are you still going to make some money on it? Yes. It had the potential to be our most profitable flip.

That area of the country is the hottest real estate mark in the country. Seattle up there is smoking. and I got a really good deal on it, but I'm not going to make anywhere near as much as I thought because I gave this yo-yo a whole bunch of money for nothing. Well, I mean, you went outside your system. I think you tried something and it didn't work. Yeah.

But. So, you know, the lesson there is verify work with someone you know and trust, right? Yeah, not text pictures. Yeah. I mean, he was taking a picture of a wall and, like, the other half of the wall had holes in it and wasn't painted. I mean, it was crazy. And so shame on me for doing that.

Unless you try, right? I mean, like, in order to build the system, you got to test something, right? You got to do your first. Yeah. Despite all the deals that you've done, this was a first attempt at you kind of doing it in a different way, which is fine, right? You got to try. Well, it's, and for us, like, if we don't have to pay that agent 40% of the profit, we make a lot more, right? Yep.

So it was me saying, like, can we drive this from Boise without a local influence? and phase one says no. Hopefully that turns around. Yeah. But it, you know, it, and, you know, it's about, you know, I go back to the speed thing too, you know, like now I'm two months, at least a month behind schedule because of that. But, you know, I'll take my guys and our hammers and we'll fix it. Yeah. There you go.

And that's something we even thought about, my investor, I said, he said, what if you take your crew and you literally do that? What if you just go? You know, what if you drive? two days and go fix something and then drive back. Now, we could do it. So it's just like we're always trying to push the limits and test, test things. But never underestimate the value of a local realtor in that market. That is really important.

Yeah. So where do you go from here? You know, what's next? Are you going to keep going to keep scaling? What's the plan? I don't want to play this game forever. Flipping creates cash, but it doesn't create monthly cash flow. So one of my partners in Florida and then my business partner here in Idaho, we formed a company and we're going to buy a build a hundred unit rental portfolio like in the Clearwater Tampa market.

Okay. So that 100 unit rental portfolio, we're going to do the exact same thing. We're going to buy stinky bank owns. We're going to rebuild them, like literally rebuild them from the guts out. We're going to rent them. We're going to refinance them. And then we're going to create cash flow. We're going to pay those mortgages off.

And in 10 to 12 years, we're going to have 100 free and clear houses. It's going to make, I don't know, $70,000 a month. That's awesome. And I'm done. I think I said this before. Maybe it was before we started recording to Josh. But one of the things that I've always, like, ever since meeting you, Kevin, that I've liked is you think so much bigger than the, like, than I do. You know, like, I'm going to go buy a rental property.

You're like, I don't think I'm going to build a system that's going to buy 100 rental properties. And then you think, how do I get financing on 100 rental properties? How do I find 100 rental properties? How do I flip 83 houses? I think that's a lesson to be taken from this episode is like, you know, it's okay to think bigger. Yeah. And really like think about all the people that you're able to help when you do that. Like every, I've earned a million dollars profit for my partners this year across the country, for my friends.

So I'm helping them get wealthy as well. Yeah. That feels really great to me. That's awesome. That's fantastic. Well, that's great. And Brandon, to your point, you know, if I set out to, you know, obviously you need to crawl before you walk, walk before you run, but, you know, somebody like you who's got lots of experience, if you say, hey, I'm going to buy, you know, one property or, you know, six properties this year, you're going to figure out how to buy six properties this year.

If you say, hey, I'm going to buy 100 in the next two years, you're going to figure out how to buy 50 properties a year. Now, you know, the thinking that goes into buying 50 properties is very different than the thinking that goes into buying six properties. So you have to sit back and strategize, right? You have to plan and think things through. And I do think it's where a lot of people fail in real estate or any other business. It's in that planning ahead, right? How do I get there?

How do I plot the course in order to accomplish this? They start digging and doing, which is fine when you're kind of getting going. but in order to build something up, you really can't do that, can you? No, I mean, the systems are important. And another thing that's really important is who are your friends? So that's a really, like who you hang out with will dictate your level of income, your level of success. So that's a really important component.

So find networking groups of people that are doing what you're doing or that are doing things at way larger scale. A lot of my friends make four times amount of money I do, do four times amount of deals I do. So I'm like the, I'm like the little guy. Yeah. And so I learn from them every day. Awesome. I think that's, I think there's something to say about, you know, who you, right? There's that quote, you are the average of the five people you associate with the most. Absolutely. And it's so, it's so true. I mean, like, yeah, that's why like when I hang around with you now, like, I'm like, oh, I got to start thinking like this. How do I buy 100 properties?

