BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 44: Creating Systems to Flip Houses While Still Employed with Michael Woodward

Episode Date: November 14, 2013

Trying to investing in real estate while holding a full time job is tough – but trying to flip houses can be even tougher. From dealing with contractors to finding money to getting the deals in the first place – flipping often feels like a full time job in itself. Luckily, today we talk with someone who is doing all those things while working a demanding day job – and finding great success at it. Michael Woodward sits down with us today to show us the systems he uses to balance both his house flipping with the rest of his life – all while maintaining a full time job. Whether you are a flipper, wholesaler, or Buy and Hold investor – you don’t want to miss this great interview on systemizing your business. Read the transcript for episode 44 with Michael Woodward here. In This Show, We Cover Why Michael quit his job – but ended up going back into a full time job again When’s the right time to quit your job? Failure – when it’s necessary Learning the tough lessons about doing your own work One trick to help you find the very best contractors What’s the “Ideal Flip?” Why Michael fully furnishes all his properties Dealing with troublesome neighbors How Michael is funding his flips Managing a flip while working a full time job The List System that helps Michael know what comes next in a flip The best place to buy appliances and a lot more Links from the Show BiggerPockets Radio Podcast 003: Getting Started in Real Estate and Raising Money with Brian Burke Dropbox.com 8 Reasons Why Having A Day Job And Investing In Real Estate Is Awesome! Books Mentioned in the Show The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber Tweetable Topics The nice thing about BiggerPockets is the ability to share what we know. (Tweet This!) If you’re going to go big you’re going to have to fail somewhere. (Tweet This!) You can talk yourself into any deal. It doesn’t make it right. (Tweet This!) The only way to invest in real estate while holding a job is to have systems. (Tweet This!) Connect with Michael Michael’s BiggerPockets Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 44. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Dork, and host of the Bigger Pocker. Pockets, podcast.

Podcast. You're my echo. That was kind of cool. Nice. Introduce me already. Oh, yeah, that was Brandon who rudely interrupted me. What's up, Brandon? Not much.

How are you doing? I'm good, man. I'm good. Things are going well. It's getting close to ski season here in Denver. So, you know, we're starting to get excited. Everyone in town is starting to freak out and shake with anticipation. Nice, nice. And it does also be coming up on the holiday season, which we all love.

Oh yeah, we love the holiday. There's no pressure, no anxiety. Nothing. Peaceful. Yeah. Yeah. Holidays are awesome. Yeah, anyway, so let's not talk about any of that stuff and get right to the show because that just gives me anxiety. Do it. All right. So today we are going to introduce everybody to a guy named Mike Woodward. Mike is active on bigger pockets. He's a house flipper in the Knoxville, Tennessee area, who's flipping multiple houses every year

while holding a full-time job as an engineer. And I know that working a full-time job and doing anything is difficult, let alone flipping houses. So this show is going to be kind of cool and we'll get the opportunity to learn some cool stuff. I know a lot of our listeners currently have full-time jobs and do struggle with running their businesses.

So I think you guys should definitely pay close attention to this one. As always, you guys can connect with our guest by visiting the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 43. And you'll also find links to all the stuff we talked about during the show. Otherwise, if you haven't already, please jump on iTunes and leave us a review and a rating, hopefully a five-star one. But leave us some feedback there. The show continues to grow, and we love getting your feedback over there. It helps inspire folks who haven't yet listened to the Bigger Pockets podcast and helps us rank a little bit better. So definitely please do take a minute or two if you haven't and leave us a rating and a review. Did you know your house gets bored when you

leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action. The footsteps, the late-night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can

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That's RentR-E-D-I-com slash Bigger Pockets. Here's why savvy real estate investors are obsessed with bonus depreciation. It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against your income. Legally, 100% IRS compliant. That's instant cash flow improvement. Cost segregation guys is the number one firm nationwide, specializing and identifying these faster depreciating assets in your property.

They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50 states from remote cabins to to apartment complexes. So if you own investment property, this is a no-brainer. So visit costsegregation guys.com slash BP for your free proposal and find out how much you could save this tax season. So with that, let's get to this interview. Hey, Mike, how's it going? Welcome to the show. Thanks, Josh. It's good to be here. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, it's good to have you. Before to it. Yeah, before we get started, I just want to say, you know, the reason I asked you to be on the show is because I've always really, really appreciated your responses in the forums lately. So I just want to publicly say thank you for, you know,

chiming into the forums and helping kind of newer investors out. That was very sweet, Brandon. Thank you. Well, I don't say that to everybody. You know, I'm really glad to do it, too. You know, bigger pockets has been very important to me and my career already. So, you know, I like to give back. I like to, you know, help people that have real questions about things.

I'm a fix and flip guy. So, you know, when people ask about, you know, I've got a sink that, you know, I don't know if I should change it or not, what kind of flooring. You know, there's just a lot of things that I deal with every day. And it's a shame to hold it in, you know. And I think that's the nice thing about bigger pockets is it gives us a chance to, you know, to share what we know. And I gain a lot, too. So it's, you know, it's good. I appreciate it.

Thank you. That's awesome. Awesome. All right. So you're a fix and flip guy. Where are you based out of? East Tennessee, close to Knoxville. I don't know that area that well.

I've been down to Memphis once before. Kind of cool. Enjoyed it. I've been to Knoxville a few times. It's a good place. Nice. Yeah. Well, cool.

It's good. Well, how did you get started, Michael? Well, really, you know, it was kind of an accidental flip in a way that I got a job in North Carolina. I've got a mechanical engineering degree. And right out of college, my wife and I moved over there. bought a little farmhouse, house in five acres, you know, paid about, I don't, about 85,000, I think, for the house. My God, 85,000, five acres.

I know, I know. That was in 97, 98. Okay. So, and even then, that was a good deal. And I knew it when we bought it. So 18 months later, the company I was working for actually shut the plant down. And we needed to move back to Tennessee. So we did.

We sold it for 125. We had been working on it while we lived there. And went back to Tennessee with, you know, paid off all my student loans and made a good chunk of change. And, you know, it really got my attention. So that was the thing, that was the moment at least that I saw real estate as something to do. That's cool. I started with an accidental flipping the same way. I bought a house to live in and ended up selling it, I think nine months after I bought it.

So, yeah, I think it's an awesome way to get started with flipping is just to flip your own house. And yeah, very good, very good way to start. So are you full time now or are you, do you have a day job as well? Are you still working in engineering? Well, I am right now full time. I'm sorry, full time engineering. Okay. And part-time real estate.

