BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 641: 15 Rentals in 1 Year (While Running 3 Businesses!) by Putting Time First w/Christian Bachelder
Episode Date: July 28, 2022Vacation rentals, real estate agent commissions, brokerage fees, insurance quotes, and everything in between just start to scratch the surface of who Christian Bachelder is. Some of you may have seen ...Christian before on our YouTube channel where he talks about interest rates, loan products, and other future financing projections. But today, Christian gets to talk about how he not only built a large rental portfolio but did so while running multiple businesses. Even as full-time workers, many Americans feel like they don’t have enough time in the day to relax, let alone invest. So how does someone with a jam-packed schedule, a lot of pressure, and a mountain of responsibilities find time to not only buy one rental but fifteen rental properties in a year? To Christian, it took a bit of trial and error, but the answer is simply making your time as efficient as humanly possible. He’s been able to heavily invest, start and run one of the top mortgage brokerages in the country, work as an agent, and provide insurance to clients as well. He drills down into what business owners and investors alike need to do to reclaim their time, and once it’s theirs, use it to the highest and best use. He also drops some financing pro tips that may help you lower the down payment you need or close with a better-than-average interest rate! In This Episode We Cover: Turning your referrals into full-blown businesses that can build your wealth Why investors should always choose brokers, lenders, and agents who invest themselves The velocity of time and why focusing on “return on time” beats ROI when investing Creative financing and loan programs that can save you serious cash at closing Partnering up to not only buy real estate but build businesses faster How to get three times more work done in the same amount of time And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast Get Your Ticket for BPCon 2022 Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Learn About Real Estate, The Housing Market, and Money Management with The BiggerPockets Podcasts Get More Deals Done with The BiggerPockets Investing Tools Find a BiggerPockets Real Estate Meetup in Your Area David's BiggerPockets Profile David's Instagram Rob's BiggerPockets Profile Rob's Youtube Rob's Instagram Rob's TikTok Rob's Twitter BiggerPockets Short-Term Rental Calculator Work with The One Brokerage on Your Next Loan Books Mentioned in the Show SOLD by David Greene SKILL by David Greene BRRRR by David Greene Long-Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss Connect with Christian: Christian's Email Christian's BiggerPockets Profile Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-641 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Check out our sponsor page! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 641.
But you never know, right?
Your next relationship, your next lead, your next investment partner could come from anywhere.
And if you're always thinking of maximizing the time that you're spending through your life,
it compounds.
It just like money does, right?
Everybody has their 401K that, you know, compounds on interest every year.
Time is the same exact way.
And if you choose very carefully where you put that first minute,
before you know it, you're getting five or ten minutes out for every minute you spend.
What's up, everyone? This is David Green, your host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate Podcast
here with my co-host, Rob, how's it going today? I'm feeling good, man. I'm feeling
really good. I'm closing all my rings on my Apple Watch, and that's honestly the only goal
that's a requirement every single day is to close my rings, get my steps in, burn some calories,
and hopefully got to, you know, get a little bit towards who I used to be physically. That's my big
project for the next two or three months. It's no joke. And then it's a
over, then I'm done. I'm just kidding. Yeah, obviously. Trying to maintain fitness while you're
able to make money is really hard. It's so hard because you're like, oh, if I take off two hours and
I go work out, I might lose 10 grand. Like, it's always in your head. It's very hard to stay disciplined
with that. Yeah, the channel pandemic, everything, like, everything just really put up,
oh, having kids put a pause on anything physical for me for like the last two years. And as someone who's
always on camera, I was like, okay, all right, all right, buddy. It's time to trim you up,
pal. So I give myself motivational talks in the mirror every day. Well, let's keep at it. You can always
send me those gym selfies, man. We'll keep each other accountable. That's right. You send me those
every so often. Today's show is nothing short of incredible. So in today's episode, Rob and I are
interviewing my business partner, Christian Bachelter, who I built the one brokerage with, who is also a
very prominent real estate investor. Christian has bought 15 homes over the last year through partnerships
and by himself.
And he shares a lot of the information that helped him to do that.
So we get into Christians buy box, the criteria he looks for, which is very specific.
He's also my partner in the one broker.
So we talk a lot about how he helps with financing of my deals, angles that we see that
other people don't know, what you should talk to your real estate broker about
how you could make your agent better.
I mean, I could go on and on and on.
This was a very, very, very detailed show that does run a little bit longer.
But I want to make sure you listen all the way to the end because we share where
you guys can get some more information to help make your realtors that you're working with
better. Rob, what were some of your favorite parts of the show? You know, I think it was a really nice,
it was nice to kind of hear him talk through his, I don't know, the linear progression of why he
started new companies and really evaluating his time. But we spoke a lot really about the return on time,
which is really, really big. I think that's a metric that people ignore quite often. We're always
chasing the cash on cash or the return, the ROI, right? But the actual time,
investment and, you know, reinvesting your time so that it starts to compound. Like, we talk all about
that and how that affects his businesses. I thought it was just a really interesting viewpoint.
That is a very good point. And that will lead us to today's quick tip, which is, if you're
working with a realtor and you're not thrilled about the service you're getting, maybe they're good,
but they're not great. Maybe they're not even good, but you like them and you're loyal to them.
You don't have to be stuck with a bad realtor. And no, I'm not going to tell you to switch and go with
me as your realtor because I'm not licensed in every single state.
What I am going to tell you is that there are resources out there that you can provide for them that will help them be better.
Bigger Pockets itself is the very best one.
Tell your Realtors about this podcast.
Get them listening to this.
Get them on the website.
Many of them would do a much better job for you if they had access to the information that you do.
I write books to help realtors.
You can find them at BiggerPockets.com slash store.
Sold and Skill are the first two books that I wrote specifically meant to help the bigger pockets community.
be better realtors and get better service from their realtors.
In today's show, Christian talks about how you can send your realtor to us and we will get
them a free education to help you close more deals with them.
We all get better when we share information.
So if you're not thrilled about what you're getting, instead of getting frustrated and yelling at
them, just be like, listen, I'm texting you a podcast, listen to this thing and then get back
to me.
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All right.
Today's show is really good and a little bit long, so I want to get to it right away.
Rob, is there anything you want to add before we bring in Christian?
No, no, I don't want to make the podcast even longer.
So I'm going to vamp here for a little bit and let's get into it.
Christian Bachelder, normally I would ask you to introduce yourself to our audience.
However, because this is a special occasion, I'm going to take the liberty to do that myself.
Let's see how much of this I can get right.
Christian Bachelder is a UC Berkeley graduate with an engineering degree, a BJJ purple belt.
He owns an all-state insurance company.
He is my partner in the one brokerage, which might be the fastest growing loan company in the country.
We just got back from a trip to Michigan where we got invited out to learn from United Hills.
some mortgage because we did so much business with them. We got connections to the CEO and some
other people within there that Christian works to get our clients better deals. Let's see what else.
You're also a real estate agent that has sold houses. You own short-term rentals in various states.
We own one together in Tennessee and you've got several others you own as well as others that you
have with partners. And we have plans on creating an actual lending company where brokers would
come to us and we would be the one financing the loans for the investors. So what we would like to do,
is to create a situation where we go to the investors and we say we're going to offer a product
to real estate investors and then your local mortgage broker, if it's not us, comes to us and we put a
deal together that works for you as an investor. And maybe most importantly, Christian and I shared a very
important vision. So about six years ago when I started the David Green team, I had a vision that I would
like to have the real estate agent and the insurance company and the lender and the appraiser and the
contractor and all the pieces that you will need under one roof so that you don't have to worry.
about if the person that you're working with is any good or not. And I met Christian, and not only
is the guy brilliant, as you guys are going to hear on this podcast, he's got a brain like a computer,
but he also had that exact same vision as he's selling houses and he's doing mortgages and he's
doing the insurance and he was doing it at a smaller scale. And then like most people, we partnered
and you ended up drinking from a fire hose. And I will say you're the only person that did not
drown from that fire hose. So you impressed me and we went into business together. And now we are
pulling back the curtain for a long time. People have heard about
Christian but didn't really know who he was and you guys are going to get to know him today.
Christian, did I miss anything?
Man, I think you cleared it all up.
I think, well, that'll be our show.
That's it, right?
I think that's it.
Thanks for tuning in, everybody, and we will catch you on the next episode of Bigger Pockets.
There we go.
Well, it's just such an impressive resume, you know, you've done a lot, you've got a lot of plans here.
I guess my question just to get us started here in the podcast is like, how the heck did you
get here. You know, this is such a journey that you take, that you, that you took to get to this
point. Like, what, what led you here? Yeah, that's a, it's a question I've gotten a lot. And I,
I would probably argue that there's not a whole lot of chemical engineer mortgage brokers,
real estate insurance brokers out there. But for the one other person that may be in the world,
maybe we have some, some similarities. But after, after graduating, as David shared,
I did attend UC Berkeley. I was in a industry that had no fulfillment for me. I'm a people
I can't sit behind a, you know, a computer type in an algorithms and code all day.
And actually, I had a pretty early on mentor.
I'm a really good buddy of mine growing up.
His dad kind of had a similar goal on a smaller scale of kind of building this so-called
one-stop shop, right?
Where, you know, I always joke, you know, my ultimate goal, if I reach where I'm trying
to go, is to never write a referral check again, right?
If we could just create a network where people can go to, if you're looking to invest,
you don't have to talk to anybody else, right?
We can find the home, finance the home, protect the home with an insurance policy,
you know, build your finances, maybe manage the property for you.
That's the idea and then building a place where people can go just for a general advice, right?
But to kind of get back to the question, how I started,
it was really just seeing every time that I sent a referral to a state farm or an all state
or, you know, there was never the level of service that I wanted for my client, right?
And similar to how David, you know, David gives a lot of referrals out as well.
And that's his name, right?
His name is attached to those people that he refers to.
And now that I'm on the scale of him, you really feel that, right?
If you refer to one person who gives the borrower a bad experience, it's your name, right?
They say, this was your guy.
Your guy failed me, right?
And, you know, I hold myself to a really high standard, and it's hard to hold other people accountable
to the level that you hold yourself.
So I've gotten really good at squeezing 25 hours.
out of a day, I guess could be my best way to put it.