How do I stop doing, you know, small stuff? And yes, I want to encourage everybody who's listening to this show right now. I mean, who are you hanging out with right now? Who's the people in your surrounding. Maybe you need some new friends. Yeah, maybe you need some. Well, I was going to say Kevin might need some new friends if he's hanging out with you, Brandon. I'm sorry.

Kevin, it's time to let go. All right. A little birdie fly away. I've got lots to learn from this guy. All right. So, so, yeah, me and Kevin are same, buddy. So moving on, let's shift gears here and head over to today's fire round. It's time for the fire round.

All right. Bigger Pockets Fire Round. These questions come direct out of the Bigger Pockets forums. Let's do this thing. Question number one. I like this. This is a good question. It's a good question. It's kind of a long story, so listen here. I'm in contract for a two-story house in Chicago. As part of the scope of work, I'm trying to decide whether to replace the vinyl siding on the property. The siding is in good shape, and the property needs a good power washing and touch-up,

and the color of the siding is typically a white color. However, two comps around the house have new siding and have trendier colors. So not replacing the siding will save me three grand. I have the budget there for replacing it. What would you do? 3,000 for vinyl siding seems like a deal to me. To replace it? Yeah, that seems cheap to me.

Okay. So if curb appeal is great, right? You need to get people to the house. If you have the budget to do it and you can justify that you're going to get at least 3,000 more for the house. And it's not going to take very long. I would do it. Or sell it faster for the whole speed reason. Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Yep. That's great. So it's not all about the money. It's not all about penny pinching. It's about getting that thing sold more quickly. Turnover, turnover.

Cool. All right, easy question. Where should someone find contractors? Call your local real estate agent that does a lot of deals and interview a couple and then go look at some of the work they just did. Or call one of the recent, the more due diligence you can really do the better. But, you know, if you have an agent that you work with, or if you're an agent, go in your office and find the REO agents, the bank-owned agent. that do a lot of volume or the regular retail agents that you notice that have flipped houses, get referrals from people.

That's how I would do it for sure. Don't go on Craigslist. Okay. Number three. Oh, I lost five grand last year by a Craigslist contractor as well. I try to avoid that now. All right. At what point would you advise somebody who is a real estate agent to actually start investing?

Because a lot of agents are afraid to invest. They don't invest in here. Now. Now. Now. Let me shift it a little bit. How do you convince somebody who's an agent to invest? I can't do it.

I don't have any money. I don't have any money. I don't know what to do. I mean, that's what they say. Yeah. So read books on investing in real estate. Everyone you can find. Listen to a podcast.

Like maybe some bigger pocket podcasts. Surround yourself with people that are doing it. to mentor, get some coaching, like step up and step in and start doing it. Your ability to execute is going to be your biggest way to be able to be successful. You know, read, read, read, read, and then jump in. Love it. Love it. All right.

Last question was a question on insurance coverage on vacant houses during construction. The question is, you know, how do I know, how do I find it? do I need to get coverage on a vacant property during construction? Absolutely for lots of reasons. So you want to make sure the insurance has general liability protection for you. So if somebody falls and slips and breaks your ankle there, that you or your company is protected. Also, the house itself. Foremost is an insurance company that ensures vacant houses.

Also, Berkshire Hathaway has a policy. So you want to contact your insurance agent. and if they say they have no idea, call someone else. But foremost and Berkshire are both two companies that will insure vacant homes. And don't lie and say it's occupied or anything. Like tell them what you're doing with it and get the right policy. It's about three times more expensive, four times more expensive than a regular policy. But you've got to have it.

What did you say? You said, don't lie? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's called insurance fraud when you do. Yeah, don't do that, guys. Yeah, avoid that. All right. Last segment of the show, let's head over there now.

It is our Famous Four. These are the same four questions we ask every guest every week. It's only four Josh Dorkin, and then there's a bonus. Number one, what is your favorite real estate book? Other than your own, I know you wrote one. But other than your own, what's your favorite book? Yeah, I would have to say Robert Kiyosaki's book of real estate

or the millionaire real estate agent or the millionaire real estate investors. So those three are kind of my favorite. I know I only said one, but I have three. Cheater. All right. What about favorite business book? By far, E-Mith by Michael Gerber. And then if I had a second, Tony Robbins' new book, Money Master of the Game, that thing's huge, but it's amazing.

Excellent. Excellent. What about hobbies? What are you doing for fun in between flipping 83 houses a year? I have a wife and two young kids, and so we go fishing and camping and boating. Idaho is full of mountains and rivers and streams. So I try to get out in the wilderness as much as I can. Excellent.