So there was a time when we moved back to Tennessee that I got back into real estate while I was still engineering, quit my job, but really didn't have the real estate infrastructure in place. that was a big mistake. I didn't know about bigger pockets. I really hadn't put a lot of effort into making sure that my business model was really a business model. I mean, it was just kind of I was figuring out as I went. And it worked, so I kept going, but I really took a big step, a risky step to quit my job and go full time into the real estate without having all the pieces in place to make sure that the business would survive. So anyway, so I got pretty quickly

over my head in that, you know, bought and sold some houses, had some success. And then when the real estate market collapsed, it took me down with it. So I ended up having to fall back on my engineering after that. So I'm back to engineering and then flipping part-time, but actually doing more flipping now part-time, in big part because of bigger pockets and really learning about what I need to do with my business to make the business solid. So now I've got enough time. to do both. So right now it's a good thing, although I want to, you know, I still want to get out of the engineering job and full time into real estate, but I'm just going to make sure that it's solid before I, you know, take the leap. That's great. That's great. Well, you know, so you lick

your paws a little bit, right? Had a, had a, had a challenge like a lot of folks did in the late 2000 knots, I suppose. What is that? 2008, 20, 2007. What what, you know,

we've done a lot of interviews with people who've gotten their backsides handed to them in that period. And, you know, we've talked to some who didn't. But I think it's really important that people hear how others, call it screwed up or not, whatever you want to say.

I mean, I'm not going to say that you screwed up because, you know, it was real easy for anybody to get hurt by the downfall. But, you know, what did you learn? What did you do that you might have done differently now that you look back, aside from not quitting your job potentially? Well, yeah, I'm a huge fan of failures, really. I think they're important. I think it's important for everybody to fail. You know, it's kind of a basic business premise that if you're, if you're, if you're, you're going to go big, you're going to have to fail somewhere. At least most people do.

That's a tweetable topic right there. That's a tweetable topic. Anyway. So, you know, and that's really real for me because I learned so much with a failure that when it happened, like I said, I didn't spend any time on the business infrastructure, really the business plan. I didn't have time for a business plan because I was too busy trying to figure out the business, which really was the backward way to do it. I shouldn't have been doing it. it that way. I should have done the business modeling first and then went back. So in real terms with the real estate, boy, where to start with that? I mean, there's so much to having a successful real estate business that you have to know so much. I really feel kind of bad in a way for new guys

because I know how much they have to learn, especially somebody that's new and they say, I want to buy house in the next three months and I want to jump in and get going. And I look back to the last 10 to 12 years and thinking about everything I've learned over that amount of time and realize you've got a pretty steep hill in front of you. Yeah. So, you know, don't short your education. You really have to spend a lot of time on your education. So for me, specifically, you know, getting the numbers right, everything that you guys talk about every day, the fundamentals, making sure that the property in the right place, but it's the right price

that you understand sales, that you understand what's a good deal and what isn't. That's really, I guess, the place to start.

If you understand what things should be selling for, then, you know, you can run the numbers. So I just didn't do the numbers to the level that I should have. Gotcha, got you.

And I think a lot of people did that. Yeah, did the exact same thing. You know, many got caught up in it. You know, a lot of people

just thought that the trend would continue forever and instead of sticking to their numbers they said there's a little more room I got padding the market's hot right and I mean look I've got houses all around my neighborhood right now where these guys have done some flips and work and they were super excited

about the market the market was super super hot and now these things have been sitting on the market for weeks and not selling. And, you know, I know for certain, at least on one of them, that their numbers are not, their numbers aren't that good. They do not have a lot of padding. And they put a lot of money into these things. And I knew when they bought that if they were going to flip it, they'd have to be super careful. And I'm watching it.

And I'm just saying, oh, boy, this guy's starting to get real close to bleeding. And it's easy to happen. So I press upon anybody who's looking to flip that they just be really smart about the numbers, just like you said. Yeah. Yeah. You really have to. There's just no shortcut to it. Yeah. I think one, for me, the problem I used to make is, you know, if you're estimating what the property is going to be worth, and you say, well, I think it'll be worth somewhere between 120 and 140.

In the height of the market, almost everybody, myself included, use the 140 number. And the thing I think that the crash taught everyone is to use the 120 number and then maybe deduct a little bit more. It trained me to be more conservative. I don't know if you found the same thing. Well, you know, it's such a temptation really to want to get into a deal, especially when you're new. I want to do it. I want to get one. And you can talk yourself into any deal.

You could say, well, you know, I don't have to replace the shower. You know, the big sinkhole in the backyard is not a big deal. I'll make a pool there, you know, just crazy stuff that you want. you can talk yourself into making anything look good on the numbers. But if you're really going to be honest with yourself and you're really going to do the hard thing by saying, you know what, this doesn't look good. These numbers are too tight. I'm going to back away from it.

Walking away from that, it's like walking away from an auction. You know, people get excited and they want to stay plugged in and they can't walk away. So if you can resist that, you know, and stick to your numbers, then you'll be much better off the long run. Yeah, and that's key right there. Stick to your numbers. That's huge. Well, let's talk a little more specific about the kind of properties that you're currently flipping. Like, where are you finding them?

I guess before I actually asked that, what are you looking for, price range wise? And then where are you finding them? Well, in my area, I analyze solds all the time. And I'm always looking for the sweet spot. And I'm a huge systems guy. I always look for what the numbers tell me. I'm always, you know, I've always been analytical, so that's where I start. And in my area, the price range with the most activity is between $100,000 and $200,000.

And if you really dig into the numbers, you can see where the hot spots are with that. In my comfort level, with the funding that I have available, I'm tending to pick them up at around $60 to $75. I've gone a little bit more than that on a few, but, and of course, my selling target is somewhere between 140 and 175, something like that. So that, in my area, that's the sweet spot. So you said between one and two is your kind of range, and then you said you're able to find kind of some sweet spots. What other criteria do you use other than the pure pricing? Well, you know, of course, location is always important. But honestly, I really just go by the pricing. And there are some exceptions to that. If I see that something is priced really cheap,

looked at one this morning, $30,000, you know, it's like 1,500 square feet. You Google the street and you look around and there's, you know, it's a dump all the way around. The real tracete, it was a meth house. It had been recently remodeled. 30,000 bucks for 1,500 square feet on the surface by the numbers looks good. But that's where, you know, the education and just really the the street smarts start to kick in and you can recognize the difference between a good deal and a bad deal by the numbers. But did I answer your question there? Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, are you, you know, are you looking at three-toes? Are you looking at any kind of, any, you know, specific floor plans? Are you avoiding anything?

You know, a lot of people will say, you know, I know flippers who will only work on historic homes, you know. So just trying to figure out kind of your specific. Sure. Yeah. Well, last year I made a mistake to buy a house that was too cheap, really, and that sounds impossible, but the house was $11,000. And I thought, you know, there's no way I can not make some money on this. Yeah.

