BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 97: Quitting Your Job and Overcoming Real Estate Obstacles with Kyle Pettit

Episode Date: November 20, 2014

Itching to quit your 9 to 5 to become a full time investor, but don’t know how to get there? This week, we sit down with an investor who has done just that — despite obstacles that could have discouraged his plans had he not been persistent and kept an eye on his end goal. Listen as Kyle Pettit shares with the BiggerPockets Podcast his story of breaking into the rental and wholesaling sides of the real estate industry, including tips on screening tenants, expanding your marketing reach and tackling the challenges that come with working from home. If you’re struggling to make your mark in world of real estate and wondering when that pivotal point of becoming a full time investor will ever happen, this is the motivation you’ve been waiting for. Newbies and experienced investors alike, don’t miss out on this informative, entertaining episode! In This Show We Cover: Details on Kyle’s first deals The ins and outs of an REO deal  What you need to know about hard money lenders The importance of building relationships early on How to be persistent despite setbacks on a wholesaling deal Important information about lease options How to find a good company for screening tenants Getting started with postcards and yellow letter campaigns Why you should always background check the people you work with How to handle phone calls through a virtual phone system Quitting your day job to focus on real estate Tips on finding and handling sellers The keys to expanding your real estate marketing What you should expect being a full time real estate investor Managing distractions and working at home And lots more! Links From the Show BiggerPockets Webinar RealtyShares Hard Money Lenders MySmartMove FreedomVoice Books Mentioned in the Show Brandon Turner’s The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down Making Big Money Investing in Foreclosures: Without Cash or Credit by Peter Conti and David Finkel How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing by Robert Kiyosaki Connect with Kyle Kyle’s BiggerPockets Profile Kyle’s Website Kyle’s Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 97. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the height, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? I'm Josh Dork and hosts. The Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon Turner.

What's going on, Brandon? Not much. It's cold. It's freezing cold. Oh, I don't like it. 50 over there? It's like 40, all right? You know, some miserable existence.

I'm so sad for you. Yeah, we had like the Arctic plunge. It was zero for like a week here. It was pretty miserable. Snow. We had snow. We went sledding, which was fun. It's exciting.

I haven't seen snow in a while. Yeah, well, you know, that's what happens. That's what happens. So what are we doing today? We've got a cool show, man. We've got a cool show. We're going to just cut through all the BS since nobody cares about us.

And we're going to go straight to our guest. There we go. Kyle Pettit. Who is Kyle Pettit, Brennan? You brought him on. Kyle is a buddy of mine. He's one of my good buddies out here in Washington State. And he has a really, really good story

that if you are listening and you are just getting started, you're going to love, if you've been doing this for a while, you're going to love even more. So it's really motivating and just kind of cool to see how he's progressed over the last just two years pretty much built in his business to the point where he can quit his job. And he did. Nice. Nice. Is this a buddy story like you and him? No, he did this alone. I didn't even help him. Oh, okay. Okay. Cool. Yeah. No, right on. Well, yeah, Kyle's a good guy and definitely has some cool staff to share. Especially, you know, I think the thing that I walked away from the interview with was it's not as easy as they make it look all the time. You know, we've got a lot of guys who, make it sound easy. And the gurus really make it sound easy because you could sit on your couch and your underwear and have the money just flow in. But no, it's not that easy. And if you want to be successful as an investor, you've got to have some patience. You've got to have some perseverance. You've got to fight through some of the tough times. And it's always fun to hear those stories,

not because I enjoy hearing people have difficult times, but because it's nice to hear that everybody listening, you guys are not alone. Everybody's struggling. Everybody's struggling. Everybody struggles at some point and everybody kind of deals with similar challenges in many ways. So I definitely encourage everybody to to stay tuned and listen through. Before we get to the show, let's do today's quick tip. All right, today's quick tip is every week. We've talked about this before, but I wanted to rehash it. Every week, pretty much we do webinars on bigger pockets, just different subjects. I usually host them and we just hang out for an hour and talk about stuff. So if you want to attend a webinar, check out what the newest one is. We have new ones

all the time, but you can always find out at biggerpockets.com slash webinar and sign up there. Nice. And it's every one to two weeks. Yeah, it's not every week. It's whenever I get around to it. But if you get on the landing page of the slash webinar landing page, you'll get the date of the next one and the topic. So just check back regularly. Awesome. Awesome. Have you ever lost a DSCR deal because the financing just took too long? Red flags popped up late. The needed more time. The deal fell apart. Well, our friends at Dominion Financial just launched a program to help prevent that. With their new express rental loan, you can close in 10 days or less. And they still offer their price beat guarantee so you can get great pricing and a timeline you can count on.

Fast, simple, reliable. That's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. That's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Most investors spend all their time talking about their high-level returns. But that's not the number that actually matters. What actually matters is what you keep after taxes, and that's where multifamily real estate quietly stands out. With built-in advantages like depreciation, the right deals can generate steady cash flow

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Well, let's jump into the show. We've got Kyle Pettit as we talked about already, and let's bring him in. So, Kyle, welcome to the show, man. Good to have you here. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, no problem. My pleasure.

