BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 804: What to Do TODAY to Instantly Find More Real Estate Deals

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

Support the relief efforts for the Maui wildfires by donating to the organizations below or clicking here. Together, we can make a difference for those affected by this tragic event:  HAWAI‘I COMM...UNITY FOUNDATION: https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/maui-strong MAUI UNITED WAY: https://mauiunitedway.org/  MAUI FOOD BANK: https://mauifoodbank.org/  MAUI HUMANE SOCIETY: https://www.mauihumanesociety.org/  RED CROSS: https://www.redcross.org/local/hawaii.html  _____ Real estate investing isn’t what it used to be. Back in 2010, in a post-crash housing market, almost any property in any area could cash flow easily. Back then, the question wasn’t “Where are the deals?” It was “Which deal should I buy?” But things have changed, and now in 2023, homes are hard to purchase, let alone cash flow, and more and more real estate investors are giving up simply because they don’t know the new rules of the game. So, here’s what you NEED to know. Before we unlock every wealth-building secret in the book, let’s welcome back Danny Zapata, Philip Hernandez, and Wendy St. Clair, our recent mentees of the ninety-day mentorship! We brought them back on the show to talk about deals they’ve done, the progress they’ve made, and where they’ve fallen off track. One mentee left their job, another is handling headache evictions, and one had to put a pause on real estate. But now, they’re ALL ready to expand their empires, but they’ll need some advice first. In this episode, David and Rob show you how to get more real estate deals TODAY, why you’re doing meetups all wrong, the reality of cash flow and why “mailbox money” isn’t what it used to be, and what to do when you CAN’T find the momentum to keep growing your wealth. In This Episode We Cover How to find more real estate deals instantly (even in 2023!)  The “reverse escalator” of wealth and why most Americans are getting left behind What to do when you’ve lost momentum along your real estate journey Replacing your job with real estate and the smartest, cheapest way to buy home-run rental properties  Why you MUST sacrifice short-term cash flow for long-term wealth  And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Agent Find a Lender BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets Merch 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 David’s YouTube Channel Work with David Rob's BiggerPockets Profile Rob's Instagram Rob's TikTok Rob's Twitter Rob's YouTube Attend a BiggerPockets Meetup BiggerPockets Podcast 708 BiggerPockets Podcast 719 BiggerPockets Podcast 726 BiggerPockets Podcast 738 Enter to Win a FREE Copy of David's New Book, "Pillars of Wealth" Connect with Danny, Philip, And Wendy: Danny's BiggerPockets Profile Danny's Instagram Philip's BiggerPockets Profile Philip's Instagram Philip's Website Wendy's BiggerPockets Profile Wendy's Instagram    Recorded at Spotify Studios LA. Click here to listen to the full episode: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-804 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, everybody. Scott Trench here, CEO of Bigger Pockets. And with us today, we have a very special guest on a very sad occasion. Our founder, Josh Dorkin here to share a very important message. Hey, Scott, good to see you, man. I'm sorry. It's under these circumstances. So for those people living under a rock, we in the last couple days have seen horrific, horrific devastation on Maui. Basically what happened was there was a hurricane that passed five, six, seven hundred miles south of the island and bringing in crazy, crazy winds, which sparked terrifying wildfires across various areas of Maui. I was personally affected by this. We live in a neighborhood called Kihei. We were evacuated. my family and I were evacuated two nights ago at 1130 at night and had to figure out where to go.
Starting point is 00:01:01 And it's kind of hard to know where to go when, you know, the island is burning pretty much everywhere. So it was terrifying. And, you know, but we're lucky. We were able to go home the next day. We did end up evacuating again the following night, which was last night. Again, we're able to return home safely. Unfortunately, we know lots of people who don't have the same privilege personally. There are still some fires burning on the island right now as we speak.
Starting point is 00:01:39 It is Thursday, the 10th at 7.15 p.m. August. And so that's still scary. But really, the big story here is the city of Lahaina, So Lahaina is just this was this amazing, beautiful, incredible destination, this city that was home to 13,000 residents, people's families, individuals, and was just an amazing tourist mecca. essentially the entire city has been wiped off the earth. Not just the downtown area. I'm talking the downtown area. The harbor, the ships in the harbor, the suburbs, sorry, a little choked up, the suburbs around it.
Starting point is 00:02:48 It's devastating. and the, it's bad. If you turn on any new station, if you look on social media, you'll see it. It looks like a bomb wiped out, a metropolitan area, and that's exactly what happened. A metropolitan area was wiped off the earth. So, Maui is a small island. I know lots of people have come to visit. I've gotten countless messages from people with concern for me,
Starting point is 00:03:22 for Brandon, who also lives here. We are both well, we are both safe. Our families are well safe, clearly shook up, but we're okay. And ultimately, I'm here not to share the message of the devastation and the sadness, but I'm here to ask for your help. you know we're in real need here there's thousands of people who are new homeless there are there are still over a thousand people missing it's not looking good you know so far I think there's over 50 dead and a thousand missing so we want to help these people who have no home
Starting point is 00:04:09 We want to help these people who've lost families. And so what a lot of people have been doing has been asking me, how do we do that? Is there some place that we can give back, some place that we can donate an organization? So as you guys know, when bad things happen, you know, there's all kinds of scams that pop up. So hopefully we can avoid those. I'm going to give you guys the names of a couple places that you guys can donate. It would be very much appreciated. I'm going to start with something that's called the Hawaii Community Foundation.
Starting point is 00:04:42 They established something called the Maui Strong Fund. You can get to that by going to Hawaii Community Foundation.org slash Maui-Strong. It's a local organization. It was established in 1916. And I'm going to read something quickly that they've got written in response. The devastating wildfires of Maui, the HCF has activated the Maui Strong Fund to provide flexible resources to support Maui residents. Funding will address evolving needs, including shelter,
Starting point is 00:05:14 food, financial assistance, and other services as they're identified by on-the-ground partners doing critical work on Maui. HCF will not be collecting a fee for donations to the fund. 100% of the funds will be distributed to community needs. I strongly, strongly support this foundation. other notable people on Hawaii, President Obama, Jason Mamoa, and others have been pitching and promoting this foundation, this organization. You can do your research. I urge you to do your research regardless. Please consider donating to them. Other than that, the Maui United Way.org is a great organization. The Maui Food Bank, that's Maui Foodbank.org on the site.
Starting point is 00:06:00 they got lots of information. The Maui Humane Society, Maui Humane Society.org, as of last check, they still need food, crates, bowls and other supplies. Again,
Starting point is 00:06:13 check their website for what they're looking for. The Red Cross of Hawaii, that's red cross. dot org slash local slash hawaii. Dot HTML. The Red Cross is actually looking for hundreds of volunteers.
Starting point is 00:06:26 If you've got skills, if you've aided and assisted in disaster or anything like that, please reach out to the Red Cross. It's not like a disaster on the mainland where people can easily come in. Like we are, we're on this paradise, this amazing island, but it's an island. And so we're already short housing and lacking that.
Starting point is 00:06:47 Like these people literally have nowhere to go. So these organizations, I know FEMA has been activated and funds are coming in from that, hopefully ASAP. But thank you for the time. As you can tell, this is an emotional ask on my behalf. I really, really want to thank Scott in Bigger Pockets for allowing me the time to make this plea to you guys. But even if it's like $10, you know, anything you can do, please give to any of these organizations. Again, the Hawaii Community Foundation, I would say would be the one I would start with. But any amount helps.