But it was only 500 square feet. So that turned into a very, very difficult thing to turn in the end because people don't typically like houses that small. They just can't live in it. A college student. It is. Yeah. I had a nice size kitchen. But yeah, it was just too small.

I ended up selling it to a college student and made money on it, didn't lose money on it. But that was a tough sell. And I learned my lesson from that. So I really, I try to stick to three bedroom, at least one bath. Three bedroom, two bath is better. But, you know, it's tough for me to even go as low as two bedroom one bath. It has to be a real deal in an area that I know. will sell. And there's a market for that too. But yeah, three, two. And I really look for square

footage. If there's enough square footage, then I can tackle the floor plan. I have a background and construction and so forth. So the rehab doesn't scare me at all. I can, if I've got enough square footage, then I can usually make it something that's desirable. Three, two are bigger. Nice. And are you doing your own work then? Are you hiring it out? Well, that's the other part of my education is that I started out early doing everything myself. At a high school, I needed to pay for my first car, so I went to work for the local contractor, building a house. And so, you know, I learned how to do it. And I was capable of doing it.

So when I started flipping, I did do it. I just, you know, for really, it all boiled down to, I don't have a guy that can do sheetrock. So I need to learn how to do sheet rock. and I could do it, so I did do it, without thinking about whether or not I ought to. And then I learned really a difficult lesson. That was part of the demise of my business early on was doing that. I felt a lot of that with doing that. I don't have a passion to go out every day and hang drywall or roofing.

Really? Really. It's, you know, I remember hating the business toward the end of that. I was almost glad that it ended because I just, I'd go out, you know, I'd had plenty of freedom. I thought I had freedom, but I didn't. I'd go out to work on the house and I'd realize I don't like this. You know, this is not what I should be doing. So the downturn and it gave me time to redo all that.

So anyway, now I hire everything out. I have a super, super contractor that does everything for me. I don't have to buy materials. I never go into Lowe's for Home Depot. He takes care of the whole thing. He gives me a quote at the beginning, and as he finishes things, I pay him. You know, when he calls me, says, I need a check. I get to him and give him a check because he's really taken care of me.

Where'd you find this guy? Well, that's another secret to what I've learned and not a secret at all. It's a secret to part of my success, I guess. Come on, you're charging $9.97 for that secret, right, Michael? I will teach you how to find a contractor. It's yours today, free. Now, I learned, actually when I was building new houses, I learned if I wanted a good, let's see, where to start.

If I needed a good sheetrock, drywall hanger, then I need to talk to the guy that, the painters. So I'd call painting companies and say, hey, who do you like to follow? And they'd give me a list. You know, stay away from this guy. Use these people. These are the ones we like.

And you can really follow that from the end of the project all the way back. Everybody follows somebody pretty much except for the guy that breaks ground. So go to those people and ask them, who do you like to follow? And that's what I do. That's an amazing tip. Awesome, awesome. Probably my might be my first or second favorite tip as it goes to flipping. Yeah, I know.

I should have charged more for it. Yeah. Hey, so on the G. See, who's making the recommendations on the GC then? As far as what he does? Where do you find the top dog? Yeah. Well, you know, it's the other nice thing about the contractor that I have is that he takes

care of everything. So once I found him, I don't have to find anybody else. There's a few things that he doesn't do. He doesn't do the roofing, but he makes arrangements for the roofing. And I don't worry about it. He gives me a good price on that. The flooring is something that I know the people that do good work in the area for flooring. So I just put him in touch with them and off they go.

So finding him initially was really the hard part. I looked for months and you have to try somebody out. You're not going to know what they're going to do and how they're going to do it until you actually hire them and you get into it. At least that's been my experience. They all say the right things. Most of them do. Very, very few of them will actually follow through with exactly, what the agreement was, and this guy does that.

So once I found him, it's actually a heating and air conditioning guy that put me on to him, and he's been my exclusive contractor ever since. So it just makes it real easy for me. That's cool. And that's, I think, a huge key there is once you find the guys, take care of them, don't try to undercut them and get an even better deal every time, because in the long run, the relationship's more important than a few dollars here and there. So I think that's great.

Absolutely. Well, cool. So I'm wondering, what is an ideal flip look like for you? Like, beginning to end, how much would you ideally want to pay? I mean, I know zero is ideal, but like a typical good flip, what's it look like? Buy it for how much, put how much into it, sell it for how much and how much profit? Well, really, the two that I've got right now are good representations of that. I paid, I think, 61 for one and 51 for the other. I'm going to put somewhere between 45 and 55. in each of those. And the houses will be like new when I'm done.

That's something that I've found as important. And actually, I fully furnished the houses too. And I know there's a lot of different opinions about whether that's important. But for me, the one 500 square foot house that I had was on the market for six months or more, which was killing me. I mean, it was just terrible for my numbers.

As soon as I furnished it, two weeks later, I had it under contract. So I've found that it's key for me to fully furnish the house. and everything else in the house is like new. Everything, the flooring, the paint, kitchen cabinets especially, women really buy houses. So I make sure that if nothing else in the house looks good,

if the floor plan is so messed up that you can't do, you can't make it flow perfectly, at least we'll make sure that the kitchen looks good. So top to bottom, new roof, everything needs to look and smell good for me to be happy with it. When you say furnace, you mean stage, right? stage, right? Same thing. No. No, actually, I'm

furnishing them. It goes with the house. Really? Okay. Yeah. That's couches and curtains and everything? Everything but the bedding. Wow. Wow. Pictures on the walls. Yeah. Staging, a bowl of candy in the living room. A refrigerator that's running.

You know, everything. One of my taglines on my listing is all you need are groceries. That's cool. You can move right in. So, and it's, you know, it's a nice. added expense. I'm spending probably 7 or 8,000 per house that most people say you don't have to, but if that gets me a contract in one to two weeks instead of one to two months, it's worth it to me. So that's what I found is part of the keys. And have you experimented with that? Because, you know,

I would think there's probably somewhat of a fuzzy line between staging and furnishing, right? I've never heard of somebody else doing this. So I'm kind of fascinated and I'm my first inclination is to say, what the hell are you doing? Stop. You know, you're wasting money. And, you know, I mean, have you gone the staging route, tried it that way and found that that wasn't as effective as offering the furnished house? Well, I kind of did test it in a way that I was not doing it before. and I knew what my typical sale time was to get a contract.

If my house is just one of another 15 or 20 with the same description, it's tough to keep that in front of people. You know, you try to stay on the hot sheets with the realtors. You try to have relationships and somehow get it out there. And that works to an extent. But when I finally decided to do this, I just kind of went full in. I just said, I'm going to try this and see what happened. And I've found that it's been very, very effective.