You know, I sleep on average.
I think Kiwasaki said this the other day, too, sleep about five hours a day.
It's definitely a grind.
But at the end of the day, if you can build processes and systems around you that allow you
to maximize your time, you're going to be able to succeed in building a company.
So this is probably a good time to talk about just like transparently what my life is
like and what Christian's life is like now that we're partnered together.
we worry constantly that we're going to let somebody down.
So I mean, we're in this position where people look up to us.
Rob, you're now in that same boat.
And they say, hey, David, can I talk to your CPA?
Can I talk to your mortgage broker?
Can I talk to your real estate agent?
And they're thinking in the back of their mind that that person is David.
And they get to know me.
They hear me talking.
It's podcasts are weird.
I remember the first time I met Brandon Turner.
Who's actually flying into San Francisco?
I'm going to see him tonight.
And I'm like, hey, you don't know this.
but we're already friends.
I already know what coffee you order at Starbucks.
I know all this about you.
You don't know me, so it's kind of weird.
But that's one of the cool things of a podcast
is you get to know a personality.
The downside is we are always worried
if a mistake happens and you trusted me.
Like that takes it, it hits you so hard.
But because of the level of volume
that people are drawn to us about,
that's a terrible way of structure in that sense,
is because we have this platform
and there's so much volume of business we're doing,
our employees are going to make more mistakes because they're working with more people.
They're going to be busier than somebody else might be who's in a similar situation.
We're constantly training them, pushing them, trying to get them to be better, but they're
not me.
They're not Christian.
They're not going to be quite as good, especially in the beginning.
So we always are like crossing our fingers and holding our breath like, oh, please nothing
go wrong.
And there's a lot of stress that's involved in that.
And part of how Christian and I have structured things is we're not starting a business that
we don't do ourselves. Like basically when someone comes to us to get a loan product, these are the
products Christian found for me, because I'm probably the worst loan client in the world, which he can
tell you about later. How do we make this work for David? Because if it'll work for David, it will
work for anybody. When you come to me to buy a house, you're getting trained by agents that
went through what I tell my buyer's agents to do. Or when I'm selling my house, this is the way I do it.
They got trained in the same thing. Same for insurance and for the property management company will
have at a certain point. My opinion is these are the best ways to run businesses, is you
did it yourself, you took what you learned, and now you help service clients. The downside is when
you're when you have so many people you're trying to help and your staff is new, there's always
going to be a little bit of hiccups. Maybe we could start off with just getting the downside out of
the way. I've never really asked you this Christian, like what has your stress level been as you're
trying to keep up with the volume of business we're doing and protecting my reputation while you're
doing that? Yeah, it's a, it's a task. I mean, not only, you know, when we first started, it was
pretty much me, right? I was taking everything on to myself, you know, because I had such a high
standard and I didn't want to let you down. I didn't want to let your customers down, your real estate
team, you know, all the people that we work with. And the most difficult part of the process
was demanding that same level of work ethic and accountability from the people that we hired, right?
And the people that we joined on the team to tell them, hey, you know, you're going to get a level
of leads and a level of, you know, customer access that you're not going to get anywhere else.
I mean, people come to us and they expect you, right?
This is the similar struggles that you have with your real estate team.
And it was about a 16 to 18 month grind unlike, you know, this is somebody coming from arguably
one of the most competitive majors at one of the most competitive schools.
And that 12 to 18 months was like nothing I'd experienced.
I mean that I was driving all night mentally just through every recess of my brain to, you know,
try to make this thing work, right? And I'm, I'm proud of what we built. It's still a work in progress,
but even today, that's a huge test to make sure that we're holding, holding up, you know,
the name of bigger pockets, the name of you, the name of everything that we represent in a good
air. Yeah. And in a year, we became one of the top mortgage brokerages in the country, right? So
that's very fast. It'd be like, imagine like putting on that, I don't know the good analogy,
but putting on like 50 pounds of pure muscle in one year. It's a strain on the body. It's very difficult
to do something like that.
So we do take our job very seriously
and we're always trying to do things right.
But I think, Rob, you had an experience with us
where we funded the loan that we bought,
the property we bought together.
One of the reasons Rob got and I got a really good deal
on that property is it sat on the market for a long time.
I thought I was going to go buy like four more of those properties
after we closed.
And I don't know if I told you, Rob,
everything is more expensive and not as good as that house.
Like that thing was a steal.
Yeah, we got a good deal.
But part of the reason is that.
that it was sitting on five acres.
And normal conventional lenders won't fund loans when there's that much land because the
concern would be, well, are we funding the house or are we funding the land?
Because if we have to foreclose on land, we don't know how to sell that.
We can sell a property.
So they put a limit on how much acreage, which most people would have no idea that that's a
requirement.
I wouldn't have had that idea if I wouldn't have run into it.
Well, having Christian on my side, he can go out there and he can find the lender that
will do it.
Or sometimes we can twist their arm and say, hey, we're bringing you this many loans.
You're going to fund this one for us because you want to.
to keep our business and we can help our clients in that way. The downside is just, it's hard when
you're in like Rob's position when the person you're working with is also working with other clients.
And sometimes they're not as experienced or Christian and I would be. So I'm noticing when you
start these companies, there's always like positives and negatives. You kind of have to take both.
But the benefit of, I think, what the three of us are doing is we're in the game, buying these properties
ourselves, running into problems. Later in the show, I'll talk about the 1031 problem that I just
ran into when I was with Christian and he and I worked through that thing. But I would have never
known that was even a problem. And now I'm able to come share it with everybody else. So this is the
benefit of doing your business with a company that also does stuff themselves. Like if you guys
are going to partner with Rob on something, he has tiny homes. He has short term rentals. He's
very, very good at knowing what a person cares about when they go into the home. So if he's
helping you with what you're trying to do, it's experience. With Christian, he owns an insurance
company. He does tons of, he knows Ingalls other people don't see. He's the same thing with mortgages.
is we can solve problems ways that other people can't.
And I just, whoever you're working with on your stuff, I'm always encouraging people.
Try to do it with someone that owns homes.
If your agent also owns properties in the area you're buying, that's the one that you want to use.
And that's how we've kind of structured things.
I went off on a little bit of a trail there.
But Christian, do you feel like you are able to provide better service, solve problems,
build a better business because you're in the game of real estate yourself?
Absolutely.
I think, I mean, and this isn't a pitch to just use us, right?
I mean, there are mortgage brokers that invests out there in the world.
But on just an average, you know, working with a company with the morals and the foresight and the experience that we have, you're not going to get that from a phone ramp at Quicken.
You're not going to get that from a phone rep at Better.com.
Right.
I mean, you're going to get that from somebody who preaches, you know, practices what they preach, right?
Who do it, who invest, who own properties, who, you know, in my situation, I bought an insurance agency because, you know, frankly, I saw people get screwed with insurance.
coverage's, right? I saw people, I mean, you know, David, after I reviewed your insurance policies,
I was like, you're not insured correctly, right? Let's get this taken care of, right? We got to get you
insured properly. And, I mean, that happens so much because the only, the only advertisements you
fee for insurance are say 15%. Right. And people aren't actually talking about whether you're getting,
yeah, there you go. You know, and a lizard's the one telling you, right? But, you know, it's just,
at the end of the day, if you're working with somebody, you know, it's like that fiduciary relationship.
If you're working with a representative with your finances that is going to put your best interest first,
you're in a good spot. And if they have the experience and the know-how to know what your best
interest is, you're in the right spot. And here's a, I'd like to point something about that.
And then I'm going to, Rob, I'm going to toss it to you for an example. One thing that I've learned
being in this business is how that person decides what's in your best interest can be very different
than how someone else does. So what I'm saying is if you're going to a discount agent who says,
I'll sell your house for 1% or a discount insurance company that says your premium will be this low,
that is a way that they believe they're bringing you value. We're the cheapest. We're saving you
the most money. Until something happens, or maybe a property management company that says I'll manage
your property for 3% or something, until something goes wrong. And then very quickly,
like, oh, wait, this was a terrible idea. I can't get anyone on the phone. I'm bouncing around
in other countries. They're denying me coverage. I'm going to come out of pocket $12,000 that I don't
have. Your listing agent doesn't sell your house for nearly as much money in there. And then they're
always frustrated later. Like, I'll tell you guys, just a sneak peek. When we're helping on the
David Green team to buy houses for our clients, I purposely trigger listings that I know are by
bad brokerages or buy listing agents because we will out-negotiate them. They're not going to be as
good. And you don't always realize that you're losing out on something when you're just looking
for the cheapest thing. So in our world, we typically see, like, we'll get someone pre-approved
for a loan and then some other mortgage broker will say, well, I can do it for less. Your interest
rate will be less, your closing cost will be, like, not a lot less, just minimal amounts.
And they'll go with that person. And the reason it was less is because their entire staff is in
India on a different timetable that is not very incentivized to get your loan close. And it takes them
60 days instead of 14 days.
And you lose the entire deal because what you thought was you were getting value from a cheaper
rate.
And no one, I know before I got into the business with you, Christian, I had more than most
people, but it was still a very limited understanding of how the mortgage industry even works.
Like, why am I talking to you, but the loans being done with somebody else over here?
And why shouldn't I just go to Wells Fargo?
That's where I bank.
I could just get my loan there.
There was all of this nuance that I never understood.
And I've since become very skeptical when the first way someone says they bring value
is they're cheap. If that's what you open with, right off the bat, I'm very nervous. And Rob, this was a thing
that you and I sort of experienced together in Scottsdale where you found an agent for us. And I was like,
I don't know, man, that property management seems like, it seems kind of expensive what he's looking
for. And you're like, yeah, but the guy does this and this and this and he knows all these things.
And I'm like, oh, wait, this, yeah, this is incredibly valuable. This is, we're not just getting
his management, we're getting his entire list of resources, the people that fix things when they
break. We're getting his expertise. We're getting to know about the area. In that sense, now it
becomes incredibly cheap. So I wanted to give each of you a minute to maybe give an example of a person
you've used or an experience that you've had where you went with the more expensive option, but it
either saved or made you much more money. Yeah, I got this one locked and loaded all the time.
