BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 418: 14 Deals in 16 Months: How Alex Camacho Found his Mastery in Deal Finding

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Alex Camacho has had quite an interesting career path, and he’s just getting started! From a bank teller, to the mortgage business, to property management, and even Airbnb arbitraging, Alex took his time in acquiring the skills to succeed in real estate. In this episode, you’ll hear Alex talk about how he became successful at locking down deals, finding the “pain points” of sellers, and how to have empathy when closing. You’ll also hear how he analyzed over 5,000+ deals, leading him at one point to close on 8 deals in one month (seriously!) You’ll hear Alex go through his off and on-market strategies, and how to steer clear of deals that won’t make the cut. In just 16 months on his own, he’s done 14 deals, some with six-figure profits (each), and how he’s using social media to get even more! In This Episode We Cover: The importance of apprenticeships in real estate The art of saying “no” as you grow into your role Why it’s crucial to surround yourself with high-level investors and entrepreneurs How to get great at analyzing deals, so you can close on the best ones! Using the “LAPS” funnel to drive leads and grow your portfolio Finding the “pain points” sellers have, and how to empathize with them Using social media as a tool, instead of a distraction And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Keyword Alerts BiggerPockets Podcast 315: How to Read Human Nature to Succeed in Life with Bestselling Author Robert Greene BiggerPockets Podcast 398: 22 BRRRR Properties in Under 10 Hours Per Week with Tarl Yarber BiggerPockets Webinars BiggerPockets Calculators BiggerPockets Pro BiggerPockets Podcast 320: Hands-On BRRRR Investing and DIY Secrets with Instagram Star Brittany Arnason BiggerPockets Podcast 292: 200+ Deals in the First Four Years with Ryan Pineda Check full show notes here: http://biggerpockets.com/show418 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 418. Because if you could find a great deal, it's amazing to partner up with someone. And that's where you hear people say, hey, you can do real estate without none of your own money. Because if you are good at finding deals, then you don't need the money. Just go out there and consistently find good deals. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place.

Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on to everyone? It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here in the Seashed on Maui, with our guest today. But we'll bring him in in just a second. And also with my co-host, Mr. David Green. David Green, I miss you, buddy.

I wish you were out here in Hawaii. You got to come out and see me. We need to make it happen. I think the quarantine laws have relaxed a little bit. They have? As long as you get tested before you fly to Hawaii. Hawaii, you're good. Exactly.

You got a test, but it's in 72 hours before coming here. And then you can get here and you can hang out and see all the fun of Maui. I was actually just at the beach this weekend with my mom. I granted an Airbnb and we had the family come out for her 60th birthday. And I was thinking while I was there, once you've been to Hawaiian Beach, no other beaches really get you going anymore. That's funny, man. Yeah. Okay, so honest question, honest question.

Who's more fun at the beach? Your mom or me? Don't answer that. Don't answer that. So today's show, like I said, we actually have our guest in the studio today out in the C shed out here in Hawaii. Our guest is Alex Camacho, who is a good buddy of mine who I've known for a little while now, but a couple of years now.

And it has just been crushing it the last year. So today he goes into his full story of how he went from kind of a rough point where he like lost a lot during the last recession. He lost his career. He switched that over to real estate, how he used the apprentice model to be. a really successful real estate investor today. You're going to learn how he did that, the skills he learned. And then what you're going to love about today's show is Alex goes in like detail about

like how he's finding deals, how he's like doing everything he's doing, what the skill sets he has and that he's grown over the last few years, what skill sets he's used to benefit him today. This show like David said at the end and I'm going to repeat it now might be one of the most impactful shows for people trying to get into real estate because you're going to learn how it's done from somebody who just went. through the, you know, several your journey to get there. You're going to love it.

It's an amazing show. But before we get there, oh, by the way, make sure you listen all the way through to the to the deal deep dive because he talks about this deal deep back he did where it was basically like an office slash house hack, office hack slash house hack slash vacation rental hack, all combined with a long term flip slash amazing deal that made him a ton of money. You're going to love it. It's a cool strategy that more people could be utilizing that and they're not. So stay tuned for that later.

But before we get to that, let's get to today's quick tip. My today's quick tip simple. I was actually talking with our guest. We were surfing a couple days ago and I was talking to him. Actually, when we were out in the water, we ran into this other guy out there who's also, his name's Josh, so shout out to Josh. Who's actually a bigger pocket listener. And he was like, dude, I listen to your podcast.

And we were chatting with Josh for a while. But then I mentioned, he said, hey, you're going to be doing any local meetups here in Maui. And I said, probably just make sure you have your keyword alert set. And I realized, like, I probably don't say that enough. We've even said it in a while. So here I'm going to remind everybody, Bigger Pockets has keyword alerts. You can go put a keyword like a word like Maui in there.

Don't do that one unless you live here. Or Nashville or Denver, whatever city you live in. And then anytime that word is mentioned in the Bigger Pockets forums, including our event system where people host events, you get notified, you get an email or even a text message if you're a pro member. So why is that beneficial? Because when people are doing things in your area, you want to be in the knowledge about it.

You want to be knowledgeable. You want to be there if it's an event. You want to start connecting with those people. So your quick tip is go to biggerpockets.com slash alerts, a L-E-R-T-S, and make sure you have a keyword alert set for the terms and the locations that you want to be notified about. And guess what? It's free if you have a Bigger Pockets membership. So it's, and that's a free membership.

So go do it, right? Go do it. And that's today's quick tip. You ever head out on a trip, lock your door, and think, cool. My most valuable asset is now doing absolutely nothing. Because while you're off traveling, your home is just sitting there. Quiet, empty, not contributing, which feels like a missed opportunity, considering it has solid Wi-Fi and a very comfy bed. With Airbnb's co-host network, your place can earn money while you're away.

You can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle guest messages, prep your space, and manage reservation so everything runs smoothly. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. We all joke that rentals are passive, but if you're spending nights matching receipts or guessing what a property earned last month, that's not passive at all. Baselaine fixes that part of landlording, the financial chaos. Their banking and AI bookkeeping system automatically tags every transaction, updates cash flow insights in real time, and builds the reports you need for tax season. You can even automate transfers and move money around without paying wire fees.

It's just cleaner. Sign up at baselane.com slash BP and get a $100 bonus. Baselane is a financial technology company and not a bank. Banking services provided by Threadbank, member FDIC. Most investors spent all their time talking about their high-level returns. But that's not the number that actually matters. What actually matters is what you keep after taxes, and that's where multifamily real estate quietly stands out.

With built-in advantages like depreciation, the right deals can generate steady cash flow while reducing the tax drag. Bam Capital structures its multifamily investments around those fundamentals, pairing tax efficiency with disciplined operators in a long-term approach. This isn't about chasing hype or guessing market timing.

It's about building durable, tax-aware, wealth over time. Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash bam. All righty then. I think it's time for us to get to today's show. Anything you want to add? David? Share this one, please. This is a really good episode. So if I had to pick one episode on BP that someone who says, hey, I want to become a full-time real estate investor, what do I need to do to get there? It would be this one. Yeah. Yeah, totally agreed. And also make sure you listen for David's new nickname. Your nickname game is stepping up. Your nickname game is stepping up. Yeah, Brandon. I will give you that.

