BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 523: Meet Max Maxwell: Broke at 30, Millionaire at 33 | 'Takeover' Ep w Nasar

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

You wouldn’t know how far Max Maxwell has come at first glance. Looking at his Instagram, you’ll see private planes, a wealth of knowledge on real estate, and seriously shiny Rolexes. Not many people know that only a number of years ago, Max was broke, without enough money to fill up his car with gas, and sleeping at his mom’s house after ten years of failed businesses. Max tried everything from running a property management company, to marketing, to managing a restaurant, and many other ventures. None of them truly stuck, causing Max to go from state to state, trying to find a successful business model that would make him wealthy. Now, Max is well known as a master in wholesaling, rental property investing, and philanthropy. He has always made an effort to help those in need and even went to Ghana with today’s host, Nasar El Arabi. These North Carolinian investors have truly gone from rags to riches and have been able to find meaningful, lasting success through real estate investing. In This Episode We Cover: How to get your start in real estate investing without any money  Finding yourself at the bottom and pushing yourself up to the top Finding, skip tracing, and marketing your first deal as a wholesaler  The “conveyor belt” system of off-market deal-finding Why every great real estate investor MUST be able to spot good deals Jumping into a new niche, even as an experienced real estate investor And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Youtube Channel Brandon Turner's Instagram David Greene's Instagram BiggerPockets Podcast 522: From “No Comma Paychecks” to 7-Figures Using These 5 Skills w/ Nasar El Arabi GQ Magazine Vogue Magazine Barnes & Noble REISkip REIRail BiggerPockets Conference BiggerPockets Pro Membership Real Estate Doru's Instagram Real Estate Doru's Website Real Estate Doru's Youtube Channel Check the full show notes here: https://biggerpockets.com/show523 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's the name of this show again? This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 523. I literally go driving in my old neighborhood that I grew up in, and I find a house on the same street I grew up on. And with my experience in the past of just knowing real estate, I knew who to find who the owner was. I didn't know how to find their number. And so using some people and some resources that I had, I end up finding that person.

And that was the phone call that changed my life. 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. My name is Nasa L. Arabi. And today is a takeover. The breaks over.

Isn't that right, David Green? That's absolutely right. So you and I had a really good conversation on show 522, where we dug into exactly what skills you had to develop to leave your W-2 and make your own full-time real estate investing business. That's doing fantastic, by the way. And since I got to go catch a plane and Brandon is still recover, from the beating I put on in jujitsu.

I'm going to turn the keys over to you for today's episode. Oh man, this is going to be exciting. I appreciate it. So today I'm going to sit down with my good friend Max Maxwell. I mean, this guy is a giver. You guys know him from YouTube, social media.

He just knocks it out to park every time you get him on the mic. This is his first time on bigger pockets. And speaking of planes, this man is a pilot. He has his own plane with his face. on it. I recall when I was getting my BMW built and I had to pick it up in Spartanburg, South Carolina, because the one I wanted, they didn't have enough in the country. So therefore, when I picked it up,

my friend Max said, hey, you want me to take you on the plane? Unfortunately, it was raining, so he couldn't take me on the plane to go pick it up from the factory, but I definitely appreciate the guest. So this episode is going to be exciting. All right. Before I hand the reigns over completely, here is a quick tip for you. Today's quick tip is simple. Check out BiggerPockets YouTube channel. So this particular episode was shot in Max's studio and it looks really great. You can check out all of the videos that we shoot here in the podcast at YouTube.com slash bigger pockets. That's YouTube.com slash Bigger Pockets. And we have all kinds of other videos for you on that channel. Now, I'm going to be making more content for Bigger Pockets on their YouTube

channel. We also take all these podcasts and we air them there. So, hey, I like to see the people that I'm listening to when they're talking. I just like to read facial expressions. I like to see what gets some juiced up. And when they're kind of just phoning it in, giving you that information that they know they're supposed to say, but they don't really believe in. So if you are like me, definitely go check out YouTube and watch instead of just listen. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties and maybe a few HOAs all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress.

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from specialists who actually understand real estate at NRE.com slash BPPod. That's n-R-E-I-G-com slash B-Pod. All right. Now let's get into it with my man, Max Maxwell. All right, guys. Thank you for tuning in to the Bigger Pockets podcast. My man David Green just left me the keys to the plane, so that's why I got these goggles on so that I could see when I'm in the air. Now, today I have a very special guest. The man was featured in Vogue Magazine. GQ Magazine.

He's a sports agent. Most importantly, he's a real estate investor. Serial entrepreneur. He's also a pilot with his face on his plane. And as somebody who's traveled with this guy, let me tell you how much of a giver he is. This guy, when we was in Ghana in Africa, city called Accra, one of the kids ran out to the car

and they needed some money. He gave them $100 Ghana dollars. I think it's like $20 American dollars, $25, whatever the case made. The kid fell out and started. They're doing Snow Angels. Now, if you know anything about Ghana, they haven't seen snow since 1957 since they got the independence.

So I don't know where this kid was able to do a snow. How did he know what the Snow Agent was? He just did the Snow Angel and then just disappeared. But that's the type of guy who he is. And he didn't even have to record it for social media because he's just natural giver like that, man. So without further ado, Max Maxwell, how are you doing, man? I appreciate you having me, man.