I mean, I always talk about on the channel quite a bit is hiring what I call your Airbnb Avengers.
And these are the people that are actually running your property when you're doing self-management.
So your Airbnb Avengers are going to be like your cleaners, your landscapers, your pest control, your pool maintenance, all that type of stuff.
But the lifeblood of your business is always going to be your cleaning crew.
And so very rarely do I negotiate with my cleaners?
Because if they say that they want 100 bucks and I say, how about 90?
And they're like, okay, I'll take you on as a client.
Well, they're going to give you 90% of their effort, in my opinion.
And so for me, I don't really negotiate.
Like I had my cleaners for a long time.
they were charging me $70 to clean my tiny house for about two years. And then I got the dreaded
text about a month ago. And he's like, hey, man, we're raising rates. I was like, all right,
let's talk about it. Why, why are you doing that? And I just want to understand. And he was like,
well, it's been two years. And I've never, you know, asked for an adjustment. So I'd like
$85 instead of $70. And I was like, okay, that's, you know, it's significant. But I was like,
okay, well, you know, you deserve it because I have 293 reviews on this listing. I have a 4.95,
which is really freaking hard with like 300 reviews. And they all talk about how spotless the place is.
So it's worth it for me to pay an extra 15 bucks to keep my amazing cleaner because then I know that it's always going to be clean and I'll always have great reviews and thus I'll always be more bookable.
So for me, I'm never really skimbing out on cleaning when it comes to my short-term rental portfolio.
What's the cost of a cleaner that doesn't show up and actually clean or doesn't do a good job and your next guest walks into your property and it's messy?
What do you think that cost you when they put?
Hundreds to thousands.
I mean, one bad cleaner cost us thousands of dollars one month and just refunds where they didn't show up or they forgot or they were really bad.
We had to obviously let them go.
But we had to let them go because, you know, we're like, look, dude, I, we're paying them.
They're cheap, but we've just refunded $900 in the last week.
they've cost us $900 and if we had just divided that over, you know, a year and just hired someone
better, you know, we would have better reviews, you know, so it's, it's always one of those things
that we're learning constantly. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking as Rob's talking here, I'm thinking
their cleaning's not worth that extra $15, that relationship you built was, right? I mean,
you're paying $15 to keep the same people who you have two years of trusting, right? I mean,
you have two years of relationship that you built with them and good work. And like you said,
one bad cleaning is $1,000 refund, you know, $1,500 refund. How?
depending on what your nightly rates are.
And I mean, $15 increase, of course, nobody wants to hear it.
But, man, when you're saving a relationship and trust and time out of your pocket, right?
I mean, it's like, I say time out of your pocket because it's going to, you know,
segue a little bit into this idea of, you know, your return on time.
And, I mean, how much are you, would you have to spend to fix a $15 error that you didn't
want to pay for, right?
I mean, obviously with people like us, I mean, we, I'm pretty sure each of us would
rather be doing a couple different things rather than trying to keep an Airbnb clean.
I mean, we have a lot of different ways to spend our time.
And that relationship is just, man, that's, and it's the same argument, right?
Coming to a mortgage broker, you know, coming to somebody that you trust, coming to an
advisor, you know, somebody who understands you.
Okay, you're talking about a difference of, you know, a couple thousand bucks on your
closing cost or, you know, eighth percent or a quarter percent difference in your rate,
but that other lender may not understand what you're trying to do, right?
They may hinder your ability to continue to grow your portfolio with the product that they
place you into, right?
This is a really good example.
I did a video with you, David, we were talking about that loan product that came out the day
that you went into escrow on your last property.
And if I didn't know what you were trying to do, I wouldn't have even told you to go get it, right?
And that completely changed your game plan for that property, right?
And if you weren't, obviously, we're partners, but if you weren't linked up with somebody
who understood your position, that wouldn't have even been an option.
You would have had to completely pivot your financing strategy.
And I think it saved you like $300,000 on your down payment, something crazy.
You know, just because I knew what you were trying to do.
and I was actively thinking when I saw that product.
So 100%.
I mean, the cheapest option, you know, we have a saying when we hire people here,
do you buy everything that you own at Walmart?
Right?
You could probably get the cheapest option at Walmart,
but you don't own everything from Walmart.
And, you know, you probably don't want to get the things that you really care about from Walmart, right?
And that's, you know, your finances should obviously land in that category, right?
Well, I think the average investor takes the perspective of,
they're the hub.
and all of these ancillary companies are spokes that they need to make it happen.
I need a lender.
I need insurance.
I need an agent.
I need a property manager.
And that isn't inaccurate, but that perspective creates this idea of I have to go tell them all.
I have to solve my problem and tell them what I need.
Right.
So then I need to get a loan.
What's the cheapest rate I can get?
I need to get a loan.
What's the best down payment program you have?
And then they spend all their energy trying to figure out to solve their problem and then go
to someone and say, can you fix it?
which isn't bad, but it's much better when you're all sort of in the hub together,
like how Christian, we were just together for 10 days.
And while we're there, we're brainstorming on the most efficient way to put these things
together because he knows what I'm trying to do.
He's like, ooh, this would be better in this situation or let's make sure we don't make
this.
Like those little things he catches save us hours and hours and hours of time and money later.
I guess you don't pay money in hours, but you know what I mean?
They cost money to do because we are working in it and he knows what my plan is.
those relationships are valuable. Property management companies that give me ideas.
We were just looking at properties in the Smoky Mountains. And when you have a good property
manager that says, hey, here's an idea. You could take that sleeper bed from this property you've got
and you could move it over into this one. And if you got an extra two people sleeping here,
it goes from 10 to 12. That's probably going to be an extra $25,000 in revenue a year.
Ideas like that that I wouldn't have naturally thought of right away. Maybe four years later,
I think of it. But in the moment, their experience is helping me a ton.
And it's hard to see that when you're just thinking, like, I got to fix all my problems and what's the cheapest option.
That's one of the reasons that we talk about being relationship-based because not only do they make you money and save you time, but they let you stay focused on the things that are more productive for building a business.
And that's one of the things I want to ask you, Christian, you've mentioned that, you know, I talk a lot about velocity of money, this concept that put your money out in the world, have it create equity, have it create cash flow, pull it back in and then send it out again.
and you're constantly sending money out in the world to add more value and then come back to you.
And that's one of the ways that you build wealth.
But you talk about the velocity of time.
So would you mind sharing your philosophy?
Because frankly, you wouldn't be able to do all the stuff that we do together.
Run a mortgage company, run an insurance company, buy your own investment properties, train the guys.
We're working on creating a program for loan officers that want to learn how to do loans
where they can actually come to us and take a course where they will teach them.
Here's how you be a loan officer similar to real estate agents.
How do you put all this stuff together?
what are you doing with your time to make that possible?
Yeah, that's a really good question.
And even following up on Rob's first question as well,
this is kind of a fusion answer.
But I've heard you know, we've hosted kind of talks.
You know, we did one down in Long Beach on that velocity time.
And I just couldn't help but think when I was sitting there hearing you talk.
I mean, you know, people say time is money all the time.
But really, the equivalent, you know, when somebody's thinking of investing strategies
and investing mindsets, everybody gets broken, you know, just completely fed up with
with running analysis and you know, you get into analysis paralysis just on money, right?
Like what's your ROI?
What's the down payment requirement?
Just like you're saying, David, oh, I need the minimum down and the highest return, right?
But nobody's thinking, man, in the time that it took you and this paralysis that you had
to identify these properties, run numbers, and you had to run 100 numbers to buy one property,
you know, if you pivoted a little bit, right, and put some processes in place that allowed
you to maybe buy three instead, your return would be three times as much.
and it's that transition from thinking of where are my dollars going to where my time's going.
And this is really the foundation of how I believe I arrived where I am now and why we continue to grow.
And a lot of people would look at what I'm doing and say there's no way there's enough hours in the day.
But if every hour that I spend is being compounded in the similar avenue of how David talks a lot of see of money,
every dollar you put in investment property, whether you're burring it or whether you're long-term renting it,
you know, you're hopefully getting multiple returns on that dollar, right?
That's how I think of time.
So I'll give a couple examples.
When I first started out, the first example was I was a realtor, right?
I was referring people over to a lender and I was referring people over to insurance
agent.
I started doing all three.
So now every minute that I was spending with a client is now technically three minutes.
I'm spending a minute with them as their insurance advisor, their real estate advisor,
and their lending advisor, right?
That was the idea.
I'm maximizing every minute of time.
time that I'm spending with the customers. And the customers felt that. They're like, oh, my God,
I've never had a mortgage broker who could advise me on my insurance policy, right? And that would
lead to me getting referrals and getting people who, you know, a real estate agent's never going
to get an insurance referral. But I did, right, because I was maximizing the time I spent. And even
transitioning that into now with how we're building our company, you know, David and I, as he shared
earlier, we bought a property together. So every minute that I've spent with David, building our
business relationship and our personal relationship has now evolved in.
into a partner, a real estate investing partner relationship where, you know, I didn't know when we first started a mortgage company that we would own property together.
But every minute that we spent building this company was also building an investing relationship.
Right.
So my minutes have been compounded with David.
And I told her I'd give her a little bit of a shout out.
But one of my, she just started as a client, Karen Scrovenate, David, you know.
Who you met because she was a client of the David Green team.
100%.
100%.
Right.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
She came.
She was a client of David's on real estate side.
we did her loan. And funny enough, I own a number of rental properties with her now. And every minute
that I spent with her, I didn't know, but I was spending it with an investment partner, building a
mindset together and analyzing properties together and realizing that we were on the same page with
a lot of our investment strategies. And eventually that led to a really good partnership forming.
You know, I can say, there's a million situations. I mean, David and Rob, you guys are co-hosts
of this podcast. You guys bought a house together. You're compounding the time that you spend with each other.
Right. So just in every avenue of life, and I know this is hyper specific to me, but the people who are listening who are W2, you know, when you go out on the weekends, right, you go to the beach, you go to the bar, you go out with your friends, like those could be future partners that you don't even know yet, right? I mean, it could be people that you buy your next property with. You know, when you're at your family reunion, you know, whether you're a salesman or your W2 and you're looking to invest, your family members could be your partners and you could be compounding that time that obviously don't make everything about work, right? You need your family time.