It is. It is. All right. So stay tuned for that at the end of the show. And without further ado, let's bring in Alex Camacho. Alex, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast in the C-Shed. How you doing, man? Amazing, especially that I'm here in Maui. Thank you for having me. I'm so honored. Yeah, well, this should be fun today. So I'm pumped to talk with you today about your, I guess your journey where you've been, where you're going to. And I've seen a little bit about it. The fact that you just landed here in Maui, now you're here for the winner.

or maybe who knows how long. It's exciting. So we grabbed you to be in the seashed today. But I actually don't know a lot about your like early on stuff. I want to know like walk us through your journey. How did you even get into the real estate in the real estate game? Well, I actually got into banking first. So I was very fortunate to get into banking right out of high school.

My older brother was working at Washington Mutual, the bank that was bought by Chase. And so I started as a bank teller, I learned the financial field, so to speak, and really fell in love. Because nobody in my family had ever been in anything like that. So I wasn't banking. I thought I was going to be a banker for actually my whole life. But then I got the opportunity to go into the mortgage business. So I was working for banking for five years.

And then I went to the mortgage business before it crashed and did really well there. But then I didn't have any money management skills. And then the market crashed. I lost it all. And it's been a slow climb back up through real estate. Become an agent. Did some property management. Did some short-term rentals, Airbnb stuff.

And now I've been full-time real estate investing now on that side of things for about four years. Very cool. So you, if I remember right, you started like early on when you got into real estate, you ended up working for somebody else to begin with. Is that right? Or you were like a something, cold collar or something like that, right? How'd that go? So I worked for a real estate investor, a very successful one in Southern California for a year. And then I ended up working for another really successful real estate investment firm, a much bigger one for another year and a half before I went out on my own.

because I really wanted to know what I was doing. Yeah, so this is what I want to, I want to spend a little time on this because this is such a cool strategy that most people skip over. It's almost like the apprentice stage, right? Like where you're learning. I mean, David and I talk a lot about this. It's like this apprentice stage where you're learning from somebody,

hopefully making some money at the same time, but rather than just trying to figure it all out on your own. So first of all, let's walk through. How did you even get that gig? Like, what, did you answer, add in the newspaper? Like, where did that come from? Great question. Well, what happened was that when I was a real estate agent after the recession, I was doing a lot of short sales.

So that's kind of where I got the real estate investment bug. I saw that the investors that I was getting these short sales approved for were making like $100,000 a deal. And that just sparked my interest. But I didn't take action for about three years or so because, you know, life and that was just not taking action. And then what happened was once I had built up this Airbnb income, it was somewhat past. but I didn't own the properties. So I saw an opportunity for me to jump into real estate investing, which I had already been thinking about for years,

but I had about 4,000 or 5,000 income coming from the Airbnb properties. So I went ahead and looked on Craigslist and just basically found a real estate investor looking for somebody, a salesperson, an inside salesperson, ISA, right? And just basically apply for the job. And, you know, he liked my experience. Obviously, I had banking. I had mortgage. I had real estate agent experience.

I had a lot of experience and it was a real, I would call downgrade because I had, I mean, I was getting paid a lot less when I'm normally getting paid, but I wanted to be in the game. I wanted to learn from somebody that was doing exactly what I wanted to do. And I mean, I really learned that from bigger pockets, but you guys talking about so much because I understood that, hey, I need to be around somebody who's actually doing this business, not just read some books, not just, you know, go on and watch some podcasts or anything like that. I need to actually be in the game with somebody. And so that's what I did.

And I want to go work for him for about a year until I went to the other company. Yeah, yeah. This is probably like the perfect Cinderella story of everything that we tell people. This is how you do it. First off, you started off by doing a little bit of everything. That is something we, Brandon and I had a long talk about this on a romantic walk on the beach one day. And he was saying, you know, I think you got to start off because we were talking about how you have to say no to more things in life when you're good. But in the beginning, you got to say yes.

You should start off saying yes to everything. You're young. Say yes. Learn as much as you can. Get exposed to as much as you can. see where you enjoy it, where you fit in. And then once you find that niche that you know is your thing, then you start saying no. And it sounds like that's exactly what you did.

I love that. The second piece was that you took the apprenticeship route. You said, I want to build big wealth with real estate, but I'm not ignorant enough to think I could do this on my own. That there actually is a method to the madness. And if I go work for somebody else, I can learn what they're doing. I can help make that person money. They will help give me education that will help make me money. Was that something you planned on doing?

or is this just kind of how the situation unfolded as you took each little step? Actually, I planned it because I did read that book, Mastery by Robert Green. And there was a great, great chapter in there called the apprenticeship phase, what we're basically talking about. So that helped me understand, like, what I had to do. You know, it really gave me like a roadmap, like, hey, this is your apprenticeship phase. And I made a commitment, honestly, because I had failed before in real estate, of giving it 10 years, like, hey, I'm going to invest.

that's 10 years of my life in real estate investing, because I know if I put in that decade, by the time that 10 years is done, I'll be fine. And so it would help me with the daily struggles and help me with making this guy a huge amount of money, and I'm making very little and swallowing my ego on a regular basis. Yeah, so I did kind of plan it that way, but it did get to a point where I knew that,

hey, I kind of plateaued with him, and that's where somebody actually reached out to me, and they recruited me to go work for a much larger company with an equity stake in the deals and a much more of a formal role and something where I could continue growing in just that next phase of that apprenticeship phase, so to speak. So how did that, the first one,

so you did the Airbnb, we tried to get some money coming through, right? Can you just mention real quick, how did that strategy work? Like, what was that? And then we'll go on back to the apprentice thing. Sure. So we were renting apartments in Hollywood

where there's a lot of tourists, a lot of people coming in. This was like 2014, 15. Airbnb hadn't really been heavily regulated, get. So we would basically get an arrangement going with department managers where they would get some slice of the income. So we'd offer them to $300. And then they would allow us to do full-time Airbnb on those. So we'd, you know, we'd do the Airbnb. We'd, I mean, we put furniture in there. We'd pay our, you know, rent every month. We paid, we had a system with the cleaning ladies.

So we really put that together. And then eventually ended up being where we had about 10 of those. It was with my brother and I. And we were splitting the. income on that, but wasn't that, once you had on the system, you didn't really have that much actual work to do on each unit. So that allowed me have that income coming in and go work for the first guy. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I like that strategy a lot. And it still works. I know people who still do it today, but like you said, it was, it was kind of Wild West back there. And so there weren't a lot of laws against everybody. Today, there's a ton of like legislation. You got to do this. You got to that. But there are still areas and there are still people who

you find ways to get it done. And we've had multiple people on the the show talk about that strategy over the years. So also, just to bring back something we talked about a minute ago, Robert Green, that book, Mastery. So for those who are interested, we did have Robert Green on the show. It was episode 315. So BiggerPockus.com slash show 315 where he talked about that concept of the apprentice, an apprenticeship and the master.

So definitely go back and listen to that. And I'm actually working through mastery right now. I read it quickly, like kind of like a real quick read before we had him on the show. Just trying to get through it because I like to do that before we have big authors. But I'm kind of go like deep dive one chapter of time right now, underlining stuff. Anyway, very, very good book.

So let's go back then to that world. Have you got this gig working for the one investor, like basically being this inside salesperson and then the other investor? How did those two like structure? What was the, how did you make money on either one of those? What was that like and what was the difference between the two? Sure.