My pleasure. You know, that was all me. You know, all right. So back in the day, people who don't know this, I don't know, maybe I mentioned it earlier, but back in the day, Kyle and I actually know each other, you know, you brought me out to coffee. Like, you actually looked me up on BP and said, hey, you want to go get coffee with me? And we did. And I think it was that day.

I was like, I'm going to bring him on the podcast someday. Like, that's what I said to myself. And I'm like. And you said it to me, I think. I think I might have said to you. Yeah. Like, when he has some more deals, because like you just had that, I don't know, something special that I thought would be good to have on the show.

You guys need a room, something special. No, I'm just saying, like, you have. Yeah, I don't know, you're a go-getter. I'm still on for Friday night, my name. No, seriously, you're a good guy. I'm excited. We're going to talk about your story today and looking forward to it. So why don't we?

Well, I hope that I can contribute, you know, after listening to some of the other guys. I listened to Anson's interview today. And it's like, man, how am I going to compete with that? That was a good interview. Yeah. That was good. Yeah, you'll do well. All right.

Let's do it. Let's start at the beginning where we always start. How did you get into this thing? How did you get into real estate? So I've always had an interest in real estate from the time I was in high school. It's, you know, never really had a niche or knew what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something in real estate. And never really did anything with it. You know, my dad had a couple of properties that I helped him work on and he did a flip, one flip. It's better than most, by the way.

Yeah, it's better than most. But, you know, I was exposed to it young and knew I wanted to do it, but never really knew where to start. and just kind of got caught up with life and got a career and a couple different careers. You know, I tried a few different things. And, you know, my last switch, I was actually in Montana a couple of years ago now. And I heard this commercial come on. It was a rich dad, poor dad promo that they were in town and they were having a conference. And I was sitting there and it was like, you know, 12 degrees.

And I'm thinking, this is miserable. I got to find something else to do. So I went to the conference that night. And it was one of the free deals. kind of an upsell, but it got me in the mindset anyway. So I kind of started doing my own research. And that year, I bought our first rental property. And I've just kind of been building ever since.

So that was how I got my official start was just by, you know, hearing kind of a little voice. You know, it was kind of a clue, I guess. So that's where I got started. Nice. So you're not still hearing voices, are you? No, well, only once in a while. Okay. I'm just checking, just making sure.

Just making sure. All right, so you said you, you know, you didn't want to be outside in the miserable cold. What were you doing? What was your job? My last, my most recent was I worked construction, line construction through the IBW union. Okay. I don't know what that means, but okay.

Getting ready to go through my lineman apprenticeship to, you know, work on power lines and all that good stuff. Oh, power lines, power lines, gotcha. So never actually got into my apprentice. In fact, the day I got called after putting all that time in, waiting to get into my apprenticeship and going through the interview process, actually, it was like the day before they called and said, hey, you're next on the list. I had just closed my first big wholesale deal. And I was like, yeah, this is better. Nice.

I never actually went through with it. That's what I've been doing ever since. It's sticking with real estate. So you ultimately got that first deal. and we'll talk about it, but you got that first deal and that was it. That was like, all right, I'm done. I'm not working. Yeah.

But for myself. Well, you know, my first, I didn't quit after my very first deal. It was the first big paycheck, I should say. Gotcha. Well, I want to know more about that very first deal, like the rental property. The rental property. Let's dive into that a little bit. Yeah.

So the first rental property was, it was an REO. And then I had kind of been watching it here in town. And the price kept dropping. and dropping. Oh, real quick, you should explain where you live. Like, people make fun of me. People make fun of me for living in Podunk, Washington. You should talk to Kyle.

I live, come on. I live about 20 minutes south of Brandon in a little town called Raymond Washington. How many people live there? City limits population is, it's under 3,000. That's actually bigger than I thought. I was thinking like you and like

four other guys. Well, pretty much. Lumberjack outfits. So that's an old logging fishing town and it's, you know, it's not the, not the booming area that it used to be back in the day. It's just kind of a slow pace living down here. Gotcha. So your plan is to own said town. Yeah, I've got four. So I've got half the town now.

Nice. All right. So you got this REO and REO is real estate owned. It's a bank-owned foreclosure property with no liens on it. So it's free and clear. Well, lean-free and clear. And you've been watching this thing drip and drop. That was, of course, the only property available for sale in your town, correct?

Right. So, yeah, we watched it and decided to make an offer on it. You know, after we had went to our second conference, I should say, we decided just to dive in. We made an offer, and that took forever. Kind of went back and forth. Actually, the offer, when the offer finally got accepted, A week later, I got called to California to work. So the offer went through, closed on the house, and three days later, I went to California.

Nice. So I was actually traveling. We rehabbed it ourselves. It didn't need to, you know, it wasn't a full rehab. It was just floors, carpet, paint, that kind of stuff. But I was actually traveling back and forth every weekend to work on the house. From California? Yeah, from Mount Shasta, California, actually.

That's not terribly far. Well, only about 12 hours. I just drove that yesterday. Ouch. Ouch. Oh, yeah, just imagine that drive every weekend back and forth. That's crazy. That's crazy.