I'm doing well. Don't say Vogue like I was featured as a model or something. I'm too fat for that. First thing first. Let me say this, man. It's always a pleasure. You know, it's always a treat when two players meet, you know. So I appreciate that, man.

You know, it's always a treat, man. So this is going to be a good one. I like it. I'm here for it. Okay. So you're like a social media sensation. All this probably happened with like the last four years. Yeah.

Okay. But you were 30 and broke. You were actually 30 and living at your mom's house. Yeah, I was 30 and had to move. I was 30 and a half and had to move back to my mother's house because I just had nothing. I had my last failed business kind of just put me over the edge where I was paying rent on my credit card

and it just got to exhaust. I just didn't have it. And so I had to take that humble pie and ask mom to move back home. Okay. So if you guys look at, Listen, if you know anything about the great late philosopher Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, he tells you, you can't, like, Cardinal Sin,

he can't be 30 and broke. You can't go that route. But that was actually his life. In my neighborhood, when we were kids, especially in high school, like, that was a joke. Man, you ain't going to be none. You're going to be dirty and broke. Crowd just falls down and laugh. Everybody just laughs.

I mean, that's how I felt. That's why I was, I mean, even when it happened, it was like a, you try to keep it a secret. And you, like, man, I was going through a lot, like, even some, like, depression. Absolutely. Because you're like, you're supposed to have life figured out at 30. At least that's what you heard. That's definitely what you think. I actually went to depression at 30 because I thought by 30, when I graduated from college at 24, I said by 30, I'm going to have the house, the car, and the kids and everything.

And I didn't have none of that. Neither. I was in one bedroom. So anyway, just got fired the year before. But anyway, you were 30 and broke. But before we get to 30 and broke, take us back to you graduate from high school and go to the service. because a lot of people don't know, you actually serve this country. Yeah.

So barely graduated high school, I should say. I barely had a 2.0. I was an athlete in high school, but in our state, they had implemented this 2.0 rule. So if you didn't have a 2.0 at a certain point in time during the season, you could know extra correctly activities. And so from my sophomore year on, I never really played a full season because I didn't have a 2.0. And so I barely graduated high school, knowing that college was not an option. And so what's next? You know, 9-11 had happened the year before and everything was going. I said, you know, I'm just going to go into the Air Force. So I took the ASVAB test and I pass or, you know, it's not a pass or fail, but I had a high enough score to go in. And, you know, I did that for a while. I traveled a lot. My first base was in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I did some time in Istanbul, Turkey. And like, so just those things kind of like shaped me because I didn't get to go to traditional route that most people go, you know, go to college, community college. But I think it really, it really, It molded me several things.

One of them was integrity, and that's a big core value of the Air Force. So, you know, I enjoyed it. I didn't want to do it again. Like, in a sense, I didn't want to sign up and do another four years. And so I had to get out because I was just feeling that entrepreneur spirit was out when I was in there. Okay. So here it is. You graduated from high school.

You had to have a two point other place for us. You could barely maintain that. Fortunately, New Jersey didn't have that room because I had a 1.8. I was terrible. I would have never played sports. I was on the football team, rode the bench, but, you know, it's not about me right now. So you graduate high school, you leave the Army. What happens next after you leave the service and the Air Force?

Is that where you became a pilot? You got your air license there? No, heck no. So, yeah, you got to be an officer to have being, you know, officer training to be a pilot. And it's a very few selected people that actually get to fly planes in the Air Force. So no, I had nothing to do with planes. And so when I came out, I was trying to figure out what life was. here I am, almost 21 years old at this time, and it's like my fresh start.

And so, you know, I started a law care company with a friend. It was pretty successful, but there was another business that failed. And I did a couple other things, and I decided to get my real estate license. And so I got my license in the time in North Carolina where you can go to pre-licensing school and then broker school back to back, and you can walk out of school and be a broker. And so you can open up, you can become a BIC and be, and open up your own office. Yeah, now they don't do that.

Yeah, so for those who don't understand that language, he's basically saying at one point in the state that he could become a broker, which he can essentially have his own office fresh out of school, no experience or anything. But, okay, go ahead. I wouldn't recommend that, but I did one year at Allen Tate

where you do the traditional real estate stuff, an agent, right? You're showing, riding people around, going out, trying to find a house listings, and it just got tiring. Like, I was just got, every weekend you're driving somebody around, come to find out they didn't even qualified to buy a house. They just want to do some, it was probably nods if I think about it. It was probably nods and his girlfriends riding around on the weekend. But, you know, it just wasn't fulfilling to me.

And then so I left Allen Tate. And then I started my own company, Infinity Property Management Investment, and then I lucked up. My friend was a mortgage broker at that time. And I found a guy that had a large portfolio of rental properties, commercial, single family, multiple family. and he gave me the whole portfolio to manage. Keep in mind, I had no idea, but it's like the power of yes. I was literally sitting in the broker's office. He's got a friend in California.