So the first guy, I was an inside sales agent. Essentially, I was a glorified telemarketer. I was in there just pounding the phone six, seven hours a day, also doing some door knocking. I was getting paid a small salary. I think it was like $3,000 a month. Okay. And then I was getting a flat fee per deal that we actually acquired when we acquired it. Because he didn't really wholesale.

He was just all about flipping and he would keep all those small, multifamily things that fit more of an income property. So I would get $2,500. So, but his buying criteria was that he wanted to make a deep discount. It was all about the discount with him. If he didn't make $100,000 profit on the deal, he didn't even want to touch it. So it was really difficult to get him deals.

But after the first deal, I got him about three months in, every month after that, I was getting an average about one. That's cool. That's very cool. So why the transition then? Why did you transition from that to going on your own? Well, a great question. I always, that was always the goal, right?

I want to be a full-time real estate investor, flipping house full-time. Because I did love his blueprint, the first guy I worked for. But then I went to go work for that second company, after a year. And that company, I saw they were different. They were like a flip, flip factory. They were flipping over 200 houses a year annually in Southern California.

And they had more systems in place. Had a lot more employees. So I got to see their operation from the inside. And when I went to go work for the second company, and that year and a half, I got them 54 properties. And my best month, I got them eight deals. So I saw a volume. Eight deals in one month.

In one month, we closed on eight deals. That you brought up. I brought in, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So during that year and a half, I just, I saw a lot and I learned a lot. And I saved money because I was making more. And so right at towards the end, I just felt like, hey, I've learned enough.

I've built the relationships. I've got the knowledge. I've got enough money to flip about two houses on my own in Southern California. And that's when I, you know, I left on good terms and I went on my own. Yeah, that's cool. So this is actually when you walked into my life then because you came, you would just start on your own. This is like, what, a year and a half ago maybe?

about 16 months ago. Okay, yeah. So, right? So you went on your own and then you took a vacation and you came to Maui. I think you had done a couple maybe before that,

but like you were just... Yeah, I had done like four or five on my own. Okay, yeah. A couple of joint venture partners and things like that, yeah. Yeah, it was definitely something I want to get to today's idea because I know you use a lot of joint venture stuff,

so I want to get on that. So you took a trip to Maui and you hit me up and said, hey, I'm coming to Maui and you wanted to know, I think you wanted to know where I go to church, right? So you met me and you actually showed up. We ended up talking for a while

and then you ended up joining us for that Maui Mastermind event that we had that Tarle Yarber and I put on. And like, you were such an amazing person to have at that mastermind. I'm like, you were the last person to join. We had one more spot available and we were like, well, we just won't have somebody. Then you came into the last second. But just having you there, you just have like the spirit, the spunk that like everyone was like, oh, man, I love Alex. This is amazing. So anyway, first of all, thank you for coming.

You made that trip so much better in that whole experience. But then you got around basically 18 other people who were all like, you know, high top, you know, high level top investors. I'm curious like how that played into like everything else that came after that we're about to talk about. Like did you like, I'm not asking you to like give me a, you know, hey, that Brandon's event was great. But I'm just wanting to like just getting around those people. How did that play into your future success? Oh, it was game changer. It was a game changer because I was already heading a positive direction.

I was already a huge fan of bigger pockets. I'd listened probably 200 of the episodes, you know, at that point. So it was an honor to meet you in person. And then you, it was such a blessing because I was like, oh, wow, like, I'm going to get to come back to Hawaii. And so it was short notice. But, yeah, I came back. And then my mind was so expanded by being around all these other guys, all these other gals to. And basically what it did for me is it helped me to just look at, you know, a much bigger picture than what I was already thinking.

I was thinking, hey, I'm going to go and do my own thing. I'm going to flip, you know, say a house a month and just kind of live a good life, but I didn't really have an overall plan. But in that mastermind, a big theme of the mastermind was clarity. Like, what exactly do you want your life to look like? What exactly you want your business to look like? Yeah. And it wasn't like a typical real estate seminar, right?

Where you're just going there, you're getting knowledge and, you know, speakers are on stage and they're giving you information. It was group huddles. We also did amazing events together where we got to, you know, build these bonds. And I like to say I was the dumbest guy in the room, and I'm proud of it. I think I claimed that role. Because they were such smart individuals there. And I got to also see their problems, which were much larger than my problems.

And so, you know, that was huge. And also, they were all, like, friends, colleagues and mentors almost at the same time throughout this journey, where I've been able to call them, lean on them, ask them questions, ask them advice, follow them on social media, continue to get inspiration and say, hey, that person, I know that person. I know that person and they're killing it. I mean, I'm so lucky to have this person in my network. So network is huge because it has accountability factor and inspiration and all that in one. So it was an amazing event. So thank you so much for, you know, allowing me to attend.

Oh, thanks for coming. Alex, would you say that being exposed to people with bigger problems than yours changed how you looked at your own problems and in essence made them seem like they were easier than you were probably thinking before that? Absolutely. I specifically remember AJ Osborne saying something about him having to buy like another jet. I remember I was like, okay, I don't have problems like that. But I'd like to have problems like that. Oh, wow.

So, yeah, when you're exposed to other people, they're living lives like that, you're just like, okay, well, you know what? My problems aren't that big and I need to have problems. Yeah, and the value in realizing your problems aren't as big as you thought is not just so you could say, well, that person is more important. It's because now doing the work that it takes to be successful doesn't feel as hard. All I got to do is jump on the phone and call 25 people today. Before this conversation, that felt like ridiculously hard. I'm not up to it.

I don't think I can do it. Then you hear someone who's talking about being sued or trying to manage 20 flips in a month or something and you're like, yeah, I'm kind of lucky that all I got to do is make 25 calls. I feel like that's something that I've really enjoyed about getting around more successful people is that you get perspective. and then the load feels lighter, at least to me it does, when I see what someone else is doing. And I'm frustrated with an employee on my team. And I hear someone talk about 20 people just quit their team and they got to go fill 20 positions.

It doesn't seem nearly as bad. I'm really curious to hear, and we kind of skipped over it a little bit, so I want to take us back just a little. When you left the employer that you had, you had built up some skills working for them that helped you put eight people in contract in a month. Obviously, that is a very important skill to have in real estate investing because, as we say all the time, it's the ability to get the deal that's the most valuable. Would you mind helping the listeners understand the value that you place on the skill of talking to sellers and getting them to agree to put their house in contract or noticing maybe who's motivated and who's not and how that skill served you when you said, okay, now I'm going to go start my own thing?

Oh, absolutely. I resonate the most with the acquisition side of real estate investing because selling, negotiating, presenting are some of my best skills. So they were used to, you know, used a lot. So I felt like I found a role that I could use what I do best the majority of the day. And that was just getting after making offers, talking to sellers. But being able to talk to agents, being able to talk to wholesalers, being able to talk to sellers is one of the most important skills as an investor because these are the opportunities that are coming to you. And you need to be able to influence these people to consider your offer and to, you know, give you to get some engagement there. And so it's a huge skill. And I mean, maybe not everybody's going to be in sales or

in acquisitions, but then you need to have someone on your team that is great at that because then you're not going to get consistent deal flow. And that's what we look for. It's not just one great deal. We want, I want to get consistent great deals. So let me ask you, if you started off again and you didn't work for someone else, you take yourself on your first day, I'm going to go work for this real estate investor, but you started your own business. You ascribe to that whole, I'm not going to go make someone else money, I'm going to make me money. How do you see your ability to build wealth or put people under contract being affected if you had not had that training and experience working in someone else's company? Oh, wow, that's a, that's a tough one. I think I would have struggled.