Starting point is 00:07:26 Do it to help your fellow human beings because there are human beings, families. that are really, really struggling right now, and it's scary. So thanks again. Josh, thank you for coming on and sharing this. What a terrible tragedy. We're going to create a link on BiggerPockets called BiggerPockets.com slash help Maui. And Josh, we'd appreciate it if you could send some of those links to us. And we'll just make it a four-up and thread.
Starting point is 00:07:50 So it's really easy for folks to see and ask questions and engage there. Real estate investors, the April 15th tax deadline is coming fast. If you own rental property and haven't done a cost segregation study yet, you could be handing thousands of dollars to the IRS that you don't have to. These studies let you write off as much as 25% of your building and generate huge tax deductions. Costsegregation.com is an online self-guided software that makes cost segregation fast and affordable. So it finally makes sense for smaller rental properties purchased for as low as $100,000. With pricing under $500 and an average savings of,
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Starting point is 00:10:56 prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. This is the bigger pockets podcast show 8-0-0. A lot of people get stuck mingling with the same person and it's a little awkward to leave and you're just chatting with someone for like 15 minutes, but you know you have nothing else to talk about in and out. Do you have a deal? No, great. Hey, nice to meet you, man. Have fun at this meetup next. Yeah. Boom. What do you do? Wholesaler? Great. That's exactly what I'm looking for you. On Instagram? Let me get your Instagram. Boom. Move on to the next. one. You need, if there are 200 people like there were last night, if you only met 20 of them, you didn't do your job right. You need to meet all 200 as fast as possible and see who can
Starting point is 00:11:33 serve you because you're there for a purpose. What's up, everyone? This is David Green, your host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast coming to you live. Well, not really live for you, but live for us. Yeah, life for us. Well, every podcast is live for us if you think about it. Yeah, why do we always say coming to you live? What could you say instead? Coming to you previously recorded. Coming to you pre-recorded from live in Los Angeles. Downtown LA at Spotify Studios, or we are recording. And we got an update today with three of our former guests. They were the mentees from previous episodes. And we're getting a little update. Rob, what should our listeners look for to help them with their investing journey in today's show? Yeah. So we, it's really fun to examine the journeys of our,
Starting point is 00:12:23 I call them our little fish. You know, they're out there. They're doing their thing. And it's really great to check in with them. But, you know, one of the things that I saw was that, you know, they had these big goals, but not necessarily steps or action, like an action plan to achieve those goals. And so I think that that is going to be huge because I basically gave them the advice to just make sure that you're intentional with every single goal that you set. And so I think hopefully it opens up the eyes of some of the people at home that have realized that they've set these lofty goals, but they're not actually giving themselves deliverables that will keep them accountable towards hitting those goals, you know? That's a great point. Their motors were revving, but they
Starting point is 00:13:00 didn't know how to put it in gear. In today's show, we gave some practical steps that they can use to get there. Motor and gear, we also talked about the market, how maybe we're being too picky, delaying gratification, the wrong mindset with real estate, how to make money in ways other people aren't seeing, and why house hacking could make people millionaires if they could just get over the stigma of thinking that they're above it. I love it. All that and more on today's show.
Starting point is 00:13:22 So make sure you listen all the way to the end to hear about a sneak peek from a book that I have coming out in October that you won't hear anywhere else. Very quickly, before we get to today's show, our quick tip is going to be. We tell you all the time to go to real estate meetups, and you should. But how you go makes a difference. Rob gives some great advice to Philip today about how you should approach a meetup and a way to make sure you get the most value possible. And then I give some practical steps of how you can accomplish that. So your quick tip is to go to meetups, but don't just show up and expect something to happen.
Starting point is 00:13:51 Go there with a plan and work your magic. All right, let's get to the show. All right, welcome back to the show, Philip, Wendy, and Dan. For those who didn't know, Philip, Wendy and Danny were initially part of our first ever 90-day mentorship program earlier this year. You can catch updates on their progress from episodes 708, 719, 726, and 738. We're here today in person. So nice to meet all of you guys and gals in person and talking about what's been going on in your life. So let's go around and get a quick update on what's been happening since we've last heard from you.
Starting point is 00:14:23 Give us the highlights. We'll start with you, Philip. All right. So my wife and I, we were on the hunt for land to build out a wellness retreat center for almost a year. And about a month and a half ago, we got 20 acres outside of Santa Clarita. And we've been in the mode of what is the build out going to be like? And it's raw land. So how many things would you like to know about digging a well?
Starting point is 00:14:51 I know a lot more than I used to. And, yeah, and finance. that and the business plan for that. So that's been super exciting. And then I also, after 14 years in the classroom, I decided to leave teaching. It's, it was, let's say, not, I'm not at the place where I had replaced my income, but I just felt like it's time for me to go and to really give my focus and my attention to something that I think has no ceiling to it, which is these different projects that I'm in. And then, yeah, I've been raising money for flips. I have an active flip right now in East LA and then different partnerships where I've been raising money for long-term
Starting point is 00:15:38 holds and pad split and some of these other kinds of ways where I can be parts of deals while the retreat center is is in its baby steps, taking its baby steps. There you go. Thank you. Danny? Yeah, so last we talked, I was on the hunt for a 10 to 20 unit multifamily in Sacramento to kind of beef up my portfolio and go to the next level. Since then, I had a lot of good momentum, you know, after the podcast, had everything was recorded, a lot of folks reaching out and getting, you know, looking to get some stuff done. But work kind of took a really hard pivot. I don't know if you're familiar with the tech industry. There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of things going on for a lot of folks losing their jobs. I have a, you know, in my company in particular, I just kind of said, all right, let's, let's focus real hard on the job and preserving that because that's a thing that still pays the bills.
Starting point is 00:16:37 You know, we went through some layoffs and different changes and such. So I had to really spend my time on there and that left very little time for real estate. and I was really dead set against not take carving out from the family time. So something had to give and the real estate time did do that or wound up suffering as a result. But what I learned from that is that I was able to even think of more ways that I can squeeze more time out. So I have all these properties that I'm currently own and running. I was digging deep into how do I figure out how to leverage my time better? Can I give more tasks to other folks?
Starting point is 00:17:23 I had one of my sweat equity partners. I had him take over the day-to-day operations of the property, so that way I'm not the first line of defense when property manager calls and says, hey, we need a repair or we need to fill his vacancy. I'm now out of that loop, freeing me up for more time there. I started leveraging my virtual assistant even more. So freeing up more time in terms of making more phone calls, getting her to manage my schedule and my emails and kind of things that need to be done,
Starting point is 00:17:53 but didn't necessarily need to be done by me. So that I look at as a positive. Keep thinking about ways to improve my business and to also elevate myself and take myself out of the business more and still have it run successfully. Awesome. Wendy? I would say the last six months, four months maybe for me have been about three things. Stabilization, systemization, and then prioritization. And I'll start with stabilization because I came into this year with eight properties that I'd purchased since 2020.