He says he needs to look for a new property management company because he didn't like the one he was with. He sent over the Excel sheet. He was like, hey, don't you have a property management company? I was like, yeah, it was probably like two days old. I said, yeah, I can manage that. Sure. I do 8%, 7%.

And I think we set a lot of 7%. Because the portfolio was about 30 million. and I had no idea. So here I am, I'm having to read books. You know, at that time, you're going to Barnes and Nobles to get physical books to kind of see how do you do it. But I did it. I managed it fairly well. But at that point is where I started to learn the other side of real estate other than just, you know, buying and selling people's, you know, being a broker.

Okay. So what happens next after that? Do you do another business? Do you stay with that business? 2008 happened. Okay. And right. So for me, at that point in time, you know, I did.

some other things in between because the income, you're managing a lot of properties and you're going to hire some people. So I was doing some other things in the meantime. And in 2008 happened. And before 2008 happened, this guy was selling his portfolio at a rapid speed. And prior to then, he would be buying portfolio. So he would hit me up and say, hey, look, I have $100,000, can't go find me this, and I wanted to perform at X. And I would go out and find it, hire the crews, get it fixed. And I would make money on, you know, the little bit of rehab that was there, not that I knew what I was doing. And then before 2008 he started to sell

and it's like he had one of those magic eight balls, you know the ones you shake and it's like I think he had one of those and he started selling, he sold probably 75% of a portfolio before it collapsed. And then for me, being so young and not knowing really anything about real estate at that point, like I do nothing. And then

I'm thinking the world's falling apart. When 2008, 2009 happened, so I leave, I go to California. Not knowing what I'm going to do and kind of just drove out there and stayed with a cousin for a while. I was doing so many different things. I probably, but when I got to California,

I probably had two other failed businesses. Now, what city in California? Los Angeles, fromosa Beach. Yeah, LA. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Now, when you went to L.A., and you had to figure it out, did you get into, like, the DART entertainment industry? Did you? That's to the valley. I wasn't, I'm not like you. I wasn't, I can get in there.

All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Okay. All right.

So, California happens. All right. And take me from California. California to what happens next in California. So, first of all, I drive to California in a Jeep. From North Carolina? Yeah, nonstop.

I stopped at a rest stop to take like a 45 minute because I was so determined to keep going. And so there was a repo order out of my Jeep. I figured they wouldn't find me in California. Absolutely. So I went to California. Right. So I went to California. Then I got a job.

I'm in the marketing world. And, you know, I just did some things. And then I was kind of on the road for like two years. living back in California but doing marketing on the road and that collapsed like literally the company had to be sold to somebody yeah and so then i decided what i'm going to do now and then i move up to main from california to main i've keep in mind i've never been to main before moved to main and i got to a position where here you are as a hustler i'm able to take over somebody's restaurant just with sweat equity.

Oh, okay. Ran the restaurant well, has a nightclub on the weekends, made good money, the building goes up for auction. Oh, man. You know, and so it's just like these things are happening. But every time I'm having failure, I'm learning things. I'm learning payroll. I'm learning bookkeeping.

Every failed businesses, you know, I get this, a lesson from it. Okay. Yeah, your life sounds like it sucked pretty bad. Yeah, it was sucking. It was sucking, but I was still going. You kept going. It kept faith, man. You kept, you had the must-a-see-a-faith.

going. You know, most people would have given up, but you didn't. Yeah. And that's why, you know, you became the sensation Max Maxwell, man. So, all right. So from Maine, that's how you ended back in North Carolina? Yeah, so from Maine, no, I actually

bounced to Orlando, Florida after that. Okay, Orlando, Florida. Yeah, so then I tried to get into, they had this yes-on-2 campaign where they were trying to legalize, I think, medical marijuana in Florida. Okay. And I had this bright idea that, hey, There's going to be all of these shops opening.

Who's going to do the education? Now, keep in mind, I know nothing about this field at all. Yeah. And so I start to study. I go to Colorado. I go get mentorship to kind of find us. I said, I can be the teaching body of getting people certified to get to work in this industry. Then the bill didn't pass.

So wasted all that time down there and resources. And then from there, I'm in Chicago. And then I get back into marketing. Now I'm in experiential marketing where, We're literally going from like county fairs to this to that. Like, and we're working with big brands to facilitate some of their stuff. And then I get this right there idea that I can solve a problem in this industry that I see. And then I'm moving back to North Carolina.

And that's when you moved back home. No. When I moved home, I moved into an apartment because I had some money. Okay. And from there, I ran that company called FASPA, which went belly up, ran out of money. and that's when I really, really was down because at this point, from 21 to 30, you're failing, you're failing, you're failing, you're failing.

And then at what point? And then you hit that magic number of 30 and you're like, what I got to do? Now, I just got to go get a job. Go work at the post office. Go do something where I can use my federal background to try to get a job. And it's just demoralizing when you're like at 30

and you ain't figured it out yet. Okay. So you're 30. You're at your mom's house. Mom let you get in. Now, tell me about this time. You got to remember, I left home at 17. Yeah.