So you had mentioned, you know, kind of a back and forth bit of a process. What was that like? I mean, talk about the REO process. I mean, you know, were there any hoops you had to jump through or dealing with the bank? Was it, were there any headaches that kind of popped up? Well, it really, it really wasn't. It just took a lot longer than I anticipated because we'd never. bought a property. That was a property we ever bought was a rental property. And just the time that it took

was, it was irritating because, you know, there was no other offers and they finally accepted. And even after they accepted the offer, it was weeks before we heard anything. Interesting. So, yeah, that was a learning experience. Just got to have patience, especially with that kind of property. Yeah, cool. So what were the numbers? You know, how much was it listed for? What did you make the offer for? What you ended up with it at? It was originally listed. It started at 45. And by the time it hit $35,000. $35,000. So I made an offer. I started real low at 25 and kind of counterback it ended up getting it for $32,000. It needed. I think we put maybe $5,000 into rehab. You know, it was still, you know, knowing what I know now, it's, I probably wouldn't have bought it

because it doesn't meet kind of the return that I'm looking for, rental wise. But we We paid cash for it, so it wasn't financed. Yeah. So we still haven't put any debt on it. So we're still just cash flow right now. So we don't have any debt on that property. And it's actually been our best property, our first one. So what are you renting that for?

600. So just under 2%. Yeah. Right on. Not bad, not bad. Can I just ask, why did you not put debt on it at the time and today? Why do you not put some debt on it? some cash out. What's kind of your reasoning?

Well, now, you know, at the time, it was just because I knew it would be a quick, you know, offer that they looked at over any others that would have come in. And I really didn't want to deal with financing. Well, for one, the bank wouldn't have

loaned on it because it needed, the power had been unhooked for a certain amount of time. And in this county, unfortunately, if it's unhooked for over a year, they require you to install a whole underground service because they're trying to get rid of the overhead lines, I guess. So that was a cost that I wasn't expecting. So without power, there was no lender that would basically

loan on the property. It just needed too much. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this then. First of all, do you have any reason why you don't, you know, put some debt on it now? Is that just like principal or you just haven't got around to it or you don't want to? Just haven't got around to it. I certainly will use it for leverage now. And I have used it as leverage. As collateral, I just haven't actually pulled any loans on it yet. Okay. I certainly have plans to do so with it very soon. Cool.

Well, the reason I just asked that because, you know, it's one of kind of like the one of a creative methods that you can use to buy real estate is by, you know, having another property and then putting debt on that one to go buy more. And obviously this is a lower price property. You're not going to be able to pull, you know, a $200,000 line of credit to play with. But, you know, you might be able to work something. The second kind of question I had was, you know, you're a younger guy. I mean, I know, you and I are pretty close in age.

And you paid cash for that property. And I don't know a lot of guys, especially in our area, right, that have that kind of cash. Did you just save up from your job, just save up for years for that? Or, you know, can you kind of talk about that? Well, it is a small town in Washington. Yeah. There's a little trade of meth that we don't want to really talk about here. There's plenty of that around.

But yeah, there's a, it wasn't all mine. You know, my wife also, we both contributed to. it but yeah I had a little bit saved up and she did as well and so so maybe you can kind of I don't know do you have any good tips for people I mean that are listening to this right now who have a hard time saving up that down payment I mean they have a really hard time saving up five grand or three grand or two grand I mean a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck I mean is there anything yeah I guess you know it's something I learned as well and everybody goes through it but if you're still living at home or living in a place you can barely afford

but you've got an eight hundred dollar month truck payment you need to rethink your priorities Yeah. You know, and I went through that myself. Right now we don't have any vehicle payments or anything like that. It's just, it's a waste of money. It's so that just getting rid of a car payment alone can give you that extra $7,000, $800 a month that you need to start saving. And it builds quickly when you're, when you're conscience of what you're throwing your money at. Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. For sure. Yeah, you know, it's especially hard. I don't know. I think it's not a generational thing, but it, it is, it's, is somewhat. I mean, you look in the 50s, everybody wanted to have the cash to put into their house. Today, everybody wants to have the bling that they want to, you know, show off and, and, you know, nice clothes or whatever, which obviously everybody wants, but, you know, it's that

sacrifice, right? You know, what are you, what are you willing to do today to have the nicer things down the line? And I think that's a common theme that we get on the show here. You know, folks who, folks who've decided to get into real estate investing, they've thought. It's not just like, hey, I'm going to be a real estate investor. They've had to put the time and energy into analyze their financial situations. They've looked at other sources of income as an investment like stocks and bonds.