Starting point is 00:18:33 And a lot of them were in a state of just trying to still figure out where they rented. did we have good tenants in there? How was my property management company performing? And were we making money? And as it came down to it, I had one property in Ohio that was a duplex, and I had a very bad property manager there who was really not paying attention to me at all or to the properties. And so I had an almost eviction there. Luckily, we got the person out before we had to go through the legal process, because that's always a challenge. Then on the... the other side in Baltimore, I have four properties there. Three of them were humming along pretty well, but the fourth one, the property manager put a real loser in there, unfortunately, in January,
Starting point is 00:19:20 and he never paid rent. And I tried to get him out ever since January, and I'm still to this moment trying to get him out. So we are in the eviction process. Baltimore, you have to take them to court five times. And the tenant, yeah, And the tenant has the ability to pay each time. And so you're only going to ask them to pay for a portion of what they owe like last month's rent. And so each time, if he just pays $1,400, he can stay. But he already owes like $3,000. And then to top it off, the property management company accepted a check, which then bounced. So then we had to start over.
Starting point is 00:20:02 Anyway, so stabilization, just making sure that I have enough funds in this. bank to manage the issues that I've had. I've had an H-FAC that went south. I had to deal with that, and that was a third property manager. And they don't do the hard work that you would, or you or I would on a property. You have to say, did you get three bids? Well, no, we use this vendor all the time. Well, I'm sorry, that's not good enough. I'm not ready to just give you $6,000 for a new H-FAC. Let's please back up and get a couple more bids. And in the end, that saved me. Now, I only had to put out $1,200, and it's going to last me for another eight or ten years. So that's stabilization of existing things, firing two property management companies,
Starting point is 00:20:40 getting two new ones in there, trying to get all of my properties humming along well. Systemization is just squeezing the profits out of what I've got. And I'm doing a cost segregation right now on all of my units, which is going to save me $12,000 or $13,000 just in 2022 taxes. And then ongoing, I'll have another $100,000 supposedly or so that I will be able to take off of my W-2 income going forward. So that'll bring more profit into my life that I can use for more real estate, of course. And then prioritization. So that's where we started with this podcast, and that is how do I select where I'm going to go next? I looked at Las Vegas. I didn't find
Starting point is 00:21:24 what I wanted there. I'm now looking at Long Beach. I maybe want to do a house hack somewhere. I was looking at Las Vegas, and that didn't really work out for me as far as midterm rent or the long-term rental, the long-term rental wasn't working, but mid-term rental did, but I just didn't feel comfortable with that. So I'm still stuck at the stage right now where I'm looking for what's next to invest my money effectively. Cool, cool. So, Philip, can you tell us, for old-time's sake, is there a hurdle that you're currently facing that we could help you with? Uh, yeah, I'm still, you know, a lot of my, a lot of the seeds that I end up planting are seeds that are long-term kind of seeds that are, uh, that are, I feel really good about like more and more as time goes on. But I definitely need to, like the retreat center or like some of the things that I've partnered on.
Starting point is 00:22:25 there are things that we're holding that are, you know, in even five years from now, I'm going to feel really good about. But I definitely need to increase my now income for, yeah, so that I don't have to feel like I'm in a rush with any sort of investments that I make or any sort of deals that I get involved in. And yeah, yeah, I think that's a big one. Yeah, okay. So let's talk about that. So you said that right now, you know, you quit your job. You flip in homes. That's how you're making money. And then you've got this retreat that's an iron in the fire, but not going to really come into fruition for a little while, right? Totally. So if you're already making money one way, and if I remember correctly, you're pretty good at it. Like you've been successful. You've made
Starting point is 00:23:12 money from flips. It sounds like we need to supercharge that to get you through the development, right? So what is holding you back there? You know, I think it's been the consistency of reaching out to agents and building up my deal flow through agents and wholesalers. And that is something that I've been actively working on, you know, like, okay, every single day, I'm reaching out to 10 potential lenders on deals. That's one side, the money side. And then I think supercharging my agent reach out and my wholesale, like networking with wholesalers to really get that deal flow. I actually had a great conversation with someone from the green team yesterday that is right in my Goldilocks zone of the types of projects that my partner and I would be willing to take on.
Starting point is 00:24:06 So I think I'm in the process of it. But that's definitely, you know, if I was going to say, do I feel great about the deal flow that I have right now for those kind of projects that, you know, we can go full cycle in a six month period? I'm not happy with it. And that is an area of growth that I think will help my success a lot. Great. So for everyone at home that doesn't know, deal flows effectively the pipeline that you have built that effectively will lay deals out in front of you. Like how often are deals being sent to you from other investors, wholesalers,
Starting point is 00:24:43 people in your network? You've been working on this. I am curious because we did go to a meetup last night. How many meetups have you gone to in the last? Six months, would you say? I would say I usually go to one a week. I definitely, that's like on my list. Like, you need to be going to at least two or three a week.
Starting point is 00:25:06 Because even just the one a week that I've been going to, I've met potential partners. I've gotten actually a deal that I'm going to be partnering on that we worked out the terms this morning. It was from a meetup that, you know, somebody that I, that I, that I, met at a meetup and that I feel good about. We've had a few different meetings. And yeah, I know that that's your network is your net worth is your network. Like that is definitely coming through for me.
Starting point is 00:25:38 But there's an aspect of, okay, I need to make certain sacrifices with, you know, spending time at home, which like in the evenings, that's when I would be spending time with my family that, you know, I think it's a sacrifice that is important for me to make right now. So do you have a clear goal or a clear deliverable that you expect leaving a meetup, like when you go to a meetup, are you telling yourself, if I don't leave with this one thing, going to this meetup was a failure? Every single meetup that I go to, I'm looking for potential partners for deal flow or for private lending, like every single one.
Starting point is 00:26:22 So that's a good goal, but do you have an actual deliverable for that goal? I haven't had a specific number attached to that, and maybe that's a good advice. Like, I'm going to connect with four awesome people and exchange contact, and I've been adding people to my CRM and even learning what a CRM is, and like, okay, what does my follow-up system look like? Those are all things that those were just vague. ideas in my head before I left teaching. Oh, yeah, I've heard about a CRM, a follow-up system. But like, what does that actually look like? What is my, how many days until I meet someone,
Starting point is 00:27:02 am I going to reach out to them? Like, what is the conversation flow going to be looking like? And that's definitely something I've been working on in developing. Yeah. So you just laid it out for me. So your goal is I need more deals. Now you have to actually put steps in place. Going to meet up is one step. But now we, the goal of the meetup is, I want to get four leads, right? That's your deliverable. And if you don't get four leads from it, you have failed. So you should have some kind of number or some kind of metric that you're actually working towards. And so if you're saying, I want to leave with four contacts, great, then you need to make sure that you are being super intentional with the people that you meet when you
Starting point is 00:27:41 go to a meetup and you're not there just chatting, making small talk. If you're not connecting with someone, if they don't have a deal to give you, move on. A lot of people get stuck mingling with the same person and it's a little awkward to leave and you're just chatting with someone for like 15 minutes, but you know you have nothing else to talk about in and out. Do you have a deal? No, great. Hey, nice to meet you, man. Have fun at this meetup next. Boom. What do you do? Wholesaler? Great. That's exactly what I'm looking for you on. On Instagram. Let me get your Instagram. Boom. Move on to the next one. You need, if there are 200 people like there were last night, if you only met 20 of them, you didn't do your job right. You need to meet all 200 as fast as possible
Starting point is 00:28:17 and see who can serve you because you're there for a purpose. David, what do you think? Perfect advice. I'll give you some practical tips to help execute that better. You will get stuck in a conversation with someone and want to get out of it. This happens to me all the time. There's how many people at the meetup last night? 150.
