BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 257: But My Market is Too Expensive!” (How to Become a Long-Distance Real Estate Investor) with David Greene

Episode Date: December 14, 2017

Investing outside of your local market can strike fear into the hearts of even the most savvy real estate investor. But long-distance investing doesn’t need to be extra risky! In fact, today’s guest argues that it might just be the most profitable investing you’ll ever do. Today’s guest, David Greene, a San Francisco real estate investor and agent, shares his incredible process for finding, rehabbing, and managing properties from thousands of miles away. His approach to building a “Core Four” is nothing short of genius and will transform how you run your real estate business, whether you are buying next door or 49 states away. This is one show that could change your real estate strategy forever! In This Episode We Cover: What David’s been up to since the last time he was in the show How to find the right people to help you find the right properties How to seek out top-notch lenders Tips for offering value to people hundreds of miles away A discussion on whether newbies can invest long distance The “Core 4” team members you’ll need when investing in real estate out-of-state David’s thoughts on turnkey companies How to overcome the fear of trusting someone you work with All about David Greene’s new book! And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Podcast 169: Using Hustle and Persistence to Build Wealth Through Real Estate with David Greene BiggerPockets Podcast 254: Tim Ferriss on Real Estate, Becoming a Top Performer and His Tribe of Mentors Long-Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene Home on Discovery Bay, CA (House Hunter Episode with David Greene) Rentometer BiggerPockets Analysis BiggerPockets Podcast 248: From Shop Teacher to Multifamily Syndicator with Todd Dexheimer BiggerPockets Podcast 227: From Single Family Houses to $130,000,000 in Multifamily with Joe Fairless BiggerPockets Podcast 234: Tenants, Evictions, & The Dark Side of No Money Down with Ryan Murdock Books Mentioned in this Show A Curious Mind by Brian Grazer The ONE thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan The 4-Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller The Richest Man in Babylon by George S Clason Principles by Ray Dalio Fire Round Questions Out of town financing From NYC to out of state investing Help How does investing out of state impact your tax status? Out of state smaller properties? How important is it to have an in-state CPA? Tweetable Topics: “I’m putting a dream team together that runs on autopilot.” (Tweet This!) “The market itself is not quite as important as the success you’ll likely have in that market.” (Tweet This!) “It’s only risky if you’re lazy.” (Tweet This!) “You’re not going to make money right away when you start first doing anything new. It’s only going to be what you learn that will make money later.” (Tweet This!) Connect with David David’s BiggerPockets Profile David’s Facebook Profile David’s Company Website David’s Personal Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast. Shout, 257. This reputation of buying out of state became a risky thing. It is a different world we live in. And I talk about it in the book. There is so much technology has made available to us as far as doing your due diligence and doing research. When I buy a house in Jacksonville, it's not a lot different than if I was to buy it in my hometown.

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 investors. Without all the height, 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.

House to the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon Turner. What's up, man? Not a whole lot. It's the rainy season, which is 10 months out of the year out here in Washington. So it's nonstop raining. What about you? Do you know that we've been doing this show for about five years? It'll be five years in like a couple weeks.

Yeah. Do you know that every other show you bitch and moan about it being the rainy season? I'm working on getting out for the winter. You know, I'm getting there. We'll see. I'm looking at Hawaii as a nice winter destination. As my mom or somebody who is nagging me once said, you made your bed? I actually heard this really good tip a while back.

I can't remember who told me it. But they talked about like when you have kids, don't use the weather ever. as a negative thing. And I've actually been trying to do this with my daughter is like instead of, oh, it's raining. Like parents are always negative about certain things. It's raining. Let's get out there and enjoy.

Exactly. Yeah. When you phrase things positive, kids grow up thinking it breaks that cycle of always assuming that certain types of weather that our mood and our actions should depend on the weather. Yeah. Yeah. But what happens, unfortunately. And I've got this with my parents.

And if they're listening, they're going to agree is they get to an age. And I think it's like 60s-ish, maybe mid-60s. a little older, where the weather channel becomes their core channel. And I don't know, I don't know what psychologically creates that for us. But like now all they watch is Fox CNN and the weather channel. And, you know, and it's always like this, oh my God, it's going to be freezing. Did you know there was a hurricane in the, in the Caribbean? I did, but I'm not in the Caribbean.

This does not affect me. No, I feel sorry for those people who it does affect. But, like, you know, can you do something other than watch the weather channel mom? No, no. That's actually a lot what Tim Ferriss talked about a few weeks ago on our show with Tim Ferriss. You know, like shutting out the news sometimes because we can't affect it. So, yeah, exactly. You tell your mom that.

I want to see that conversation. I just did because she listens to the show now. So she didn't listen for like the first 243 of them. All of a sudden, she's into it. So now she's listening. And I don't know how the response is going to be to this one, but we'll see. We'll see. We'll see.

I think she'll like your accent. Mom, listen, stop watching the Weather Channel. Brandon concurs. I concur. All right. Now that we're going to get sued from the Weather Channel, let's move on. Oh, you should watch the Weather Channel, just not constantly. Geez, give me a break.

All right, Mom, stop it. We got to move, we got to move this on because I don't think people want to hear about your mom. mom. I love your mom, but, you know. We have, we got a great show, man. Today. Today show is important.

I would say it's not just a great show. It's an important show. It's a very unique perspective, one that I don't think. that we've shared in a long time. Or even at all. How many of you guys listening right now, go ahead and raise your hand unless you're driving,

keep your hands on the wheels. How many of you guys driving? I live in a competitive market where things are too hot to buy deals. It's probably like three quarters of the audience is raising their hand right now. Right. So today's guest is somebody who's in the San Francisco Bay Area,

one of the most expensive markets in the country. And he talks a lot about, he's been on the show before, but we talk a lot about how to still prosper by investing out of state. And he actually lays out a very awesome plan for that. So we'll get to that a little bit later. It is.

But let's first get to today's quick tip. All right, today's quick tip is actually related to that because our guest today is actually David Green, who will introduce in just a minute. But David Green actually wrote a book all about investing out of state. It's called the long distance or long distance real estate investing, how to buy rehab and manage out of state rental property. So here's a deal. We'll talk about it at the end of the show like an hour in.

But this book is amazing. And it is on sale right now. The day this podcast comes out, it is on sale. And if you buy in the first, I think it's 10 days, you're going to, you're going to to get a special couple bonuses, including a live online class with David, where we're going to walk through his portfolio and he's going to show you how he did it. It's going to be really amazing. Plus, there's a bunch of other really great bonuses you'll hear about later. So if you're going to buy it, buy it in the first 10 days. And if you're listening to this in the future,

buy it anyway, you're going to love it. So go to BiggerPockse.com slash long distance book. Biggerpockse.com slash long distance book. It's fantastic. Awesome. Awesome. 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, and the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what rent-to-retirement does. They're a full-service, turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered

with Bigger Pockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement to learn more. Here's the thing about traveling. If you buy food at the airport, a burrito, salad, bag of peanuts, you start wondering if you should have opened a savings account for snacks. So wouldn't it be great if you could actually earn money while you're traveling? Well, you can. Airbnb has something called the co-host network.

While you're away, you can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience to help take care of things. Communicating with guests, preparing your space, managing reservations, everything runs smoothly while you're off making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. 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. That's why investors work with NREG. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors.

understanding portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BPP pod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-PPPodd. Very good. You guys, this is show 257 of the BiggerPockets podcast. You can check out the show notes at BiggerPockets.com slash 257. That's BiggerPockets.com slash 257.

Hey, I don't know if you guys are listening all the way through, but I really, really strongly encourage it, particularly in today's show. We've got a segment called the Random Six, and today's Random Six happen to be easily my favorite random six that we've ever done. It's hilarious. So it's at the end of the show, after the music, all that. Yeah, listen all the way through. It's great.

It's pretty funny. Yeah. Good conversation and deep. So anyway. All right. So today's guest, guys. Today's guest, as Brandon mentioned, is David Green, formerly on episode. 169 of the Bigger Pockets podcast.

If you want to go find that, go to biggerpockets.com slash show 169. That's Biggerpockets.com slash 169. David Green, it's a police officer who began working a lot of overtime buying investment property back in 2009. He then began buying out of state when the market got too expensive in Northern California. He moved to Arizona, then Florida, where he buys today. He owns mortgage notes, shares in mortgage note fund, shares in three large apartment complexes, 25 single family houses.

He's also a real estate agent and was recently featured on an episode of Househunters, which is awesome. I watched that episode. I have not yet seen it. I was like, I was like, that's my buddy, David. I recorded it. Did he have the beard? I mean, really nice handsome beard. He did not have the beard when he filmed that.

But I have it on my DVR. I'll show you next time you come hang out with me. Oh, that's right. You've never been to my house. Never been invited. Never been invited. You're invited right now. Everybody heard of here live.

You're invited in my house. I'm coming. I'm coming. And some of his message earlier said he wants to be the Stephen Curry of, Is that Curry, Curry, Curry of real estate? Steffen, I don't know. Anyway, I don't follow basketball. Steph Curry, Steph.

Okay, Steph. He's great. He's probably arguably one of the two best basketball players alive. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, let's get David. You want to bring him in? Yeah, well, before we do it really quick, guys, this show is not just about long distance

real estate investing. You know, like we do focus on it, but there's so much in here that will relate to you no matter where you are. We dive really, really deep on relationships, how to foster relationships and why. they're so important. In fact, you know, frankly, this show should be a primer for probably anybody because, you know, when we talk about, I forget the, the exact quote, he used, what do you call them, the four pillars, the four, the core four. The core four. Yeah, the core four, your team, your core four, like, and how to use those core four to kind of

check each other, right? And as a result, to check you, it's, it's amazing. This concept is unbelievable. I definitely recommend everybody listen all the way through on this one because there's a ton of great stuff. So let's bring them in. All right. David, welcome back to the show, man. It's good to have you here.

Josh, Brandon, thank you guys for having me back on. It's not every day you get to be a guest on the very best podcast on all of iTunes. Wow. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Kissing up. You are really good at it, man. Really good. Yeah, that's great. For those who haven't actually listened to the first time David Green was on here,

I've been told by numerous people it is the funniest episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast we ever put out. The numerous people have told me that, yeah. Because apparently they made fun of me. I don't remember a lot of it, but I remember something about them. David, do you remember? I don't, it was, we don't need to go there. Brandon's not that memorable. Yeah, I just remember people thought it was pretty funny.