I mean, you kind of go down this funnel to the point where you're like, oh, real estate. And to get there, you've gone through a lot of thought. And so I think that's probably why we see that and why most investors at least are more money conscious than not. So it's cool. you know, it's, it's cool to see these young guys, this young generation of people, because I

talked to a lot of young guys who don't have their head screwed on, right, you know, or spending it on everything else. Let's go to concerts every weekend. Let's go do this. You know, like, oh, cool. Yeah, you guys go do that and be broke. Yeah, there's some, some sacrifices. A person definitely has to make, but, you know, you can still have a little bit of fun. You just can't do it every weekend. Right. So, exactly. I certainly wouldn't suggest being a, being a, being a hurt. hermit by any means. I like to have my fun as well, but we just do it less frequently and on a bigger scale now. So what was the next deal? I mean, did you do another rental after that first one? I did. My second deal, I think I even made the offer on this property before we had a tenant in the

single family. It may have just right afterwards, but it was a duplex that came up in town. And it came up at a price that I knew it wasn't going to last. So I made an offer on it, knowing I wasn't going to get financing and went hard money, got approved, hard money lender. Long story short, the guy that actually came down to assess the property was actually from Raymond. So he knew the area and they were comfortable lending down here. And I used the rental property as, you know, as collateral. Yep.

So they took that. And that one didn't need any, you know, it's an older, it's an older property. It's fairly dated, but it didn't need any work. It had recent, you know, new windows, new roof, insulation. Just aside from cosmetics being a little dated, it was ready to roll. So we jumped on that. Let's go back and talk about the hard money lender. I mean, some people might not know what that is.

Can you kind of explain what that is and what they do and kind of how that process worked? Yeah. So the hard money lender is somebody who lends, you know, based on more value of the property versus your income. and they land at a high rate. They're not intended, at least in my opinion, to be a long-term option. It's more of a get-in, get it secured, and do something with it. They like to be in and out. But especially now, today, they're everywhere.

They're not hard to find. So it is a little difficult, as you know, to find anybody that will lend in rural areas, but they're out there. And he can even say rural. He can say rural a lot better than I can. Are you, just a curiosity, are you from the like south at all? No. All right. So here's why I asked that this morning, my wife, I'm doing kind of our prep call with you on this thing.

And she goes, he's got the Raymond accent. It's like that like very slight like southern like Raymond Podunk Washington accent that I'm trying hard to avoid. Wow. I'm the guy who's supposed to rip on people. No, it's a good. It's a good thing. He lives nearby. It's a good thing.

Just keep that in mind. That is true. Okay, so hard money lenders are guys who lend on the property. Mostly they don't look at, it's not like a bank. And how did you find that hard money lender? Can I jump back on that? The hard money lenders, typically people think of them as somebody that you would go to when you're doing a flip. So in this case, you were not using it for the purpose of a flip.

Can you kind of explain that before you get into how you found this guy? Yeah. My deciding factor in using the hard money because we didn't have the cash, we just used it in our first purchase. And I knew there was going to be, at least I felt there would be multiple offers on the property, especially what it was listed for. And so I just wanted to be the strongest offer on the property. And I knew if I could close quickly and I was approved for the cash offer, it was going to be looked at before something of financing. And I actually went to a couple local lenders here and told them, gave them the numbers. I said, this is what I'm doing.

Would you refinance on this, you know, when it's all said and done? Oh, yeah, no problem, you know. And that's something that I learned that, you know, they'll tell you one thing and do another. So we actually, we ended up had to hold that property for six months on hard money before we could get it. refinanced. So your plan was to get this hard money loan at really high rates. You know, you kind of went up front and talked to these other lenders with the hope that they'd refied as soon as you closed.

And it turns out that they were full of it. Yeah. But you ultimately, six months later on this very high, this very expensive hard money loan managed to get refi. Yeah. And thankfully, you know, that I was cash flown so well on the property, even at hard money, I was cash flowing. So, you know, it wasn't hurting this, but I wasn't getting what I knew we could out of it.

So that bothered me. You know, I find, I find interesting that a lot of, like, lenders, I see it time and time again, right, lenders are very optimistic or the bankers are very optimistic. The front end people are very optimistic. And then when it really comes down to actually doing it, they're not the ones that make the decision. And they tend to get a, yeah, they tend to say one thing and do another. I face that all the time. And usually they don't tell you no, like, in my case anyway, like, they don't say no. until they make you fell out like 400 forms and put you about a month or two into the loan process.

Then all of a sudden, oh, we actually can't do that loan. Right. So I get that. Yeah. And these guys, you know, even after the appraisal, it came in, it was right about, I think it was 60 or 65% LTV on the, on the lender's appraisal. They still had to come with money out of pocket before they would refinance. So, yeah, that one, it, you know, it was. Yeah.

It's just a learning experience. You just got to expect that and start building relationships, I guess, with your lenders early as a tip that I would suggest. Yeah. I mean, I think that's huge. I mean, like building those relationships, we've talked about that on the show before. And, you know, I stress it all the time and start building those now, even if you're not going to, you know, use that loan right now.

So do you remember where you got the hard money lender from? Or, I mean, where you found them? Like, was that online or? Yeah, it was online. And it was, you want me to say who they were? I don't know. I mean, you can if you want to. I don't have to give them free people if you want.