Starting point is 00:28:32 150, 200 maybe. And they're all going to want to talk to me. And I don't want to be a jerk and not talk to them. But if I talk to everyone and answer every question, they're just going to keep throwing them at me, then I can't meet the next one. So you have to look like a jerk to one person to not be a jerk to the whole group. There's no way around it. So what I've learned how to do is say, I have to get out of this conversation.
Starting point is 00:28:49 but message me on Instagram, send me an email. I give them some form of follow-up so that it doesn't look like you're not important to me. You can't serve me like what Rob said because you do need to see who can serve you, but you don't want to come across like a self-serving person. You have to balance that thing. So get their information and say,
Starting point is 00:29:05 hey, I'm going to reach out after this is done and we have more time to talk. I'd like to help you with fill in the blank. That's another thing I'll do. The last piece is you can say, what do you do? You're looking for a wholesaler. They're not a wholesaler. They're a construction person.
Starting point is 00:29:19 you don't need a construction person. I would say, what would help you in your business? And they're going to say, leads, I'm here to find people that want construction work. Okay, let me get your contact information. I'll pass that along to other investors I find that need that. I need a person that can find me deals in East L.A. If you or me, where would you go? Because they might not be the wholesaler, but they may know the wholesaler.
Starting point is 00:29:38 They might walk you over to the wholesaler. They might tell you by their wholesaler. They might say, oh, this agent on the David Green team crushes it. They're working on a flip for me. I can introduce you to them. It's good to ask what they do, but it's all. also good to ask who they know that can help you. That's a great. That's very good supplementary.
Starting point is 00:29:54 Like that's like it's not just that person. They probably have a whole roll of X of people. If they're an investor, they know other investors. They have no other contractors. They know other hard money lenders. They know other operators in the area. Yeah. I think I think that's great advice.
Starting point is 00:30:08 I love the idea of, okay, how can I be of service to you in your business? And if there's a way that you know that, if there's someone in your network that can help me with X, I'd love to connect with them. I've, I, I had this conversation with, uh, Amy majority because I'm in her mastermind. Yeah, I love Amy. Yeah. And I was, it was similar sort of thing where I was talking to. I was like, yeah, I'll have these meetings with people. And then it'll be like, 45 minute meeting where I'm, I'm trying to become, like, I find myself how, how can I become this person's best friend so that we can partner? And it's like, it's not going to, this is, this is, the right relationship for that. This is like let's let's find if there's a way that we can be in
Starting point is 00:30:54 alignment. And if not, like, I wish you the best. And if there's any way that I can be of service in the future, let's let's talk. Yeah, start with that. What would I, what could I do that would help you? And some people, I'd say the majority of them don't even know what they want. They're like, I'm just nervous. I don't know anyone here. And I feel like everyone makes more money than me. Like, all right. So you're, you're nervous. Okay. Well, like, hey, hang on my hip and you can just follow me around and I'll go talk to people or here's all the other nervous people. I'll go introduce you to them. Like that's okay. You're not going to be solving high level problems for every single person there. A lot of the time, it's everyone feels inferior. They're all like,
Starting point is 00:31:28 I have one house or I haven't bought my first house and they think all other 149 people are studs. They just own tons of real estate and they're the only one that doesn't have it. And then you find when you talk to everybody, oh, hardly anybody here owns any real estate. They're all in the same boat. It's hard as hell to find anything that cash flows. Everything's getting multiple offers. it's still too expensive. They're all on the same level. So you can bond over a frustration, too. It's not always going to be a specific thing
Starting point is 00:31:52 that's going to help them in their business. Sometimes it's an emotional thing, but you can't, like Rob said, spend 35 minutes talking to that one person because you finally got comfortable and built rapport and then you don't talk to the other 149 people that might help you. Or if they are one of the links in that chain,
Starting point is 00:32:06 be like, hey, let's go meet other people. Come on. Come with me. That way, they can add to the conversation too. I think you can even be more upfront, more direct. If you seem like someone that can do this, wear a shirt that says, I'm looking for deals. I actually have a shirt that says, like, do you want, yeah, I'm offering double-digit returns for private investors. Are you down?
Starting point is 00:32:25 That's from Amy, right? It's from Amy. Somebody was wearing one of those at our meetup. Yeah, he's a good friend of mine. Yeah. But see, that's solving your money issue. Totally. But it's not solving your whole set, like finding wholesale deals and deals.
Starting point is 00:32:37 Yeah. So switch it up. I'm looking for deals. Yeah, I like that. I mean, if I saw a guy that was doing, I'd be like, hey, if I have a deal, I'm going to go to the guy. Here's my deal criteria. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:32:47 Have my buy box on the shirt. Yeah. Have a sheet print out sheets. Here's my buy box on this sheet. Give it out to people. I think there's just be intentional. Don't just go to chat. If you're going to chat, you're not going to get what you need.
Starting point is 00:32:57 But if you go with something that you really need, then you can form ways to, you can form creative ways to get exactly what you need out of that meetup. That's definitely with the land. There was something about like sharing the buildout on the, of the wellness retreats on the land where. people would just start to, oh, I could help you with this. I could help you with this. Oh, these are the ways that, oh, do you need a contractor? Do you need somebody that builds platforms? Do you need a lender? Do you need a well person? Do you need, like all of this stuff, people would really start opening up their network when they knew that I had a raw piece of land that I needed so much assistance with it. And I could see the same thing being true for other kind of deals. I mean, that's advice for everyone in general, right?
Starting point is 00:33:43 What stops us from being direct is fear of rejection. You can master your fear of rejection. You can get very far. We get rejected every day. Yeah, we do. It doesn't hurt anymore. I'm still trying to be robs for any rejects me. But I haven't quit.
Starting point is 00:33:56 On Facebook, I'm like, do not accept. That was actually one of the things when I was, because we bought the land with private money. And I got at least like 20 nos, you know, of people that are like, oh, I'd love to, or let me get back to you. or actually this is that. And it's like, I just started getting into a flow. Oh, I'm so much closer to a yes now. I'm getting closer to a yes.
Starting point is 00:34:19 And I just like, and eventually we raised the whole amount all with private investors. But I got so many knows. And yeah, this is a good learning experience. If you own a large or complex rental property, congrats. And I'm also sorry. One day you're building a portfolio. The next, you're reconciling six accounts, five states, four LLCs, three partners, to property managers, and running your portfolio starts to feel like running a median-sized accounting firm.
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Starting point is 00:38:04 deals that they want double-digit returns, you know, hit me up, see if there's a way that we can be in alignment together. I'm doing shorter deals, like flips in L.A. And then I'm also building out this retreat center outside of L.A. And really excited about it. We're doing a lot of natural building techniques for the build-out, really trying to be mindful of our impact on the, on the land and do this in a really sustainable way. So folks that are interested in natural building techniques for the land, we definitely want to grow our community. And yeah, for folks that just want a solid investment in L.A., you know, let's talk. I'm down to work with people of good character. All right. So that was four or five things you asked for when you just told us that the thing you need
Starting point is 00:38:53 are more wholesale deals. That's what I also meant to say, actually, if you're a wholesaler in L.A., Send fill up your deals because he's actively looking for a flip in Los Angeles, California. Rob said it. Perfect. Boom. Great coaching there. Thank you. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:39:10 I'm solo. Thank you. Love it, man. Thank you so much. Dana. You know, I'm just giving you all. No, no, I appreciate it. Pass the mic here.