But you never know, right?
Your next relationship, your next lead, your next investment partner could come from anywhere.
And if you're always thinking of maximizing the time that you're spending through your life, it compounds.
Just like money does, right?
Everybody has their 401K that, you know, compounds on interest every year.
Time is the same exact way.
And if you choose very carefully where you put that first minute, before you know it, you're getting five or ten minutes out for every minute you spend.
That's really interesting.
So I'm kind of curious.
Do you think of like any decision you make?
any business decision you make, do you ever think about the value of your time?
Like, do you actually assign a dollar amount and thus, you know, use that to sort of kind of
guide how you move forward or if you empower someone else to sort of take the load off
your plate or whatever?
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, I wouldn't say I've ever necessarily tied it to a dollar amount, although that's
really good advice.
I should probably start doing that.
But I just think it's just, like I said, there's just so many opportunities where this could,
I mean, it could be walking your dog at the park.
I mean, when I bought, when I bought my.
mattress that I sleep on, I refinance the guy who sold me my mattress.
Like you never know, right?
I mean, there's people everywhere that you can strike up a conversation with.
You know, there's a lot of people, you know, realtors who do it part-time and loan
officers who do it part-time, they know because they're in a sales position that every minute
you don't know where your next leads coming from, but if you're really living with that
and I think that's great advice, Rob, even tying it to a dollar amount, like, hey man, how much,
if you had to get taken away from what you're doing, I mean, I can even imagine with you
were David. I mean, imagine you guys couldn't work for two weeks. How much money are you losing?
Imagine your phone died. You had no reception and you couldn't leave your house. I mean,
the amount of dollars that you would lose, and that's a short period of time. That's a week
or two, right? But the amount of impact and compounding on your time that you guys have in your
networks and your spheres would be massively valuable, right? I mean, it'd be hundreds of thousands
of dollars probably if you guys couldn't work for a month, right? And not only for you, but David
it runs a team, right? David's team would lose money. David's businesses, Rob, your short-term
rentals, your management companies, all that. I mean, how much would be lost there because of the way
that you guys have compounded your time? I just think it's such a valuable mindset instead of
always making it about the dollar, right? Yeah, for sure. Well, do you run that little exercise,
man? I mean, I think it's very eye-opening because that was for me as I start to scale and really
kind of run with all of the different businesses that are floating around in the ether right now.
it's tough because I have a tendency of wanting to do everything, but, you know, like you said,
it's like I'm trying to squeeze 25 hours out of a day, and it's really, really, really tough.
And so, you know, about six to 12 months ago, I really started calculating what my actual
hourly rate, just so that I know. And effectively, you know, it's really eye-opening to see that
because then I'd look at everything else that I do and everything else that I get cheap about
and I don't want to hire people for. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm losing thousands of dollars by just,
like even thinking about this for two days, you know what I mean? And so it definitely helps me,
helps guide me and empower me to delegate and develop teams a little bit more for sure. Yeah, and it
pushes that priority to the people that you do delegate towards. I mean, David and I both have
experiences with, you know, we hired the wrong person, right? And it took more time that we invested
into them that didn't have a reward, right? So I mean, especially if you're teaching that mindset with
people that you're partnering with and your employees or whoever it is and, you know, the
listeners' lives that you're using this with. If you're also imparting that onto the people
that you're building with, now you're compounding two people's time, right? And by you,
whether it's Rob, you using leverage or David and I hiring an employee and having them, you know,
do a job that we would do otherwise, if they're also compounding their time, I mean, you go
four or five people deep in this mindset and you've got five people doing the job of 50, right? I mean,
that's really how you build like a team culture. You can build this mentality that, man,
time is so valuable that everybody's now getting the maximum value from it. I think it would be
valuable if we gave some practical examples of how we work this into our life. Like your example of
I went to buy a mattress and I started a conversations. I refinanced guys' house. I got a free
mattress and I made money by going to buy something. I had a same experience where when I bought my car,
I ended up selling the guy a house. And so that paid for my car and then some. I got a free car out of
If you have that perspective, everywhere you go, if you're talking to people about, hey, do you know
anyone that might want to be selling a house? Do you know anyone who's got a hoarder house or something?
Everybody remembers that weirdo in their life that has just crazy stuff in their home and their house is falling apart.
And when you ask those questions, they might get answers. So do you guys mind giving some, they don't have to be actual examples.
They could be hypothetical. But something that a listener who's hearing this concept could walk away from after hearing this and say, I'm going to start doing that.
Yeah, I can start. I think, you know,
Everybody's thinking of side hustles nowadays, right?
It seems like everybody that we pre-approved drives for Uber or door dashes or what.
It's funny.
I mean, it sounds like a joke, but like everybody that we pre-approves got multiple sources of
income on their tax turns.
So I think of it from like the analytical, like the mortgage broker side of things, right?
Like when I see people give me their tax turns that have five or six different avenues
of income, both of you guys are like this, right, Rob, you got me.
Yeah, I mean, you got your courses, you got your real estate, you got businesses that you're
running, you got the podcast, right?
I mean, really, the easiest way for me to say that is that building multiple streams of income,
maximizing the time you spend in each one, right?
I mean, something like, and it doesn't have to be driving for Uber.
That's the, you know, dumbed down bare bones version.
But it could be something as simple as that, right?
It could be something as simple as, hey, I want to, you know, if you're good at something, right?
I mean, something that David and I are working on, as he alluded to is creating this course, right?
Like, if you're good at something, share it with people, right?
Try to build, try to fill a niche.
Try to fill, you know, your time with something that can,
you know, benefit other people and maybe you end up building a company around it.
I mean, I don't think David or Rob, either of you guys probably predicted you'd be in the
spots that you're in, but because you were building a team surrounding yourself
with people and maximizing your time, you guys really built something, right?
That's the most bare bones version of it that I can think of.
Right. And you seem like you've gone down this, this, this, I was going to say rabbit hole,
but it's way more than, well, it kind of is because you're going down the intricacies,
the intricacies of building businesses, and you're very successful at this, and you have
several businesses that are producing, you know, income for you. What was that moment, I guess,
in all of this since, you know, you have businesses and teams? What was the moment you decided to
actually start investing in more, like in more real estate or more short-term rentals? Like,
why did you do that versus continuing to, you know, kind of pour into those businesses?
Yeah, that's a really good question. Funny enough, I bought my first house, I think, within the
last 50 months. It's been about two years. And I could have purchased way sooner than that. Absolutely.
I set a goal for myself where I wanted my businesses to be not self-running, but be a method of
income that would be my safety net, right? It would be, I can now invest with confidence knowing
that if something did go wrong, I've built enough aside from real estate to withstand anyone
falls that come, right? So I probably started investing a little bit late. I mean, of course,
now everybody goes back and says, I wish I bought more. But kind of knowing that my businesses were
my first pursuit. That's where I felt like I got the biggest bang for my buck. And that allowed
me to now grow at the level that I wanted. So I guess to answer your question, I didn't start buying
until I could buy at the speed and the level to which I really wanted to. Right? I hadn't gotten there
yet. And until I could, I mean, I purchased 15 homes in the last year, right? I mean, that's more than
one a month, right? And I wouldn't have been able to do that. Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to do that
unless I built a really strong foundation that had enough cash flow coming in, had enough
ability of, or had enough time where I had the ability to go dedicate time and resources to
buying these properties because everyone's an analysis. Everyone's, you know, a partner that I
partnered with or a property management company. I mean, you guys know the drill of property
managers. You got to find boots on the ground and everything that David writes in his long-term
investing book. And I started only once I felt I had the confidence to do that the way that I wanted
to. I wanted to invest on my own terms. So that was a little bit of when I made the switch.
This is an awesome segue into how you take your compounding of time. I often talk about that same
concept, but I use the word synergy. I always say you want to get more than one benefit out of a single
action, right? So like you and I were at dinner with our agent, like two nights ago, or maybe it was
last night. It was two nights ago. Two nights ago. And we were talking to the agent and his brother is
sort of the property manager in the company. So while this is a dinner where we're meeting to talk
about the deals that I was looking at and get to know the agent, we're also like, freak the property
managers right there. Let's get his opinion on things. Let's ask questions. And then he tells us,
yeah, these are the properties that tend to do the best. Now we work that into the conversation with
the brother who does the sales. And we're like,
like, hey, how would you find that property? And in one dinner, which we had to do anyways,
because people have to eat, we built a relationship. We got to know about what properties
perform better as a property manager. We got to learn how the buyer's agent could find
those. I honestly think, I see this all the time. Asking the right questions, we make them better.
They walked away like, we didn't even think about that. These guys are really smart. They have
the right ideas. That synergy. That's the velocity of your time. That's improving the return you
get on the time that you're spending. Now, as you just mentioned, buying properties is a time suck.
I was just thinking on the way to the office to record this today. I have to fly to Tennessee to learn
the area. And then even if I'm not flying to look at individual homes, I have to review the house,
pull it up on a map, ask what the numbers are, run the calculation on those numbers, try to get a
feel for what could be wrong with this property that I'm not seeing. And that's all before you
to go into escrow. Now you're looking at inspection reports and surveys and getting insurance quotes
and having to talk to contractors about fixing things and having to order furniture and trying to figure
out how you're going to get that delivered. One property is not just, you're not just putting
money into it. You're putting a lot of time and energy to make this thing actually fruitful.
Having a specific buybox that you know, these are the numbers that I want to hit. These are the
properties I'm looking for can be immensely powerful with saving you the time when you're
a ton of stuff and making sure that the work you do after going into escrow is not wasted.
It's actually going to turn into a return.
Can you share as Christian how you came up with your numbers that have created your buy box and then what they are?
Yeah, absolutely.
So just to kind of lay the foundation, I do invest in short-term rentals.
That's actually the entirety of my portfolio.
So this is specifically catered towards people obviously trying to follow suit in that regard.
but I've developed what I kind of call the 15% the golden ratio so to speak.
That's what I call it.
But basically, I want to see the gross revenue projections for the property.
And people are going to say, where do you get those, right?
I wouldn't say live and die by Airbnb, AirDNA.