I think I might have quit. I think I might have bought a bad deal or maybe had not got as many deals because I didn't have the financial backing. I didn't have all the knowledge and everything else that I needed to execute all these deals. So I'm just, I don't, I can. I, can't even think about it. I think it would have been very difficult. Yeah. Yeah. Then, yeah, I love all this stuff. And I want to stress this point that you made about deal flow, right? It's not about so many new investors getting this game. And in the beginning, yeah, you just want to get a deal. Everyone wants to get a deal. They want to get their first deal. But you're like, it's not about the deal. Right. If you want to have a business, it's like, imagine you own into McDonald's, right? And like, you're like, we got to sell a hamburger, you guys.

We got to sell a hamburger. And you go outside. You're like, would you want to buy a hamburger? Come in here. And then you get your hamburger. You're like, we did it. We got. We got a hamburger. Like, and then you're like, okay, crap, now we can't pay our bills. And that's how so many people approach real estate. And so I did that for years. I lived in very like, go get a deal. And then I would go get the deal.

And then I'd stop all my deal getting activities. And then I would go and now I got to rehab that deal. And then I'd go rehab that deal. Then I got to sell that deal. Or if I'm going to flip it, right? Or refinance it or rent it or whatever I'm going to do. I got to, you know, operate the deal. And then I'm out.

And then I'm like, okay, take a deep breath. Oh, shoot. I got to go get another hamburger. Right? And then I go out there and I do it again, right? And so what you mentioned was like deal flow, which you want is not a deal. You want deal flow. So can you explain like, what does that mean?

So those who are listening to say, how do I build deal flow? Like how do you, how did you and how do you build deal flow? What's your like kind of techniques there? Well, you need to have a system, right? A system for analyzing deals, a system for making offers consistently because I found that if you don't have those and you're just going to kind of flying by the seat of your pants. every single day, my number one goal is to make one solid offer. And that could be an off market deal.

That could be an MLS deal. But I've broken it down to that kind of single goal because I found that if I get overwhelmed, oh, I got to make five offers this day. So it's more about having a consistent deal flow. And to do that, you need to be making offers consistently. And to make offers consistently, you need to be analyzing deals consistently. So I just found that a lot of people are stuck in their head or in the same. theory, they understand real estate kind of the theory of it, but they're not applying that

knowledge and seeing that engagement that happens when you're making offers every single day and getting in the game. Too many people are sitting on the sidelines because they just overthinking it, but it's not that difficult. The more deals you analyze, also, you know, I'm a big fan of the way you talk about that, of just analyzing 100 deals. I think you talk a lot about that, right? And at this point, I think I've calculated I've analyzed probably 5,000 deals over the last

four. So good. Yeah. The last four, you know, years. But I haven't bought 5,000 properties,

you know, but it's one of those things. You analyze that many. You just get this, like spider sense. You just can see a good deal. I think that's one of my strengths now. I could spot a good deal

kind of a mile away now. Like, I sometimes just got to drop whatever you're doing because you've seen so many deals. You're like, oh, this one has potential. And then you, a lot of what we do is,

we're disqualifying. We're just getting rid of deals. This is not a deal. This is not a deal. This is not a deal. Now, Oh, wait, this one looks like it might have some, it's not a deal. This one, not, not.

And then you finally find that one and then you're all over that, that whole day because it warrants that much attention. So that's, yeah. That is a great segue into my next question for you. And this is why we're interviewing you because it's very hard to find somebody who is, I mean, a lot of people will say where they get deals. I find them here. I find them there.

The problem is if you're the listener, once you find the deal, you don't know what to do with it. Or you don't know how to tell if it's a deal. And I can tell Alex, because you worked for someone. else. You've got so many at-bats. When that pitch comes out of the pitcher's hand, you know that's going to be a strike, that's going to be a ball, this is a curve ball, and you know how to adjust your approach based on the type of seller you have. So I want to see if we can pull some of that out of you. Can you give us some practical advice regarding what you look for when you

think you've got a deal, how you would know if it's not a deal? Maybe what are some of the things you do to disqualify people? And then once we know what a deal looks like, I'll ask you some follow-up questions about how you would analyze it. Sure, sure. Well, I think number one, if it's off-market, I would say, like having a true motivation. So being able to spot out real pain, I know that sounds bad, but it's basically, if you use empathy a lot when you're dealing with sellers or I do, because it helps you put yourself in their situation.

So if you're dealing with a hoarder, if you're dealing with somebody that's in foreclosure, if there's a high level of pain and they have real intention to sell the property, that's my number one when it comes to off market because then I know like this person truly has to do something and I'm here to help them solve that problem and so I think when it comes to spotting out opportunities on the off market I think it's just and so many people ask me or they send me DMs on Instagram they're like what should I say here and what should I say there somebody has truly motivated if you're listening you could hear that they're motivated yeah right so I think that would be on the off market when it comes to like on market MLS opportunities I think what's really important to

recognize is having true engagement with an agent. In my market, I let a lot of the deals that I've got from the 80 plus deals that I've worked on over the past four years, over 50 of them have come from the MLS. Oh, wow. Yeah. And of those 50, over 80 of them, I'm sorry, 80 percent of them, of those 50, the listing agent represented me on that. So first, that would be one, right, where you're as an investor, you're not thinking about commissions or you're not thinking about any of that. you're thinking about buying deals. So that's something that is important there, that you could use that card.

You have to use it in the right way. But what I have found is that when I get that real engagement from agents where they like me or they like what I'm saying and they see my offer and then engage with me, it's just having that back and forth, just kind of ebb and flow that you get from negotiating a deal. So many people think they're just going to make an offer, it's going to get accepted,

and then it's going to turn it to a deal. But it's not like that. You got to make offers. and then you get a counter offer or you know you want to make an offer talk to the agent and see you know what the motivation of the seller is so getting a real conversation going with agents I found to be another indicator that you know particularly listing agents is another good indicator that you have a chance of getting a deal you don't they're not going to tell you for sure how I'm going to give you this deal but you're in the running and that's what you want you want to be consistently in the running to get your offer accepted or countered so that way you can sharpen your pencil you can get your contractor in there you know, making more aggressive offer after the fact, after you've looked at it with somebody that you trust on the construction side. So those would be probably the two things I think about when it comes to spotting out deals. That's great. So what I heard you say, the most important thing is you're looking for pain. And this is what I find from every high level person that does what they do when I say, how do you know the right lead, regardless of your business, by the way.