I found them online. And I had talked to a couple other people who had used them and said they were good. And they ended up being really great. So I definitely use them again. Cool. Cool. Cool. And you know, you can find for anybody listening, if you're looking for hard money lenders,

you can always post on our marketplace, hey, at biggerpockets.com slash marketplace. I'm looking for a hard money loan here, the numbers. This is what I'm looking for. You can also look in our hard money lenders to directory. I haven't a hard time talking today. The lender I use is in the directory that you guys. That's what I thought, yeah. Yeah, it's biggerpockets.com slash hard money lenders.

And also, I mean, can I plug my book, Josh? No, you can't. I'm going to plug my book. Oh, dude. Chapter 5 of the book Uninvested in Real Estate with No Loan Money Down is all about hard money. and the exact strategy that you use with hard money on, I talk a lot about, I've done that too, hard money to refinance.

So, all right. Anyway, if people want to pick that up, where can they go to get that, biggerpockets.com slash no money. Look at that. See? Look at that. Today's show is sponsored by me.

All right. Well done. Well done. All right, let's get to your next. Actually, we don't want to get to your next deal. I want to hear about the numbers on this deal, the duplex. The duplex? The duplex?

Yeah. So we paid just under 65,000 for it. It's, they're both two-bed, one-bath units, but they're really big units. Actually, it's a three-story, three-story how, you know, it's a, it was built as a duplex. It's not something that was turned into a duplex. So it's got, I think each unit has, I want to say, like 1,700 square feet, which is for a two-bed, one bath is pretty big. That's pretty good. Yeah, so.

And we rent those for ones, one's at 600, and the other one is 575, which will be. be going up again when the next tenants move out. Nice. So again, pretty close to that 2%. Cool. Cool. All right. Let's move on to the next one. I mean, we can just kind of walk through your whole story. Yeah.

What came next? I mean, I think this time was really good. I mean, a lot of the guys we have on the show, you know, they're done 100 deals. You know, Anson's done 100 wholesale deals, right? But I think people love this kind of stuff because it's like, you know, let's talk about your first, second, third, fourth, so we can do that all day. Justified however you want. Let's just get to it.

All right. All right. So what came next? My third deal, and keep in mind, these all came pretty quickly. So they were all, I mean, I was just, I couldn't believe, you know, how much there actually is to buying a house and doing it. It just sounds easy in theory, but it's the details that get you. So, you know, the third deal was actually a wholesale and it was a lease option wholesale. And the lead came in off of one of my Craigslist ads.

and kind of went over some options. I'd never done a lease option, of course, but I'd read a couple of books. And so I just started working through it. And it turned into be a mess. Well, tell us what is a lease option? How do those work? And how do you wholesale it?

How do you wholesale lease option? Yeah, how does that kind of work together? Yeah, so basically with the lease option. Or you don't, in the case of this mess of a deal, right? It's been interesting. But, you know, lease option is basically, you know, you tie the property up on a lease with an option to purchase with the seller. Full disclosure, they know exactly what's going on. And then with an assignment contract, assign your interest to an end buyer who wants to live in the property.

And we did that. And, you know, worked with the sellers. They knew every step of the way what was going on, what I intended to do. with it and they were cool with it. Found some tenants screened them and verified income, all that good stuff. And

that's, I guess, another tip would be to find a highly rated screening company because I actually used a company and two months after these guys moved in, the owners contacted me and said, hey, their check bounced and

and so you know, the owner They kind of had a soft spot for this guy, too. He gave him a whole story, you know, lost his job and he's got a family. And so they made the mistake. I suggested, you know, booting him, evicting them. I told him I'd help him out with that right away, but don't wait. Don't let them stay in there.

And they ended up, they're still in there. But so we went with an eviction company, and I tried to help them out along the way, but they just kind of kept making exceptions and didn't get everything to, you know, the attorney that was needed. And so it just kind of fizzled out. And they're, they're still in there today. And I guess they're paying what they can. But after the attorney, I talked to the attorney, and he asked me if I screen these people. And I said, yeah, I did. And I sent them, you know, what I had polled and what he got and what I got were two completely different things. They had prior evictions. They had history, you know, and I come from law enforcement.

So I know what to look for and, you know, kind of the red flags. And the company I used, none of it came up. So I would- That's not good. I would really suggest finding a top-rated company to use when you're screening people. Especially on something like that when you're handing over the, you know, basically taking that person and, you know, giving up to somebody else as their responsibility. You don't want to give them somebody who's a turd. Yeah. And I won't ask necessarily who the bad company was.

But can you tell who is the good company? Who are you using today? So it's a company out of Washington here, and they are called Landlord Solutions. Okay. I haven't used them, but good to know. They're a little more expensive, but they obviously get better results. And that's who I've been using now to screen for my own rental properties. Okay.

Nice. It's nice. And we have bigger pockets. I mean, we partner with Smart Move. It's a trans union company. and if folks are looking for a screening company, you can check that out at biggerpockets.mysmartmove.com. And we've got a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of people who've used them.