I'm back home at 30. Yeah. Now, when I get home, my mom probably think I'm still 17. Yeah. I've been gone for X amount of years, so it was uncomfortable. Like, she was welcoming, but as a man, it felt uncomfortable. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Now, tell me about you finding out the thing that got you out of your mom house, and what was that thing? Yeah. So at this point, I go. go back to my memory and I'm like, the only thing I had success in that was kind of sustainable was real estate. So I'm like, let me see if I can get back into real estate. And I pondered getting my license again to get back as like an agent. And then I run across a friend that his dad was always successful. And we never knew why. And his dad mentioned all these things and these

apartments and buildings he had. And I was just intrigued. And here I am sparking my real estate interest again. And he mentioned like creative financing and wholesaling. And I just put that word wholesaling in my phone. And I went home and I just went deep. I went into every YouTube video, every podcast you could find. And here you are. This is 2015, 16 now. So there's not that much content out about, you know, it's only been a recent explosion about how to get into real estate. Now there's always these infomercial guys and all that stuff that we, we all probably seen that just thought was crazy. Correct.

So I started running across, you know, the Sean Terries and these other guys. And so, and you eventually. Oh, I'll talk about that. Okay. Yeah, so I run across, I run across, you know, some guys and I started to start. And I'm literally in my room like I'm in prison. I'm doing 23 and 1, 23 hours in my room. I'm only coming out to eat because my mom's forcing me.

and I'm literally getting consumed with this. And at this point, I have a 2003 Volkswagen Jetta had a bad starter. I didn't have no money. And so I go to the gas station not too far down the house. And, you know, I've had my broke spell, so I know how to overdraft correctly. That's an art, you know, when you overdraft your bank account. So I overdraft, I put, when you go to a gas pump, it authorizes for, a dollar. Well, I had probably four dollars and I fill that tank up. You know, so at that point,

it's $34, like $40 to fill up your tank or whatever it was. And then the $35 fee. So that's about an $80 gas tank right here on a Volkswagen jet. Yeah, man. So this is all I got. It's all you got. I don't want to ask my mom for money. She's working hard herself. And I'm like, you know what? I got to go, I got to make this work. And so I literally go driving in my old neighbor. that I grew up in. Okay. And I find a house on the same street I grew up on. Okay.

And with my experience in the past of just knowing real estate, I knew who to find who the owner was. I didn't know how to find their number. And so using some people and some resources that I had, I end up finding that person. And that was the phone call that changed my life. Okay. So essentially, you did a technique with this called Driving for Dollars. Yeah.

You went driving for dollars. You found somebody that was interesting. I found a house. I didn't even find a person. I found a house that had tall grass, unkept bushes on a corner lot, on a neighborhood that was pretty decent. And so it stuck out to me. But if I didn't watch these videos the weeks prior, I wouldn't know that was an opportunity. You know, driving past that any other time would have been an eyesore.

It would have been something that would ignore. So when I drove past it this time, all I seen was dollar signs falling off the roof. And so I knew that, okay, this is what they've been talking about in these podcasts. This is what they've been talking about of these videos. I need to take action. And so all day, I'm trying to figure out how do I get a hold of this person? And I got a hold of that person. Okay.

So fast forward today when we are looking for phone numbers for these type of properties, that's called skip tracing. Correct. So skip tracing probably wasn't the word being used back then. Well, for me it was, and I'm going to tell you why. So here goes another one of my failed businesses. I was still a licensed bail bondsman. And the word skip tracing comes from when a person misses court, they are a skip. When a person gets arrested, they get a bond.

They get bailed out by bondsmen. The bondsman is responsible for them showing back up to court. When they don't go to court, it's called a skip. They skip court. And so you've got to trace the skip. And so using some friends in the industry, I was able to get the information. I wasn't an active, you know, bounty hunter at that time. And so with that, I started to use that technology.

And even to this day, I mean, I created a company in 2018 called RAS Kip where that is where it was the basis of me really understanding how to get a hold of people. Because the number one thing you got to do in this business is identify an opportunity and talk to people. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so tell me about what happens with the rest of his house. You find the house, you call them up, you talk like, what's next? She sounds kind of hesitant, but says she's actually interested in selling.

She says she's going to call me back in a few days after I tell her, hey, I'm interested, I can buy somewhere around this price. And she calls me back in two hours. Wow. It says, your price of 30, how about 35 or something like that? I can't remember the exact numbers. And at this point, I'm like, okay. and so I do that.

I remember driving towards Charlotte to Salisbury meeting her at the Waffle House. I created this contract by just piecing other contracts I see online, misspellings. I'm dyslexic of the way. So spelling is not my strong suit.

At one-page contract, I run the Waffle House of all places, and I get the contract sign. And I'm so excited I go back home, I grab my mom's lawnmower, and I'm like, I need to start cutting this grass

because I got to take a picture of this thing. And so from there, it just turned into, I took a picture. I had no buyers, obviously, none at all. I posted it on a Facebook marketplace. And within hours, people were driving by. And I get a phone call from a lady that says her and her husband just finished the flip, and they're interested, but he's out of town. And so they came the following weekend.

They loved it. We signed a contract. And here I am, I'm like, wow. I'm holding two pieces of paper that's not money, but it's like, This thing is now worth $14,000 and I didn't put a dollar down. And if you ever have negative money in your bank account, first of all, I'd never had a $14,000 check in my entire life up to that point. Right. At one time.