In fact, every person that have bought houses from me since I've started doing this have said, we want the furniture. We love the look of it. We want the pictures that are on the walls. If you want it back, you're going to have to negotiate something on the price. Everybody wanted all the furniture. I haven't had a single person complain about that. And the other side of that is you never really know.

I mean, this fits my model, so this is what I'm doing. I sold a house earlier this year. and the guy that bought it when I ended up putting drywall on the ceiling in the basement. It was an unfinished basement, but I put sheetrock on the ceiling just because it looked better to do that. Some people had said that they may want that,

so I did that. Anyway, we're at the closing table, and the guy looks across and he says, you know, I really wish you wouldn't have put the drywall on the ceiling in the basement. You know, I spent about $2,000 doing that because I felt like it was the right thing to do in general. So that's kind of where I am with the furnishing that I feel pretty strongly because it's sold. Actually, I had another tough house to sell. In that case, it was a neighbor that was the problem.

I made a mistake and don't ever ignore your neighbor. So anyway, furnishing the house got it sold. Nice. Well, that's fascinating. Let's jump into that neighbor speak for a second there because, I think that's another issue that is oftentimes ignored by newer investors. I know I made that mistake big time early on and bought properties where neighboring properties really screwed me for lack of a better word. I mean, it was just pretty disastrous. So how does somebody know that the, you know, you find a great property, but, you know, the property next door is going to burn the sale. How do you, how do you avoid that? Don't stop.

Just keep going. Literally, I say that as if I'm joking, but I don't. If I pull up to a house and all the numbers look great and it's a killer deal and I see the neighbors have got trash or dogs or anything that smells bad. anything that would turn somebody off, I just walk away from it. I won't even consider it. Okay, okay. Yeah, I tell you what I did.

The house I live in now, we actually purchased it in the wintertime here in Denver, and it was during a year of some wicked snows. So we showed up, we were the only ones house hunting in the winter. We were walking through a foot of snow looking at the houses, and I didn't even think about landscaping, didn't think about what the neighbor's properties, how they were maintained until the first spring came.

And I noticed the guy across the street wasn't taking care of his lawn. His lawn wasn't really a lawn. It was a pile of dirt. And, you know, super nice guy, but he just wasn't about it. And so it took years until he sold his place for the house to start looking good. And, you know, so that would be my tip amongst your tips, which are don't show. If you're going to shop in the winter when there's snow in the ground, you might want to keep in mind that there's more than meets the eye underneath.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's just one of those things that you can't overcome. I've had many realtors tell me, if you can't get somebody to stop, you can't sell them the house. If they won't stop and get out of the car and go in, you can't sell the house. So that really struck me. When that finally sunk in, I realized I can't have anything on the outside that looks bad. people are going to just keep going until I have to price to a point where it's a killer deal.

And, you know, I don't want to get in that position. There's always, there's always too much time that passes if you try something like that. So it's just better. Yeah. So what do you usually do for landscaping? How much do you spend on that? And do you have any tips for curb appeal? Well, you know, when we built, when I built new houses down in Florida, there's kind of a standard that you really needed to meet. And that's a little bit different because you're, starting from raw ground. But I always wanted it to look really nice. You know, we put palm trees out front and a nice entry, plants, flowers, and so forth. Here in Tennessee, we get quite a bit of rain, so it's typically pretty green.

So if the, you know, if the lawn is in good shape and there's a few plants outside, some landscaping, you know, mulch and that sort of thing, it needs to be soft and pleasing. It just can't be something that's ugly, you know. I don't really have a good specific response to that. I don't have the new houses I had a package. I told them, you know, we need to package one out on this address and they'd go do it. And they knew exactly what to do here. I just kind of take it house at a time.

But it needs to have good curb appeal. I mean, it's, again, the same thing as the neighbors. When the people pull up, they need to say, you know, this looks nice. Let's go and take a look. Okay, cool. So how do you decide then, you know, expanding off that topic? Like, how do you decide how much to go? How far do you take it?

You know, I call it like the, if you give a mouse a cookie problem, you know, it's always going to need more. So you update the front door and you're going to need a new lock on it. And if you update the new lock, you're going to need a new, you know, light to match it. Like, how do you know how far to go and when to stop? Well, you know, really the condition of the house will determine that if the front door is good. The front door is good on one of them that I have now and it's not good on the new. next on the other one. So, you know, we have, like I said, every house needs to look and feel like new. So if it doesn't look and feel like new, I budget to replace that. And the pricing, the numbers

have to match that. If the house is priced toward the top of the typical budget, but it needs a lot of work, I'm probably going to have to walk away from it. But if it's priced low and it needs a lot of work, that doesn't bother me because I can budget it in. It's just, I have an analysis, a spreadsheet, and actually it's linked to my smartphone. So when I go into a house, I fill this out, and it tells me exactly the price of everything in there. When I walk through the house, I'll say, it needs doors and trim and needs new lighting.

Flooring is almost always a given. The roof, maybe, maybe not. So when I get done with this house, I've got this complete list, I actually fill it in on my smartphone, and it gives me a number at the bottom. I've already talked to the realtors, so I know what the after-repared value is.

I know what my repair cost is. pair costs are going to be, and then I can call him right back and say, okay, we can make an offer or we can't make an offer. And actually, we can always make an offer. It's just a matter of what's it going to be. It's listed at 43, but that's too tight. I got to buy it for 30, so let's offer 25. Or it's listed at 33 or 43, and, man, I could buy it for 50, so we offer 44. You know, we may go in above asking price just to try to get it if it's a good deal. Okay. And, you know, Earlier, to go back to what we talked about a while ago, you mentioned, I asked you what the kind of ideal flip was. You talked about these properties, you're getting, you know, you're buying them for 50 or 60.

You're putting in 45, 55 into them. So what do you plan on actually selling them for? And then what's your profit look like on those properties? Yeah, my target is always 25,000 in the end. When it's all said and done, that needs to be my target. 20, I might consider if I feel real, real good about it. 30 and above, of course, it's a no-brainer. You just go with it.

But, you know, in these price ranges, if I'm buying for 60 to 65, again, it depends. You know, some I'll put 20,000 in and some I'll put 60,000 in. So I have to know in the end that this is going to be, you know, the numbers are going to work. So I'm typically selling around 150. Okay. Got it, got it. Hey, so you would mention the smartphone thing, and I want to ask a little bit more about that, because I think it's a pretty cool way of doing it if you're going in there.