So go back and listen to that episode. And it was very informative. I'm sure, you know, I just don't remember it. Because it's been like two years. So we're doing a recap today. April 2016. It was on, not quite two years. But let's, let's kind of catch up, man. I mean, we're not going to give us the 30 second up to the show. And I will time you. And then give us what's been happening over the last year and a half. All right. So in the last year and a half, I kept buying real estate. I got really good at going into new markets and continuing the process that I had put together.

And we talked about the first time buying real estate in markets that made sense rather than my market, which doesn't. About six months ago, I took a leave of absence from the police force and I went full time into being a full-time agent and then investing from there. It's kind of got like a synergistic component where I can work representing people buying and selling houses and then also doing my own stuff too. And that's been awesome right now. I'm sitting at number one in my office out of about 100 agents. It's only been six months and I'm building up a team. And I've kind of just dove in, you know, two feet first right into the world of real estate and immersed myself in it. And I'm loving it. You know, guys, I don't want to sit here. David went 38 seconds.

If you can't follow the rules, then I don't know if I want to be a part of this show. Yeah, I don't know. We laid some very specific ground rule. Now that I'm not a cop right now, I'm just kind of said, screw the rules. I'm doing whatever I want. Oh, good. You don't have to follow the rules now. Whoa.

Whoa. All right. Hey, so you are in a leave of absence as a police officer. Tell us up to the last show, though. You know, what kind of deals were you doing? What kind of real estate were you involved in? I know you were an agent. You were starting to do some bigger things.

Fill us in on that, too. So up to the last. last show what I was doing? Yeah. Just so people who haven't heard 169. I live in California in the San Francisco Bay Area and I was buying in Arizona because California just got to be too expensive. So I kind of slowly learn how to put a team together in other states where it makes sense to be investing where you have strong price to rent ratios, where you're more likely to find properties that work for buying, hold rentals. I still flip houses where I live, but it just doesn't make sense to try to buy a rent. So you're going to lose money on anything you buy in the Bay Area right now. And then after the last show I did with

you guys, I got a little more kind of dialed in and focused on buying in Florida. And I started buying about two houses a month out there and really kind of perfected that system that I had of going into a new market, finding the people that I need to be investing there, fostering those relationships, getting really dialed in, finding the best of the best and putting a dream team together. And then it kind of just runs on autopilot where you've got a system in place where you can be buying houses and not having to do a ton of work. And from there, I kind of ventured in Arkansas. So I started buying houses in Arkansas. And now I've, I've done. done it enough times that I feel like I can go anywhere in the United States that I want.

And I can put a team together and start buying rental property and making money. That's awesome. So you went from Florida to Arkansas. That's kind of, uh, our Kansas, Josh. It's Arkansas. Yeah, good job. Wait a way to. Is that?

All right. So what I want to do is I want to actually spend this show from a very selfish standpoint, as most of these episodes are. I want to talk to you about buying out of state because for most, yeah, for most people, especially those who live on the coast, meaning. anywhere, you know, on the left or right coast. It's too hard to find deals. It's really, really getting tough.

And even in my market where I used to buy properties for 20, 30 grand, like, everything's overheated. But I found that, like, there are markets across the country, especially in some areas of the Midwest and apparently, you know, you get in Florida. You can still get really well-priced properties. So is that okay? We just spend this show talking about how to invest out of state. Is that all good with you guys?

I don't need to ask for permission from Josh. I think it's good. I think it's good. I mean, given this thing here. Given the fact that we're launching a book today on this topic. We are launching a book on the topic. And so, yeah, let's, I mean, let's dive in and kind of figure that out. So I'm going to just jump in right here because you started going crazy with all these details. And I want to hear about it. Florida, two houses a month, putting a dream team together. Why Florida? So obviously something about that market grabbed you.

So maybe why did that market grab you? and how does somebody find a market like Florida for you? And obviously Florida is not a market. It's a state. There's markets within Florida that you're focused on. But how does somebody kind of decide what market to look at to consider if they're thinking about buying out of state? So I do talk about that in the book quite a bit because that's one of the questions I

get asked more than others is people want to say, what market do I want to go into? And then once they decide their market, they want to go put their team together. And you can do it that way. What I've found is that real estate is real estate. If a property cash flows, it will cash flow. If you can add equity, you'll add equity. The market itself is not quite as important as a success you're likely to have in that market. So for me, the hardest part that I have in real estate investing, we talked about this on

the last show, is finding a lender. Once you have more than 10 finance properties, it's very difficult to find a lender. So I found someone that had a lender in Florida that would let me borrow. And then that lender had referrals as far as real estate agents that could find deals. Those agents had referrals as far as what property managers were good. and those property managers had referrals as to what contractors I needed. And once I have those four pieces, I can buy anywhere. So really, I kind of backed up into Florida because they just had the people that I needed.

And then when I look closer into the market, I realized, how do I make this market work? Right. So over there, there's a lot of high cash flow properties and there's a lot of properties that are still in foreclosure. They haven't gone through a lot of their inventory. So it's very easy for me to find stuff that's in really bad shape. Maybe someone was trying to flip it and stopped halfway through or it's been sitting on the market for 200 days and it's in terrible condition. So in that market, my strategy is to go and I look for properties that need a lot of serious rehab work. I fix them up and then I refine, pull my money out and I'm able to pull out usually 100% of my capital, maybe a little bit more sometimes because in that market, it makes sense.

In a different market, I might have a different strategy. But what's really important is that you find the people that are going to help you find the properties. I think that's fascinating. I mean, I don't think you've ever heard that discussed in the show. Yeah, is find the people first. Because it's true, like the people are going to make you successful or not. There are people finding success in real estate in probably every state in, you know, in the country, I'm sure. And probably every city in the country.

But, you know, every area's got a different thing that's better or worse for. Like you said, Florida, that strategy is working really well. By the dumpy properties that you can then basically burr, right? You're burying these properties. Absolutely. And pulling your cash out. And that works really well. So if you can do that in a hundred different cities in America, find the team go there.

I love that. I think that's a fantastic tip. Well, can we go back to that then? like finding that lender first. And that makes a lot of sense, by the way. Finding that lender, the lender leads to the agent, leads the PM who leads to the contractors. Very, very logical.

How do I, you know, I'm a new real estate investor or I'm not new and I'm thinking about, I don't know. I mean, like, I heard Montana's cool. Like, cool. So I go and I find a lender in Montana who works in Montana. Presumably you would want somebody local so that they would have the contacts with the local agents and everybody. How do I go about finding that person? So that's the process that I

spelled out in the book, pretty much A to Z exactly how I do it. It's not hard to find a lender per se. You can go through finding an agent, which are everywhere. They're all over the place. You can find them online. You can find referrals from other investors. You can find someone like what I would probably do in all honesty is if I wanted to invest in Montana, I'd go on bigger pockets and I'd look for people that are members in Montana. And I'd look for like a pro member that has like some weight behind them that's actually done a couple deals, not a newbie who's just, trying to learn. Or I'd even look for like a meetup group in Montana. I'd find out who runs that meetup group and I'd become that person's best friend. I'd figure out what value can I bring to them.

What do they need? How can I help them? How can I win them over? Once I had their trust, I'd say, hey, I'm really looking for a lender that will let me do a portfolio loan or maybe someone that will lend a commercial loan over several properties. Can you help me out? And I'd have him start pumping all the buddies that he has that come to the REA meetups, the real estate investing meetups and saying, hey, who do you guys know that can help David with this problem that he's got? Once you find that first piece, that gets your foot in the door and that will start this like domino effect of you finding more and more pieces that you need to put stuff together, then all you have to do is make sure that it's what I call a target rich environment.

I want to know that if I'm going there to buy flips, that there's a lot of properties that have a lot of potential meat on the bone, right? Higher price points are going to help me there. If I'm looking to buy and hold stuff, I'm looking for a market where there's more likely that they're going to meet the 1% rule. There's a strong rental market. There's a lot of tenants that actually want to own home or rent homes in that area. And if it meets those two criteria, like, I'm good to go. There's going to be people there that it's their full-time job to do the things that I need done to make my business run. Got it. I love that. You talked about finding value to offer to them. How do you offer value of somebody hundreds or thousands of miles away? Like,

what do you mean when you say I want to offer them value? So that's like the million dollar question, because if you can answer that question, you can be successful in whatever business you want to do ever. Most of us have the wrong mindset. We say, this is my goal. This is what I want to do. Who is here to help me do it? And we have this expectation that it's their job to help us. So I'm sure you guys get hit up all the time from people that say, hey, I want to build a business.

I want to start a tech company. Brandon, I want to flip houses too. Help me. And that's what they say. And that's where they leave it, right? You're not that likely to help that person. One, you don't have enough time in the world to do it. And two, really, they're asking you to take time.

away from your family, your business, your personal life to help a stranger that you don't know. The better way to run a business in general is to get good at helping other people accomplish what they want to and then finding the right kind of people. If you pour into the right person with like a good heart, it's going to be very hard for them not to want to give back to you. So in the business of real estate in general, in the book I talk about you got to get to know everyone's job that you're going to work with, not just your job. It's my job to find deals or find people to find deals. But I need to know how a contractor works. I need to know how property manager works. I need to know how real estate agent works so that I can know how to help

them. If a real estate agent has a business of selling homes, if I can send him referrals, I've just made myself valuable to him. That's perfect, right? What's in it for me, essentially? But on the opposite, like, what's it with them? Yeah. Exactly. Start with that. Yeah. And there is there is also something to, I mean, I 100%, 100% agree with that because like I get hit up all the time. But you said something else there that if you, I can't remember the exact words you use, but something like, if you go to somebody like, would you say with earnest or like, like, like, with a good heart, like, yeah, like I do work with people occasionally. Like I'll help people sit down for lunch and things like that.

And I know Josh does too. And it's usually people like somehow they appealed to like, I mean, I don't want to say, appealed to our heart, but like somehow there was like an emotional attachment to that person somehow for some reason. And there's different reasons all the time. But you said, if you can figure that out, you'll be successful in anything. But, you know, figure out what that is. We talked about that a bit on the Tim Ferriss Show.