And so here I am. I'm looking. I potentially can make $14,000. And my next thing is I got to find an attorney. Okay. So you find the attorney. Yep. My friend happened to be an attorney that, but he was a criminal attorney, referred me to a friend.

and in a couple weeks we closed the deal. And it was just like, I'm sitting here holding a $14,000 check. Now, keep in mind, I wrote an LLC name on there. I didn't even have an LLC yet. Wow. So now I got to borrow money to create the LLC to then go open up a bank account, then to deposit this check in there where they put a 14-day hold on. And so that's the story of my first deal, and I never look back since.

Yeah, it's just been taking off since. How long did it take you from being at your mom's house and getting the work to close on that first deal? When I learned about wholesaling, it took me three weeks. To close your first deal, three weeks. Well, it took me three weeks to get my first contract. Then it took me, so about five weeks to get my first deal locked up and closed. You just excelled.

It took me eight months. And when I tried to explain to people that everybody's journey is different, your story is going to be different from mine. My story is going to be different for yours. You shouldn't give up if it doesn't happen in the first five weeks. Maybe if it doesn't happen in the first eight months, you should just continue doing it until you get it done. Because sometimes it's not about being smartest about who's willing to stand the test of time. You got to work hard.

You've got to work hard, though. You've definitely got to work hard. It's not going to come easy. So, but this business is actually life-changing. Okay, so you do your first deal. Now, fast forward. How does your business look today? So we have a total of about 17 employees on the real estate side.

Five of them are overseas. They work remote. And the rest are in my office. I have an 8,000 square foot office. Located where? In the high-rise building in Winston-Sel, North Carolina. Yeah, Winston-Selham, home of Chris Paul. I would say it's the home of Max Maxwell.

We would say the home is Max Maxwell. Chris Paul. I'm my friend, so I'll co-share it. Yeah, Chris Paul and Max Maxwell, home of them. All right? So, and the 8,000 square foot office. Now, how are you marketing for these deals? I mean, so we use all types of marketing.

So out of necessity, and I think I should probably back up because out of being so excited about my first deal, I start to document my journey on YouTube. Correct. And over the time and time, I start to get this massive following of people who are like, oh my God, this is crazy. And so I'm having problems in my business. And with a solution-based oriented as I'm starting to create products to fix my own. Well, I'm starting to create solutions that then turn into products. So I create a company called REIRA with some friends where we do text messaging, you know, skip tracing, RVMs, and the whole CRM.

We do this in a way where we did it internally for ourselves. And it works. So we spent so much money building this product for ourselves that we started to share it with other people. And so that's what we use mainly for marketing. But when it comes to marketing, we're texting, we're cold calling, we're sending letters. So I break marketing down into two parts, and it's going to be inbound and outbound. And so outbound is an effort that you use to get to be able to reach people. So that's cold calling, texting.

RVM is kind of falling off the map because of TCPA compliance. But those are called outbound. What I call inbound is like your PPC ads, which is your Google, pay per click is what it means, your Facebook post that you share and, you know, bandit signs, billboards. We have a mobile billboard truck that runs around the city. And so those are our inbound campaigns. So we do a facet of all types of marketing. Okay.

But you use a service called RRI-I-R-R-RAL. Yeah. And so that's our main hub. That's where all of our marketing lives. Okay. And so I use a system called the conveyor belt. And I created it probably two and a half years ago, probably three years now. We start to market to the people.

So what you have to understand about marketing is that people want to be spoken to on a platform that they want to be spoken to, right? So if you call me from an unknown number, the likely chances of me answering the phone is very slim, unless I'm waiting on somebody unknown to call me. If you send me mail, I'm probably not going to check my mailbox. My mailbox is probably stuff full right now. If you text me, there is, and I may, you know, that's where you're probably going to get me. And so you have to be able to do these things to meet people where they are. And that's in any business. That's just in business in general. And so when you're dealing with people who have problems that we've identified, whether they just inherited a property, it's behind on taxes.

There's a landlord with 13 properties, and he's 50% of his portfolio is not performing. So when you identify these people, you need to be able to market to them in a way. So you're not going to market to a 30-year-old just inherited the grandma's house that lives in Denver the same way you market to a 65-year-old man that has seven properties. And so you need to be able to do what I call a conveyor belt. And I start with the cheapest method of contacting people, which is usually through text. And then if that doesn't work, then I move through like a cold call and then mail and then it just moves down the line. And these people get dropped in their prospective buckets whether they get contacted or not.

And so the lead conveyor belt is what I call it. But we run all that through RERL. Okay, that sounds good, man. And for those who are listening and watching, who never done a deal. So let me break down what he's saying. So if you're going to Macy's or if you're going to the Ralph Laring Polo store, right? And I'm going to use the Ralph Lauren Polo store for this example. So they do a 50% off sale every year before Black Friday.

You wouldn't know that. I wouldn't know that because I'm extremely cheap. All right. So the day before Thanksgiving, they do 50% off, right? And how do they get that in front of people? Well, they mail them a postcard, letting them know, hey, on this day, everything in the store, 50%. The day of, I get a text message.