A lot of folks say they eyeball it, but I think it's nice to be able to have a system like that, and you said you're a system guy. So, did you, is this just like a Google Doc that, you know, it's a spreadsheet where you've got all your estimations on there, or is it some kind of little piece of software you wrote, or is it something that you pay for? Yeah, and this is something that's taken a long time to really develop. I had a smartphone that worked fairly well, but I realized pretty quickly if I was going to do it this way, I needed something better.

So I've got a note too right now from Samsung, which I found works really well. And it can handle spreadsheets. So there's apps on the Play Store market that you can get that you can pull up a spreadsheet and fill it out. So that's what I end up doing. I've got everything actually on Dropbox. That's where I keep my files.

So when I get to a house, I've got the link, of course, through the network. So I just get to my Dropbox account, pull up the file, and I start filling it out. And I can actually save it. And when I get back to my desktop at home, the saved file is there. So it works.

Dropbox has really been my key for that. Nice. Nice. Now that's a great tool. but really, really quick before we go on, this is Show 44, the Bigger Pockets podcast, and you can find links to all these things we're talking about at BiggerPockets.com slash show 44.

Anyway, so how are you funding your flips? What are you doing? You know, has this changed over time? How did you fund them initially? And what are you doing today? Yeah, that's actually it's been the same from the very beginning. except for the accidental flip. You know, that was one that I got a regular mortgage through the bank and bought it to live in.

But when I started flipping as the business, I found a private source to do that with. And that individual has stuck with me for going on 10 years now, I guess. Wow. Yep. It's been a single person. You know, eventually, I've actually been doing a lot of research also on other funding sources. So, you know, banking, I think, looks like the most affordable if you're in a position to do that. If you've got enough to put down, it looks like the lowest cost way of doing that.

So eventually I'll do that. But right now, it's just all private. And how did you find this person when you first did? Yeah, actually, it's a family member. Okay. Nice, nice. I actually do want to circle back because my brain just started spinning. You are currently full-time, right?

Full-time at work. You're working a full-time job. right? Working a full-time job and right, doing roughly a flip every two months. Okay, flip every two months. I was going to ask you about your frequency. So that answers it, obviously. How are you going about the process? Because obviously, you know, an engineering job is a job that at least my understanding requires a lot of focus. You don't have a ton of time to go hang out on Facebook and play around and jump off site and disappear like some jobs, So how are you managing your flips while working a full-time job?

The only way, in my opinion, that it's possible is, again, with systems. And that's what I'm doing. And the recent article from, I wrote his name down, but I can't think of it right now that had the article about, it's like the eight things that are great about having a full-time job while you're doing real estate. Anyway, I really relate to that, and he mentioned systems in there. I have a system, and it's something that you're right, I have basically no spare time at all. So whatever I do has to be the most beneficial thing possible. And after a few weeks of doing the wrong things, you realize I'm not making progress on the right things or I'm not getting anywhere.

So I have a very specific system that I've been putting in place. I've actually recently gotten Microsoft projects up and running, and I'm still working on the details of that to get that going. But that will be the heart of my system. And on that, there's links, there's timing for everything. So the list serves as a template. Every time that I buy a house, it's a brand new template that I use on each project so that I don't have to think about what needs to come next.

and that was always a problem with multiple projects. If you get two or three houses going at once, and sometimes they overlap that way, it's incredibly hard, and you spend an enormous amount of time thinking about what have I not thought about. Who do I need to call? What do I need to be getting going next?

So the system that I have with this list tells me the next thing to do. It's top to bottom, every single step of everything that I need to do from the beginning of the project to the very end, you know, hiring lawn care, getting the electricity turned on. Every single thing is on this list. And when it's done, I check it off.

So, yeah, it just, it follows the project and it takes the thinking out of it. I found that I was spending probably half of my time just thinking about what do I need to be doing next, which is an incredible waste of time. If you've got it right in front of you, it says, do this next, then, you know, your productivity goes through the roof at that point. So that's the only way that this is possible for me to do that. If I didn't have that system, I just couldn't. Or I'd do one or two projects a year, something like that. By the end of this year, I want to be up to one a month.

So systems are critical for me. Gotcha. Gotcha. And, you know, it's interesting. The people that I know who flip houses that are engineers tend to be the most systematic about their approach. And I think that's extremely helpful. I think the background comes in and actually establishing that makes a lot of sense. What would you say?

So your system is essentially, if I understand you correctly, it's really a list, right? So it's kind of step one through, collect, you know, hand keys over is step, you know, 256. And everything in between is literally you're just following up and down the line. and it's got timings for specific things in there and maybe some of those things will kind of get thrown into a calendar. Is that kind of how you run through that? Yeah, it really is. It's a list with links to other things.

So I'll have, you know, hyperlinks to email. If I need to send an email to the insurance agent, there's a hyperlink right on the list. So when it says email the insurance agent, I just click on that and it brings up the email template that already has most of the details on it. And so I just basically update it with the address and send it on. And I try to use the same people over and over so they know what's coming. You know, they recognize it right away and they know exactly how to handle it.

And so just on down the line, I actually draw a floor plan of the house as well. I found that that's a very useful thing. For the flooring guys, they understand what exactly goes and which. which room and for the contractor. You can put the scope of work on that floor plan, put it in the house so that he doesn't have questions later on. Did you want to change that door or you want to keep it? It's on the scope of work. And that scope of work comes, a lot of that's generated automatically. When I fill out the initial evaluation, I take notes on that, detailed notes about what needs to be changed, what needs to stay. So when I print that and I give that to the contractor,

it actually populates in the scope of work. So anyway, if that makes sense, it kind of builds on itself. You take initial notes, and then that flows all the way through. Eventually, and I've talked to some software developers about this, I want to have an online system that will do all of this seamlessly. Right now, I'm having to go between software packages. It's not the most efficient way to do it, but it works actually pretty well. But eventually, I hope to be able to do every single thing from the smartphone.

What about the amount of time that takes? Because I don't think we've really covered that in any of the shows before. You know, I have never flipped a house, so I just know from folks I know who've done it, right? What, you know, how long does a walk-through take for you on a property that you're picking up? Well, that takes some time. It's an investment in that. the numbers have to look pretty good from the gut. I mean, first reaction, of course, is gut.