And one of the things that I had mentioned was these curiosity conversations that I had learned about through Brian Grazer. And he's got a book out, which whose title I can't think. And I'm in the middle of reading it. But the whole idea is, you know, he would go and he would reach out to people he was curious about. But he would always try and do his research. And he would figure out, you know, if it was a movie producer or let's, let's, let's, say he wanted to meet Stephen Spielberg, right? He's not going to go to Spielberg and be like, hey, Steven Spielberg, you know, I want to talk to you about making movies. It was, you know,

maybe it would be like, hey, in Jaws, I noticed that Roy Schneider was, was Roy Scheider. However, I hope I didn't butcher it. You know, had this deep emotional bond with the shark, despite all this other stuff, you know, you know, really some deep introspective stuff about what was happening in the movie. And that's an angle that he's never heard before. That's something. where he's like, oh, this is kind of interesting. I'd love to hear this, right? So finding something new, finding something fresh, a perspective that other people may not have, I think is a great way to appeal to people. And in the case of real estate, you know, maybe it's something like that or maybe it's just, you know, what value can I bring to you? Yeah, that's 100% right. I think people

need to understand that investing is still real estate and real estate will always be a relationship business. It's why like companies like Zillow have not taken over the market like everyone keeps telling us that they're going to do. The deals that I find at this point, I don't even look for deals. I look for people that can find me deals. It's all about fostering those relationships. I need to have great relationships with my contractor, with my lender, with the property managers, because I'm relying on them and their advice to basically run my whole business. And I'm sure if we made this podcast about how Josh built bigger pockets, he would tell you it was built on the backs of good hires that I made. When I found a talented person that could do this thing well,

it helped me get to the next level and really make this thing bigger. And if we look at the ways that bigger pockets of us. Somebody was behind that. I mean, everybody in my local office, yeah, but like, I mean, the guy I'm washing. No.

But you didn't in spite of that higher. That just goes to show how amazing Josh is. That's how amazing I am as a human being. With the anchor of Brandon holding him back, he was still able to push the ship forward. The anchor. That's going to be my new nickname. Brandon,

the anchor Turner. That is a great nickname. Yeah, thanks. Okay. So I want to touch on a couple things you said here. First of all, yeah, when you're trying to reach out to somebody,

a couple of things. that I found works really, really well. By the way, I love the tip you said about go to like a bigger pockets meetup. I mean, there's these meetups happening, like these unofficial meetups of bigger pockets members happening at restaurants, bars, whatever, parks all around the country all the time. If you guys go to biggerpockets.com forward slash events, EVE-N-T-S. You can find one in your area. And if there's not one, you're so in luck because you can start one.

Or there's local real estate investing associations. There's all sorts of things happening. Go to any and all that time. Yeah, go to whatever you can connect with people. But then here's what I find works really, really well. When you go to somebody and say, hey, I'm looking to get, I'm looking for help. Will you help me? That's like, what are people supposed to say to that?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I don't know. But if you go to somebody and say, hi, I'm looking for a lender in your area. Why, like, why would somebody not tell them? Like if somebody contacted me and said, hey, Brandon, I'm looking for a lender in Grace Harbor, Washington. Do you have anybody you recommend? It only looks good on me to recommend. Like, it looks great on me. Of course I'm going to tell them.

Even if they're a newbie and provide no value, I'm going to tell them. exactly who I use. I use Timberland Bank for most of my stuff. So like, why wouldn't I say that? Because referrals are great on me. They're great on that. So again, come with specific questions like that. Who do you use for a lender? And people are going to be open to that, especially in an environment where there's alcohol. So like a lot of meetups. So anyway, moving on. Nice. Moving on. All right. I'm just. This is a good question. I know you're going to ask. It's a great question. Well, of course. I know you do. Yeah. We're working on the same note paper here. Yes, we are. No paper. This is. This is. This is a good question. This is. This is.

Computer, Google Drive, whatever, you know. All right. Let's just cut to the question here, Brandon. So the question is, should a newbie invest in long distance properties? Am I taking your question? We're talking. We're diving in on all this stuff. But, you know, there's a lot of people listening who've never done this, right?

Now, are we here telling newbies, yeah, you should go ahead and invest in long distance? I don't think we are necessarily saying, yeah, you should do this. But my question is, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. I'm saying like David Green should answer that question and give his advice because I think he's got a unique perspective here. So here's what I would say, because I get asked that question quite often too. If you were to go buy yourself a car, would you actually open the hood and pour through the engine and read books on understanding how engines work to make sure that that Camry is the best car for you? Or would you read like a consumer report that compares a Camry to an accord to a Hyundai and use that expert's opinion to base your decision on? I would probably base that on an expert's opinion.

Most of us do, right? So what I found is if I can just find the experts, I don't have to become an expert myself in car engines. And I can be so much more efficient with my time and myself and what I'm doing. Most of the time, if you look at decisions we make, is based off of someone else's opinion. Do I want to go to this restaurant? I'm looking at Yelp.

Should I buy this house? Let me call someone else and ask them what they think. Very few things are we actually like a Nikola Tesla, where we've just studied electricity to the point that we know it inside and out. For a long time, out-of-state investing had a terrible reputation because you could not get an expert's opinion that you trusted. You just couldn't get the information. So if I wanted to go by in Boise, Idaho as a Californian, I was calling some broker I didn't know. There was no way that I'd ever be able to put an online review if he gave me bad advice.

So he basically had a free shot. I was just trusting the opinion of a stranger and hoping that he was a good guy. And he was going to tell me, this is a great deal. This is why you should buy it. The price is going to look super cheap to me out in California. And I'm going to say, okay. And it could be the worst neighborhood ever. It could be a house that's built on a dump.

It could be, you know, any number of things. And that guy's going to sell it to the stupid out-of-state investor. And that's kind of how this reputation of buying out-of-state became a risky thing. It is a different world we live in. And I talk about it in the book, there is so much technology has made available to us as far as doing your due diligence and doing research. When I buy a house in Jacksonville, it's not a lot different than if I was to buy it in my hometown. The same information is there. And nowadays, if somebody gives me bad advice or they do me wrong,

I can write an online review to warn everyone else, and someone else would have already done that about that person. You can find out a lot about the people you're getting advice from just from the other people that they've worked with and the referrals that they have. So I challenge most people when they say, oh, I don't want to buy outside of my own backyard. I would say, if you understand that backyard just as good as yours, what would it make a difference? I'm not a farmer. I don't understand how farmers plant different crops and how they grow them. But I know that if I have a farmer somewhere else and he's working a field and he knows how to grow peas out there, that's really all that I need. I don't need to have to learn how to farm in my own backyard just because I understand it. You know, it kind of reminds you of like the 80 20 rule.

Like, you know, they say like what 20% of things can you do to make sure you get 80% of the results? In this case, like, you know, Tim Ferriss is big on that. But in this case, if you just find the right people, everything else becomes easier or the one thing, right? The one thing of book we all love. Like, what's the one thing you can do to make your out of state invest in successful? Find the right people. I'm done with that right now, right? So I got this 24 unit under contract in Ohio, which is a scary thing to go buy a big

apartment out of state, but I know that if I can just get the right people, everything will be much better. And so I think that's, you know, fantastic advice. We've kind of talked about a number of times here. But I want to step back just a minute. And you mentioned technology, like in today's world, and I know your book talks a lot about this. But what type of, what websites, what tools, what things are you using to gauge today? I mean, what are you using? So most of what I'm going to use is going to be to verify the information that some like, quote unquote, expert told me to make sure that they're legit. So if you wanted to go buy a house anywhere, there's a couple numbers, metrics you'd have to get to make sure it made sense. One, you'd want to know what's the rent

going to be. And two, you'd want to know what are my expenses going to be when I buy this property. From there, it slowly becomes what's the area like? Is it likely to appreciate? Is there a strong tenant pool? What are the vacancy rates, stuff like that. There's a couple websites and programs out there that make this like something you can do in 30 seconds. I use rentometer.com, a website to check the rents of what my property managers are telling me. If he's saying, yeah, it's going to rent for 1100 and rentometer is telling me 1,400, there's some discrepancy there. And he better be able to explain to me why rentometer is giving me such a higher number than what he is, right? If there's no explanation, that's a property manager who's just lazy and knows he can get it rented out really

quick for 1100 bucks and doesn't care about my bottom line. He's gone. The other cool thing about the system I put together is I'll have my real estate agents also verify the comps that my property managers gave me as far as what the rent is because they can look and see what the other houses for rents are being advertised at. That's easy to do. There was a time. you just couldn't do that. There was no way you could know what a real estate agent was looking at as far as as the rents. They didn't have things all set up electronically. It wasn't easy to verify. I use programs like a mortgage calculator on my phone that helps me run like estimates of what it would cost to get a loan at a certain amount, a certain interest rate in 10 seconds I can get that information together. I use Yelp to look at the

people that I'm working with or the Zillow reviews to see what other people have said. And then if you can ask them for referrals of other people they worked with, you can call those people to verify like, hey, did this guy do a good job? was he kind of a flake. Got it. That's awesome. Yeah. So that's verifying the numbers. That's verifying the data.

That's verifying the individuals. But what that doesn't verify is what's actually happening on the ground. And, you know, there's one thing to trust, but what about verify? So, you know, it's, do you have a system in place where you don't have to hop on a plane from California to Florida twice a month to make sure, you know, rehabs are going well? you can actually see it. You can get the photos. You know, Google Earth isn't going to give that to you. So how do you deal with situations where you want to actually see that things are going well with the physical structure or rehabs and things like that? Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think when I figured that out is when I got me. I bet you made it up right now too, just freestyling over there like Emma and with really good questions.

So what you don't want is to rely on a contractor who you don't know's word. that he did the stuff that he told you he did before you send him your next draw, right? So what I do is I have somebody else on the team of my core for it's what I call him, your agent, your lender, your contractor, your property manager. They're always verifying the work of another member. So for instance, let's say that my agent sends me a house and they say, hey, David, you should buy one, two, three main street. I'll send that information to my property manager and say, hey, what's this neighborhood like?

Is this going to be a problem? He's going to rent really quick. Is this the right side of the street? Tell me what's going on. He knows I'm very picky and I'm going to hold him accountable for the advice he gives me. So if he gives me a thumbs up and it ends up being bad, I'm taking away every rental I have with him and giving him to his competitor. So that's one way that I make sure that my agents are giving me good information as well as a property manager. I do the same thing with the interest rate that my lender gives me.