And, you know, overall, it's been pretty good. I hear good things about that. I definitely recommend it. Cool. Okay, so I want to go back and just clarify because, you know, we kind of went over that real quickly on wholesaling a lease option. You know, for somebody who's new, that's probably completely, you know, blowing their mind. So essentially, correct me if I'm wrong here, you, you know, marketed for a

property using Craigslist and you got a motivated seller to say, yes, I want to sell it to you. And then you found somebody to do a lease option with them. So one of them signed the contract with, like the buyer signing a contract with the owner to do a lease option. And you are officially at that point out of it, correct? But you hung around anyway. I mean, like in. Yeah, even after I signed everything over, because, you know, these were, I mean, they're, the owners of the property are, they're good people. They were just relocated. He's in the military. And with what they owed on the property, it didn't qualify for a typical wholesale. And so, you know, I kind of told them what their options were, and they were comfortable with the lease option. And, yeah, it just worked out. The tenant buyers

ended up not being as good as they appeared to be on paper. So, I mean, it's just, it's, I'm sure, everybody's got a similar story that that's happened to. But I just felt bad for the buyers. And, you know, I told them, you know, I've been working with them still trying to help them out. But they just, you know, it makes it tough too. They're in Florida and clear across the country. And it's just one of them deals that they're getting by. And I just don't want to overstep my boundaries. And yeah. Well, I tell you what, Kyle. I mean, we're still working through it. You know, I just, a guy feels bad when that happens. So I'm. I think more than most people would. Most people just walk away from it and say, oh, that's their problem. But they can't do that. Well, you're one of the good guys, man. I mean, that's kind of, you know, that's what we look for. You know, we like the good guys.

We like the guys who kind of make, you know, make those choices and who, you know, step it up. Because, you know, in the end, A, you're doing it as just a human, right? You know, you're trying to be human. And B, frankly, you're doing this as a means to, you know, better your business and better your career. And frankly, you know, word spreads around. You do shady things. And not had you cut it off there, you wouldn't have been shady. I'm not saying that. But like, you know, by going above and beyond, it just kind of, you know, it trickles around, man. It'll circle back and you'll get rewarded for it. I think at least that's one of my crazy

beliefs. Did you end up making any money on this thing in the end? No, no, not after the time and money spent trying to help get them out. I mean, so yeah, no, no. I mean, at the beginning, it was a small lease option assignment. I think it was, I'd have to look. I think it was $2,500 or something like that. But, yeah, after everything's said and done, I'll be definitely being the hole on it,

just trying to get the right, just trying to do the right thing and make everybody, you know, make it work out. But I'm at a point where I'm not going to throw any more money at it if all parties involved aren't going to. Yeah. Yeah, well, and they were, I mean, obviously, they were aware of the, you know, what you were doing and it was a lease option. So, I mean, I think it's very cool what you've done so far.

And I think it's important for people to hear this. You know, I kind of been, you know, asking you these questions because I think it's good for people to know, you know, real estate doesn't always end up as a big, gigantic check in your mailbox. I mean, despite what, you know, like wholesalers love to post pictures that are checks. And, you know, that's a big thing. It's like, hey, look what I just made, you know. And, and yeah, that's motivating, but, you know, they never hold up the check of, you know, negative. $12. You know, they never hold up the bill and say, this is what I just did.

So I think that's cool. Okay, let's move on. Some made a little more happy. Yeah. What happened next? Even though I didn't have any money after that one, I sent out the postcards and some yellow letters and some calls started coming in. And after my first postcard campaign, I got a whole bunch of calls and I got excited because

the phone was ringing. And I started calling people back. you know, most people were pissed off. And like, what are you sending me? But I did get this one. And he's like, yeah, I got your postcard here. Yeah, I'm interested in selling this place. And so set the appointment, went and looked at it.

And yeah, the place had been vacant for, like he said, five years. And he had owned some rental properties and kind of got hit with the market. And he was a broker. And they just bought it the wrong time and lost a couple of the properties. And this one, he actually, they didn't have much debt on. but they were just lived too far away and didn't have the gumption to it. It was partial rehab. He had demoed it and begun rehab on it, but just couldn't finish it.

So I made an offer. Long story short, made the offer. He kind of him-hoded. And as we were negotiating, the nosy neighbor shows up. And he's like, hey, what do you want for the place? I'll buy it. And so that kind of caught me off guard. I'd never kind of been in a situation like that before.

So I let him do his thing. And I told the seller, I was like, well, tell you what, let's meet up later. And he had another property that he wanted to show me. And so we met up at that property later in the evening, made him the offer. He agreed to the offer, but I couldn't get him to sign the contract. And he's like, well, let me ask my wife, you know, the typical, let me ask the other half. And went back and forth email for a couple of weeks. A couple weeks went by.