Do I think that this looks good? If I do, then I'll dedicate the time to go into the house. So, you know, to go to the outside, and the initial evaluation list has a line for everything that could be done to the house. So that's quite a few. I haven't counted to see how many it is, but it may be more than 100 lines. And not every one of them has to be filled out,

but I'll typically take between an hour to two hours to go through the house initially to write everything down that it needs so that I know when I leave the house that time, I'm not going to have to come back and do this again. If I don't buy it, I've lost the time. If I do, then I've already got my list. And so, you know, there's definitely a commitment there. How many offers are you, I think you said you're doing a property every couple of months. How many offers are you writing for every property that you're.

clothes on? Well, probably not enough. I mean, I'm, and I don't know. I'm kind of, I don't know, I've heard a lot of people say, you know, you see 100, you offer 10, you buy one. I still have trouble with that because I don't have time to look at 100 houses, not physically. I might look at them on Zillow or the MLS, but I can't physically go do that. So my realtor actually helps filter a lot of that for me. And when he sees something pop up in the MLS, he'll send me the link. I'll look at it. We'll talk about it. He understands this very, very well, too. It's another critical piece. You have to have, for me, to have a full-time job and to do this flipping at this volume, I have to have a very good realtor. I've gone, Brandon, I think I heard you say that you've

gone through your real estate classes, courses, but haven't gotten your license yet. And I'm in the same boat. and I stopped that, actually two years in a row, I did the same thing because I realized the realtor is going to be critical. I really need a good person there. I don't need to be doing that. So I backed away from that. So he serves the purpose there to filter the houses.

So I really honestly, I'm probably buying one out of every three that I offer on, or maybe four. But it's definitely less than 10. I'll offer on probably, actually, it's a lot less than five that I offer on that I actually get. Okay. Yeah, I'm probably still kind of in the same boat, too. I tend to not offer on one. I don't know if this is the right way, but I tend to not offer on them unless I'm pretty sure I'm going to get them.

Unless I'm, you know, if it's almost perfect and it's been on the market for a long time, then I'll usually offer. But again, I'm not buying, you know, dozens of properties a month either. Like, you know, we're both kind of part-time flipping and, yeah, makes sense that way. So did you know, your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late-night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking.

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Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. Well, anyway, so let's, I guess, move over a little bit to the selling side of things. How do you decide exactly how much to sell for? Does that your real estate agent just tell you? Yeah. Well, you know, I really am focused on a fairly small area. So I have a good idea of what it needs to, what it's going to be priced at.

And that, of course, is really the first decision that has to be made. When the realtor sends me a link to a house and says, take a look at this. Every single time, I'll shoot him a text back immediately and says, what do you think it's going to be worth? I want his opinion. I don't give him my opinion ever. I want his opinion about what it's going to be worth. And then I compare that to my own local knowledge. And I try to be as knowledgeable as I can about my local market to make sure that I have a good idea.

And of course, that's easier after you have some time in them, because when you've owned a 3-2 with a certain floor plan and square footage, you pretty much know what it's going to sell for. You know, if it's sold in two days, you might have been priced a little low. If it took you three months, then you're probably priced too high. So, you know, experience kind of teaches you to that. But I found that my realtor pretty much nails it every time.

He's very good at values. And I pretty much confirm what he says. We've disagreed on very few of them, so I really rely on him. Okay. And that's a really good tip, actually. I mean, like you said, don't tell your realtor your value. If you come up with them and they do, then you get in two opinions. That's excellent, excellent.

You said you focus on a small area. How small are you, what's your farm area look like? Well, it's really a county. And it's, you know, I don't have a feel for the population. It's not tiny, but it's not huge. kind of a bedroom community sort of thing. So, you know, Knoxville is the biggest local metro area, but it's not in Knoxville.

I'm outside of that some. It's the area that I live. It's the area where when I drive home from work, I'm driving those roads. So it really helps me to know the local market. Yeah. And where are you finding the properties? Are these listed or you're not doing any marketing for them?

Or are you using wholesalers? Well, you know, in the good old days, you could get on the MLS and have five or six projects immediately to go look at. It was effortless. They were just, it was before real estate was cool, I guess, and people weren't really in it in a big way. And, you know, banks were always looking to get rid of their few junk properties they had. So it was very easy to pull them off the MLS. So I did that for years and years. And it's only really been recently that I've had to really get serious about, the systems for marketing. I haven't had to implement them yet, but I know as my volume goes up, it's coming. It's imminent. I'm going to have to do some marketing. I've done some Craigslist. You know, we buy houses, kinds of things. But I really, I haven't gotten any decent response out of that. Everything I bought has been off the MLS. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. And as we kind of wind down this segment. I guess my last question is if you have any other

tips for selling a property quickly, you know, sell them with what do you call it again? Not staged, but furnished. So you've got the furnished house, you make the front look nice. Anything else you do to make it really stand out?

Really, no, the furnishings have been the only thing that I would consider extraordinary to do. You know, like I said, Every house needs to look and feel like new. It can't be ugly. You can't have a bedroom that's separated by a bathroom from the rest of the house. You can't walk from, you know, the hallway through a bathroom to get into a bedroom.

Just, you know, so it has to flow good. But not really. I mean, just understanding what people are buying. If the numbers match, really, if it's the right price per square foot and there's nothing that's unappealing about it, it pretty much sells. You know, it's everybody really, everybody I know does their search for the house they're going to buy by the numbers first. That's where they start. So I've just, you know, without being able to see the world of realtors and what they see and hear from their buyers and sellers, that would be an advantage of having

your license, I think. But without being able to see and hear that, I really, I just rely on price. Just make sure it looks good and that there's nothing detracting, you know, detracting from it. No bad neighbors. Cool. Cool. Very, very good wisdom there. All right. Well, I guess that kind of wraps up our initial part of the interview here. So why don't we move on to my favorite sound effects. It's time for the fire round. Very good. All right, fire round. These questions, most of these come from, I think they all come from the bigger pockets. forums where these are questions people have asked and we're going to fire them at you and you get to fire them back at us. So number one, what is your favorite flooring or a living room?

Oh, well, it really depends. I know that the trend I think is toward hard flooring. I know that that's my wife's favorite. She doesn't like carpet. Carpet can soften things. It would depend on the house, but generally I'm doing hard flooring through the living room in the kitchen. The layout of most houses in this area, the living room in the kitchen are fairly close. And both the houses I have right now, I'm removing a wall between the living room and the kitchen so that the hard flooring goes from the front door all the way through the kitchen and dining room. So I would have to go with, you know, a laminate or hardwood. A laminate is what I've been using.

It's fairly inexpensive and it looks good. Okay. Right on. All right on. So a flipper goes and buys a house that reeks of smoke, cigarette smoke, or, I guess two questions. Smoke, fire smoke and cigarette smoke. You think of these as two questions. What do you do?

Well, really, I would do the same thing for either one. And I actually, last year, invested in an ozone generator. I bought the most powerful one I could find. Actually, it's one step down from the most powerful. They have an industrial size that will kill everything within a quarter mile or something crazy like that. But I have one that handles a large area. You know, honestly, I've found that when the demolition is done, when they tear out, what needs to be torn out and they paint, that takes care of about 80%. but if I have something that's got pet urine or the smoke smell usually comes out pretty easy,

but pet urine is the really, that's the Achilles heel, a lot of houses. If you got saturated subfloors, you got a real problem on your hands. But the ozone generator, between that and the painting, that's all I've had to do. It takes care of it. Okay, so I got to ask you a question that's not on our fire round here. Can somebody please explain to me how on earth you have a house? where pet urine has leached into the hardwood floors to such an extent? I mean, I just don't get it.