Starting point is 00:39:16 Danny, we're moving on to you. Is there a hurdle that you're facing that we can help with? For me, you know, recently as I've been revisiting my business plan and the environment, the real estate environment that I made this in several years ago is very different than the one we're in today. So one of the foundations that I built that upon was this idea of a 10-year plan. So when I acquire property that needs some love, go and put in as much of the work as possible up front, fix everything. Ideally, I want a cash flow for 10 years without really much involvement for me in active participation. I don't want toilets to be breaking and that kind of stuff as much as possible.
Starting point is 00:39:56 So in this environment, that means, you know, it's very hard because of the interest rates and the lack of deals to underwrite something like that where there's a big upfront cost to doing something like that. I get to go deal with the roofs. I'm going to go change the toilets. Maybe they don't need to be changed right now, but maybe in a couple of years they will be. So I'm going to go and do that up front. I'm going to go change the blinds, go deal with the windows, all these different things.
Starting point is 00:40:21 Is that because you're doing that when you have time or because you just like don't like a hanging over your head that it's going to come up later? It's exactly, I don't want to hang it over my head. I want to set it and forget it type of deal. So which doesn't, you know, in this market, in this environment today, that makes a deal even harder to come by. So I guess my question for you both are, is around, should I be revisiting that? Should I change my expectations? Is there a dial I can change?
Starting point is 00:40:48 Like, do I just deal with the major systems? Maybe I look at the roof and a couple other things, but the smaller things, I can't. I kind of step away from or let those happen as they do. Let me ask you a question. Do you think we're too picky as real estate investors in today's market? Yes, totally. Because, well, picky on one particular metric, which is always like cash flow. It's what it feels like.
Starting point is 00:41:12 So overall, I think the more experience do you get, sometimes it is you get a little bit picky because you know what you're good at. You know the deals that have worked for you. And that's always a kind of deal at your truck. What about your experience coming from? a market that is different than the market you're in. So there was a time where you're like, all right,
Starting point is 00:41:30 I don't buy below market value. Yes. I want to buy in a good market. I don't want cap X. It's going to pop up later. I don't want a headache tenant. We were really screening every property until we found one that hit four out of the five boxes that I just mentioned,
Starting point is 00:41:43 and we knew that was the deal. Well, in today's market, what if you can't even find one box? You're like, oh, I got one that has two. That looks great, but compared to what we used to buy, this is crap. Do you think that might be playing into our analysis is that, we are subconsciously comparing the deals in today's market to the deals in yesteryear and they don't look as good. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it was easy or it was easier over the last 10 years. And now it's harder. And because it's harder, you're not finding deals that line up with the old deal.
Starting point is 00:42:10 So it's like, oh, I might as well sit and wait. I think it's kind of what we're seeing a lot right now. I've played this game with myself because I'm trying to play with my own head so that it doesn't trick me in a saying the market's terrible because, look, it used to be better. What if I fast forward at 30 years and we just never really built houses because of government regular? regulations, restrictions. Builders didn't want to go build. People live in public housing type of a thing. And owning a house at all is a big sign of wealth. That you have real estate that you were able to get. The government could get rid of Fannie Mae Freddie Mac loans. We could get rid of subsidized housing. Everybody's got to go in there and put 20% out or more to get a house. We haven't built any. People that own real estate over time become wealthy, but there isn't any more FHA 3.5% down.
Starting point is 00:42:50 Do you think in that scenario, the deals that we're looking at right now don't look so bad? Yeah, I'd say so. What do you guys think about that perspective, that it could be worse? If it got bad, would I look back and say, I had opportunities right now, but they didn't look like opportunities, or do you think that that's dangerous to think that way? Yeah, I think, you know, one of the tenants that I think that keep coming up for me is, you know, it's always better. Was it best, it's by real estate yesterday. It's good to buy it today. Was it about, it's always going to be better than tomorrow, something around those lines.
Starting point is 00:43:24 So I think it's good, you know, it's always to your advantage to buy something that keep things moving. So it's about delayed gratification. We didn't have to experience delayed gratification five years ago, 10 years ago. You got immediate gratification and then you got a delayed benefit too. Well, you know, to even put a little bit of context, like three years ago, you could buy a short-term rental and get like a 30, 40, 50, 60. Some of my deals, 90% cash on cash return. And so now when you look at deals today that are at 10%, which is an outstanding return, Compared to everything else.
Starting point is 00:43:55 Compared to everything else, it's like, oh, I don't really, no, I don't know. 10%. And I will also say that way too many investors are trying to get rich, but they're not thinking about getting wealthy. And what I mean by that is they're so focused on money and need the money now. Stop trying to get rich off of real estate. It's the delayed graphic. Yeah, it's delayed.
Starting point is 00:44:15 I mean, it's like, you always say this with like capex and cash flow, especially on long-term rentals, it's like, you're kind of, if you take from your own cash flow, you're sort of just borrowing money from yourself because in five years you're going to replace that AC, it's going to cost. It's going to be the $5,000 that you used to pay yourself. So you might as well just forfeit the idea in most cases, right? I know your strategy is a little different, Philip, like you're flipping, you're using money now. But in most cases, from like a rental perspective, forfeit the idea that you're going to make money today. But 30 years from now, you're going to be like, holy hell, I got that property for like 20% of what it's worth today. And now it's paid off.
Starting point is 00:44:51 And I had tax benefits. And you know, cash flow does increase. over time. We always forget about that. Like, think about properties you bought seven years ago. What are they, what's the rent like now compared to when it was before? But it's all delayed gratification. I think people are really struggling to swallow that pill right now, that it used to be an embarrassment of riches. We had all these deals we could look at.
Starting point is 00:45:09 They all cash flowed. It was what's the best of the best. And now it's like, man, if you compare real estate to anything else, it's still better, but it ain't as good as what it used to be. And it is going to be work. It's not passive anymore. You want to be a short-term rental operator, midterm rental operator. You really got to put some F,
Starting point is 00:45:23 into running this project, which people got used to thinking that it should just be like mailbox money, just shows up. And now there's an adjustment. I think people are having a hard time accepting it. But I've seen that pattern before. Long distance real estate investing was a hard pill of swallow for a long time. I had a bad reputation as the guy telling people that it was heresy to say buy in another area instead of buying your own backyard because it was risky. Now we will do that all the time. What's the next emerging market? Where do I go? Rob's got properties all over the country. Like you don't even think of yourself as a long distance investor. Just a real estate investor. and you go to where the deal is. There was a time that was tough to accept. I think right now people are struggling with the dream
Starting point is 00:46:00 of I could buy cash flow and quit my job in two years is not very likely. I know I kind of took us off that path there. No, but it's a good. It's a good thing. I think we need that refresher every so often that it's like wait. Just wait.