It's the same in real estate. If you come to me and say, hey, David, I want to buy a house. But you know what? I'm really comfortable where I am. I live with my mom. It's free. I'll be here for the next 10 years. But if a great deal comes along, I'll buy it. You can tell right away, Alex. You're like, yeah, that's probably not the client you want to work with. You're going to be just working, work and work, and they're never going to go anywhere versus, hey, we just moved. I'm coming to California. I got one month to find a house. That is going to be the best client you've ever worked with. They're going to be very responsive. They're going to jump all over what you find them. It's like that with off-market deals, too. If that seller is not in pain, there's no reason for

them to give you a discount on the property. And what I find with amateurs is that they find a and they say, how do I make this work? How do I make the seller take my offer? What Jedi Mind trick can I play? But that's not really how you're looking at it, Alex. You're saying, okay, that's not a deal if they're not in pain. I'm not going to try to make it work. I'm going to go move on to the next one and find the person who is in pain, who has to get rid of this. So as you're listening, please listen for points of pain. That's the person who wants your all cash offer, who wants the quick close. The person who's not in pain doesn't need a quick close. They're happy to go forever. And you also brought up a great point about on market deals and off market deals,

how you approach them differently. Brandon, do you want to jump in there and share with some of your experience what you've noticed about making the mistake of maybe pursuing an on market deal with off market strategies? Sure. I mean, like, something that have bigger pockets. We're trying to get more and more into this differentiate in the two because when new investors come in and they want to learn real estate, they want to buy their first deal, there's a lot of strategy that work for on market that don't work for off and they do work for off and they don't work for on or I don't know if I said that right, but you get the idea, right? So what I think just important to realize, and we brought this up, I think it was last week or maybe one of the

previous weeks is that there is a difference. You don't have to only choose on or only off, but there's a difference between how you approach both. So I've actually going to fire this one back over to Alex and ask like, what are, like, when you're trying, let's start with on market. You want to buy on market, which means the property is listed for sale by a real estate agent. What typically are you doing? Like, what do you find works well for to find those on market? And we'll switch it and talk about what do you find that's working well for off market? Oh, for sure.

So on market, number one thing that I do look for is that it's listed within striking distance of making a deal. So, for example, in my market, if I see a deal listed, say, at $400,000. And then I know, based on my experience and maybe doing a quick and dirty analysis, desktop analysis of the deal real quickly, if I need to, get that deal, say, $75,000 under the asking price or more, I won't pursue it. I'll let it sit because it's going to probably become a stale listing. That's what I've noticed. It needs to be listed at a good enough price where it almost works off the listing price.

Because the way I have, what I see is that if that agent couldn't even get that seller to list their property at a seller price, then they're probably not that good of an agent. And it's going to be hard for them to get my offer accepted, whether they write it or not. That's really good. I know you're still going, but that's so good. Right. And then also, I mean, they're just not going to be able to negotiate that. So they're probably not a good agent, like I just said.

And so that's one thing. I just, it's out the window. I'm not going to continue to pursue that deal. I'm going to let it sit. I'm going to set a reminder and we'll go back to that. And obviously, I'm looking forward that it genuinely needs work. Because if it doesn't need work, then what value am I going to add? There's nothing there.

It's if it's really good condition. Because a lot of times you'll see a deal and it's listed at a good price, but it's just going to good agent. They're listing it low, so they can get a lot of offers, but it's going to end up selling for a lot higher than that. And it's in good condition. And it's what I call financeable. If I look at an on-market deal and it's clearly listed low, but it's kind of financeable. And maybe it needs a little bit of work, a little TLC, but it's not really a flip opportunity.

So I think when you're looking on MLS and on-market deals, think like this. 90% of the deals are going to be retail or overpriced. There's that less than 10% that might be an investment opportunity. And those are the ones you want to focus on most of the things. attention on. Yeah. And you know, when it comes to those 10%, what I like to say is I'm always looking for what I call hidden potential, right? It's those things that nobody else happens to see or scares away everybody else. So I always say this example, but I think it's a good one. I always look for two better. Now, in my markets, typically, I look for two bedroom houses that have over like 1,11,100, 200,

square feet because I know that the value of a three bedroom is usually way more than a two bedroom in most markets are investing because it's family versus more, you know, young person, transient nature. which is like the one and two bedrooms in studios and then three, four, five bedrooms are bigger. So if I can add a bedroom because there's 1,500 square feet in a two bedroom house, well, I know that there's probably like two living rooms and, you know, massive huge backports that they're counting that could be, you know, a family room or could be a bedroom. Right. So I'm always looking for those opportunities like there.

I love smells like bad smells. That's hidden potential. I love just like functional obsolescence where there's this like stuff that you're like, well, that's weird. Like, for example, there's a bathroom in between two bedrooms. The only way to get to the bathroom, and like if there's one bathroom in the house, the only way to get there is by going through a bedroom,

that's just weird, right? Because anybody coming over a guest has now got to go through a bedroom to get to the bathroom. It's weird, right? But it's not a terribly hard thing, usually to move that around to add a doorway or to open things up. So those, like when I look for on-market stuff, that's what I'm looking for, is those hidden potential,

the things that everyone else misses. Or sometimes you get listings that have only one photo on the MLS because the agent was just too lazy. Or it's such bad, condition inside that they don't even want to take a picture of the inside, right? So that's hidden potential as well. Properties have been sitting on the market for a long, long, long, long time. There's hidden potential maybe there because those sellers get more and more eager to sell

if they cancel their property's been on the market for six months or nine months. So there may be potential there. So that's some of the on market stuff that I do and I know you do as well. What about off market? What's been your kind of go to lately for that? Well, the go to and the off market, I really like internet leads. I've done well with those with like Google, PPC. and what is PPC for those that don't know?

Paper click. Okay. So basically you're paying four clicks to your website and then hopefully those, you know, those leads convert. So those have been great. Also still do co-calling. So I don't do it anymore, but I have somebody on my team that does. So we still co-call, you know, lists, all the lists that you've all heard about,

absentee owners, foreclosures, all that. And so those are the main ways that I get off-market deals, which is through the co-calling or internet leads. Now, you mentioned to me yesterday, and I don't remember the exact number. Yeah, we were sitting surfing. I mean, we've been surfing the last couple days, right? And you said, you said something like, yeah, you know, I felt like my Google or was it Google ads weren't, you know, doing all that well last year.

And then I realized how much I had made off them. Can you explain how much you spent? Was it, was it Google or Facebook ads? One of the two? They're Google. Okay. So what was that like, because that, I thought that blew my mind. Yeah.

So I ended up getting three deals that made somewhere around $200,000. And I think that we spent about $3,000 a month. So, yeah, it was about $36,000. But what happened was in the first four months, we got the first two good deals. And then it was a huge gap until the end of the year. And the cost per lead starting going skyrocketing up. The service I was getting for the company I was running ads wasn't what it was at the beginning.

And so, and obviously, I didn't even know that we were going to make that much during that time. So then I end up cutting the ads off. I'm going to start them up again. Actually, the last deal I just got came through my. website organically. Oh nice. So that was that was great a deal that we just closed on. Yeah. So it was like I looked at the numbers at the end of the year and I'm like wow like I got to start this again. But I didn't know that during all I saw was like I'm spending $3,000 a month and I'm not getting

anything for it in the middle of of that of that year. Not anything but it just was frustrating that the cost for a cost per lead was going up. The leads weren't getting better. We weren't getting any contracts. But it's one of those things you just got to keep testing and continue. to market because you just don't know what's gonna work. But once I looked at the numbers, I'm like, oh wait, I gotta start this again. Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah, it's, it's,

and I think it illustrates another point is that you felt like you weren't getting any progress, but then at the, it all came kind of through at some point, you realize you did. I mean, this is true of so many areas of life, right? And this is why we always tell people, trust the process. Like, we should get t-shirts that I'll just say,

trust the process, because sometimes you have to remind yourself that like, like, for example, if you're trying to lose weight, right? And you're like, I'm gonna stick with this diet, for a while. I'm doing keto or I'm doing vegetarian or whatever you want to do, right? Like, it all works. Like, all those different things typically work if you work them long enough. And yeah, we hit plateaus eventually, but if you just trust the process of diet and exercise, you'll probably get the shape you want. Now, you might have to tweak things. I'm not saying

like, be lazy about it, but the same applies to real estate. The same applies to everything, right? Like, going on regular dates with your spouse is a process that if you did that regularly and try to improve the quality of those dates, that process should lead to a deeper relationship. By doing like the same with your kids, I taking 20 minutes a day to play with your kid down on the floor. It might seem like, oh, I'm not making much progress. But over time, if you stick with it, it's going to work. And so what I hear you saying here is that real estate's about trusting the process. Like those tactics do work.