I ignore the mail, but when I get the text message, oh, 50%, let me stop what I'm doing and get this stuff on sale so I can get this, you know, so it can be really cheap, but I look expensive, you know what I'm talking about? So. He's famous for that. Yes, that's what I do. So anyway, the mail piece didn't work for me, but the text message did. For someone else, the mail piece may have worked, and the text message did.

She's the lady that shows up to the store with the mail piece folded in half with the coupon clipped out. She gets to the register and she pulls that out. There you go. That's the person you mail. That's the person you mail. So what he does to get deals, he hits people different ways to see what they would react to. And that's extremely important that you guys do that as well and adapt that.

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your first report. Don't overpay the IRS. Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th. So obviously you became a successful real estate investor. You were in South Africa getting your plane built. Yeah. Okay. So you were in South Africa. You're getting your plane built. You're getting your plane built, and rumor has it that they warned you, like, hey, look, you can't wear your Rolexes there. And by the way, guys, he has like eight Rolexes, but... They're investments, though.

Okay, he has eight Rolexes. Yeah, he justifies. There's some rich people. They're investments. So anyway, he has eight Rolexes, but he only has two hands. So what he does, he puts two in his ankle, but we're not going to go there. But when he was in South Africa, they said, hey, it was a string of robberies. and, you know, people are getting things taking from them.

They got a Rolex gang. A Rolex gang that take Rolex. So what does Max Maxwell does? He wears his Rolex no security. And that's who Max Maxwell is. He just does what he wants to do. So obviously, you stay over there, you get your plane built. Tell me about that experience of you getting your plane built.

I've seen it on social media. So in 2015, I started my journey to become a pilot. And as you know, my life got flipped upside down. And so I didn't have the money. And then I picked back up. in 2018. I got my license in 2019. And so I knew I wanted to buy a plane. I didn't want to buy a legacy plane. And then I've just, you know, I've been doing well. And so I went out and I bought a plane. It was built in South Africa. Me and my team, about five of us, we traveled to South Africa

for about a month in a part of the journey. And they put the plane in a bigger plane. They like broke it down and then brought it back to America. And so I've been flying that plane for about a year now. And I've got another plane that we've ordered. It's a bigger plane and that holds six people, but it takes about two years for this plane to get there about 18 months. Okay, so let's talk about the obvious. You're African American, right? Jamaican descent, yeah. Jamaican descent. First, your generation American and your family. My parents are Jamaican, yeah. What inspires you to get into, you know, flying planes? Like with me, right? So when I wake up, like I woke up today, I say, I'm going to get fly.

And I put this dope outfit on. But when you, you're like, yo, I'm a fly. Like, you really got a plane. Yeah. So, you know, I've always been the explorer type person. I've always done the things you're not supposed to do. So I was working with Lieutenant Colonel John Clatt, who flies a stunt plane for the Air National Guard. And he took me up one day and I just fell in love with it.

And I asked him, why don't I have my license? He says, I don't know, why don't you? He says, go home and go get it done. And so I went home and I started to get my license done. And then from there, I fell in love with it. And for me, you know, flying a plane is like this peaceful journey. It's like this thing you can do and you can fly as high or as low, not as low as you want to, but it's like you're just up there.

And it's a lot of people just don't, they don't think it's possible. It's a very affordable hobby. You can get your license for probably $8,000 over the course of however long it takes you. You can take six months a year, whatever you want to do. and my first first plane I bought was only $27,000. And so it was a Cessna 172, and you can finance it over, you know, 15 years. I've never financed anything, but you can finance it over 15 years. But my next plane, I wanted to be nice.

So I got a real, real nice, smart plane, and that's what we had built in South Africa. And it was fun. It was an eye-open experience to experience South Africa that way. And it's definitely on one of my, you know, top places to visit as far as, you know, certain places in South Africa. You know, the adventures of Max Maxwell, so you have a plane. Now, you're also a sports agent, and that's why you got featured in Vogue and GQ. You have a, and correct me if I'm wrong, borewriters or cowboys is what they call them?

Yeah, they're cowboys. They're professional bull riders. Professional board riders, and they ride for you. Yeah, well, I'm their agent. Well, you're an agent. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So they ride on CBS Sports to be on Sundays the weekends.

It's a cool sport. You know, something, you know, I own a ranch, I have some horses. And so I'm into Western sports. Yeah, I wear more than Nikes. I do have cowboy boots and stuff like that a lot. But, you know, it's just something different. Like, real estate, and I think this is where it kind of goes. Like, real estate has afforded me the opportunity to do kind of whatever I want.