I wouldn't say live and die by, I think Raboo is a new one that's out now.
Bigger Pockets has a short-term rental calculator.
For those who aren't using it, check out bigger pockets.
You can use a rentalizer for free, pretty sweet.
but I wouldn't say live and die by those, but especially once you form a partnership,
whether it's a property manager or somebody with some experience in the area,
if you guys are looking in Tennessee and Florida and Virginia, this is something that I could help with.
If you're looking at other areas, network, you know, bigger pockets is great,
all the resources that they provide.
But really getting some hands-on data of, you know, AirDNA is a good estimate,
but is there comparable to my property that did this, right, did X percent this year?
And I like that to be 15% of my purchase price.
So if a house is a million dollars, I want to see it gross 150,000 a year.
Now, to be mindful, that does include my property maintenance.
That does include, you know, it's not my net, right?
A property's not going to net 15%.
That would be a home run go buy right now.
Right?
But that's before cleaning fees.
That's before taxes, all that.
But I like to see a property that, you know, just to add, let's pull a specific example,
one of my properties in Tennessee.
I bought it for $650.
It did right around $100,000.
last year. That's right around that 15% ratio, right? It's a little bit off, but it's really close. And the
reason why I chose 15 is that 12 is where I actually want it to be. So I'm actually building in a 3%
safety net. I'm building in a buffer, right? If I hit my 12, it's a successful purchase in my mind.
Can you define what you mean by 12? Yeah. So if it's a million dollars, I'm shooting for it to rent for
$150,000. And just so everybody understand, that's 15% of a million, right? If it rents for $120,000,
That's 12%. So I missed my mark by 30 grand, and I'm still where I'm comfortable being.
So you're willing to accept a property that will rent for 12% of what you pay for it,
but you make your target 15% in case you miss it by a little bit.
And the reason why I don't make the goal 12 is that then I hit 9 and I'm not happy with it.
Right. So I always build in and be careful guys with projections, with estimates.
You know, I write 30 contracts to put one in escrow.
right i mean our realtor out in tennessee david can a can attest to this right we've we put
him through the grinder a little bit but um you know stick to your numbers guys and i i have another
one as well so it either has to fit that box and if it does it has to be in an area where i have
no concern over the short-term rental regulations um it has to be in an area that i can do so no
hos i don't really invest in hos unless it's um what are called condo tells this is similar to
what i think you bought in hawaii david where they're protected short-term
rentals. So I would feel confident investing in there, but then you have your HOA fee, right?
So that's one by box, 15% in an area where I have confidence in the future projections, or I have
an alternative. If it's potentially going to pivot away from short-term rental allowance,
regulations-wise, from the state government, it has to be able to pivot to a long-term rental
and still cash flow. So I'll give an example. I purchased a $300, what was it, $350,000,
single family in Virginia Beach in the state of Virginia.
Lower property values, it's something that, you know, I wasn't shooting for the stars on them.
However, I ran the numbers and my mortgage all in, I want to say it was about $1,700.
The rental estimates was $2,200.
That's on a long-term 12-month lease, right?
And that was actually on the appraiser.
So that was based on comps in the area.
Now, it rents for, I think, $4,000 to $5,000 a month.
We're expecting it'll do about $60,000 this year.
So it's hitting my numbers that I like, but it'll transition well because I don't have 100% confidence that the city of Virginia Beach will be short-term rental friendly for the foreseeable future.
So I made that investment knowing that my exit strategy is a really good long-term rental hold.
That's my second buy box.
Those are the only two conditions where I'll buy a property.
I've said it to be super simple.
I've given that to my realtors and I've given them a free-for-all write it if it meets these numbers.
and I work with two or three agents that I have some confidence in and not much more.
Wow, that's actually pretty simple.
So a lot of people are usually like, okay, it's got to be in this market and it's got
to have this bed bath count and it's got to have this view or this amenity.
Yours are strictly just on the numbers.
Like you, as long as you can project it to be a 15% gross, I guess 12 to 15%.
And then your second criteria here that it can work for a long-term rental.
then it doesn't really matter.
So your buy box is effectively national.
And it is.
And that's one thing.
So for instance, in Florida, insurance is high in Florida, right?
They got the hurricanes.
They got the wind.
They got the water damage.
So that's something where if it's in Florida, I do want to see it really hit in that 15.
Right.
I don't want to get something in that 12 to 15 range because I know that insurance is going to
be a higher cost of owning.
So you can pivot a little bit based on certain areas, especially if somebody, you know,
kind of settles in to an area.
You'll be able to project those expenses a little bit more.
as opposed to Tennessee.
So I own a number of cabins in the Smoky Mountains.
This is where David and I were last week, actually.
And some of them have like indoor pools.
Some of them have really good views, right?
Some of them are on lots that I believe will continue to appreciate
as the city of, you know, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, that whole area
continue to be developed and improved and tourists keep staying high there.
So I may be open to accepting a 13 or a 14% ROI there, not ROI, but this ratio, right?
because I know there's a lot of other compensating factors that help that strike confidence in me as an investor.
I like the pool.
Maybe we can use, David and I are considering using one of them as like a corporate retreat.
So that may be a benefit where we can take our team there as a reward for like high production or, you know, whatever the case is.
That could be a really cool experience.
So even if the properties don't meet the perfect numbers, I set them that way because I'm setting a limit that if we underperform, I'm still okay with it.
Right. And that disqualifies 90% of properties because most of them don't do that. But my realtors understand the ones that do meet this, we're going to write competitive offers. We're going to be aggressive and we're going to get them in contract. Right. And a realtor, David, can speak to this. Keeping it simple for a realtor keeps the relationship healthy. Right. If I tell you that I'm going to buy this property, David, there's no worse feeling than an investor telling you, I will buy this property if you put it in front of me. You put it in front of them. And they say, oh, well, let me talk to the wife.
let me think about it, you know, that, right? I mean, it's very clear. And the realtors that we work with are, you know, and that's once again, return on time, right? So I'm not spending time doing all these analysis. Here's what I like about what you're describing. And it hit me when you were talking like, this is what's different about working with us than with other people. It's not a huge difference, but it brings clarity. What I think most people are doing is they're saying, I want to hit this ROI. I want to be in this neighborhood. I want the ARV to be this much more than what I paid. They have all these criteria.
and it's good to have criteria.
And maybe they have seven criteria just like that.
I want to be 10% under market value.
I want, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Very rarely does a property hit all seven.
And so what happens is you just spin your wheels.
You spend time.
You don't get anything.
You never get a reward.
You never get into the fun of this.
You never learn from swinging the bat.
And so you just get stuck and you get discouraged.
But what you're describing is here is step one.
I wanted to be at 12 to 15% gross yearly revenue of what I'm buying it for.
Here's step two.
I would like it to be in one of these areas because I know I can run it out.
Here's step three.
I'd like to have a backup plan.
So the floor plan itself matters because I have to be able to rent this thing out if it doesn't work as a short-term rental.
I would also like for there to be some kind of upside.
Now, when I see, ooh, this property is different.
There's like I'm looking at one right now in an area where there's not many more new construction.
It works with the numbers.
But over the next five years, it's going to crush it with the numbers.
because they can't build anything more, okay?
What you're saying is, hey, I may not hit my 15% number,
but if I have something like what I just described,
I will go down to 12.
Or maybe I would even go down to 10, right?
Like there's this balancing act that occurs in your head
when you see the whole big picture.
So you start with solid criteria,
and then you look at the pros and the cons,
and you weigh them out,
and the decisions become much less complicated.
Sort of become simple,
and then you learn from it,
and you take that into the next thing.
that is in my head the right way to be analyzing properties it's not letting a spreadsheet do all the work
there's an element of creativity of vision right like a lot of the properties that we're looking at
i looked at one the one i just described what i liked about it was it had six bedrooms and it had a
game room it had plenty of places to put in sleeper beds to put enough people in the house and i can
take one of the bedrooms and make it into a theater room it's perfectly set up for that okay
that is going to now add value to the property people are more likely to book
and it's not like it was a three-bedroom house where I lost a bedroom.
I can only do this because it's six bedrooms.
When the realtor's bringing me the properties, they don't see that.
They just know, hey, this one hits the numbers that you said.
So I want to take that deal and individually look at how I would maximize the value of the property.
And on that one, particularly because they're not building them anymore up there,
and I have the theater room thing and there's a few other things that I can do to add value to the property,
I'm going after it.
Even if that one comes out at a 9% return instead of the 12 or the 15,
it's going to go up over time.
And what you're getting into is ways that people can analyze deals without spending their entire day and getting discouraged.
Can you share how you came up with these criteria that you operate by?
Yeah, I came up with it with buying my first property with no mindset, with no analysis, with no, I basically said I want a property to cash flows.
Like most people get in Airbnb, I'd like to make some money, right?
then I started seeing, oh, this one did pretty well.
And I'm seeing, on average, it seems like they're doing 12 to 15%.
I like that, right?
That helps me cash flow.
That allows me to be profitable.
That allows me to be able to, you know, restabilize it after a big expense, a roof, an AC.
You know, in one of my properties in Tennessee, I had the well pump go out.
I live in California.
I don't know what a well pump is.
You know, there's no wells out here unless you're outside of the main areas, right?
But that was an expense that I had to pivot from.
Right. But because my numbers were hitting my projections and where I eventually ended up modeling this mindset after, it was very easy to cover. Right. I had, it was 80, 800 bucks. I think it cost to completely redo the well pump. And it was in the account and we were able to make up for it in one month of rent. Right. So I wish I could say I brainstormed this and was just the perfect analytical tool before my first purchase. But this was really built from my successes and my failures on doing it. And so.
seeing the ones that hit the numbers that I liked seeing.
Which is why we're always telling people you got to take action.
You can't just wait until you have all the answers.
Yeah, you got to kind of just figure it out as you go for sure.
I mean, pretty much my philosophy is on, you know, what pencils on, what does it?
It just comes from really averaging out how things have, you know, really worked out
for me in the past couple of years.
So it's the same thing, Christian.
For me, it's like, I don't have this perfect set system that I developed in the lab or
anything like that.