But again, it doesn't mean you'd be lazy about it. It doesn't mean all direct mail is going to work. You have to continually refine your direct mail. Refine your cold calling. Refine your, whatever it is you're doing, your SEO, try to improve your website, try to improve your cost per click. on ads. But if you do that and you're consistent with it, you're going to get the results you want. I know, David, you do that with real estate agent stuff as well. Like, there's a process behind success in anything that we do, any business venture, relationship, or fitness, whatever. So, yeah,

trust the process. And speaking of process, I want to bring up a process. We talk about this. David and I do webinars for bigger pockets every week. One of us will do one. And we teach, like, thousands of people about real estate. And every time the conversation at some point turns this thing that we call the lapse funnel, L-A-P-S. And it's just a very simple way of looking at real estate. You get leads somehow. You analyze those leads, like however you analyze leads. You run the numbers on them to figure out what you can pay.

And the great thing about real estate is you can learn. It's like not too hard to learn. We do it live every week on these webinars. We work backwards from whatever we can sell it for if it's a flip or we can rent it for, what kind of return we want. And then we get a number. And then we go after it. So the L is leads, A is analyzed, P is perceived.

which is basically make an offer. Now, we don't call it offer because, you know, if one, it doesn't fit with laps. That sounds like a nice phrase. Laos doesn't sound quite as good. But it's also because, like, people are like, oh, an offer is scary. Well, it's not always an offer, right? Like, especially off market. You're not always going to make an offer.

Sometimes it's a phone call of just pursuing the deal. You're going after. You're having a conversation. So tell me, Mr. Seller, what, you know, like, did you have a price in mind that you wanted to get to? You know, like, have you been offered anything before? How did you feel about that? That's pursuing.

And then finally, if you trust that process, get leads and constantly improve the leads you're getting, analyze them and continually find better ways to analyze and do it more effectively and efficiently and, like, you know, tracked. And you continually pursue deals regularly making offers. The last part of lapse is S. Success. You're going to land the deals you want. You're going to get success.

And that funnel, everyone knows I love funnels here at Bigger Pockets, that funnel is what gets you deals. And I always say that every real estate investor in the world, everyone follows the LAPS system. Just some follow it better. And so when we talked about the skills earlier that you picked up from working as the apprentice up for these companies, I think a lot of those skills are just the LAPS skills. It's learning how to get the leads regularly, learning how to analyze deals correctly, learning how to pursue offers and negotiate, and then getting those closing. So once you have that, you can go out there.

And the great thing is, most of that stuff does not require money. I like to make this point because people are like, well, you know, I don't know what the market's going to do. Should I, you know, pursue real estate right now? Yes, it doesn't take any effort or commitment to do the LAPE part of the LAPS funnel. You can get leads for free. You can analyze them for free. I mean, maybe you pay for a bigger pockets pro membership, which costs you, you know, a few hundred bucks a year. So you have our analysis tools.

But like, really, it's not, like, it's not a lot of investment here. And then you can start talking with sellers. You can start pursuing deals. You don't have to sign your name on that line if you felt weird at the end. but if you did, if you landed the deal, like now is the time to practice, now's the time to get into it. So when the deal does land,

you'll feel confident. And like you said earlier, you've analyzed a lot of deals because now you've got that practice. You've got the reps in so you can recognize deals. So anyway, rant over.

But I just love how everything that David and I have been preaching for years on these webinars and on these podcasts, like you're just like, you're the embodiment of it. So, you know, dude, you're awesome.

Let's go some specifics back to your story. How many deals have you done now since going out on your own? And what kind of deals were they? So now I've done about 14. 14 deals on my own. And they've been mainly flips. And I've done a couple of those were joint ventures because, you know, every so often I'll run low on capital on them.

I like the joint ventures because they allow me to bring in somebody else that I trust, like and respect into my business. And then we split responsibilities and they fund the deal. And then we, I don't typically wholesale that much because I do like to see the transformation of all. these properties. And also in my market, it's a little bit harder to wholesale. And sometimes when you're buying stuff on the MLS, it's also more difficult to wholesale than if you're buying it off market. Makes sense. Yeah. When I bought my first rental, I thought collecting rent would be the hard part. Nope. The admin crushed me. Every night was receipts, tax forms, and checking who was late on rent. I kept thinking, if this is one unit, how do people run 10? Base lane changed that. It's Bigger

Pocket's official banking platform that handles expense tracking, financial reporting, rent collection and even tenant screening all in one place. It's the system I wish I had from day one. Sign up today at baseline.com slash bigger pockets and get a $100 bonus. Baseline is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services provided by Threadbank, member FDIC. Here's the truth about passive investing. If the strategy isn't right on day one, the returns won't save it. Multi-family real estate offers structural advantages. Many investors are overlooking, including depreciation that can help offset taxable income while cash flow continues. Bam Capital builds its investment with that reality in mind.

They are focused on solid operators, tax efficiency, and long-term performance. For investors who want real estate exposure without being landlords and who care about consistency over hype, this is a smarter way to allocate capital. Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash bam. Wouldn't it be great if your houseplants paid rent while you were out of town?

I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist, like a bunch of leafy loafers. But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you.

These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations. So everything runs smoothly. It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need.

That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed's sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer.

Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsor. answer job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. So tell me a little more about what your joint venture process looks like. How do you choose your partners? How do you split everything up? So currently in my joint venture process, I have

a two or three joint venture partners. So what I've found in the, and success with is that I will build these relationships with people that they know what I'm doing. They know, because I'm out there, I'm pretty active on social media. And so they see that I'm actively flipping property. So if they have interest,

I'll let them know, hey, this is kind of how it works. You would be basically responsible for funding the deal, all of it. And then I will find a deal that's going to make us at least $50,000 profit. And then we can go ahead and split that 50-50. That's currently how I'm doing. graduating to something where I won't need to do that as much anymore, but it's helped me get to where I'm at now.

So I don't have anything bad to say about it because if you could find a great deal, it's amazing to partner up with someone. And that's where you hear people say, hey, you can do real estate without none of your own money because if you are good at finding deals, then you don't need the money. Just go out there and consistently find good deals. Yeah, and I've done that now with Greg a number of times here in Maui.