I say to my agent, hey, is this the same thing that your other clients are getting? Is this about right with what you see other people getting or does this seem high to you, right? So when it comes to the actual rehab work, I go over the scope of work with my contractor based on videos and pictures my agent takes from me of the house. He says, hey, David, this is what it looks like. this is what I can see we're going to need to do. I run it by my contractor and he should be telling me pretty much the same stuff as agent. There may be some minor discrepancies about things, but in general, if one person's telling me like, hey, we're okay with a two bedroom house and the other one saying, no, we should make this a four bedroom house. I need to look into see why are you

not giving me the same advice. The cool part about technology nowadays is once that contractor has done what he said he would do, put in the floor, fixed some drywall, did some painting, whatever, I can have my agent go take pictures and video of that house and send it back to me and show, yeah, the work was done. And then the contractor will jump in and go ahead, Josh. I was going to say really quickly, how do you, you know, on a property that you've closed, how do you get the agent to make that worth their while? Are you paying the agent to do that? Or is it just because they, in that relationship, there's an expectation. There's going to be more business if they do these things for you.

The expectation is there, but I make sure that I'm only asking them to do things. that are in their own best interest. And I talk about that a lot in the book, how you kind of align your interest with those of the people that are on your team. So if I'm going to flip this house, my agent's going to be there every single step of the way to make sure the contractor did the right work because when that product's finished, he can't put the house on the market to sell it if there's stuff that didn't get done or if it doesn't look right. The same is true. If I'm going to rent it, I send the property manager by. He's coming in every step of the way to make sure that the work is being done the right way because if it's not, then it's his problem that he's got to fix once it's

done. Is that something that a property manager should be doing for you? You know, presumably they should be willing to get in their car and drive over to look and make sure that the work is being done appropriately, I would assume. If it's my first house I'm doing with somebody, I'd pay them probably like a hundred bucks to go and check on the work every time. And that would be well worth it to me to make sure I'm not getting ripped off by my contractor. Once I've done a couple deals in that area, they won't ask you for money. They're going to be so happy when you're bringing them enough deals that they're more than willing to do it. You know, here's what I'm hearing from you and that I really like a lot and just was really made apparent to me. You know how like the U.S. government back in the 1700s when they formed like the judicial branch and the executive branch and legislative?

When it worked. Yeah, yeah, when it worked. They had all these like, I mean, we still do. We have checks and balances, right? That's exactly how I view this, your whole philosophy of these team members is checks and balances. So the contractor is being checked by the agent. The agent's being checked by the property manager. The property manager being checked by the other guy.

And everything's being checked by different sources. So you're never relying on any one person's view or the ability to screen. you over. It would take multiple points of failure to really, like, cause you a lot of harm. Does that sound like a good assessment of that? That's, that's an awesome analogy. It would almost, they'd have to be in conspiracy to get over. And that's why when I hear people say, oh, I don't want to invest out of state that's too risky. I don't know what to tell you because it's only risky if you're lazy. I was just going to use that word, lazy, right? And a lot of people are. A lot of people are like, I want to invest out of state. Whoa. So what I'm going to do is I'm just

going to find a company who, and I'm not disinternkey here because we can talk about that in a second, but like, I'm going to find a company who will just tell me what I want to hear, and the time it will return, I pay some money and then I go on with my life because I don't want to do any work, right? So let's talk about that. There's a lot of people who ask that question to me, and I'm sure you get it to turnkey companies. What is a turnkey company and what are your thoughts on it? A turnkey company is a company that basically has all the work for you and hands you over a product that all you have to do is turn the key and walk in the door. I am staunchly opposed to turnkey companies because I believe that you should be investing in

real estate to build wealth and you're building your turnkey company's wealth when you're buying a product from them. Now there is a, like everything in life, there is a consumer for every product that's out there. If you're somebody who's making so much money that you do not have a place to put it and you do not have time to learn where to put it, turnkey's perfect for you. I always use this analogy. It's like going to 7-11 and paying $3 for a Coke when you could buy a 12-pack for $3 at Costco. What you're paying for is convenience. I don't want to have to go to Costco, buy this Coke, take it home, put it in my fridge, have it be cold, and then remember to grab it before I leave the house. If you need convenience and you're not worried about money, turnkeys are awesome, and then go that way. But most people on

bigger pockets are here to learn about real estate. They're not here that are making so much money that they just have to stick it somewhere. For those people, you really need to look at, you're not getting any equity in that deal when you buy with the turnkey company. The less equity you have, the less cash flow you're going to have. You're way better off learning how to do this yourself and you reaping the benefits of all that work then kind of taking like you said the lazy road and paying somebody else to do it all for you. I think that people believe that a turnkey buy is safer for their first buy. So that's why a lot of people do it. They kind of want to get their feet wet rather than jumping in.

The problem is, Brandon, as you know and Josh, you too, the real value when you're doing something new is what you learn. It's not what you earn. You're not going to make money right away when you first start doing anything new. It's only going to be what you learn that will make you money later. Like Brandon, your first flip, you lost money on it. Now you've gone on to make tons of money on tons of flips. you did that because you learned something during that first flip that was very valuable to you. When you're buying from a turnkey company, you're not really learning very much.

You're helping their bond. I always tell people, and I have to, you know, there's a caveat to this, but I always tell people like, the first deal doesn't matter. Like in the grand scheme of things, the first, like people are like frets so much like, like, oh, it's only $120 a month in cash flow and I'm getting 100. I want 130. I'm not going to do the deal. And like, again, I want to, I'll say this and then don't stop listening because I have a caveat.

But the first deal doesn't matter. do something, right? Now, don't go by a bad deal, learn how to do it right, but it's better to just get moving than to do it perfect, because the first deal, the only goal is to get the knowledge to do the second deal. The only goal of the second deal is to get the knowledge through the third. You're never getting rich off one deal or two deals. You're getting rich off a decade, two decades of investing. Like, that's what matters is that. So I like that. But yeah, again, don't go buy a bad deal. I'm not saying do that. But, you know, if the deal, you're fretting about a few dollars here and there, just do something. And I think David, actually, you're the one that

like really impressed that upon me a few times. Like, just get out there and do something. Like, you really encourage me your book, like when I read your book, just the first draft, you know, months and months ago is what encouraged me to go out of state. And so this year, what, triple, almost quadruple my portfolio because of the advice that you get because I realize, oh, if David can do it, I can do it, right? Like, cop can do it. Like, I can do it. Because I realize, like, it's not this, like, mysterious thing to invest out of state. Like, you know, it's just, it's a process like anything else. Once you learn how to do it and this, this deal will not be my last out of state, I'm going to

learn a bunch of stuff and I'm going to apply it next time with bigger deals, hopefully. And anyway, so thank you, David, for that. Oh, my pleasure, Brandon. When you, when you learn that you can invest anywhere, you go to the markets that make the most sense for you, not the places that are most convenient for you. And I found that there's a pattern that kind of runs throughout business. So there's a spectrum of convenient versus profitable and they're rarely ever on the same side. and you've got to figure out where on that spectrum you're willing to go. The further away from convenience that you're willing to go, usually the more into profitability that you can get.

If you look at just a case study of bigger pockets itself, I don't know your financials, but I would imagine that the first several years this company was around, they weren't doing anything, right? And now it's a juggernaut that nobody can even compete with because Josh was concerned with what he was learning and what he was building, not what he was earning right away. And real estate is exactly like that. If you're willing to put in the time to learn how to do this thing out of state, which in my opinion, to be completely honest,

is not much different than learning to do it where you are. The only difference is I'm not driving by to look at the house. And really, I don't need to be driving by to look at the house. I really don't know what I'm looking at. It's, you know, I think I've talked to you guys before when your car breaks and you pull open the hood and you look at the engine and like, what are any of us looking for? We don't know.

Like if there's obvious smoke coming to me. I'm looking to look like a man. That's what I'm looking. Yeah, that's why you're doing it. Because girls are there and you want to look like you know what you're doing. But you don't. Yeah, but that doesn't help. No.

I still look like a moron. Nothing can really help that one. No, I'm just like, there's a bunch of parts in here. I don't know. That's what we do with real estate. When someone who's not a home inspector or a super experienced investor block the home, that's what they're doing. They're just looking at that engine.

Like, oh, yeah, look, they've got baseball. All right. Oh, look at that. They don't know what they're looking at. I need to see a report from the inspector. This brings me a lot of confidence, David. Good. I'm very glad to you.

You need to look at what the experts are showing you, not what you think on your own self. And I think too many of us make this mistake of thinking, and I got to learn how to do it all. You got to figure out what your 20% is, like what you said, Brandon, what you're really good at, and then find the right people to do the other 80% of things

to run your business. Yeah. All right. So great, great stuff, great information. The whole convenience thing's awesome. How are you finding these properties?

So your step one is to find that core for, as you call them. Love that, by the way. Who said core for? Is that your phrase, David? Or did you, do I get to have like a bigger pocket's trademark now? Yeah.

The core four. We're going to start using that. bucket list item checked off. Four from David Green. All right. So you've got the core four. Now how are you finding the properties? You know,

this is funny. The majority of homes that I'm buying right now in Florida came from an agent who heard me talk on the podcast about buying in Florida and came to me and said, David, I do a lot of deals in Florida. And she started sending them to me and they were good. She knew what she was doing.

She knew how to understand what work needed to be done. She had contractors that could help me. She had a property manager that was really good. And like, going with me. I was using a wholesaler and I still use those people from time to time. But once you get like a system down and you make an impact in the area, they'll come out and they'll find you. So you need to get on the bigger pockets podcast. Yeah, exactly. That's how you get business. No, actually, it's an agent, right? You found a good agent. Yeah. And the same thing

would work if I had just posted in the forums. That's what I was looking for in the marketplace. There's people that are scouring. They're looking for someone to help. I think that's what I really want your listeners to get. The stuff you need done to make this work, there are people who literally, that is their full-time job to find someone to help with it. That's a good point. It's not like you have to go train someone from the ground up to do this thing to teach them how to fix a house. There are contractors that want work.

There are property managers that are looking for more houses to manage. They're agents that will not get paid if they don't bring me a deal. Now, a lot of them are bunk. I think we all know that. Not everybody's good. But I need to spend my time going through the people that want to help me and finding out who's good, not trying to do the work myself, not swinging the hammer, not going and necessarily driving for dollars all on my own.