Starting point is 00:46:12 The wealth and the money will come, but the first five, 10 years, you know, you're just going to school. And that's like everything else, man. You start a business. No one expects to crush into business when they first started. They tell you to you're going to build a five, 10-year period of time.
Starting point is 00:46:26 You want to go start a dry cleaning business? You're going to be building a customer base. You're going to be working on systems. You're going to suck at hiring. You're going to have all these problems. And then eventually you're going to figure it out and your business is going to be profitable. I think we have to look at real estate the same way. So with that in mind, is there any other hurdles that are popping up as you're thinking that we can help you with?
Starting point is 00:46:42 Yeah. I've been thinking also, you know, when I set the goal during the mentorship, it was 10 to 20 units. I was very focused on that. And I still think that's my main focus. But I'm thinking, you know, just based on the type of lending and mixing it up a little bit and my experience, it might be good to get some base hits. So maybe some four units, which are definitely a lot more plentiful in the Sacramento area. Should I divert some of my energy and my time to getting some of those under my belt and just kind of keeping, I want to keep things moving and make sure that I keep moving forward. Let me give you some advice before we move on to Wendy, what you could do.
Starting point is 00:47:20 I've mentioned about this framework that I'm working on on a book that's the 10 ways you make money in real estate. We're talking about one of them, which is called natural cash flow. Everyone's used to analyzing for that. If you can't get it, which right now is very tough to get, make up for it in some other way. Don't just buy real estate just to buy it. So if you can't get cash flow, it doesn't make sense to buy a break-even property in Gary, Indiana, that it's never going to go up and value. The cash flow is never going to increase.
Starting point is 00:47:45 Maybe it makes sense to do that if you're getting cash flow right out the gate. If you take that away, you got to make it for somewhere else. So if you're buying in SAC, I would look for something you could buy under market value. This is called buying equity. I'd look for something you could force equity to, cosmetic upgrades, adding square footage to make it worth more. I look for a way to force cash flow. So this is a method where we buy a property. We build an ADU.
Starting point is 00:48:06 We convert something into an ADU. You take a basement, develop it, rent that out. It didn't cash flow as it was. You added value to it, and now it forces cash flow. Now it maybe it does. And then market appreciation equity and market appreciation. cash flow. Is Saccharino market that you believe will go up over time faster than other options? Do you believe rents will increase faster than other options? Do you see businesses moving there?
Starting point is 00:48:26 Do you see higher paying jobs moving into that area? Fast forward five years, that's a really big chunk of money that you can make versus if you bought in, I'm using Gary Indiana as a stereotypical. Please other Gary people don't email me with Inger. Maybe it's a great market. But in my mind, a market that isn't going anywhere. It's just kind of stuck in time. If it is a market like that, You can buy there and it looks like a boring deal. And in five years, it looks like a great deal. And 10 years, it looks like a home run. Yeah, I do want to add just your question specifically.
Starting point is 00:48:57 And I feel like I'm channeling my inner David Green metaphors here. But if you go through the gym every single day, every single day, two months from now, three months for now, let's say you did it every day for six months. By the end of the six months, you're going to be in shape. Your endurance is going to be up. You're going to be lifting heavy weights. And then let's say that, you know, you stop going to the gym for a year. Can you go back and do what you did before?
Starting point is 00:49:22 No, you have to work your way back up. And so to me, it sounds like you've lost your momentum a little bit. Life gets in the way. That's fine. That's a very real thing that happens in real estate. Nothing wrong with it. Life holds me up all the time. Your momentum, the train has stopped.
Starting point is 00:49:37 And so now you're trying to get back to this huge goal that you set for yourself, but it feels so difficult to do that because you haven't been, in it. You haven't been in the nuts and bolts. You're a little rusty. So the answer is, I do think a base hit is fine. I do think a four unit is fine because then you get into this deal. You negotiate with the agent. You get it accepted. You go through inspections. You close. And you're like, oh, that's right. It's not that hard. Then you can go for the big one. That's my advice to you. Base hits. One of those days, the base hits, all the bases are going to be loaded. You're going to hit a home run. And you're going to be so happy that you did. I love it. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:50:10 You guys want a little sneak peek from my book, Pillars before it comes out in October? Sure. Yes, please. All right. So I have this an example in the book that we're actually in a very highly inflationary environment. So our money is losing value even though we are not losing money. If food costs 15% more every year than it did the year before and you get a 3% raise
Starting point is 00:50:30 at work, that's the same as a 12% pay cut, right? If our boss came to us and said, I'm taking away 12% of your money, we would have a cow. You'd be teachers would be on strike. People would be riding. There's no way you're going to take away my money. But if it comes through inflation, we don't even know what's happening. So I use this example that we were all walking upstairs to wealth at one point. Now it's an escalator that's actually going backwards.
Starting point is 00:50:52 And if people are standing in place working their job, not investing in money, not growing their wealth, they think that they're standing in place. They're actually going backwards. We've had a big run of money where the escalator was going up for the last eight years. Making money was easier than it's ever been. And we got used to that. Now we have the downside of all the money we printed, which is inflation and the escalator. is going back. So if you are trying to make progress, you're now running up an escalator going down. And I had to do that a few times as a police officer. It was not the most fun thing to ever do to chase somebody going up an escalator when you're wearing all that gear.
Starting point is 00:51:24 You're burning a lot of energy and you don't feel like you're getting results. That can be very discouraging. I think a lot of us are experiencing that. I'm working so damn hard and I can't get the deals that I want. I can't make the money. I'm not getting anywhere. But if you compare yourself to the rest of the population that's not running, they're all just moving backwards. They're losing wealth. They're losing the ability to provide in the future. They're losing the ability to buy real estate. So sometimes we can feel like we're not making progress, but you're actually making a lot more progress than everyone else who's not running at all.
Starting point is 00:51:53 That's really good. That's really good. That's in your new book coming out? Thank you very much. What is that going to be available? Game changer, October 17th, Pillars of Wealth. Love it. It's going to be promo code bigger pockets.
Starting point is 00:52:04 Our producers like, stop doing that. You could probably use the code David to get a discount on that book. Yeah, or Rob. Yeah, but this is going to be a book. I think that changes the entire approach that we take to building wealth. Everybody's here to learn about real estate investing. That's what you guys are doing. That's what we do.
Starting point is 00:52:19 That alone is not enough to make it when the market's working against you. Now you have to focus on budgeting your money, actually living within a budget, living beneath your means, which is defense and making more money. You have to approach your business like a business. You have to approach your wealth building opportunities like a business. Offense matters now. It's not just pure buy properties and make sense. So that book sort of shows that three-pillard approach. Awesome.
Starting point is 00:52:40 Awesome. You're going to move us along? Yeah, last one, Wendy, for the whole time's sake. Is there a hurdle that you are facing right now that we can help with? Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I feel like my real estate venture has been like a bag of marbles and I gave away a lot of marbles early on and now I'm just staring at a few last marbles that I have and my decision is difficult to make, whereas I was very easily buying rental properties here,
Starting point is 00:53:08 rental properties there. Now I'm like, I've got. to really make these last ones work because I want to scale up through that process. And I know, David, you were really adamant and right so, rightly so, that I should look at house hacking. And I want to look at house hacking desperately. So my challenge, though, is identifying this buy box as to where I should do this house hack. I want to get a, I know the things that I do want. I want it to be a multifamily or available to be some kind of a multifamily in ADU. I would like to do either a house hack within the house or house hack, you know, and a quad somewhere.