And that's where I was going with this. I was going with, you can start as an investor, and you can go wherever you want to go. You know, for me, since I was 19 years old, was my dream to become a full-time relationship. estate investor. That was my dream. That's all I wanted to do. So I'm kind of like I'm living my dream, but for him, it was, hey, this is going to solve my problem I have now and take me to where I want to go. And there's no right or wrong way. As long as you're happy and you're doing the things that you want to do. And that's one thing I know about you personally, you do what you want to do. Yeah. You know, Nas, what's crazy about real estate is that you truly can get in this real estate,

investing arena with having nothing but a good brain. That's it. I mean, because even though most people look at wholesaling is not the most glamorous way of entering real estate, I personally think it's where everybody should enter the real estate game no matter how much money you have. And the reason why I say that is because the number one thing about real estate across all aspects of investing, from single family to high-rise buildings, is that you've got to learn how to identify a deal, right? You can't build a high-rise building on a piece of dirt that costs too much. Correct. You can't buy a single-family property that does not cash flow. And so as a wholesaler, you find tune on how to find properties and identify deals. And one thing that I tell people

all the time when they say, I don't have no money, I want to start and say that's great. And I said, listen, a good deal never searches for money. Money searches for good. deals. And so if that's true across all real estate investing, you don't need money to get in. You need the key part to real estate investing is figuring out how to identify a good deal. And if you can find those, you can start like I started five years ago, wholesaling. You know, I own a decent amount of rental properties, thanks to you. And so I was wholesaling my life away. Yes. And I visited Nas and Charlotte one day. And he's taking me to to, what was it, a triplex?

Triplex. He took me to a triplex. He was like, yeah, he was kicking and tent it out and remodeling before the next 10th, it goes in place. And I was like, you own this? He's like, yeah, I own this one. And when I leave here, I got to go to this other one. And then I got my new build is about to be done.

And so that inspired me. That was a few years ago. Yes. And I went home and I said, you know what? I had a goal. And anybody that starts out in wholesaling, you should have a goal. And I think that's where if I had to start over, I would do it again. because you're going to get a lot of money.

But my goal was for every three wholesale deals, I'm going to buy a rental property. And it started out one in seven. Every seven wholesale deals, I'm going to buy property. Now I do one and one, right? And so the thing is, is that, and here's my thing. I know there's so many different strategies when it comes to buying real estate.

I don't have a single loan on any property that I own. And people say, well, you can grow so much faster if you use leverage. And I agree. That is correct. but owning a property out free and clear and receiving every single penny of that cash flow is something amazing. And so when the time is right, if we ever do have like a 2008 or 2009 again, I can go to

some trusted lenders and say, look at my free and clear portfolio, lend me some money, give me 50% of my value of my portfolio. And I'm going to go out there because I learned how to identify a deal five years ago. I'm going to go out there and scrape up so much property, it's not going to make any sense. And so I am at the point now where I've created a brand. We did well with wholesaling. We're doing well with all our real estate verticals that I'm just going to deploy as much cash as I possibly can. My idea is to be as broke as possible throughout the year.

There's no way that I can, like for example, I bought that house for 15 grand. I don't know if you've seen it on Instagram. I bought it for $15,000. I'm doing $50,000 in work. And it's going to be worth close to $200,000. And if you do that with all cash, and so that's, that's called identifying a deal. I'm not going to wholesale that. Now, before you and I started hanging out a lot, I would have wholesale that deal.

I would have took a $40,000, $50,000 wholesale. Right. No, now I keep those. I fixed them up and I rent them out. All right, kids. Most important lesson is Nas inspired him. So, Nas can do the same for you. You just got to listen to me, you know.

But yeah, back to what he was saying, you know, he knows how to identify a deal. He made a goal for himself. No matter what level you at, you want to make a goal for yourself. You want to be serious about it. You just don't want to make the goal, hang it up, and then, you know, go watch TV.

You know, you don't want to do that. You have to turn off TV and turn on your life, which is extremely important. That's a bar. Yeah, yeah, man. You just have to do those things, and you take it serious, man. If you take this business serious and you take care of business,

business will take care of you. So just keep that in mind, man. Here it is. You know, we're shooting a YouTube video on his channel. One of my triplex, I inspired him. He just exploded because he made a goal for himself and just went after it. But you can too, which is the most important message I want you to get out of this. So you have these properties.

You built out this large real estate portfolio. What does the future look like for Max Maxwell? So recently I bought a business that had some, you know, it was a butcher shop. And so our first thing was to go in there and renovate the building and put back a butcher shop in there. And now we're tearing down the whole thing and we're building three commercial units on that building, no loans. And then, you know, you and I've been learning development over the last almost two years now. Yes. And so one of the projects I'm working on in my hometown is a low-income housing apartment complex.

And so I'm working with the city to get that under control. And I'm just learning. You know, one thing I feel like a lot of investors do is they stay in their comfort space. And so, you know, it's one thing to that when you're at level 10, right? So let's just say I reach level 10 at wholesaling. You know, it's uncomfortable to jump into another arena in real estate and be at level one. But I took that as a challenge. And so going from level 10, then to level one and something else, I enjoy that.

And that's kind of why you and I are in that mastermind learning about development. And so that's our next thing. We want to put together cities. We want to put together a whole downtown and be a part of the master plan of a city. So that's what for me in the future of real estate is. I like that, man. I definitely like that. And me and him, we were in Ghana.

We wanted to do some affordable housing in the city of Akra in Ghana. You know, we were talking with some people, we were waiting for some opportunities to open up to, you know, may potentially do some affordable housing over there. And Ghana, Africa has a whole interesting situation. Like there's no credit system. So the cars they own are cash, houses they own are cash. Talk about rentals. Yes.