And if I find somebody else who can do that for me and I just let them do that job, that's way better. Hey, David, how do you, I think one of my personal big issues, you know, I'm from New York. Like, I don't trust, I don't trust anybody. Notice that, Josh. No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, mom and dad for that too. That was, that's a great neuroses that you guys have built upon me. I really do appreciate it. It's healthy and makes me, makes me a better person. but how does one like myself, not from a psychological standpoint, because that might take us a few hours, but how does one do that? Is it really just going through those Yelp reviews, talking to other investors and kind of getting that feedback? Is there any real trick to kind of overcoming that fear of

getting screwed over by somebody that you work with? Well, I think I'm very similar to you, Josh. I think that's probably one of the reasons we get along is I'm also very... We get along? Yes. This is so cool. This is the highlight of my day. I don't trust people either. I have very high expectations.

But you were a police officer. Yes, right? And I just had to accept that to I am. I'm not going to change that part. I don't want to just go out there and try to start trusting changers to get over it. And I talk about this in the book a lot. Really, this whole philosophy of finding the right people is built on my belief that rock stars know rock stars.

I say that all the time, right? So people that are really good at what they do, hang out with other people that are really good at what they do. When you've achieved a level of excellence in your profession or whatever you do, you probably want to be around other people who are the same way. Like I remember Tiger Woods was best friends with who is that Swedish tennis player that was really good, Roger Federer. Like they were hanging out with each other all the time.

You wouldn't think they have anything in common, but they were both the best at what they did and they liked to be around each other because of that. You know, Michael Jordan wasn't hanging out with the bench players all the time. He was rubbing elbows with other all stars. And the same thing goes for people that are not rock stars. The shady people of the world, the ones that are selfish, they always end up finding each other and just like never being happy because they're always trying to take advantage of each other and screw each other over. So if you want to find people that you can trust, you find one person that you can trust and you win that person over and you start seeing who would you use in this situation. How can I help you?

I give a lot of examples in the book of ways that I kind of like built my team up based on I found one really honest, really hard work in person. And I just made that relationship very important. and I started saying, hey, I need someone to do this. Who do you know? And if his answer was, I don't know anyone, I would say, okay, well, who do you know that would know? Can you do me a favor? And can you go ask this really influential person?

Hey, this is what I need, right? So now, you know, I buy all across the country. If people that know me wanted to know where to invest, I could plug him into what I already have going on because I've done a lot of the vetting. And I would do that for someone that I liked, like another rock star type of personality, right? I was just clear my throat. Oh, sure. And now that I know that he likes me, you know.

Yes, exactly, right? It doesn't mean you're a rock star. He can like you without you being a rock star. Oh, that is true. That is true. But if you think about it, if you wanted to start a website, if somehow you were able to get into Josh Dorkin's good graces, like who better would you go to to figure out how to do that, right?

I don't need to look at every single person and study their Yelp reviews and inch forward with that person until I trust him. If Josh could tell me, yeah, I've used them and he's good. I trust this guy. More than likely, I can trust that guy too. That's how the big, the wealthy people maintain their wealth. Is they rubbing elbows with other wealthy people? and they're not going through the process of trial and error that like the little guys got to go through to get started.

I really think that's what I want people to understand about the whole thing is find somebody who's good at what they do and give them a reason to like you and you can get into their world and you can start to find the people that they trust. You know, Brandon has this really good analogy of when a plane is taken off from a runway, how much energy it takes to get that big, huge plane moving. And then once it starts to get off the ground, you have to keep your foot on the gas really hard to get it up in the air. but once it's already up there and coasting, it doesn't take a whole lot of energy, that things kind of just on autopilot and it can move. When you're first starting to build your real estate investing business, which is where most people on bigger pockets are, you have to be very, very intense and with a high purpose of finding people

that you can develop relationships with that will help you. Yeah. I love that. And we could probably talk for hours and hours about just trust and relationships. And I think we probably don't focus enough on that on the podcast. We touch upon it on probably every show, but I think this show in particular is so valuable because of this. So thank you.

By the way, I also want to note, I made a snarky remark about you not trusting anyone because you were a cop. And I do want to say how much, not to kiss you to ass or anything else, but how much I do appreciate the police officers and how important they are to all of us. And we got to all work together and figure out how to get past this nonsense that we all have on both sides, right? Yeah. I appreciate that, Josh. All right.

So now I've gone. I've got this team. I've got these people. Maybe the agent is helping me find stuff. I'm assuming maybe I could look at, you know, I'm looking on Redfin or Zillow or some of these sites and trying to find opportunities, passing them on to my agent who's got boots on the ground. And the other folks that I know now that have boots on the ground who could tell me bad

neighborhood, great neighborhood, block by block. Okay, cool. At this point, are you ever getting on the plane to go out there? Or, you know, I would assume for somebody who's new at this, you would. would probably recommend they go and do that. Yeah. I got on in playing my first time to Florida to meet with the people. I didn't see any of the properties themselves, but I did want to meet with the people face to face. Once I kind of had that foundation laid and I was using their referrals, I never went out there again to look at anything. And there was really no reason for, like I said, I don't know what

I'm looking at anyways. I can see all the pictures. I can have them go make videos. I know the property exists, right? It's not hard to verify that. The only things that I'm worried about are actually how much work is it going to need and is this a good neighborhood? And if it's a, it's a reputable property manager who knows I want to do repeat business with them and I've talked to other people that work with them and they've said, this guy's a straight shooter, I wouldn't feel the need to get on a plane and go out there and look around. I wouldn't knock anyone that does, right? If that's what you need to feel comfortable, then you need to do it. Because like Brandon was saying, the first deal doesn't matter. If you're going to lose a little bit of money on that,

but you build up a level of comfort that will enable you to make much more money later, you're never going to look back and say, oh, I wish I wouldn't have bought that plane ticket. I think that's important that people understand. There's decisions that we make that are based on emotions and they don't help your business whatsoever. But if that's what you need to get to be comfortable to where you can help your business, then do that. Do what you need to because there's so much wealth opportunity to be built with real estate that it's sickening to think about 30 years could go by and you're going to look back and you could have been a multimillionaire based off of what your tenants paid for you. And you missed it because of some stupid fear you had that you thought out of state investing was risky.

Yeah. What if stuff goes wrong? Like what kind of stuff? I don't know. I'm sitting here listening to this guy, David Green, who, you know, talks like he knows what he's doing. And Josh and Brandon are kind of interviewing him. And he's telling me, you know, technology and people and trust. And, you know, I don't know what if something goes wrong? I'm, you know, listening to you. What if a tenant trash does that house doesn't pay or your property that steals from you. Okay. Anything that could go wrong, there is someone whose job it is to fix it, first off. And second, those are all things that could happen in this market that could be right down the street. from you. It won't be any different when you're out of state. I haven't come across anything that's unique to being in a different area than what I have with the rentals that I own in California. Same stuff happens, right? So I had a tree fall over during the hurricane, fell on the roof of one of my houses. My fault for not cutting down the tree when I bought it. I don't know what I was thinking,

buying a house and not in Florida and not cutting down trees that were around it. But we paid somebody to go out there and fix the roof and to move the tree. And I was a little upset for a little bit. And then I realized this is going to happen at one of my rentals that are nearby, just the same. It's really real estate is real estate no matter where you go. What makes local stuff different is you know that market, right? If you can learn another market or learn people that know that market, then it's the same as if you're buying in your own backyard. And that's what I want to impress on people because there's so many people that I see that are

passing up on opportunities to buy homes. And they're saying, I'm waiting for the next crash. I'm waiting for the next crash. I'm waiting for the next opportunity. And I am too. That's why I burr. I want all my money back out so I can buy when the market crashes on the coast. That's when you're going to make most of your money is when you're buying and

one of these, you know, West Coast or East Coast markets and it's at a low and it's going to shoot up really high. But in the meantime, I may not be hitting home runs, but if I can get singles and doubles in some of the Midwest or southern markets, like, I'd be a fool to pass that up, especially if you can burn, you can get your capital back out. Yeah. I know that's a really good question is what if something goes wrong. I just haven't seen anything go wrong that wouldn't have happened in my own market as well. So, so if somebody were to say, hey, what was the worst experience you've had? Would it be the tree falling on the roof? I mean, or, or? No, the worst experience I had was I put a house under contract. I had a lot going on. I think I put like five

under contract at the same time. I have my real estate agent business and we were in a super busy month and I literally forgot that I had put it under contract and I didn't get the contractors out there in time to do the inspections. And when we did, we found that what looked like a small problem with the roof was actually a gaping hole. Rain had been raining on it for this entire time before I bought it after and the water had actually seeped not only like into the floor but like into the walls. So there was dry rot in the actual framing of the house that we had to cut out the drywall and see like the whole home had to be basically taken down to the studs and rebuilt. So I hadn't closed on it luckily for me, but I'd lost my earnest money deposit because

I had to back out of that deal when I saw what the problem was. And so your takeaway from that is don't be so busy doing so many damn deals so you can actually remember all the deals that you're doing. Is that kind of? You know, that was my original thought, Josh. But if I had to go back and look at it, I would have lost that on like the other four or five deals that I had done during that same time frame

that made me 20 to 40 grand on each one. That was kind of the cost of doing business. Like if I had to go back, I still would have done it the same way. What I did is I just told my agent, hey, I'm giving you more responsibility and running these projects instead of me. And I have a good one.

So she was more than willing to take that on. I said, I can't keep up with this. I need you to run the contractors and the home inspections and report back to me what you see rather than me trying to take the responsibility of it. And to be honest, that was a blessing in disguise because I should have had her doing that the whole time. There's no reason for me to be to be that involved in the details of what's going on when she's perfectly capable of it. I love that. I love that. Yeah. That's great. I love your encouragement on like utilizing other people to do things. Like if you just

at like, a lot of times I just do things because I feel like I have to do them. But like, why not just empower other people? Like people never think to ask. I never think to ask. So anyway, love that. So last kind of question before we go to the fire round. Like, where do you see yourself and your company headed the next few years? You're going to keep buying out of state? You're going to, you know, where do you see the next five, ten years going for you? I'm going to buy wherever it makes sense to buy.