Starting point is 00:53:46 And I've just been struggling to pick the right market. And that's really where I'm stuck. And, yeah. How many markets are you looking at? Well, let's see. I looked at Vegas and now I'm thinking maybe Reno, but I haven't looked at all in Reno. Kansas City has got some hospitals going to it. I looked in Long Beach.
Starting point is 00:54:06 I really, I live in Long Beach. I thought, let's try to make that happen. But I couldn't find anything under a million dollars that was like next to the freeway with, you know, just was never going to be anything any better. So I still kind of, I would love to invest in California again, but I just think that's not maybe the right approach. Is that the reason you think it's not the right approach? Well, I don't know. You do all your work here in California. So I know you love it here.
Starting point is 00:54:28 I just feel like the taxes are so terrible. It's a terrible place to retire. You know, I'm an old bird now. I don't want to. So you see house hacking like you're going to have to live in it and you don't know if you're. if you want to live in California? Oh, well, I would love to live in California temporarily as a house hack, but I don't want to have that be my primary residence
Starting point is 00:54:47 because for tax purposes, I guess, really. Tampa is one I've looking at, San Antonio, but I don't really know those markets very well. Or, yeah, so that's my trial. I guess I just can't figure out. Do you think mentally you're looking at house hacking and your primary residence as sort of like an anchor that's tying you to a place that you don't want to live?
Starting point is 00:55:07 Maybe. Could you live in California? for a year? Yes. Could you live in California for two months? I do. So what if you lived in California? You bought a house hack.
Starting point is 00:55:15 You lived in it and you decided, I hate this place. I don't like the smell. I'm too close to Rob. I'm solo. He's got this glow that makes me feel bad about myself because he's just like in a glow up stage. You realize that you can leave a primary residence after you've bought the house
Starting point is 00:55:30 if you just something came up. The lenders can't force you to live in the house if there's unforeseen changes, right? So I think there may be a mental block where you're thinking, I don't want to stay in California. I may not want to live here long term so I can't house hack. I would advise you buy a house hack that works for you.
Starting point is 00:55:45 That would also work as a rental if you left. So maybe you love a home that has three bedrooms, but there's another home that has five bedrooms with a dining room that could be turned into six. It's got three bathrooms so two people can share a bathroom. That's a great house hack. Buy that thing with three and a half percent down, five percent down, live in it. If you don't love it, yeah, they can't force you to live in a house that you hate. Now, don't buy it with the intention of never living in it.
Starting point is 00:56:10 Right. That would be breaking the law. Big mistake for sure. But if you intend to live in it and then something happens, the neighbor's dog barks too loud. Like, it could be anything. Work wants you to move somewhere. You just feel the call of the sea like Moana and you just want to go somewhere else. You don't have to stay inside that property.
Starting point is 00:56:25 So that's probably not as much commitment as you're thinking. And I feel like house hacking. I know I never wrote a book on house hacking, but I'm constantly telling everyone this is what you should do. Because if you commit 20% down to a, house in Vegas like you were looking at. That's 100 grand on a $500,000 house. You commit 5% down to a house in Southern California and Long Beach. That's $40,000 down on an $800,000 house. You keep way more of your capital that you can go buy something else if you don't like it. When you're shooting a 25% down, you have to hit your target. If you mess up, it takes forever to get that money back. House hacking
Starting point is 00:56:59 really gives you a wider target to shoot at. Does that make sense? Yes. But then does it better to buy in an expensive market here or somewhere where I don't have to put as much down and I can still live there. I'm also not tied to you'll put more down livings. Oh, you mean house at a different market, right? Which one's going to be worth more in 10 years? Well, I think you guys are saying California is a winner. I'm not trying to be a homeowner California. But like in general, if you have two different markets to look at, which one will be worth more? Right. Which one's going to have higher rents? California for sure. So we're saying California, but what we really mean is a more expensive right so if you can rent out bedrooms in california for what do you think you get in long beach per room oh
Starting point is 00:57:41 1800 or more all right and what would you get in let's say Vegas per room uh a thousand max okay so let's make Vegas 900 just so the math is easier Vegas is 50% of what California is okay if rents went up evenly percentage wise which they won't they'll go up disproportionately more in areas that people make more money in five years no it's not even saying five years if rents go up times 10 over a 30 year period or something. You end up with $18,000 rooms in California. You end up with, what would the, we said, $900, $9,000 rooms. So you have a $9,000 difference per room times five rooms in a property. What's nine times five? It's $45,000? I'm a little tired right now. Forty-five thousand dollars per month or per year. Per year. Thank you. In that one property. Multiply that times 10 properties you
Starting point is 00:58:31 bought. That's a difference of almost half a million dollars. And that's how the mass. sort of scales. So when you're trying to figure out, do I want to go here or there, if you lean towards where rents are going to go up more and you lean towards where property values are going to go up more, and then you don't tie yourself to the property, you keep the freedom to move where you want to move. You could buy great property in California and they just live in Las Vegas. You can rent a room from someone else. You could rent a house from someone else so that you're not tied to it. You don't have to own the house you live in. I did that for a long time. I own nine properties as rentals and rent in a room from someone else before I ever bought a house. Yeah. What do you think, Rob? You think I'm
Starting point is 00:59:04 giving her bad advice? I don't disagree with it. I think personally, you know, this actually works out for you. I used to live in Kansas City. I live there for three years and I love it. And I think it's a really great city. I think the home, I think it is exploding. I think the values are going up. Certainly not in the same way as California. I think you'd actually have an easier time making the numbers work there because you can get a house in Kansas City for two, three, four hundred thousand bucks. In LA, you're going to be looking at a minimum of, you know, 700K. I mean, I guess In L.A. There's other cities and stuff like that. So I think, why couldn't you do both? I could. There's no reason not. If you get an awesome house in Kansas City for 400 grand,
Starting point is 00:59:44 you put 5% down $20,000 plus closing costs, get the seller to pay those. Maybe give them $410 for the house and have them pay $10,000 towards your closing costs. So you're just coming out of pocket $40,000. Figure out a rent-by-the-room scenario, then do the same thing in Long Beach. The downside of you is just a little bit more work managing the rooms of two different properties. Sure. I mean, that's fine. I'm trying to get to the point where real estate becomes my job as opposed to the job I'm in. And, you know, I might have to do it slowly. But I think you could do both, especially if you're using primary residence loans. People underestimate how slow it is to build a portfolio putting 25% down. You can literally buy five houses for every one house if you put five percent down on a primary. You could scale five times faster. Wow. That's, I mean, that's amazing. And that's what I haven't done until now. I've got these little, my little crock pots. stewing all around the country of 20% down, 20% down, 20% downs of those turnkey houses that I bought. And those can stay and do those things. And maybe I also will, on another vein, turn some of those into some more midterm rentals or house hack some of those in the future. But right now they're
Starting point is 01:00:50 working. I'm just going to let them stew. I think it's quite a gift that you can, that you're like willing to house hack and willing to move. You've got the most flexibility ever. So, exploit that, you know, try it, experiment. You know, I think my advice to you is if you have a little bit of money to invest here, plan a six-week trip across the country, stay in Tampa for two weeks, stay in Kansas City for two weeks, stay in Long Beach for two weeks, and understand the city before you're there. You know, L.A. is a very glamorous place on postcards,
Starting point is 01:01:24 but the realities here are, it's tough. I live here for five years. It's not an easy city to live in. It can be a pretty lonely city. You can make it anywhere. True. But as long as I'm here, you always be second best. You hear. But yeah, I think travel around and live in the city, stayed a couple of Airbnbs, and then decide. Because ultimately, your happiness in the city matters too. Right. Okay. That's great. I love it.