I think every house I've ever bought has had that problem. Everyone. It's amazing. You would not believe. I take my 11 and 13-year-old boys with me as often as I can to look at these houses. We'll open the front door, and of course, you get nailed with the stench coming out of the house. And the first thing I ask him is, what's that smell like? And they say, money.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Nobody else wants it. If there's piles, really, if there's piles of, you know what, all over the house, 99% of the people are going to walk away. But I know that my contractor doesn't mind.

He's going to get in there and take care of it. I'm with you. I just, I don't understand. I'm a clean guy. I don't, you know, if I see cat hair or dog hair on the floor, I freak out. You know, like you let your dogs and cats pee in your floor. How do you do that? I don't get it.

Well, honestly, they live in it. I walked in the houses in the summertime and wearing shorts because it's hot. I walk in and I feel the sensation all over both my legs. I look down and I'm literally covered with fleas from the first step into the front door. And the people were still living in the house. So you got me. I don't know. I'm with you.

I don't know how to do it. Yeah, I don't get a good. Brandon, you live with cats. If I see a flea on the house. them, like, we, like, throw the advantage on them. And, yeah, I don't, I don't let that happen. Anyway, no, but I always, I always say the same thing. My favorite aspect of a house when I go to look at it is smell. I want it to smell like the worst house I've ever been in, because, again, it smells like money every time I love it. So, all right, next question of the fire round.

Asbestos popcorn ceiling. What do you do? Oh, avoid it. If I see asbestos, asbestos siding is the big thing around here. There was tons of it back in the 40s and 50s. I've dealt with it before. I've had it removed, you know, with the requirements that are out there right now for remediation for that and tenting the house and positive air pressure, all these kinds of things that you've got to do to do that right to stay out of trouble. Honestly, if that's the only house left to flip, I'm going to do something else for a while. I'm just, I'm not going to touch it. Okay. Smells like money to me.

That looks like jail time. Oh, thanks. Awesome. Awesome. All right. How many days is too long for a house to sit on the market? Two. No.

No, I want a contract. I want serious interest within two weeks. You know, of course, it's gone a lot longer than that. I've had them for, I don't know, I'd have to look to see for sure. You know, probably eight months or something was the longest. probably that little 500 square foot house that I had. But if I don't have serious interest in two weeks, then I'm questioning what went wrong with the plan. But right now with what I put together, the pricing, what's included with the house, the way it looks and smells, within three to four

weeks, I pretty much always got a contract. So if it goes beyond four, then, you know, like I said, I'm not super concerned. It depends on the time of year or two. You know, this time of year, late fall coming up to Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'll let that out a little bit. You know, people don't make as many housing decisions this time of the year. So I'll give it a little more time. But if it's in the hot season, you know, late spring, summer, it needs to be, there needs to be lots of activity. But if it's the week of Christmas, I really don't expect anything for, you know, several weeks. So I'm sorry, that's kind of an open-ended question, answer to that.

No, that's good. That's good. I've had one set for nine months. I think that was my longest. It was miserable. It is. It is miserable. All right.

This is one that I just dealt with, and I like this question. Pink tub, a pink bathtub. Do you professionally repaint it, replace it, or leave it? My contractor loves demolition. He gets the saws all and the hammers out and just beats it out of there and put something else new in there. I've dealt with them before. I've refinished them. But I probably put twice as much time.

and money into refinishing that stupid pink tub. And I really have had that. You know, I thought, well, it's a nice older porcelain tub. It'll look great when I'm done. And it did, but financially it was not the right thing to do. Yeah, just unless you're, you know, on the sixth floor of a high-rise building or something crazy, I would get it out of there. Right on.

Good. Right on. And finally, what is the, what's the best place to buy appliances? Well, you know, that's a very good question. And that was something that I always, well, for years, assumed that, you know, the big box stores, whichever one is your favorite in your local market, would have the best prices. But I found that going to the local specialty appliance stores gave me much better deals. So we have a local appliance store, and that's what they do, washers, dryers, refrigerators.

I get those for probably, I would say, between 10 and 20% less than the big box stores locally here. So I've really learned that. That's the best place. Cool. That's a great tip. And if I could add a little quick tip here, I always get my appliances. I try anyway, the day after Thanksgiving sale at the big box stores, because you can get like, it's like, get like four washing machines for a buck 50.

Like, they're like throwing, like, I load up on appliances every year, the day after Thanksgiving. That's my get up at 5 a. I'm going to go shopping. So that's coming up here in just a few days. So anyway, maybe somebody can take advantage of that. But cool. Well, that's excellent advice. I really, top to bottom, I try to use the specialty shops, not just for appliances, but I found that cabinets as well. It's the same thing. I've got beautiful cabinets that come from a local cabinet supplier. Just very, very happy with the specialty shops. That's cool. That's very cool. And then you're supporting local business too, which is always good. Absolutely. Cool. Not that we have any problem with the big box stores who might or might not want to sponsor the Bigger Pockets podcast.

Offer discounts to the thousands and thousands of people on the site. Hint, hint. I spent tens of thousands of dollars in the big box stores, so there's definitely a place for them. There is a place. Yeah, for sure. All right, final section of the show, our world famous, famous four. Famous Four. What is your favorite real estate book?

This one's easy for me. Last year, I discovered the millionaire real estate investor like Gary Keller. And I listen to it. I use audible. And so I listen to my books on my two-hour commute every day. I'm grabbing actually an hour to work and an hour back. So that gives me two hours a day to absorb podcasts and audible books and so forth. So anyway, I listened to that one last year, and I was, you know, it was a lot of good information and then studying bigger pockets.

I found that really bigger pockets backs it up. And it's a very good system. If you just followed the book, it's the same advice that you, that you know, that all of us are going to learn that they get successful at it. So anyway, that's my favorite book. Cool. Right on, right on. What about your favorite business book, non-real estate? that one's a little harder.

And I have to, Josh, you'll love this because I know that. You're not going to say A or B. You know it, you know, I am. Come on. You know what, well, you know the thing is. Be original, Michael, seriously, be original. I really want to. You don't even have to start saying, no, I mean, you're a unique and magnificent gentleman,

and I want to hear something new out of you. I want to hear it. I want to hear your favorite business book. I would have to make it up, though, because honestly, true story, true story. I'm in Florida. It's been about seven years ago, and this realtor comes up to me. He says, here, here's this book. You've got to read this, the E-Mith Revisited.