And the rentals, when you sign a lease, a 12-month lease, you have to pay 12 months up front. 24-month lease, 24 months up front. You would love that as a landlord, right? You love that as a landlord, but, you know, let's just say America's a great place to live. We have it a lot easier than some people may think here. But, yeah, so interesting situation.

And, you know, Max and I, we've been to, let's say, we did, we did Winston together, we did Shaw together, we did Atlanta, we did Lent together, we did Houston, we did Ghana. And for the people watching, I just, we need some help. Where should Max and Oz go next? Or should Max and Oz go to BPCon, 22, you know? Let us know. Comment below. I think I like that.

Yeah, BPCon, 22, man, Max and Oz, bro. Where is it going to be at in 2020? Oh, we don't, they don't know yet. Okay. But yeah, comment below, where should we go next? And now is time for the famous for. Now, this is the part of the interview. I'm going to ask you some questions.

Okay. What is your favorite real estate book? So that's a good question. So I only really read books to solve a problem. And I haven't really had crazy problems in real estate. So I couldn't really identify, like, a real estate book that was just changing my life. But here's what I would say. A book that did make me start thinking more about real estate was rich dad, poor dad.

That was the first book I read, cover to cover. Now, everybody says that. But for me, that was really what changed my life. Okay. Yeah, me too. Yeah. What's your favorite business book? My favorite business book.

My favorite business book has to be probably not really a business book. But, like, the 48 laws of power. Okay. the 50th Law of Power, you know, those type of books that kind of give you more strategy versus actual start this business, do this and do that. For me, it's more about strategy because you're going to learn a lot of other things just actually doing. So, question number three, is there a habit you are currently working on?

Yeah, working out more. Yeah, I feel like in business, I think you kind of have to sacrifice something in order to get what you want. It requires a lot of brain energy. It requires a lot of physical energy. And so I personally don't believe in a work-life balance. I believe there's a crazy sacrifice you put up front. And it really just depends on where you want to be success-wise. And so I put that up front and I kind of let my health decline a little bit as far as like, you know, I'm heavier than I've ever been. And, you know, I could easily slim down. But now it's like, you know, my new house is being done. Things are changing my life. And I'm like, I've got to get this part together. Absolutely. And you just got court side tickets for the Charlotte. Yes, I don't want to be on TV and, you know, just be all round and everything. Yeah. Absolutely. But the way they're going to feed you down there, I'm telling you. But, you know, I'm sitting, you know, I'm sitting, um, he's, that'd be my cheat game. Cheap. So he's in a, you know, he's sitting courtside and I'm sitting in the stands with the fans, you know, with the porous, you know, I'm in the fans. But anyway, I go upstairs, a special restaurant.

And, you know, they feed us and all that. But with his, it's his, the food in parking is actually included in his ticket. So, but yeah. It better be. Yeah, it definitely better be. Last question, bro. What separates the people who succeed? They fail or they just give up.

Obsession. Explain. If you're not obsessed with something, you're going to walk away from it. And so you have to get this. It's almost, I think it's, if you look at most successful people, no matter what it is, and I'm talking about like the top tier success, they have this level of obsession with them, with the thing that they're trying to conquer or reach or whatever it is. And there's no level of giving up.

There's that discipline and there's that obsession. And so if you're not going to be obsessed with it, you might as well leave it alone because the times get tough. And I don't believe in everybody should be an entrepreneur. Like, a cool side hustle is good. Absolutely. And you have to be able to recharge your own battery as an entrepreneur or business person because you can't rely on outside external sources to charge your battery.

Okay. And last, how can people follow you? Like, how can people stay in touch with what's going on with Max Maxwell? Like, how do they do that? Well, it'd be real cool. We just redid our website. So it's the real Maxwell.com. You can also find me on all social media handles as the Real Maxwell.

Also on YouTube, I got like 200 plus thousand subscribers. I've been loving if you guys go, just give me a subscribe, cost you nothing. And, you know, we're going to be putting out a lot more content. I got a brand new studio coming out. And just, you know, just a bunch of things. I love for you guys to follow me. Just all social media platforms. Wherever you like to enjoy and watch content, I got a place there.

So come join me there. I love it. I love it. All right. So, guys, listen, before I officially let you guys go, you know, I was your babysitter. I know, maybe I'm the babysitter from hell. But I hope some of you guys enjoyed it. make sure you like, comment, subscribe to the Bigger Pockets channel.

Make sure you get that Bigger Pockets Pro membership. That's what I have. It's definitely helpful. And thank you to the good people at Bigger Pockes for allowing the Carolina boys to just come on the podcast and, you know, do a takeover. The breaks over for one episode. So we really appreciate that. Joshua Dorkin, the founder, thanks, David Green and Brandon Turner. really appreciate you guys as well, you know, much more success.

And I'm your host. Well, guess hosts, well, they'll probably fire me after this. I can't keep no job, y'all. So I am your host, Nasser, aka the real estate duro. I'm not a guru. I'm a duro. I actually do this business. And you can find me on Instagram, real estate duru.

That's D-O-R-U, because I do. YouTube, same thing, real estate duro. text me. Let me know how I did. 704, 285-185-160. Now, we're signing off. Peace. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing,

without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value, and the best

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