And that's why I feel like this book is such a powerful tool for people that don't understand that you can get into investing in a market that actually does make sense for you. If you don't have a lot of money, then you shouldn't be trying to buy in the Bay Area of California. Go to a place like Kentucky or Wisconsin where you don't need a lot of money to get your feet. wet. My ultimate goal is to have a team in probably like 15 to 20 different cities across the United States and to continue buying rental property in all of them in whatever makes sense in a way that it doesn't take a ton of my time, which means that my time needs to be spent looking for ways to earn money so that I can continue investing it, which is why I'm building up this real estate agent

business. So I can take my knowledge of real estate, serve my clients with it, earn money that I can use to keep investing. I've seen a small taste of when you put a system in place that will run itself, how little work it takes on your behalf and how powerfully quickly that can build your wealth. And that's what I want to double down on. That's where I see myself headed. So your strategy, if I can try to paraphrase, is keep working your day job

so that you have the capital and resources to continue to build a portfolio of investment properties. But at the end of the day, you want to keep working because you know that's going to allow you to continue to build more and more wealth via this real estate. state. Absolutely. And then every decision I make is based on how I make that easier for myself. So I have to learn how to be a better agent so that it can be easier for me to make more money.

I have to find markets where it's not a lot of time spent looking for something that will make sense, right? A target rich environment. So I'm not spinning my wheels and buying one house a year, but putting in thousands of hours of time trying to find one thing because this is a market I'm comfortable with. If I can buy in Arkansas and I have a team of people out there that I know and I trust and are good and the deals make sense, that I'm going to go buy in Arkansas. If I could do the same thing in Florida, in Arizona, in Georgia, wherever they are,

I'm making my job easier so that I can focus my time on, like I was saying, making money so I can keep this thing going. Awesome. Fantastic. Cool. All right, well, we got some more questions for you. So let's head over to the world famous fire round.

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visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement. 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. That's why investors work with NREG. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors, understanding portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BPPod. That's NREIG.com slash BP pod. Tax season reminder for all the real estate investors listening.

If you own rental properties, short-term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS-compliance strategy that that lets you accelerate depreciation on your properties, which means you're paying less in taxes this year and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal. Cost Segregation Guys is the go-to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with $500 million in total depreciation identified.

Head to costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. 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 Mind. 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. 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. Let's head over to the world famous fire round. Number one, these questions, by the way, come out of the bigger pockets forums. It's

real life people asking these. Number one, I'm looking for out-of-town lending, hitting a lot of roadblocks, living in California, and investing in other states. Local banks are hit and miss, but nervous about an out-of-town investor and large regional banks are too big for some of the smaller units that I'm trying to buy. What do I do? I feel your pain, bro. That's a tricky situation. First thing you want to do is to find an agent who has actually worked with investors before and hopefully as an investor themselves because they're going to have the contacts to find those banks that other people don't know about. Second thing you can do, which is a road I've taken is I've actually gone and I've looked for commercial loans that will be secured by residential property. And if you can

put a couple different properties together, you can sometimes get a blanket mortgage that will cover all of your residential properties but under commercial terms. It's great advice. Very, very good advice. Awesome. All right, next question. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York City. And as we all know, the property prices here are ridiculous.

My question is, if I wanted to finance a duplex or fourplex out of state, do I need to go to that state to obtain a bank loan or could I use Chase Bank in New York to apply for a loan for a house in Philly? Is that legal? Chase or anybody else? Oh, it's totally legal. It just depends on the bank's own lending standards. Something like Chase, I'm sure they have branches everywhere. you'd be able to get a loan through them.

I don't know that they'd give you the best rate, though. I try to avoid the big banks and I try to find mortgage brokers that are going to shop my file around and look for someone that's going to give me a competitive rate. So I would start there. But if you were just pressed for time, using a big bank like Chase, Wells Fargo, that have branches in every other state, you can get approved at your local bank and get the loan in the place where you want to buy. It's a good idea.

Great. All righty. Next question. I live in California and I invest in multiple states. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a CPA? who is not in California. Is it important to have somebody in my local state or in the state that I buy in or just a generalist, does it not really matter?

You know, I'm not a CPA. So I'm probably not the best person to answer that. But my understanding is that you file taxes based on the state you live in. So having a CPA in those other states probably wouldn't help you because you're going to be claiming the income that that property makes or doesn't make you through your own state. Cool. And to add on to that this is something I'm learning because I'm buying in Ohio that Ohio has a lot of weird tax rules like city by city.

They have different taxes on the rental income. It's weird. But I'm learning all this. So what I did is I found actually from Bigger Pockets. I met a guy at a local meetup when I was out there who is a CPA in that area. Now, he's not going to do my taxes, but I can talk with him, chat with him, ask him questions. I can hire him just for that one thing. Okay, help me with this one thing because Ohio's got weird rules and weird laws.

So anyway, just the caveat on that. If your state has weird things, if you find out just. And then you connect him with your local CPA. Yeah, and they can deal with everything. Yeah. So cool. I like that. All right, last question. How does one get started without estate investing with smaller properties?

Often you hear that you need 40, 50 units to cover the cost of property management. What if you don't want that many units? How does somebody get started without estate investing with a simple triplex or fourplex? I don't understand the people that say you need 50 units to cover the cost of property management. I use a private manager on every property I've ever owned and I've just write it into the deal. And it's always the same cost, right? Yes, all the time. And once you get several, I pay between 6 to 8% now because I have more than one house

with that company. So I'd say on average, when I'm buying in Florida, I'm cash slowing between 400 and 500 a month. And that's with underwriting about 80 bucks of property management into every one of those deals. So I would say that's a myth. Don't buy into the fact you have to buy 50 units. If that's what it takes, then maybe you're just buying a deal that's not that great. Look for a deal that's good enough and there should be more than enough being on the bone to pay for property management.

I will never not use a property manager because I use them for more than just collecting the rent, like I was saying earlier. I use them on a Sherpa. I'm trying to climb, you know, Mount Everest. I don't know how to get there. I want someone who's done it before. Tell me about this neighborhood. Tell me about this area. Tell me about the kind of tenant I'm going to get. Is this the high crime area or is this the blue collar area? Am I too close to the railroad tracks that no one's going to want to rent here? Is there a demand or are these houses sitting on the market forever? I want you telling me that. And I would probably use one even if it was like the houses I have in the same city as me. I'm using one for those same reasons. I don't

want to spend my time trying to figure out what's going on in the rental market. I'm off doing other things. So I would say you should just assume you're going to use a property manager and I would encourage people don't think of them as just a rent collector. Make them earn that money. Use them as like a consultant that you have when you're looking at buying into another state and they will know people that will make it easier for you to start buying in those areas. That's great. And Brandon, I've got a question for you. Okay. How does somebody know how to evaluate a deal properly? Well, you know, there is this brand new software out there, this brand new company called BiggerPockets. And we actually have brand new, like 15 years, what, 12, 13?

13. 13. Old. So, anyway, check out our calculators. It's a shame as the supposed co-founder that you don't know how long we've been around. But, you know, you should at least study that so you can continue the ruse. Brandon, the anchor. All right, so go to Biggerpockets.com slash analysis and check out our suite of calculators.

We actually have a brand new one out there as if you guys haven't seen it yet. It's the rehab estimation calculator actually help you budget and plan your rehab. So again, biggerpockets.com slash analysis. Try it out. Awesome. All right. So before we move to the famous four, David, we've got this book. We mentioned it in the beginning.

And I think we should talk about it. It's called long distance real estate investing. Whoops. Long distance real estate investing. How to buy rehab and manage out of state rental property. by author David Green. So David Green, why write a book and give us kind of the gist of this thing? So I wrote that book because I hear a ton of people saying, David, I want to invest in real estate,

but I can't. My market isn't work. I don't have enough money. There's always some reason why people say that they can't invest, right? There's no reason that you shouldn't be investing if you understand the fundamentals of investing. So I spilled out my entire system, everything from finding the. the market you want to invest in, the technology that I use to do this stuff, how I do it efficiently and with time consideration, the people that I need on my team to put it together, how to build those

relationships, and then a ton of stuff on actually how I rehab properties. I have a section on rehab hacking, basically, upgrade hacking, where I show you if you're going to replace something anyways and you have to rip out a certain part of the house to do it, sometimes to spend an extra two or three hundred bucks to get upgraded items in there is get you your money back in spades. I wouldn't recommend that you take out your appliances and you put in stainless steel ones if they work fine. But if you have to rip them out anyways and spending an extra 200 bucks can get you stainless steel appliances, and that cuts down on two or three weeks of vacancy because your tenant really liked them, then do it.

You know, lots of little tips like that. I pretty much took my whole system and wrote it into a book that anybody can copy if they want to do the same things that I'm doing. And I'm really trying to just dispel the myth that out-of-state investing equals risky. What's risky is ignorance. And if you're ignorant of something, whether it's in state or out of state, that's what's risky. If you gather the information that you need to make a good decision, it doesn't matter where the house you're buying is. That's great.

That's great. And who is this guy that wrote it? Because he looks awfully different than... Yeah, there's no beard on the guy in the back of the book. So it doesn't he look like a square? Wow. Wow. I take Ambridge with this beardist comment of yours.

Well, if I look like the lead singer. Maroon 5, I'd probably be clean-shaven too. But guys like me, we need to do a little something. Help ourselves out. In all honesty, I just, I have never grown a beard in my life. And it's the first time I ever had to go to work as a cop. And I just thought, I'm just going to do it because I can. Wait, can't.

Can cops not have be beards? Yeah, you can't. You got to be clean-shade. It's like the New York Yankees. There's a certain look that they're going for. It used to be with the Yankees, right? Now they kind of, well, they all go. The franchise since they got rid of that.

Yeah. Nice, nice, awesome. All right, so let me tell you real quick about the book. Now, if you don't care about the book at all, just skip forward 30 seconds or a minute. But for those people interested in buying it, go to biggerpockets.com forward slash long distance book. It's 2499. You can learn more about it there. And here's the cool thing.

When you buy the book, we're actually going to give you a bunch of really neat bonuses. So bonus number one is an ebook called The Frightening Four, the four biggest roadblocks out-of-state investors face. A video called Building Your Rockstar Core Four team, where David just walks through in detail. How do you build that team? Super high quality HD video. You guys are going to love it. Another video we put together, it's actually David and I together

sitting down talking about how to buy your first out-of-state investment. Because I just did that. So he kind of coaches me through the fears and through the process of doing that. You guys will find that super valuable. And then for a launch-only bonus, we love providing a little bit extra bonus,

a little extra value for people who take immediate action. So for those people who buy in the first 10 days of this book lunch, you're going to get something extra special. It is a live online. class hosted by David called Finding and Funding Long Distance Rentals plus a live Q&A. So basically we're going to sit down with David and he's going to walk through his own

properties, his own process for doing this, walk you through the actual properties that he's got, the neighborhoods, all that stuff. It's going to be really, really awesome. And you'll be able to ask questions like live with David. We're going to have a couple different times you can choose from, but we'll do a couple of these just to really dive in deep. Again, we don't want you guys just to read a book. We want you to actually have your life changed.