Now, David, you've done that a number of times as well. Like, it just works, right? David, anything you want to add on that? because, again, I know you've been really successful with the J.B. stuff in the past as well. Yeah, I'll give an analogy of when you watch the Moneyball movie about the Oakland Days and Billy Bean, one of the highlights in that movie was Billy Bean was looking for players that could get on base. He determined that was the most important metric in baseball. If you got guys that could get on base, your team would win because then other players who hit home runs

or had a good batting average would be driving them in. And a walk was just as good of a hit. What a lot of people make the mistake on is saying, I want to be great. and I'm going to go practice base stealing. I'm going to practice how to be the best base runner I can. And they have this amazing skill set that never comes into play because they don't get on base. It almost didn't even help them.

With real estate, getting the deal under contract is getting on base with baseball. When you have that, when you have the deal, everybody else who's focused on doing their job well needs you. The title company needs you. The realtor who wants to sell houses needs you. The buyer's agents, they need you to list that house. The person looking for the deals that are looking to be investors need you, the hard money lenders,

I could go on forever. Every single role in real estate investing is relying on the person who gets that deal. And Alex here learned, I'm going to do the most important thing. And then what he found was that finding money was easy. There's people with a ton of money that are running around looking for who's got the deal. I got to invest all my money. And that question comes up so often to Brandon and I. What do I do?

How do I get money? or how do I do this thing? And what you find is when you get a really good deal, they come looking for you. Their job, you're their lead. That's their lapse funnel is to find you. They're looking for people like you that have deals. That's so true.

Before we get to the deal deep die, which I want to get to in a second, I want to talk real briefly about your use of social media. Because you've done a really good job over the past few months in the last year of building your Instagram presence, for example. I want to know why do you do that and what kind of benefit of you seen for that over the last year.

Sure, sure. Well, at the beginning, I was using it just to document my journey, right? Just to show people kind of what I was working on and build that credibility when I was working for the other investors. But when I went on my own, I took it a lot more seriously because I did learn some great advice, some great tactics from investor grow Brit, from Brian Pinieada at the mastermind. Yep. But the benefit I saw was that I immediately got was I was attracting younger,

real estate entrepreneurs in my market, which are perfect for me as an investor because they're out there also pounding the pavement and getting opportunities, but they don't know how to analyze the deals as well as I do. They don't know how to convert as well as I do. So I saw a huge benefit when I got this deal that I did a joint venture on, and my partner and I made $80,000 on that deal, and I didn't really spend any money for marketing because I got it from somebody that reached out to me on Instagram. And so I looked at that, kind of like the PPC,

right, the Google where I looked at it after the fact, I'm like, wait a minute, we made $80,000 on that deal. And all I did was share content regularly on Instagram on what I'm already doing,

but just, you know, cultivated a little bit better than I was doing in the past. And so now I recently got another deal through Instagram as well, through having my hashtag flipping LA. And so I guess that's trending. And, you know, if you pull that up, you could see like top 10 of the 20 posts or mine.

And so somebody reached out to me. And then we got a great deal that's projected to make over $100,000 profit too. So that's why I keep using it because it's attracting deals and people that I can influence and help and along their journey because there's people that are starting out where I was two, three, four years ago. And I'm trying to help those people. And that's who I post for, that customer avatar. That's so good. That's so good, man. Because like I think there's a lot of people make the mistake of being consumers.

And Russell Brunston, who wrote a book called Traffic Secrets, this is where I got this phrase from. But people make the mistake of being a consumer of social media rather than a creator of social media. See, the consumers are the people who just scroll all day. Not that we all don't do that enough. But like when you become a creator of social media, you start using social media as a tool to attract people, to build trust, to build credibility. I mean, I think we've raised in my real estate fund, open door capital. I think I've raised over $20 million down the last year. We have our third fund launching, like, going right now.

And I think it's like 90% of all the people don't even come from this podcast, like, which gets, you know, a quarter million listens everywhere. It's from my Instagram. Why do most of the money I raise? Why is it from people from Instagram? Because they see me over and over and over, the way that I treat my friends, the way that I treat my family, the way that I analyze deals, the way that I talk about real estate,

and it builds trust and credibility over a long time. People bring deals to me from Instagram as well. They bring leads. They bring potential off market mobile home parks. So they do all these things through social media because I'm a social media. I'm using it as a tool. And you are doing the exact same thing. David here is doing the exact same thing as well.

And so it's just kind of cool to see that in the real world. And to shift your perspective, I'm not a social media consumer. I'm a social media creator. I'm a content creator. And even if you don't think you're good behind the camera, that's okay. You can make posts. Like my most popular stuff is usually like how to do stuff. I'm just like here on my Instagram.

I'll be like, find houses on the MLS. Here's seven tips. Or here's, you know, whatever. Like, just putting out good information makes people realize that you are a valuable person to follow. And the hashtag thing is super cool.

I haven't utilized hashtags very much. But the fact that you are, like somebody found you by searching hashtag, what, flipping L.A., they, that's just, that's super cool. So, yeah, kudos to you. All right.

So that's cool. Let's transition to the next segment of our show. It's time for the deal deep dive. All right, the deal deep dive is the part of the show where we dive deep into one particular property that you've recently bought. We want to know all the dirty details about it. So, Alex, are you ready to dive into something? Yes, let's go.

All right. So we're going to ask you a series of questions here. And we'll just need some quick things. So number one is, first of all, do you have, I know I spraying this on you, but do you have a property in mine that we can dive into? Yes, I do. Okay. So first question then, what kind of property is it and where is it located?

That's actually two questions. This should be the deal deep dive question one and two. It's a single family residence. And it's located in Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley. All right. Next question, David. What price did you pay for that property? 534.

534. And then so we got how do I out on my list in front of us. Let me do you do. Hold on. How did we find it? How did you negotiate that price? Okay, that's the next one. How do you negotiate?

I think we missed one. Did we miss one? I don't know. I negotiated the deal. It was a Google ads lead. and the lady was very motivated some medical issues going on. But I needed to buy the property actually at $500,000 or $400,000 to flip it. But she allowed me to do the property subject too.

I'm sure you guys have talked about it. I'm happy to explain that too. So that was why I was able to buy it at $5.34. Okay, okay. Next question. So I pull up my list here. It was number one. It's not like I've done this 100 times at this point.

It was what kind of property was it? How did you find it? how much was it? We talked about how you found it, right? I don't think we asked what type of property it was, did we? Single family, yeah. And we talked about where it was. We talked about how you found it, right?

Motivated seller. How much was it? We talked about that. How did you negotiate it? How did you fund it? Okay. I funded it because she allowed me to take over her mortgage. Okay, that's right.

And all she wanted was $46,000. So I just gave her the $46,000. And now it just came from your own savings? That was my own money, yeah. Okay. Can you explain what subject? Two means? Yeah. So subject to means that the property owner is going to sell you the property and they're going to allow you to take over the underlying mortgage that's on the property. You can't do that with like cars. You can't do that with other things, but you can't do that with mortgages. There are some details to it and there are some risks to it. I'm happy to talk about that. But yeah, it allowed me to. It's a creative way to buy real estate. Okay. And what did you do with this property once you bought it?

Great. So I actually moved into it and made it my primary residence. and it was a four-bedroom two-bath house. So I did Airbnb on two of the bedrooms in the front of the house. And here's a kicker. I transformed the detached garage into an amazing office that I used to basically grow my business and to launch my company and to do deals. And so it was like a house hack but also a business office hack all in one. And an Airbnb hack.