Starting point is 01:01:48 What can our listeners do to help you? Well, gee, I guess if you have any great, I need a great realtor. This is something I learned at the meetup last night. Boy, I talked to this guy from Bakersfield and he has got 13 rentals and all this, and he just couldn't say enough great things about his realtor who connected him to all these things, and here I've got my contractor and I've got this, and I know all the realtors say they do that, but I just haven't had that kind of a rock star realtor.
Starting point is 01:02:14 So I need a really good realtor in Kansas City, Tampa, and either San Diego or Long Beach. Perfect. You'd have a much easier time finding a rock star realtor if you had one city that you were committed to buying. Because you're about to get. hounded by 50 realtors, right? Like, if I said, I really want, like, a knockout wife,
Starting point is 01:02:34 and I said, but I'm dating these six other girls at the same time, right? The knockout wife's probably like, yeah, I'm not interested in that. You're going to get the same thing from the agent. So if you can narrow it down, you'll have a much easier time getting the attention to the best talent out there. Okay, great. All right. Last question, we're going to get through this pretty quickly.
Starting point is 01:02:50 So thank you guys all for being here. But very quickly, Philip will start with you. What's the one thing that you learn that may help someone else listening? Focus. The nail down your deal criteria and due diligence, the money is made in due diligence. There we go. Beautiful. Danny?
Starting point is 01:03:13 For me, delegate as early as possible. Treat your business as a business. Don't become an employee. It's really easy to get sucked into that. Bro, you really hate anyone bugging you with questions about toilet. and light bulbs. I can see this has come up like five times. Has that deterred you from wanting to like go deeper in on real estate investing,
Starting point is 01:03:34 all the little paper cuts of annoying things that need to be done? Not at all. What it has forced me to do is use property management up front. I actually haven't honestly experienced much of that toilets. You know, I have some stories from my condo, self-managing it for a little while, which is terrible. But really, when I started this education where I over-educated myself, I said, what, this really needs to be a business up front. So just kind of front loading and having that
Starting point is 01:04:00 mindset even before I got those cuts and just actively avoiding them because that's what I've been, you know, that's what I've learned. Awesome. Wendy? I think I've learned that I need to do some better networking. I don't go out to meetups enough. You know, I stay at home and I read my books and I surf online and I look at Zillow and I feel like I'm making progress. But sometimes it's just talking to people that's part of the value. And I heard you say some things, Rob, about when you go to the meetup, make sure that you have a goal in mind of what you want to get out of it and work the room with that prospect in mind because I'm just like a Labrador. You know, I'll go to a meetup and I want to talk to everybody. Oh, it's nice to meet you. Oh, you're fun. I like your hair.
Starting point is 01:04:44 But I never really thought about having a purpose when I show up there. What's one thing you learned from watching me at the meetup interacting with people? Well, you were always. very quick with your advice and your networking. And you definitely, I mean, you didn't have to work the room. The room came up to you. There was like a line to come to talk to you all night. So what I learned is that you get in quickly. You have your conversation with them. And then you find a way to delicately exit and move on. And I think I heard you say earlier that you try to give something back to them as an exit strategy. Did you see me connecting them with Lindsay or Christian or any of the other agents on my team?
Starting point is 01:05:23 Yes. Why do you think I was doing that? Because then you gave them a next step. And yes, that's exactly right. I was also being intentional. So like Rob said, you're going there for a purpose. You're going there to find people that are going to help you. I'm going there to find people that need a loan from the one brokerage,
Starting point is 01:05:37 people that need an agent for Southern California. That's why we put this whole event on was we're going to look for clients. We're not just going to get my ego boosted because everybody wants to come talk to me. So I showed up with a purpose and I had a plan. Find the person, make a connection, connect them with them. And then when someone does close a house with us, you might have heard me say like, you're in the family now. Whatever you need, I'm here for you because I really value the people that are supporting me and the things that I have. Now I want to support them.
Starting point is 01:06:00 I think that same energy can be used at any meetup or in any situation. So thank you guys. This has been fantastic. It's nice to see you all again. And I'm glad I know that you mentioned that you try to come talk to me at the meetup a few times. And you're like, every time I tried, somebody else was cutting me off. Got to be assertive. He's super popular.
Starting point is 01:06:18 Yeah. So thank you guys for being here. Rob, you have any less words for me out of here? No, I love it. I love to see the journey and it doesn't always go the way you plan, but as long as you keep going, then you're going to be happy that you stuck to it. So keep rocking and rolling, and I can't wait to check in again. Philip, for people that want to find out more about you or bring help for the wholesale deals
Starting point is 01:06:36 that you're looking for, how can they do so? Yeah, on Instagram, Educated Invest is my Instagram handle, and my website is educatedinvest.com. Also, make sure I connect to a Charles because he'll help you find you. some flip opportunities in East LA, if that's what you're looking for. He's kind of our specialist of finding those. Oh, cool. Let's get it. Danny, where can people find out more about you? And help you? Yes, I'm Bigger Pockets, Daniel Zapata and an Instagram investor on fire. And did we ever ask you if you have any relation to Emiliano? I think we've broached that subject and some shoes came up and some stuff I still get crap about. What's one thing
Starting point is 01:07:13 that you'd like for someone to reach out to help you with? For me, I think deals like this This 10 to 20 unit market is actually not as big as I would have thought as I dig into it. So I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to have to start digging deeper into off-market deals. In Sacramento? In Sacramento. So if you have those, please bring them to me. Wonderful. I'm Wendy St. Clair on Bigger Pockets.
Starting point is 01:07:37 And I'm also on Instagram at Wendy SC underscore Invest. And how can people help you? And how can people help me? I am looking for a triplex or quad in. Kansas City or Los Angeles. There you go. Or Long Beach. Rob's selling the Kansas City market.
Starting point is 01:07:54 I love it. That's an emerging market. I think that that is a market that's going to grow to be perfectly fair. Over the next five, 10 years, I think you're going to see rents increase and values increase in Kansas City. It's people migrate to where housing is more affordable. There's no way around it.
Starting point is 01:08:07 Where can people find you? They can check out my newly revamped social media that is now shiny and awesome at David Green 24. I'm putting out a lot of more content there, as well as all the other different socials. Davidgreen24.com is the website and YouTube is at David Green 24. Rob, how about you? You can find me over on Instagram at Rob Built or on YouTube at Rob Built. I put out a lot of free content. Most of my content is free where I teach y'all how to do the whole short-term rental real estate thing.
Starting point is 01:08:33 Awesome. This is David Green for Rob. If you can make it here, you can make it anyway, kid. I was solo. Signing up. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform,
Starting point is 01:09:09 our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On the host, an executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer, the show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calicoe content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.w.w.com.
Starting point is 01:09:28 The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.

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