Yep. And he said, you got to, you know, you're knocking your head against the wall. Check this out. You'll enjoy it. Gave me the book. You know, I thought that was a real nice gesture on his part. And it really was a pivot point for me. It was a point where I realized I am not doing the right thing here.

I need to pivot and quit doing all this stuff myself, get out there and get somebody else to help me with it. Work on the business instead of in the business. And the other pivot point is when you read the four-hour work week, of course. Option B was when I read four-hour work week. I'm on page 27, by the way. For those people who've been listening to the past several podcasts, I've been on page 27 for about three shows, four shows. Get the audiobook. You can, you know, when you're going to the grocery store, you listen to it.

I don't leave my house, man. man. When you're going to sleep at night, that'll put you to sleep. But that seriously was another pivot point for me when I realized that I can't make everybody happy. I really can't. I can't make everybody happy. And at some point, because I've always kind of been that way, I try to make everybody around me happy. And I found that I'm spending my life making everybody happy and I'm not getting through the things that I want to do with my life.

And I would love to have a four-hour work week. although I'm kind of driven and I'm not sure I'll ever let it get that low. But I think that the information in the book, for me at least it was something that changed my outlook. It changed my perspective on, you know, it's okay to say no. You know, it's okay for somebody not to be happy with what you got to do because it's what you got to do. So sorry, Josh. You know what? I actually, unlike Detroit, no, I'm just kidding.

I have no problem with Detroit either. I was it going to bring up Detroit. I have no problem with the two books. I just, you know, I want to hear somebody with something new. I want to hear, are there new authors out there writing stuff to inspire us besides these two guys? You know what I did? I went to my audible library and I looked down through it because I knew you were going to ask me that. And I looked through my library and I said, he's going to hate it, but I got to do it.

That's awesome. I have to. I thought you were an e-myth and four-hour workweek kind of guy. You just, the system thing, it's exactly, love it. And we will have the links to those in the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 43. So, hobbies, Michael. What are your hobbies, Mike? Oh, it's been so long since I've done any.

I don't know. You know, I like the outdoors. I bought a motorcycle a couple of years ago, and this is a beautiful part of the country to ride. So I like to ride. Eventually, I like to have my pilot's license. I think you had up somebody else on a podcast that likes to fly. Maybe a couple. So that's, yeah, yeah, something I enjoy. You know, what little time I have, I spend it with the family. One thing that is kind of nice about engineering job is that once in a while you have to travel and sometimes you can take your family with you. So I've tried to do that a little bit. So that's cool. Yeah, hobbies are

be after I get out of my full-time job probably. Cool. Nice. Nice. And Brandon, you want to ask the last of our famous four? That I shall. All right. What do you believe sets apart the successful investors from those who never gain any traction? Doing the right things. I mean, it sounds like a cliche, really, but we've heard it over and over. But if you ask the question, you have to say the same thing. You got to run the numbers. You have to do your do-dil- due diligence. You can't take any shortcuts. If you're, you can get lucky. Somebody had a post on one time that they're talking about is your business or an article. Is your business successful? Have you been successful because of your business plan or were you just lucky? And I was just

lucky for the first few years because I was doing what was in front of me and leaving myself vulnerable. So, you know, the people that will get in and educate themselves and follow those numbers and do the right thing. It's a recipe. If you want to make chocolate chip cookies, you know, you use the right ingredients. When you put them together, chocolate chip cookies come out every time. If you don't, then you're going to get something else. So really it's, and part of that's my system side and analytical side that you get out what you put in. So you put the right stuff in and you'll be successful. That's great. That's great. Well, listen, I think the focus on systems is something that a lot of people

might be unfamiliar with, especially if they don't, as I said earlier, come from that engineering background. And I'm really glad that we spend a fair amount of time working, well, talking about it here on the show. Definitely appreciate you taking the time to be here. And of course, if anyone's got questions for Michael, feel free to jump on the show notes of BiggerPockets.com slash show 43 and ask him. I'm sure you're more than happy to answer folks with their questions about systems and things like that, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and a couple other things that I just wanted to plug in here at the end. I got to give Brian Burke a shout out because he said something one time back to the systems thing that, you know, what he said was the bigger you get, the bigger you get. you know, I have a system. What I want to do is two houses a month, and I want my system to fit that. That's what I want. I don't want a system where I just have to keep hiring more and more people just for it to get bigger and bigger for bigger sake. So that was a pivotal point for me when I heard him say that.

You know, the bigger you get, the bigger you get. I don't want to just get bigger. I want to have hobby time. And the other thing, too, if this is okay, I hope it is that, you know, I contribute to bigger pockets financially because it's valuable to me. And I hope those that are benefiting from bigger pockets will consider doing that, even if you don't have anything to put in the marketplace,

which I really don't. I do it anyway because I get a lot of value out of this, and I appreciate what you guys are doing. Well, we appreciate that, and that was definitely not prearranged. So, you know, I thank you. And, you know, obviously everybody who signs up for pro helps us help support the site and helps support our staff.

And, you know, the bigger you get, the bigger you get, well, we're pretty big. And we're trying to get the pieces in place to maintain this place and make it even better. And those donations and the pro contributions and those certainly help. So thank you so much. And thank you again for being on the show. And where can people connect with you besides Bigger Pockets? Do you have a website or anything like that? It's in the system, but it's not in place yet.

So Bigger Pockets is where to find me. Fabulous. Well, we appreciate it, and we'll look forward to seeing you on the site. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you, Mike. All right, guys, that was our interview with Mike Woodward. Lots of good tips, lots of good stuff. What do you think, Brandon, is a flipper?

A lot of amazing little tidbits in there, huh? There was. I can think of like a dozen things that I'm going to use in my own business. Because it is not easy to try to do anything like flipping while having a job. Like it's insanely hard. Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's great.

Yeah. So thank you everybody for listening. Again, it's show 43. So check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 43. And otherwise, definitely make sure to follow us and track us and stock us. don't stock, but, you know, keep up for this. You could stock for this. You could stock, Brandon. I don't like stalkers. It's weird.

Kind of creepy. But, yeah, keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, Gplus, LinkedIn. And of course, of course, make sure to connect with us on Bigger Pockets. As Mike said, it's an amazing place. If you're not already active, definitely take the time to do so. And of course, you should definitely check out our pro accounts at biggerpockets.com slash pro. There are some cool tools and upgrades

that come with a pro account. So definitely want to check that out. Otherwise, that's it. We thank you so much for listening and we'll look forward to getting back with you on show 44 next week. I'm Josh Dorkin. Signing out.

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