Really, it's just an average or, you know, the median of,
like what all my other properties perform at, right? And so for me, like you, you talk about your 15
percent gross. For me, just a 20 percent cash on cash. I keep it real simple. And as long as it
kind of hits that metric, then for the most part, I'm pretty happy with it. And I agree,
I don't really take air DNA, you know, to heart, nor do I take Rabu to heart. It's really just
like a gut check to be like, okay, this is the median aggregate that air DNA is putting together. Now I
need to go in and actually research the calendars of my competition.
And so if AirDNA and Rabu and Mashfizer, all the rooms, if they all kind of put out
figures that get me to a 20%, then I'm like, okay, that's a good starting point.
Now I need to actually go and examine my competition.
I'll go in and do what I call like a market audit, where basically I'll go and just look at
everyone in that market and see overall, does this market tend to
really level up on design or on amenities or on views. And I really try to match up, you know,
like see where I match up against them or where the properties that I'm buying will match up
against that demographic. And if I feel like I can outperform 90% of the market, because I'm
always aiming for top 10% of my market, if I feel like I can perform 90% of the market,
then I already know my cash on cash will likely be more than that 20%. You know what I mean?
And so it's a new, new acronym here that I call Lills, or no, lulls, little art, little science,
you know, when we're getting, when we're getting to it.
But yeah, I mean, it really, I wish it could be super objective because I teach this every day,
obviously, to my students.
But it really is just leaning on your experiences and the more you have and the more you can
lock up and, you know, add to your portfolio, the easier it is to sort of use that
as anecdotal evidence on how you're going to perform in the future.
Not to be a dead horse, but the only thing that, I mean, you don't even think about when you bought
your first one, but you're actually building a tool to better analyze future properties.
So getting back to that velocity of time thing, the time that you spent buying those three
properties is saving you exponentially more time buying the fourth one now, right?
And you didn't even plan for that, right?
It's like, oh, now I have a portfolio to create my own.
And then you get to where they're just bringing you a deal that you didn't even ask for.
Yeah, absolutely.
Look at that, right?
They just bring it right to you.
you have to go look for it.
Yeah.
I think, Rob, the only thing stopping private capital hedge funds, BlackRock from buying
every single property is the art component.
If it was purely objective, we would all be getting pushed out of it, right?
Like, that's what's beautiful about the real estate we're buying is it takes time to look at it.
And even though that can be frustrating, that's what's protecting you from having some
computer algorithm just step in and buy every single house.
Yeah, that's very true.
I was joking with one of my partners yesterday, and I was like, it's only a matter of time
before Black Rock calls and they're like, hey, we were wrong. We don't know how to do this.
Can you please artfully choose our houses for us? It happened to Zillow, right? Some of those Ibuyer
programs that were just scooping them all up thinking that a computer program could beat the actual
investor. And that's the advantage that the Bigger Pockets listener or the mom and pop investor has
is they see angles like that that are not going to show up in the MLS listing. Like a lot of the
properties Chris and I are looking at are literally in the MLS listed as a one bedroom house.
So the property he owns that we stayed in is listed as a one-bedroom house with 3,000 square feet.
And the reason is because of regulations regarding septic size and they're only allowed to market at a certain bedrooms if the septic tank is a certain size.
But he's got a 3,000 square foot house, right?
So how many big names are just going to skip right over there because it doesn't show up in their search at all?
Whereas when we look at this, we're like, holy cow, you can sleep a lot more people in here.
So I'm always grateful that there's errors and inaccuracy in the way that.
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As Christian, you mentioned helping me on a deal where you found creative financing
that dropped my down payment from like 25% to 12%.
you and I run into problems constantly.
Well, really, I run into the problem and I hand it to you and you have to go fix it.
I'm like, here's the round peg.
There's a square hole.
What are you going to do?
And then you get to figure out how we're going to solve that.
And you do an amazing problem.
I have the fun job.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Yes, that's exactly right.
Can confirm.
You guys always pull it off for sure.
There you go.
I appreciate that.
And that's one of the things that I want to talk to you about are, can you share some of the
creative ways that you get loans to close, some maybe the advantage you have with the one
brokerage.
and then loan programs that a person might not know about that we can help to get them to close on a deal with better terms or just close at all that if they were just going to a retail bank and saying, what's your loan product?
They would have no idea this exists.
Yeah, really, really good question.
I think what really differentiates us is the time that I put in with, I don't want to call it the ownership, but that's basically what it is, the ownership of the lending entities.
And, I mean, I sit down with CEOs.
David and I were just at, you know, kind of a private broker, you know, event for UWM,
who's one of the biggest, you know, lenders in the nation, right?
And we were invited and we got, you know, some FaceTime to give direct feedback into
programs that they have, right?
So when you're going to regular lenders, you know, they're not, you know, your loan officer
at Wells Fargo probably isn't sitting down with, with the head of Wells Fargo, right?
I mean, we have a really unique opportunity.
And this is why it's so important also for people to respect these programs.
And if we get you alone, we want you to analyze the property correctly.
Because if we end up having all these default rates and all these things,
it may not be a product that we can offer much longer.
So we underwrite these things and work with the lenders to really build these products
because of not only our experience.
I want the product for me and David and Rob and we've done loans for all you guys.
But I want this product to then go maybe trial run and then really,
give it out to people and say, hey, this is an opportunity for you guys to buy where you
couldn't otherwise. Our DSCR product is a really good example of that. You know, there's not a
whole lot of lenders who will allow you to substitute in short-term rental income on a lot of loans.
That's a big one, right? Especially people who are, you know, not completely new to short-term rentals
because a lot of the products want to see some experience there. But, you know, you go to a regular
conventional lender and they're not going to care what AirDNA says. You know, they're going to say,
there's no way you're going to rent, you know, Rob, I mean, that place that you guys bought in Arizona,
No lender would ever buy that you're renting it for what you guys are.
Right?
I mean, it's just not reasonable with conventional mindsets.
But, I mean, that's a really good one.
We have some fun bridge products.
That's one where if you are able, this is a market that's going to swing.
You know, if you are able to start getting things under market now, which hasn't been
possible the last two years.
But we're starting to see, you know, some price drops, some more competitive offers being
able to be accepted.
You know, we can lend on the appraised value as opposed to the purchase.
price, right? So we can say, you know, this is the deal that we discussed on the past video for
David. If you guys haven't seen that, check that one out because we go into depth on this product.
But David was able to shave off 10% of his down payment because the property over appraised by so
much, right? And we were able to treat that appraised value as the value of the property
instead of the purchase price. I'm jealous, man. That is, that's crazy. That's such a,
it's a sweet one. Can you do that for me too? If you find a property that you're under buying,
right? I mean, that's absolutely, obviously that's the, you know, the unicorn property, right,
that hasn't been available for the last three years.
Well, I actually think the Scottoe property, the second appraisal on that came in about $175,000
more than we paid for it. That was a nice little surprise.
I found out, Rob, side note, I haven't told you this when I was out there looking at additional
property. We bought that thing for less than what the land would cost if we just bought a lot that
size. Whoa, really? Yeah. Let's double it and sell it. Yeah. Here's a,
Here's something to think about what I notice a lot of clients do, and I want to get your opinion on this Christian, is they say, hey, can you get me a 12% down payment loan? Yes or no? And if the answer is no, then they make another phone call and they ask someone else, can you get me a 12% down, right? You don't get that on every single deal. You work and you buy houses and then you, this falls into the situation. We're like, oh, I can maximize your deal this way. Other deals, you maximize it a different way. So one of the things that we do, since the David Green team and the one brokerage works together and the one brokerage,
gets to hear all of the cool, like, strategies that we use when we're working with the David
Green Team and vice versa, is we will say, instead of, hey, I'll give you $900,000 for your house,
we say, I'll give you $875 for your house and they say, okay, deal. And we say, actually, let's make it
$900,000 with $25,000 in closing costs. And then we take the $25,000 in closing cost and buy
your rate down. Like, well, on a normal 6.5% interest rate on a $900,000, can you spitball what you
think that might buy the rate down to? Buy it down to the fides. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So now you're
in the fives instead of six.
and a half. So that's significantly cheaper than anybody else would have been able to pay,
even though you paid $25,000 over. But because your rates in the five, that extra $25,
your borrowing is very minimal. It doesn't make your payment go up hardly at all, right? So now that
deal works for you, where it didn't work for you at, or anyone at six and a half percent.
And what everyone else was doing was trying to bring the seller down on their price. Well, we actually
gave them more, but got you the house for cheaper. There's a lot of strategies that, well,
when you're working with the right person, they will recommend to you, what if you do this?
what if you do this? It's not always going to be the same thing. And I think that's a mistake
people make is they heard about, oh, can you do this down payment or can you get this rate? And
they're the ones asking the questions rather than saying, here's my goal. What do you think you
can do to help me? Yeah. And that's something that we pitch a lot. I mean, I think probably 50,
50% at least of my properties that I bought during a really hot market were actually purchased with
substantial seller credit. I mean, David, the deal that we got, we had a massive amount of
seller credit, right, on the property in Tennessee. And that's a great point. This is where,
you know, partnering us up with a realtor, we're going to coach them on that, right? So if you say,
oh, my realtor doesn't know how to do that or I don't know how to do that. How do I word that?
Like, just give us their contact, right? I mean, we're a broker that, once again, practices what we preach.
We know how these things go, especially if you're working on David's team. You know, this is
something that with the market kind of, you know, we're starting to see price drops. This is something
that's even more attainable now. Right. I mean, you can get the seller to pay for your rate buy
down. So, you know, all of you guys who are monitoring the market and, oh, my God,
rates are crazy. Have the seller buy down your rate, right? You're getting the rate from a
month and a half ago and that wouldn't be available now if the seller didn't credit you that money.
I'm absolutely a tactic in a rising interest rate environment to kind of reset yourself prior to
the last few rate increases. Which is why we get so excited when we see. It's not that we're
happy rates are going up, right? Everyone's a shock to everyone. Nobody likes it. But the effect
of that is the market softens. Other buyers, your competition, that everyone forgets their
with other buyers. They always think they're competing with the seller or they're competing with
their uncle that tells them not to buy real estate. No, you are competing with all the other people
that want that asset. They get hesitant and it opens up this window. That's why I went and put
eight properties under contract in a couple of weeks here because I'm seeing, oh, this thing is in a great
area, great thing. It cash flows really well. Everything works, but everybody else is afraid. They're
holding their breath and saying, well, is everything going to collapse? And I don't want to jump in too soon.