Cool. All right, my last question. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail, or never get started? A burning desire to succeed. And then your ability to execute, make a plan, make a good plan, not a perfect plan, make a good plan, and then execute that plan and course correct during the middle of it. I love it. Awesome. Are you saying that course correction kind of means that you need to fix something?

So you're saying our plans are not all going to be perfect up front? Yeah. So make a good plan, make it okay plan, make any kind of plan, and start doing it. Yep. Yeah. I mean, people get stuck in over analysts, you know, analysis, and they just won't do it. They get afraid, you know, like, you just, you know, get uncomfortable. And you know you're growing.

Awesome. I love it. All right, Kevin, well, before we let you go, man, what do you want to tell people about how they can reach out to you? Apparently, you have a book. I was not aware of that. So, you know, give us a little info. This year, I decided to, I found a ghostwriter that helped me,

help me write a book. And so I wrote a book on, I'm flipping, and so I'll show you guys the little book here. It's, it's called A Journey to Financial Independence. and what I really wanted to teach people was like how do you get out of this rat race of life? You know, we're all working, grinding, doing our thing, but eventually we're going to get old and we're not going to want to work anymore.

I don't want to work right now. I don't want to work right now either. Wait, did you just say that in front of your boss? That's awesome. You're fired. Yeah, you're freedom. There you go. Yes, freedom.

Anyway. The thing. is like we all need to figure out a way to, you know, leave a legacy and to be able to enjoy our lives now. So if everybody's working 80 hours a week, are you watching your kids grow up? Are you talking to your family and your friends? Like there has to be like a balance in life. And so we got to figure out a way to make monthly income. The only way I know how to do it is with real estate because I've tried stocks and that doesn't work for me. And I don't know any other way. So I wrote a book on how, kind of what I talked to you guys about on flipping. And

And then using that knowledge to buy passive income rentals in some form or fashion, that creates monthly passive income. And that's what you need. If you have no bills and you had $10,000 a month coming in, could you live? In most areas, the country, you could. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.

If you want to find me, go to a journey to financial independence.com. Is that a journey to? Yeah, like the letter A. So A journey to financial independence.com. On there, you'll get a free, you can sign up to get my free. flip sheet. So on the thing I talked about today with my analysis on how I flip properties, you can have a copy of that for free on there. And if you want to email me or ask me questions, you know, I'm happy to help. And you're on bigger pockets as well. Yes, sir.

Cool. Cool. Awesome. And I did get a copy of that book. It's fantastic. So, check it up. Yeah. Awesome. You know, I live in Idaho and Boise and I'm an agent here, too. I have a full team. So if you ever, if you're a real estate agent listening, if you have people, Boise is crazy. People are grow, the town is growing like crazy. People are coming from everywhere. That's right here. Why? I'm sorry.

I don't want to be hated by another part of the world. Never mind. Yeah. No, I think it's still really affordable compared to other areas. They're leaving Denver and going to Idaho, apparently. Well, California, too. There you go. We have water.

Yeah, you have water. That's a good thing. Yeah, for sure. All right, Kevin. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, man. Really do appreciate it. And lots of luck on forward. Thank you, guys.

All right. Thank you. See you around. All right, guys, that was Kevin Carroll. Big thanks to Kevin for coming on the show. Yeah, man, this guy's really pushing the limits, huh? He is. And like I said, in the interview, I love the fact that he just thinks bigger.

You know, when I met him, we're both part of that go abundance group. We've talked about on the show before. And, you know, he kind of like, I don't know, made me think a lot differently about how I approach my business, especially when told me, yeah, I'm buying 100 houses in Florida. And you're what? Yeah, it's just like, I'm just going to go do that. Oh, okay. Maybe I'll go buy $100 or somewhere.

It's just a different way of thinking. I like that a lot. Yeah, I think it's great. And we talked about that, right? If you set your mind to it, in order to scale things, you have to think differently about how you do things. And so I love that. And again, I impress upon everybody who's listening to think about that.

So, yeah, man, great show. It's good to be back here. Well, we're not back yet. But 2017, hopefully, is off to a bang for everybody. And things are going well. and thank you so much for listening to the show. Again, this is show 209 of the BiggerPockets podcast. You can check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 209.

And if you are not yet a member of our community, of our site, please join today, www. www.biggerpockets.com, create a free account, jump in, start using the site, start using tools like our PTP that we talked about, the path to purchase, you know, jump on our forums, our community, start to learn, start to network, connect with guys like Kevin. get things going. So with that, let's get out of here. All right. Now way to take it out? Take it out. All right. For the Bigger Pockets podcast, this is Josh and my name is Brandon.

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