We met up with him and got the contract signed, found a business. buyer, what we thought was a buyer, and ended up the buyer, of course I had never dealt with her before because I'd never done a typical wholesale deal, but I met her and her husband. They both really interested, got an extension for her because she needed a little more time. And like two days prior to closing, she called, we can't do the deal. And so, you know, I didn't get it earnest money deposit or any of that kind of stuff. I'm just working off people's word, which, you know, I know, you got to build. little history with people before you start doing that. I would give that a tip. Always, you know,

if you're working with somebody new, get somewhat of a non-refundable earnest money deposit. Yeah. So we ended up two days of closing, we had to just dump it. So it went from what was supposed to be a $12,000 wholesale to about $3,500. So it still came out positive on that one, which was good. So by dumping it, you don't mean you like, you know, gave it back. You just sold somebody cheaper. Yeah. We had a, we had a couple, you know, a couple of other. interested buyers that were just a lot lower in price. But we knew they could close. They do multiple properties. And so we were confident that they would close on it. And they did within two days. So that was good. Wow. So here's my question. You've got this property for sale. The nosy neighbor

walks in. He's all like up in it. He wants a piece of it. You're in there. You're talking the guy. And you said it took weeks. I guess why did they end up going with you versus the nosy neighbor? Well, the nosy neighbor, it ended up being, it was just the house needed too much work than what he could take on. He had some properties. The guy lived next door. He owned a bunch of properties there in the neighborhood. I think he was just, you know, being the typical. He was just bored.

It's interesting because you don't usually hear about wholesale deals taking weeks and weeks and weeks to get a contract sign. Typically, you kind of hear that a little bit of a shorter process. There's definitely a lot of rapport building to make them feel comfortable. You're saying you're not like Michael Quarles, walk in the house. Hi, nice to meet you today. I'm going to buy your house. I've listened to some of Michael's stuff. I empty him.

I wish I could be a little more likely. Me too. I try to leave there and I feel like I could probably be invited to Thanksgiving dinner with most of the people that I. I spend a little probably too much time on the poor building. I don't know. I think that's commendable. I mean, I think that's awesome. I think that's what also should do is spend more time on that rapport building. And I think a lot of them just get in there and all they think about is the money and the dollar sign and they just want to make something of it. And I think that's great to build that relationship and honestly you

try to help them. Well, the successful ones that we've spoken to and that we've spoken to off the podcast just in general, they tend to be the ones who really focus on solving a problem. The ones who are just going in for the kill, for the money, you don't really hear those guys sticking around forever. Yeah. You know, I mean, there has to be some semblance of it because in the end, you're helping somebody with a problem, get out of that problem. And if you're just there to be like, hey, here's some cash, you know, and not listening,

people aren't going to take you seriously. And even guys like quarrels were, I mean, like he even like he's a, you know, expert negotiator, but even he talked about, you know, if like, like, those are an old lady, he'd always make, like, the kid come, you know, whenever kids come and negotiate with, you know, because like he didn't want to ever be seen as taking advantage. you wanted to build that rapport and make sure that he's solving a problem, not taking advantage. And I mean, and again, he's successful. And the ones that we see that are successful are like that.

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Don't overpay the IRS. Head to Costsegregation.com before April 15th. I want to ask you about, so the first deal you did, I mean, the rentals worked fine. Now you're getting into wholesaling. The first one didn't work out so good, and it's still in process. The second one didn't work out as good as you had hoped. At this point, most people, I mean, I would say 99% of wholesalers would throw in the towel. I mean, they wouldn't have probably done the second one you did.

But like, they would have probably said, oh, you know, this sucks. It's not making me money. I'm not rich yet like I thought I would be. You know, so how did you. Like I was promised. Yeah, like I was prompt. Like, right? Like, I mean, like, wholesaling at its heart is very like a kind of a simple process.

It's like, oh, you send out some letters. You negotiate the deal. You make some money. Do it again. And that is kind of like. And what I like talking to you about this is, it is like real life. This is what wholesaling is. I mean, this is what it is.

And so do you have any, I guess, thoughts, tips on how you kept going? Because I know we're going to talk about some more stuff you did after that. But how did you keep going? How do you keep going despite having those two that didn't work out the way you wanted? It really is just as much mindset as it is learning the trade. I mean, you got to work just as much on your mindset as you do learning about the business. And that's really what kept me going. and I found a couple of good resources, and I knew I didn't want to go back to, you know,

working outside and all that good stuff. And so I just, I knew I had to keep plugging away. And, you know, I found a couple of good mentors. And I'm working with one right now in the area. And so I knew it, I know it works, knew it worked. And I just, I knew I had to just keep pushing. And that's what we've done. And things are, things are starting to pick up.

So let's talk about, let's talk about that deal than you did. You said you finally got a big check. and that's when you quit your job. Maybe you can tell us that story. Yeah, so it came in again off yellow letters, sent out some yellow letters. Can I ask how many you sent out? I mean, what are you talking about when you're sending out?

What does that mean? 10,000 or 1,000? No, no, no. I was just doing it myself. I was sending out probably 25, 50 a week. Okay. Just doing what I could. And I was, I was, I was,

I was targeting absentee out of state. So I wasn't even sending them to absentee and state owners. I was aiming for low-hanging fruit because I needed it. I wanted a check. So I got a call and this house had been vacant for a couple of years. I went and looked at the house, made the gallon offer. And I always hear guys saying if you're not cringing when you make the offer, you've offered too much. And so I threw out the offer and she, oh, yeah, that sounds okay.

Wow, that's easy. I should ask less? Yeah, yeah. So got it under contract and talked to her a little bit more. She kind of gave me a little bit of story on what happened and why the house was vacant. And then I felt bad because I knew what I was going to make on an assignment. So like the next day I called her up and I was like, yeah, you know, we looked at the numbers and I can actually give you a little more for that. Nice.