But this softening gives us the opportunity.
That's what I'm trying to get at here, to use these techniques, to use these strategies, right?
For the last six years, the only strategy has been write a higher offer.
That's it.
You pay more than the other buyers are paying or you don't get the house.
And waive your appraisal contingency.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Now we're keeping appraisal contingency.
We're keeping inspections.
We're keeping loan contingencies.
We're shopping around to find you better loans.
We're looking for ways to get your rate lower.
or a lot of the times we get people 15% down on investment property instead of 20% down.
There's things like that that we can bring into play.
And I think you have to be grateful that the market is softening because if you saw some of the
tricks that we're using to maximize what we're doing, I think a lot of people would be really
pleased.
And more importantly, buyers are happy about what they're paying to get the house.
No one's been happy for what they had to pay in the last six years.
And they've been happy afterwards, right?
A year later, you're like, well, this is great.
I wish I'd bought more.
But at the time, no one felt good about it.
This is finally a period of time where you can actually feel good about what you're buying.
Yeah.
I feel pretty good about the one we got, Rob.
What do you think?
Yeah.
I mean, I was going to say, like, we got a $75,000 seller credit on that.
And I think there's obviously certain rules on how much of a seller credit you can get with a
property and everything like that.
And we were like, man, 75,000 might be, we might be maxing this out.
So we had to creatively, you know, shuffle things around.
I think we might have bought down our rate.
That's what we did.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we got that. We got full on, we got it fully furnished, which was, you know,
halfway beneficial, halfway, halfway a bit of a, of a torturous journey getting rid of a lot of the
granny knickknacks. But it did end up, I think it's a net positive on that one. But we negotiated
pretty heavily on that one. And we played hardball and we got it. And yeah, then we got the
appraisal back and, you know, we came in 150. And like I told you, the land is worth more than the
land with a 6,000 square foot house on it. And the furniture thing.
you mentioned, and we could do this all day because this is so fun. Let us know in the comments in
YouTube, if you guys would like to hear more of these type of shows where we talk about our deals.
But in, you didn't love the furniture on the Scottsdale property, which is fair because it wasn't
the best. But we were also able to buy furniture relatively easy because it's Scottsdale.
They have a lot of stuff. Yeah. Some of the properties that Christian and I are buying in
different areas or that I'm buying in different areas, getting furniture is a pain in the butt because
the supply chain issues. So being able to a hundred percent, right, being able to get that
negotiate into the deal not only saves you a ton of money because furniture is very expensive,
but it also saves you three or four months of waiting to get it furnished before you could book it,
which could turn into five to ten grand a month, right?
Like there's a lot of ways that I'm seeing, this is awesome for me.
Could the market go down more?
Sure.
Will it go down more on some properties?
Probably so.
Does that mean that these are bad buys?
No.
Not at all.
Like it's going to go back up again at some point too.
And if it's making a lot of money and I'm getting into the best areas, I think it's a
stake to try to time a market because markets are also different. Like what you're seeing in Scottsdale
in the luxury of really expensive space, that's slowing down a little bit. What you're seeing in
Southern California, Los Angeles in the first time homebuyer space has not stopped at all. It's just
as hot as it's ever been. So that's another thing to keep in mind. Christian, is there any last words
you'd like to provide before we move on to the next segment of the show when it comes to advice
for a real estate investor who is trying to calculate like I've got the lender and the agent
and all these strategies they talk about. And I read Brandon Turner's book on no and low money
down real estate. And I really like what Rob's doing. Like there's so many things going around.
Where do they start? And when they walk into that position, what is it they should be looking for?
You're saying with their first ever investment property? Or maybe like just a newer person who wants to
start buying it or maybe wants to buy more. They've got two or three and they're like,
These are going good.
I want to scale.
Like, give them an idea of where they should go, who they should start with, and what they should be looking for.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm biased, I'd say our company, right?
But aside from just who you're talking to, the mindset is really, I believe we're headed for a place in this country where if you don't own property in the next three or five years, I don't think you ever will.
I think real estate's going to become such a hot asset and it's going to be so hard to get competing with, you know, investors and corporations,
everything. I really think, you know, and this isn't fear tactic. I'm not trying to preach that,
so please don't, you know, misrepresent. But, you know, just not be afraid to jump in.
You know, I mean, you can always, people are talking rates right now. America's awesome with our
finance strategy because you can refinance, right? I mean, your six and a half percent rate that you
have right now is not the rate that you're going to have for 30 years. Right. I mean, you refinance
the moment the rates get low again. And I mean, you know, historically speaking, a 6% interest rate is
not like this catastrophic interest rate. You know, that's a fairly healthy.
market rate on a mortgage. It's not, you know, and I mean, granted prices are high right now,
but, you know, you pay down some equity. And obviously buy what you can afford. I'm not telling
people to throw every last dollar they have in a real estate. But if you can comfortably afford,
don't get caught up. You know, create a buy box. If you want to copy mine, awesome. If you want to
copy Rob's awesome. But create something that you're, you're comfortable with if it hits these numbers,
link up with an investor. If you're buying short-term rentals, please talk to a short-term rental.
agent, right? Don't go to the first time home buyer, downpayment assistance person and say,
I'm looking to buy an investment property. Surround yourself with investment minded individuals,
ourselves as a lender, a short-term rental agent out in whatever area you're looking at.
And if you're surrounding yourself with people who can correctly advise you, you're going
to end up in a better situation. It's just surround yourself with that mindset. Yeah, I wasn't saying
you should just come to us. But if they do come to us or they go somewhere else, what question
should they be asking to get the ball rolling in the right direction?
Like David was saying, don't come and say, you got David 12% down.
Let's get it, right?
But really working with us and we do consultation calls with every single person that reaches out to us.
It's 15 to 20 minutes of us understanding the roadmap that you're trying to achieve towards success.
I don't know many agencies that do that like that.
But that's really how we have it built.
Our first conversations should be come prepared, have us have a outline of what you're trying to accomplish.
and allow us to build the path for you.
But when we build that path, you can't be afraid to walk the path, right?
I can lay all the concrete brick in front of you that I want.
If you're not ready to take that first step, that meeting was in vain.
I like that.
Here's what my goals are.
Here's what I want to do.
Here's the capital I have.
Here's my concerns.
The person you're working with should be able to paint a decently clear picture of several options, right?
If their answer to you is, I don't know what to tell you.
What do you want?
You want to get pre-approved?
Yeah, it's not the right person, right?
Yeah.
Your agent says, so do you want a three bedroom or a four bedroom search?
Not the right person, right?
You're looking for that person that goes, oh, have you considered this?
Or what we're finding in this market is this is the case.
And I can help you with all of these different things.
I think that's a much better approach to take, especially if you're trying to get into the market
at a time where there's a little bit more uncertainty.
Absolutely.
Yeah, an agent, an agent, a lender, even an insurance agent that really understands
what you're trying to accomplish is invaluable in this in this time right now in this economic climate
that we're in. It's vital to your success. Yeah, for sure. So you said you're not trying to be
alarmist or anything like that. So do you think we should not make the thumbnail like all red?
And then like we give you like red sort of demon eyes with like flames behind you and big title.
Buy right now. Yeah. Let's clarify that because I know in the comments we have something coming.
He said in three to five years
you won't build it by real estate. They're trying to get you to buy
there's a crash coming. We're not
saying in every market in the entire country
you'll never be able to own a home. Correct. That is true.
I think that was a bit of an aggressive statement
but what you're describing is there are changes happening
that we see that the average
person doesn't where institutional
capital is a bit of a Godzilla.
It's coming in and smashing
people and paying way more money than anyone
realizes. And if some of those
companies buy Airbnb, buy
VRBO, then they go buy all the
properties. All of a sudden, you put yours up there at Airbnb and it shows up as number 97 and the
96 above it is all the ones they own. It becomes very, very difficult for the mom and pop investor
to compete. And I think in the hottest markets where they feel the safest, like the best areas
with the best weather, the best travel, the best amenities, they will go in there and bully people out.
Absolutely, I do agree with that. But real estate's very local. So like if you're living in Virginia
Beach where Christian bought his first property, I don't think that this is going to happen there, right?
That's not the same scenario. But I do think.
over time, real estate is becoming an asset class like a stock. It used to be so much labor
to own real estate that the big companies didn't do it. They just traded it easier things to own
like stocks. As they are learning how to make this more automated, it is turning much more
into something like a security. And when that happens, it's a lot harder to buy it because your
competition ramps up. So just to be clear, I've got a lot of properties I've been looking at
that I'm slow playing. Okay. The one I described earlier is listed at 1.5.
it's dropped down to 1.45 and then 1.35, it's sitting at 1.25. I'm going to write an offer at a
million 50. I don't expect I'm going to get that property, but it's been on the market for like
a hundred days. This isn't me going after a property, but on the market for two days, right?
However, that million 50 is a jab I throw and I look to see what are they going to respond with.
What if they counter me at 1.125? Well, now they've come down pretty significant from their one. That's a,
that's more of a motivated person, right? And if it stays on the market, it's moving in my direction.
So in some scenarios, yes, take it slow, see what you can get. And then in other scenarios,
depending on the property, you're going to have to move quickly. All right, Christian, we're going to
move on to the next segment of the show. It is the deal deep dive in this segment of the show.
We are going to dive deep into one particular deal that you have done.
All right, this is the part of the show where we dive deep into one specific deal with our guests.
Remember, you too can do more deals with the help of bigger pockets, tools, and resources.
All right, Christian, do you have a property in mind?
I do.
All right.
Question number one.
What kind of property is this?
It is a single family home in Bradenton, Florida, with an additional casita, two-bed, one-bath, additional dwelling unit.
Like an ADU or a granny unit?
It's an ADU, correct.
And how did you find it?
Found it through one of my local short-term rental agents out there who brought it up to us.
It was on market, wasn't some special off-market deal.
So yeah, standard MLS.
All right.
And how much did you pay for it?
An original contract was for 830.