And an Airbnb which paid all the mortgage as well. Yeah. And then after a little bit over a year, I sold it and made a profit over six figures. Okay, yeah, that's the main question was. What was the outcome? So you made a six figure profit? Yeah, it was right around 100. And it was great because I got to live in the property for free, basically, you know,

or very low overhead, got to use the office space, got to, you know, it was an incredible deal. And if I hadn't done it creatively, that's the deal I could have passed on. Yeah. Crazy. Okay. What lessons did you learn from this deal? What lessons? Well, first of all, I think one lesson is not to get attached to real estate because I did get a little bit attached to the property. And it sucked up a lot of my capital and it prevented me from buying like one or two deals during the time I was in the property. So I think you have to, as a real estate investor, you really need to use logic and as much as possible because I think our emotions get the best of us and we follow. in love what we have and we don't see that, hey, there's much better opportunities out there or this is not the best decision for you financially.

So I think that was one. Even though it didn't turn out great, I did run very low on capital several times because of that property. And another thing that I learned is that you just got to be able to think creatively, and it's not all about price. It's like terms as well. Because I had pitched the subject two idea to several owners. This was actually my first subject two deal because in,

Southern California, I think it's a little bit harder because the loan amounts are much higher. So taking over someone's mortgage payment of like $480,000, it's different than somebody that maybe it's only $100,000. I think there's that. So just continuing to add different tool belts to your tool belt as an investor is something that you need to do. That way, you're not a one trick pony, right? You can do flipping, you can do wholesale and you can do creative financing, all that.

It just makes you a much stronger investor. So those are two big ones that stand out. Yeah. So good, man. So good. There's so many good lessons in here. All right. So we got to start headed towards the end of the show now.

Kind of final question probably. Actually, two more before we get to the famous four. First of all, where do you see the next few years of your life headed? Like what do you plan to do? What's your kind of future look like with real estate? And then second follow up question to that, what do you need from our audience? How could they bring value to you? Great.

Thank you. So what I see going forward is obviously I'm living here in Maui now. Yeah. So I'm going to enjoy Maui. I'm going to start flipping here. in Maui. Nice. I'm also working on my LA business remotely.

So we're flipping about one property month there. So I'm working to scale that to two. And just now I'm going to start acquiring more small multifamily, either in Southern California or there's a couple of markets that I want to start investing. Because you guys, the first two and a half years of my real estate investing journey, I wasn't really making that much money. So it's only really been about a year and a half that it's been kind of a breakout for me.

So now I'm going to start acquiring rent. rentals and things of that nature because people do ask me about that. And believe me, I would love to have a huge portfolio, but that's where I'm headed. I would like to start to build my rental portfolio. And as far as what the audience can do for me, I'm an open book. I am interested in helping other people get started into business because it's to help transform my life. And so I derive a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment from helping other people young in the journey in real estate investing. So have them reach out to me on my Instagram. or anything else.

I'm pretty active on that. I respond and I'm happy to help other people. But if you're looking for, if you have any deals in Southern California that you'd like to sell in your wholesaler, hey, I'm still buying in Southern California and also now in Maui. All right.

Very cool. All right. Well, with that said, let's get to the last segment of our show. It's time for our famous four. This is a part of the show where we ask the same four questions to you that we ask every week to every guest.

And now you've heard the show many, many times. so you know what's coming. But all right, with that, let's get to it. Alex, number one, first question of the famous for, current favorite or long-time favorite, real estate related book.

Okay, so mine is that classic book by Gary Keller, the millionaire real estate investor. That's one of the first ones that I came across, and it's just so meaty. And I know there's some stuff in there that is maybe a little bit outdated, but with all the infographics in there, and I just love that book.

I think it has some classic principles in there that you can't go wrong with. Very cool. Very cool. Next question. What is your favorite business book? My favorite business book, I don't know if you would consider. Would you consider mastery by Robert Green a business book? Yeah, I was. So I think that's my favorite business book just because it really goes into the idea of like mastering something and having a vocation and having, you know, a work,

something that you can, you know, build a career out of and think of it long term. And a lot of people want to be doing this and that and a million different things, but then they don't lock in and get. great at something. So I think that book is amazing because it helped me realize like, hey, I want to become a master real estate investor. And so that's my favorite business book. Very cool. It's awesome. When you're not surfing with Brandon, what are some of your hobbies? I love trail running. So I love getting after in the mountains. So I'm up there. I've been going to a couple of these amazing Maui hikes. And I would do a lot of that when I was in L.A. I will say. So Alex went surfing for the first time ever. Was it five days ago, something like that, right?

And didn't know what he was doing. So I took him to a pretty, actually, pretty hard beach to learn on. It was pretty crazy. Not like overly big waves. It's kind of messed up. Anyway. And the first day, of course, like most people, didn't stand up the first day. Second day, we went out there.

It was like, yes, yesterday or two days ago? Two days ago. Okay, two days ago. Went out there. And yeah, I don't know. Within, I don't know, half hour or whatever, you got your first wave, rode right in. It was awesome.

And then we're at the end of the day. We went out, like, we were out there for a few hours. We were getting tired. So we go in together. And we both caught, like for your second wave, both caught it together. Alex and I were on the same wave. Totally party wave. It was awesome.

We were like, woo, it was amazing. Amazing, amazing. First and second wave down. Yeah, done. So now you're pretty much a pro at this point. So nice to done. All right, man. Well, let's get you out of here.

Alex, what do you think separates successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail, or just never get started? I would say mindset for myself. I think having a mindset and because it's believing that you can do it. If you don't believe you can do something, you're not going to do it. So I think one of my strengths is having that strong mindset of believing in myself and taking action. But I think people too many times get stuck in that theory. And they need to have that mindset like, hey, I can do this.

And then that's going to propel them to take action. So good. So good. All right. Mr. David Green, you want to. Last question of the famous four slash five. Where can people find out more about you? This is the next segment.

The famous four is over. And now this is famous. This is... Oh, this is just like the tumor to the famous for it. Like, we just like stuck it on there. All right. tumor question. Alex.

What is... Where can people find out more about you? They can reach out to me on Instagram. That's probably the best way to reach out to me. It's Alex Camacho TV. And Camacho spelled C-A-M-A-C-H-O. Okay, just like that sounds. Alex Camacho TV.

All right. Very cool, man. Well, thank you for joining us here in the C-Shed today. This has been fantastic. I got to finally use my new little switcher. So if you're not watching this on YouTube right now, I'm like, throughout the whole show today. I'm switching back and forth my cameras, which was pretty fun. Figure out how to do that.

And, you know, David obviously is not here. But we'll get you here, David. We'll do another maybe the three of us roundtable sometime next time you're out here. In Hawaii, David. All right. Well, I don't know. This was fantastic. I do you were going to be good, Alex.

And that's why we've been talking about getting you on the show for a while. But it's just now you're here. It just, yeah, you blew me away. Thanks so much, guys. It's been such an honor. I love BP. Anyway, I can help other guys. Let me know.

Thanks, man. Well, David Greene, you've killed it. Thank you very much, Alex. This was probably one of, I don't know, I'd say one of the most beneficial podcast for people that are trying to learn how to get into our investing that we've ever done. So thank you for being awesome. This is David Green for Brandon. Everything's a Funnel Turner.

Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the height, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. 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 podcast platform.

Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not

indicative of future results. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.