So that's what all these bonuses are for. And again, if you buy in the first 10 days, which is before Christmas Day, you're going to get all this stuff. And with that, let's go on. It's also available anywhere that books are. Yeah, I mean, go to Barnes & Noble, go to Amazon, whatever. And if you can't find it, you know, you holler at them and tell them they need to start carrying that book. So yeah, there you go. All right.

All right, moving on. Let's, by the way, just from a personal standpoint, the book is fantastic. Like, we're not just saying that. Like, it really is good, David. I think you did an awesome job. Thank you, Brandon. Yeah, you're going to help a lot of people. All right, with that, let's get to the world famous.

Famous for. All right, these are the same four questions. We ask every guest every week. I know we heard you answer these last time, David, but maybe they changed. Number one, other than your own now, what is your favorite real estate related book? I'm still a big fan of the real estate millionaire agent. I know a lot of people are not real estate agents, so they wouldn't read it. But the principles in that book, as far as focusing on the 20% of things you're good at,

leveraging out what is not your thing are timeless and I really feel that work for any business. What about favorite business book? That would still be the richest man in Babylon. I feel like that should be required reading in schools. It is such a good book. If you're new to real estate investing and you feel any anxiety about this whole thing, start with reading that book. You follow those fundamentals and it's very hard to lose money. If you can get that part down, then you just have to figure out how real estate investing specifically fit into your goals. Still tops on my list. Yeah, it's fantastic. All right, what about hobbies?

What are you doing from from these days? Right now, I am busting my butt trying to figure out how to be a leader. You know, as a police officer, it took a certain kind of skill set to be a good one. And as a real estate agent running a team with employees now, it is a whole different world. It's tough. Yeah, man. It really caught me by surprise. So having to learn that people don't communicate the way I do, they don't think the way I do,

they don't have my tolerance for risk or stress the same way, trying to find. figure how to motivate all different kinds of people to get the very best out of them is kind of like taking all my time right now and reading books, talking to, you know, older or more mature people that have been there before. That's where I'd say the majority of my time is spent. But I feel like, you know, once I get that down, this thing's really going to take off and it's going to be well worth it. That's great. It's great. There we go. All right. Last question of the day. David, what do you think sets apart successful out-of-state investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? I like this. It's like the remix. Out of state investors.

Yeah. So if you focus on what could go wrong, you will always find reasons that you shouldn't do something. This is just the way that life works. If you focus on something that you're afraid of, you'll find a reason to justify it. Most people don't understand what they're missing out on by not taking these risks, by not learning how to invest. And like for me, invest out of state because that's where I needed to go, I would have lost out on millions of dollars, millions of dollars, right? And 30 years from now, it'll probably be more like 10 to 20 million dollars of just letting like the compound effect of wealth build. If you spent more time focusing on what you're going to miss out on than what could go wrong, the risk would start to become a lot more sensible to start to take.

That's where I think people miss out on real estate in general is they're looking at how they could lose money or how they could lose time or how it could go wrong rather than, yeah, like Brandon was saying, if your first deal doesn't go great, focus on what you learned. If you lost a couple bucks on a deal, it's still less than what you had to pay some guru to teach you and you have some hands-on experience. And if you don't quit, you keep going. You will eventually work your system out to where it's making you tons of money. That's what it comes down to, really. I guess to sum that up, the expectations that you have going into something.

If your expectations are I'm not going to make good money, but I'm going to learn a ton that's going to make me money later, you'll go on to be very successful. If your expectation was, I'll hit a home run on my very first swing. And if I don't, then the whole thing was a scam. You're not going to do well. That's great advice. Wow. I love that. Really, really good.

All right, man, before we let you go, how can people reach out and connect? Obviously, where else can they find you? And what was that URL for that book again? Oh, the URL is biggerpockets.com forward slash long distance book. And you can also find me on biggerpockets.com. I love that website. It's very close to my heart. I'll be there forever.

You can hit me on Facebook at David Green 24. And then I have a website, greenincome.com. Just remember there's an E at the end of green or my website, David Green, 24.com. So pretty much any of those mediums, if you reach out to me there, you can get a hold of me and we can talk some real estate. Awesome. And we'll have links to those in the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 257. That's biggerpockets.com slash show 257. David, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. It's been a pleasure. Congrats to you on all your successes. Congrats on the launch of your new book. I'm very excited. I know you are as well.

And everybody get out there and check it out. And obviously, if you, love it. Please, uh, jump on Amazon, jump on other places, leave us ratings, uh, on the book. And if you're listening to the show, you should leave us ratings and reviews on, on iTunes and anywhere else. So thank you, David Green for coming on the show. Best luck to you. Thank you guys. That was David Green here on the Bigger Pockets podcast. Wow. Yeah, that was awesome. That was great, man. Yeah. Yeah, I, I feel like one, the core four is just a cool, like just like a cool, like just a cool thing. And like, I don't know, I feel like I, what's the word? I feel stupid. There's a lot of feelings. I feel stupid over the way that I've done a lot of my investing because I'm like,

no, David gets it. Like I always went for the deal and then it was like scrambling to find people to maybe help in areas. But he's like, no, build your team of rock stars. They will help you ever step of the way. And I love that. We have not, I don't think we've heard that before from anybody. It's always been find a great deal and then build from there. This is the complete polar opposite. This is fine and amazing team. And everything good will come from there. Yeah. And you know, actually, a real life example of that, I'll give a couple shoutouts.

So a lot of people know I was working through that 1031 exchange thing, which all worked out. I think we talked about that in recent weeks. But the way that I actually found the deal, like actually both came from bigger pockets, recommendations from people. And the way I got my lenders, the way I got property managers, all that came from recommendations. A couple quick shoutouts. Todd Dexheimer, who we had on the episode a couple months ago, he actually connected

me with the Cincinnati area and some people there. and then Joe Fairless, who we've out on the show, connect with some people there. And then Ryan Murdoch, who've out on the show, connect with people in his area. And we're working together on a deal. So, like, just networking with people who you know that are smart is exactly what he was saying today. Wait, but Brandon, you're the host of the Bigger Pockets podcast.

That's easy for you. How would I do that? You know how I did it? I shot a message over to a couple people that were on the site. And I said, hey, I'm looking for, actually the way I did. I said, hey, I'm just, I don't know this area very well. Do you know is this in the bad area or good area? It was a very simple question.

I think I sent that to Joe Farrellas first. I said, is this a bad area or a good area? And he responded, but then more than that, he offered just a little bit more advice. Like, hey, I would, you know, stay clear of that one. But check out this and then check out this at Lender. And he connected to the guy named Slocum, who is awesome. If you're listening, Slocum, you're amazing, who's an agent who then led me to a deal, which led me all over us.

So anyway, it was all relationships, 100%. That's great. Awesome. Yeah. All right, guys. We'll pay attention. Go back. This is one you might want to rewind and listen to again.

But fantastic, fantastic. again, big thanks to Dave. And stick around for the random six after the music. Oh, yeah, you should do that. It's really good. Guys, this is show 257 on the Bigger Pockets podcast in the books. You can check out of the show notes of biggerpockets.com slash show 257. And pick up with copy of David's book.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Bigger Pockets.com slash long distance book. Bigger pockets.com slash long distance book. There you go. Check it out. And again, if you buy in the first 10 days, you're going to get some cool bonus stuff, including invited to an exclusive like one-on-one webinar class with David. It's going to be amazing.

So that's going to be happening at the end of the month. But if you buy now, you get invited. Cool. Awesome. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. And until next time, I'm Josh Dorkin.

Host, 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 hype, 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. It's time for it. It's time. The random six.

All right. These are random questions just to get to know you a little better, David. Number one. I want this one. Fine, take it. Number one, have you ever had a teacher ever, has a teacher ever changed your life? How so? I feel like Josh should have asked that question better. I think we should have let him take it.

Hey, David, so has a teacher ever changed your life? And if so, how? Well, you know, I couldn't think of one, but now that Josh has asked me, like, all these examples are... I mean, this is how the world works, isn't it? It's energy, good energy versus... It's the anchor. That's clearly what this is. You know, I have, I had a teacher that taught economics two, and I still remember this, it was in college.

And he was so horrible. Just a complete able, if I can say that. And in my economics one class, I got the highest grade in the whole class. And then I went into his. And I would ask him questions to explain what he was trying to teach us. And he didn't like that. He was only people that just take it because I said it as gospel. And he started like giving me bad grades on stuff. And I would go take my test back to him. And he's like, oh, I misgraded that. I misgraded this. And he was like giving me like 60s out of 100s when I actually had scored like 80 or 90 on like just like pick ABC type answers. Right. It was objective. There's no way he could possibly say it was like he didn't like my right. And I was really frustrated. Like, why is this guy so bad? And I think I still remember him to this day because like some little inner resolve came out of me. Like, I don't have to get pushed around by like the powers that be telling me I'm not, I shouldn't be asked these questions or bothered by it.

Like I can stand up to this dude. And I think it kind of like brought out a piece of me that like kind of like a fearless like I'm going to fight back thing that really served me well going into this business where you have setbacks all the time, you know. And I would encourage other people who have been through similar. experiences, don't let those become your reason to quit. Let that be the reason to pull something out of you that you didn't know was there that will get you through the next phase of your life. I got to say something. So I've never heard anyone else say anything like that. And I had a very,

very, very similar experience. Not in terms of the pulling that crap with the grades. I mean, that stuff is just crazy. But I had a teacher that was beloved. And everybody in the school loved this person. And I thought he was full of crap. I thought he was completely and utterly full of crap. And I was in student government and he was kind of overseeing it. And one day he, I don't know, I don't remember the exact thing that happened. But I was, somebody said something and he said, no, it's got to be this way. And I'm like, dude, like, you're the dictator of the student government. Like, these kids don't even get a chance to do government because you're over, overthrowing and everything that people are trying to do here, you're not giving him a chance.