We dropped it to 818.
I'm sorry, no, it was purchased for 830.
It appraised for 818.
So I actually overpaid slightly for this house.
And how did you negotiate the house?
Negotiated, used a standard agent.
It was when the market was very, very hot.
I purchased it in in 2021.
So it wasn't a whole lot of negotiating power there.
But we didn't negotiate, I believe, $4,000 or $5,000 just for minor repairs.
But it was a pretty clean cut deal.
Okay.
How'd you fund it?
Funded it, 15% down DSCR loan, actually our kind of flagship product that we use,
utilizing the expected rental income that it was going to produce as a short-term rental.
And what did you do with it?
Yeah, so obviously a little bit of foreshadowing there, but I'm using it as a short-term rental.
This one is unique because it's in Bradenton, Florida, which is a kind of a vacation destination,
it's about 45 minutes to an hour south of Tampa on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
and the numbers have been even higher than we expected.
In six months, it did $97,000 in gross rent.
We anticipated it would do about $150 to 160, so it's on track for $180.
So it's by far in a way out producing.
The reason being we're actually running it as two separate listings.
You can either rent it out as a full six bedroom or the main house is a four and the
casitas a two.
So in the days where the main house is not rented, we just rent the back unit.
and it's a shared backyard, so we have it kind of segmented where they could be two separate rentals.
So really maximizing the occupancy rate on it and keeping it booked.
Even if it's a couple-day filler, we just fill in the two-bedroom casino there.
And what was the outcome?
Outcome, awesome short-term rental opportunity.
If we sold it as an Airbnb right now, it's probably already appreciated by $150,000.
We got a realtor reach out to us to try to sell it, and listing price was going to be $1,0.50,000, I should say.
So very satisfied with how that's gone.
We're going to hold it for a short-term rental for the foreseeable future, but it's doing very well for us.
We're very excited about it.
And what lessons did you learn from this deal?
This was my first kind of bigger purchase.
Everything prior to this time had been $700,000 and below.
So this was kind of my dipping my toes in the water of higher value properties.
And it kind of made me realize if you have multiple units, you know, this is the David Green special, right?
If you got multiple units, if you got heads and beds, added rental capacity, I knew it would
have some benefits, but I did not forecast the level of the benefit that it would have with
being able to fill up the days that were unrented instead of having it go four or five days
unoccupied.
Maybe you fill up three of those with 150, 200 bucks a night for the two bedroom.
And it really, really made a difference for us.
It's going to do $30,000 more than we anticipated when we first reviewed it.
All right.
In this deal, who was the hero on your team?
The hero on my team was for sure my partner.
I shouted out earlier.
This is one that I purchased with Karen.
And we kind of have a partnership where she manages for me.
So we self-manage, but she's taken on the majority of it.
Everything from scheduling the cleaners to go in to communicating with clients.
We do have a perfect five-star rating on that property on Airbnb, which we're excited about.
She got super host status.
And yeah, just that property's had a lot of real.
really good reviews. It was remodeled. It did come furnished, which was a big one. And it was an
active Airbnb. I forgot to add that. It was already an existing running Airbnb. But yeah,
Karen was absolutely, couldn't have done that one without her. All right, that's going to wrap up
our deal deep dive. We're going to head over to the last segment of the show. It is the world
famous. Famous for. All right. First question for you, Christian, what is your favorite real estate
book? I'm curious to hear you answer this because I know you don't read. No, I don't read. There
you go showing my dirty secrets. Well, I think if I came onto a podcast hosted by my business partner
and I didn't shout out one of his books, I think the partnership would be concluded at that point.
So I'm going to shout out any book written by David Green. I do like the Burr one. The Burr method
has blown up to a level that I don't think anybody who originally thought about it intended.
But yeah, a Burr book just taught principles and concepts along, you know, that partnered with
the long distance real estate investing. You know, those are morals and ideas that we teach in our
company and that we do ourselves. And, you know, I think the influence that those books had on the
market is, uh, is invaluable. I think it was really, really awesome books. Good answer. Good answer.
Favorite business book? Um, I will say I have read this one. I never split the difference,
Chris Boss. Um, I think just, uh, you know, seeing, seeing things from the side of a, uh, he's a
hostage negotiator, a hostage negotiator. If you guys haven't read that book, absolutely recommend it.
It just teaches you, teach you how to negotiate in a, in an avenue that I didn't, I didn't think a whole lot
before.
But negotiating for people's lives obviously is a different level than negotiating for real estate,
but a lot of really good principles in that one.
Great.
And when you're not off buying 15 short-term rentals in a year, what are some of your hobbies?
I love snowboarding.
Had a pretty bad accident a couple years back that I actually haven't snowboarded since.
But I absolutely love snowboarding.
And I'm one of the best 5-foot-6 basketball players that are out there.
No, I'm kidding.
But I love playing basketball.
I've played it since I was very young.
And I'm a 5 foot 6, 5 foot 7 with shoes on white guys.
So you can imagine the challenges that I had to go through.
But absolutely love my basketball time.
If you want to, if the books that Christian mentioned,
if you want to buy those are any of the other Bigger Pocket's books,
there is an entire library of stuff that will really help you get your investing career off the ground.
You can find those at BiggerPockets.com slash store.
That's where you can buy any of the books that we have for sale.
My last question for you.
What, in your opinion, sets apart successful investors from those who give up,
fail or never get started. Gosh, I would just say action. Obviously, it's easy to say,
you know, act and don't have fear, but, you know, really just maximizing opportunity, you know,
like David said earlier, when a market downturns or when things slow down, people like David
and to myself get really excited, right? We're not scared of the rates. We're not scared of the added
risk of the market right now. We see this as a buying opportunity, right? We see this as an opportunity
to get things that you couldn't get last year.
So I think when the world presents yourself with, presents you with lemons, you know, try to get
them squeezed, you know, make some lemonade out of them and, you know, make the best out
of the, you know, unfortunate situation of our government printing 80% of the money supply,
right?
Let's try to at least benefit a little bit from it.
And lastly here, tell us where people can find out more about you.
This is an interesting one.
I do not have any social media.
So we have our website, the one broker,
com. It can be spelled out, O-N-E or the number one. If you're looking to get in contact with
the team, I do have a bigger pockets account. So if you just type in bigger pockets
and put Christian Batchelder, you'll see my account. How did you check that, Christian?
I check it actually pretty frequently. So I'm fairly active on bigger pockets. If you guys direct
message me, I will respond. But yeah, I don't have an Instagram or a Twitter to shout out,
but I prefer to keep it that way. Yeah, and if you find yourself on our website, the one
brokerage.com, navigate to the About Us tab. You'll see my personal contact there,
my email to reach out. Anything you need, advice, guidance, or to get pre-approveds.
Could definitely help you out. All right. Rob, what do people want to find out more about you?
They can find me on YouTube over at Robbilt, R-O-B-B-U-I-L-T.
And then you can also find me on Instagram at Robbilt2 and TikTok at Rob Bilto.
Now, let me just take a moment to say that someone was smart enough to, so I, I, I, I, I, I,
captured Rob Bilto as a handle on TikTok, someone took Rob Biltow, and someone then took Rob Biltow on
Instagram, and they're scamming people. So this is very confusing, but Rob Biltow on Instagram,
not Rob Biltow, and then Rob Biltow on TikTok. And I'm like, man, this is my life now.
This is what we have to preface for everybody. So just make sure you're not sending crypto to me
or David. Okay. And with that, what about you, David? I'm David Green 24. And on YouTube,
I'm David Green Real Estate.
So please go give me a follow.
I still have way less followers than Brandon Turner, who's not even on the podcast.
And he lets me know every single time he sees me.
And then just to hammer this point home, do not send me or any of these guys' money on
social media.
When Chris and I were having lunch, I got a call from a cop friend of mine who's not
the most tech savvy, a little bit older.
And he got scammed.
He sent a bunch of money to someone thinking he was sending it to me.
It's freaking heartbreaking.
I'm doing everything I can to get the blue check mark on Instagram so that this
This won't work.
Instagram's denied me about 20 times that I've asked for it.
I'm still trying to make that happen.
But please tell everyone you know they may have our pictures.
They may have the, it looks just like our Instagram.
It's not us.
It's easy to copy those and create a fake account.
The screen name will be a little different.
They'll put an underscore, a period.
They'll add like an extra Ian Green or then maybe take one of the E's and put three,
just something where you wouldn't recognize it right off the bat.
But please be careful because it's the worst feeling ever when somebody that we know
gets taken advantage of because they trust it.
us. Stay safe, peeps. All right, Christian, last question. If people would like to follow up with you
and learn more about creative financing strategies, what it's like to work with us as a mortgage broker,
they want to know more about the short-term rentals you're buying, they want to hear more about
your buybox. They like what they heard and they want more. What do you recommend they do? Yeah,
if you navigate to our website, the onebrokerage.com, top right, there's an option for all our
mastermind series. Feel free to enroll in them. There's a little RSVP button. Those will be
opportunities for us to share both what we're doing personally, as well as to offer you guys
some advice and guidance on potentially pursuing your next investment as well.
And I really like what you said about if they have a realtor who doesn't know what we're talking
about, introduce them to you, right?
Like those realtors can go to these webinars.
It's free.
We will teach about these loan products.
Now your realtor has more information than they would have had.
They've learned how to make a buy box for you.
That's really what we're trying to do is help the whole overall experience be better because
realtors aren't really that great.
Most loan officers are saying, I'm the cheapest.
the cheapest. They're not understanding what investors are trying to do when we're trying to
correct that. So that's a great idea. Yeah, we'll make your realtors better, free of charge.
We want to work with good realtors, guys. All right, Rob, anything you want to say before we get
out of here? No, no, thanks, Christian. Man, it's always always nice to hear from you. I can vouch for
one brokerage and everything. You guys have been really great. And, you know, give me a run for
my money if you acquired 15 short-term rentals last year. So good on you. Good on you. I appreciate
you guys. Yeah, thanks for having me. Awesome. Awesome.
in here. And yeah, hopefully we do it again soon. All right, guys, great job. I'll get us out of here.
This is David Green for Rob, our favorite client, Abas Solo. Signing out.
Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast.
Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other
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