I spoke out. And I was scared to death when I did that. I'm like, oh my God, everybody loves him. Am I crazy? I spoke out. I have everything exactly. I think he threw me out, threw me off. I definitely got thrown out of the room. I don't know if I got thrown off student government or if I quit. But I then transferred out of his class because I was like, like, I don't want to be pushed around by you. And like everybody loves you, but you're so full of it. Like, we as individuals need those moments of growth, those fearless moments that come. And I don't know, I never forget that. Like when I think about school, that's one of those moments that I always think about and I think was one of my growth moments. So despite that difficult opportunity, something really good came out of it.

Yeah, and look where you are now. Like if you hadn't have gone through that, you might not be the leader that you are right now because you saw everything you didn't want to be. Right. This guy was not a straight shooter. He was full of it. He manipulated people to get him to like him. like because you kind of took a stand and decided Josh is not going to be that kind of a person, you're a much better leader in the role you're in. So it almost looks like divine intervention where you knew, someone knew where you were going to end up. And so what you went through helped prepare you to do better in that role. And I wish more people would look at things that way rather than just playing a victim and saying,

oh, it's not fair. He was mean to me. So I should just quit. Yeah. I love it. I love it. All right. Next question.

If you could have tea with one fictional character. What would be? Oh my gosh. I wish I had more time to think about this. Well, take your time. Brandon, who would it be while he's thinking?

For David or for me? For you. That's a tough question. What about for you? It might be, boy, that is a tough question. Right.

It might be like Rocky. It might be Rocky Balboa. Rocky, you know, kind of seeing all the challenges you went through and all the chaos. and kind of overcoming everything that got in his way. I think those for me are the kinds of stories that I find fascinating.

So those are the things that I seek out and try to figure out, how did somebody overcome that challenge? I'm going to go Gandalf. You're turning into Gandalf. You're looking more and more like him every time that beard. Like nine feet tall like he has too. And why Gandalf? Because he's tall.

It's about it. Why is he smokes a pipe? The least introspective, thoughtful human being I've ever done. David Green, please give us something cool here. All right. It would be a match or a tie between Maximus and Batman. I really like Batman in the sense that he kind of rubs elbows with rock stars, but he doesn't have superpowers.

I just love that that dude gets the very most out of himself he can. I mean, he's fictional. None of us could do what he's doing. But he said, what do I want to do? I want to fight crime. I better go learn to be a martial artist and everything there is. Okay, I'm still a man. I need to develop technology.

to help me do what I want to do. In some ways, that's kind of what we're trying to do as business people, is we're trying to turn ourselves into the most successful version of ourselves that we can be to accomplish the goals we have. And I think that's why I'm drawn to Batman. And then I really like Maximus from Gladiator, just in the sense of what motivated him, kind of. He put himself through hell for a bigger purpose at a time when he just wanted to give up.

His family was killed and he had nothing left. And rather than just turning over and saying, I just want to die to, he said, well, I'm going to go out with a bang. I really kind of like that story. He was a very honorable guy. He made that determination. He was going to be a hero. I was just, I'm reading the book Principles from Ray Dalio now.

And he talks about Joseph Campbell, hero with a thousand faces and the choice to become a hero because the path of a hero is not an easy one. And that book, that was a seriously deep book. I read that. In fact, I believe I read that book as a result of leaving that class and going into a different classroom. Yes. This is all tying together for you. And that is a cool book. And if you guys haven't read a hero with a thousand faces, definitely recommend that.

Very good. Yeah. Brandon, I think it's your question. Should I just read it, David? No, I'm doing it. I'm doing this. David, what movie could you see again and again and again? That was my movie.

That was good. That was pretty good, by the way. Yeah, I should have said like, in a world. In a world. In a world. One man. Yeah. We'll do it.

What movie is that? I really like The Matrix. I've watched that one over and over and over. Two or one, two or three? One. One was the best one. Yeah, I think it is. And then I also really like the Batman movies.

I've watched those several times over. I could probably, oh, you know what? The better answer to that question would be dumb and dumber, as, like, stupid as that is for me to say. I've probably seen dumb and dumber like 20 times and it just does not get any less funny every time I said. Pretty bird. It's not insightful as nothing to do with what we're talking about. But I could quote like the entire thing from beginning to end. And I don't know what it is about that being like the perfect guy movie. But I think that's why we get along so well is we have a lot of dumb and number quotes when we're together. That is a dumb movie. Yeah. Yeah. Apply named.

Yeah. All right. So if you had a chance, you know, your your business is doing well. You've earned enough money to start doing some cool things with it. If you have, had a chance to spend your money to go to space on like the Virgin Galactic or something like that, would you? No, there's no people on space. I think I would rather spend my time trying to help people. It's hard to get ahead. It's hard to do well. It's hard to overcome a lot of the things that life throws at you. And not many people do. And I kind of feel like as somebody who has, there's an obligation you have to reach down underneath you and kind of help pull people up. So space doesn't really have as much appeal to me. I think I would rather get my real estate agent business and my investing

business running on their own without needing a whole lot of attention from me and go start like orphanages. Boring. Oh, no, that's not so boring. That's what I was getting to, right? Wanting to open orphanages in like third world countries. Josh is like lame, stupid kids. Yeah. Okay, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, that was a very, that was a very deep answer to a question. All right. Here's another very deep question. If you were forced to get a tattoo across your forehead, what would it say? You have no choice. It's across the entire forehead. So everyone's what's going to say? All right. I would probably have that quote from Gladiator, what we do in life echoes in eternity. I think that's a pretty good quote on your forehead. Would you now that it would it be backwards so only you can read up the mirror or it be outwards?

else could be. That's a great question, by the way. On a podcast, how would it show? Would I need it to be backwards for it to come across? I'm not sure if this is backwards or not. Yeah, I might be able to get it so it covers like this like, you know, the shiny spot on my head. I could draw attention away from it onto my tattoo.

Well, so next time we get you on the show, you know, just test it out. Go hit the local parlor and see what happens. I like this. Get a temporary one and see what kind of feedback I get. Oh, come on. Don't, don't wuss it. Come on. What would you guys get?

This is a good question. I would never get a tattoo. I know it. Oh, man. Josh would not get a tattoo. I'm getting a sleeve someday. Have you seen this? You don't want to wreck that.

This was made in perfection. Why would I F with it? It's like putting a bumper sticker on a Lamborghini. Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. A bumper sticker on a Lamborghini. You know, what's funny. So, okay, funny story.

So David, when he came out with his first draft of his book, you know, this new book coming out, the long distance is real estate investor. I think it was Katie came to me and she's like, this book is really, really good. But man, David has a lot of analogies in there. Oh, yeah. She's like, does he use a lot of analogies? I was like, yes, he does.

Like, this guy's like the analogy king. Like, and I love that. So, yeah. We should put him in an analogy off with Scott. I think that might be a pun off or something like that. I would not be a bad idea. Yeah, I don't know what I'd get on my forehead. I got to think longer about that.

All right. I'd probably do like, Musical notes. You know, that'd be cool. Like, have a cool song. Maybe have you riding a surfboard on top of music notes. That would be pretty sweet. By the way, David Green came out to Hawaii with me last year.

Yeah. Me and David went surfing together in Hawaii last year. We were, you know, we had a good time. I tried to invite Josh out, but Josh wouldn't come. I wasn't invited. I believe we invited you about a hundred times. And Josh is like, no, I got work and stuff. Yep, that's right.

That's right. I've got life-changing business to run over here. I'm sorry. I can't go play with you guys in the prologics. in the ocean. Yeah. All right. Well,

you know, you guys, you guys, on your own time you're frolicking. As long as your wives knew about it, I'm good.

Yeah. Heather is there. David is still single, by the way, ladies. So, you know, really?

Yeah, David Green. Wow. Look at that. Well, I don't know if he's dating anybody. We can talk about that.

Very to real estate, man. Mary real estate. Okay, last question on the random six. Dave, what is your ideal partner? we're going to hook you up

this is this is biggerpockets.com slash love all over again yes it is no you don't have to answer that man I don't know how you'd even I'll tell you this you're going to get so many emails as a result of this we are going to become

a dating site didn't Scott try to set bigger pockets up to be a dating website for like April April fools two years ago we did bigger pockets com slash love and we had so many people who were disappointed that it was not legit

I bet too with Scott. Maybe we could say like if you buy a copy of my book, you can be entered into a drawing. You're going to see me. Like John, like, hate this so much. Then we make like a spin-off TV show. I love this. That's a great idea. Long just since dating.

All right. The real question is, would you rather work for the FBI, NSA or like at a secret service? A secret service would be insanely boring. I know several of those guys. and it's not a fun job. They're like, sit here and stare at that door for the next 12 hours and make sure no one goes through it.

I would definitely do FBI. If you do well in the FBI, there's all kinds of cool, different, like, training you can get. That was really what drew me to police work in general was the training that you can get, like how they can build you up with stuff that's all free. So I would be FBI. So are you the guy, when you go to a restaurant,

do you sit so that you're facing the doors, do you, like, scout everybody out and do you know, like, what everybody's wearing in the entire restaurant? Yeah, that's true, man. You get paranoid. Like, no one will ever be able to get behind me without me knowing it. I can't relax.

It's like Jason Bourne in the born identity of that scene, you know? I mean, that's a little exaggerated, but that's how you become. Like, you walk in, you have to be facing the door. You know where all the exits are. You're looking around at every person there to see does everybody fit in here? Is there someone that stands out? And unfortunately, like with some of the mass shootings that we're having, we just had wanted at church not too long ago.

Like, I think that's sadly become the new norm in America where you have to be on the eye, look out for that kind of stuff. Yeah. Well, I can tell you, me and David hung out in, what was it, Austin, like a couple months ago, was for a go-abundance event that we're both part of. And we went and hung out like, what, midnight or one in the morning. I don't know. We were just like up randomly late and like, like, not a sketchy part, but maybe a little sketchy.

Anyway, but I just felt so good having David there because he's like constantly looking around. Like, you know, he got his cop walk. It was fantastic. Like, I have never felt safer than walking with you. And the sketchy part of Austin one in the morning. So, thank you. All right. Well, David, we got to get out of here.

Thanks so much for being a part of the show today. All right. Thank you, guys. Love you both. Thanks, David. Adios. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other

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