So it went from, it was set to be a $30,000 assignment to $25, you know. So most guys are probably thinking, what in the hell did you do that for? But I just felt bad, I guess. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I was happy with what I was getting. That's great. Okay, so you ended up making $25,000 then off that. That's awesome.

That's pretty good. I love that, that, you know, I don't know, we talk a lot about direct mail. I mean, we talk a lot about that a lot of people are using. on direct mail. And all the fact that you just did your own 25, 50 a week. Like you didn't go out and spend 10,000 a month on sending out mass letters. You just did what you could, where you could. And it worked out for you. And then I think that's great. Well, even if I could have afforded to do more, I couldn't have handled the calls that came in. So I knew I would have been wasted my money. If I did any more than what I was doing. And that's something you and I talked about. We just

talked about a couple weeks ago when we got at the coffee shop about answering phone calls. because I hate answering phone calls, right? I hate that point. You don't like it either. I absolutely despise it. Nice. So what do you do then? Yeah, if you don't like it, do you actually answer?

Well, no, they go to a Freedom Voice. I got a DeVoise account. I was using Google Voice, but I started having too many problems with it. So I use a Freedom Voice account now. What does that cost? I think it's like $19 a month. Okay. There's a couple of them out there that are similar.

So everything goes to voicemail. That gives you the time to kind of like get your confidence up, do some research. Yeah. Okay. And like I was talking to Brandon about, it really is all mindset because I look at some of the stuff that I have done in the past, you know, as far as careers and things. And it's like, why this is what I used to do and I'm afraid of the phone. I mean, it really is just, it's all in your mind. And it's still something that I struggle with me.

making the phone calls. But I'm right there with you. Just keep pushing through it. Yeah. Yeah. Is it, you know, is it a preparation thing? If you kind of knew who was going to be calling you and you had the information that you needed in front of you on that person and felt more prepared, do you think that would make a difference? Because for me, I don't like answering calls from strangers because I want to be prepped. If I get a random phone number, I'm never going to answer it. Because I don't know who they are. I don't know what the call's about. And, Frankly, I want phone calls to be on my terms. I want to be able to talk to them when I'm ready to talk to them.

Yeah. And I can definitely relate to that. What I'll do, what we do when a call comes in is we'll skip trace it just to see if it comes up with a name and cross-reference it with our list. That way we've at least gotten an address and can have the house pulled up in like Google Maps. And so we can at least, when we're talking to the person, at least they think we've seen the house. And, you know, it just, it helps you be a little more prepared. I think it probably was a lot more time than most guys will do. But I'm the same way.

I feel like I got to be at least a little bit prepared for who I'm talking to. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. Oh, go ahead. I was going to ask, you know, we kind of glanced by it, but, you know, you did ultimately quit your job, right? So how did you know that it was the right time? Was it, hey, I just got this check for, you know, 25 or,

grand. You know what? That'll last me the next six months a year. If I don't do anything more, I got six months of trying this thing out and I'm going to do it, or was it something else? No, I'd say it was just kind of after I got that check and it was just like, wow, it does work. I can do this. And so I knew with more time and a little money for marketing now that, you know, I could scale it and really turn it into something. So that's what I decided to do. Yeah, that's cool. That's great. Do you miss climbing, you know, the towers and no. And I never even actually got that far, you know, climbing towers. I was, I was just a grunt. So. Oh, all right. No, I don't miss this. It was fun in the summertime, I guess, you could say, when it was nice outside. But I don't miss working in the slopping mud and the rain. Yeah. And you said you were in law enforcement. I mean, were you a police officer?

Yeah, I was a police officer for about five years. Oh, cool. And do you mind my prying or, you know, don't, you know, I'm afraid, I'm afraid to ask these. When I get to interview the cops, yeah. I'm getting grilled now. Yes, yes. No, I just, what was it that kind of got you out of that? It just got to the point where, especially being in a small town where, you know, wife and I couldn't go out and have dinner because you had, you had hooked most of the cooks and anybody dealt with.

And, you know, we had to drive out of town to go get groceries because, you know, you just, you just. I didn't want to be around people that you were dealing with at night. Yeah. That's really funny. After that minute, after four or five years of dealing with the same people, with the same issues, and you're working so hard to get them, especially the bad ones, put away.

And then a week later, they're out on the street doing the same thing. It was mind-numbing for me. They would have drove me nuts to keep doing it. Makes sense. Makes sense. All right. So you did these wholesale deals. you bought a bunch of rentals up front, kind of get us up to where we are today.

I mean, did you continue to pick up rental properties? Have you been wholesaling? What's been going on in the past? Yeah. Actually, what I've been focusing on, and I guess you could probably call it more of procrastination and distraction than focusing, but building my network and meeting other guys in the area, and I've met one guy locally that I'm working with now. We're actually partnering.

He's taking care. he wanted to expand and move into another area. And it was the area that I was working. So I said, hey, this is what I don't like doing. And so he agreed to do, you know, the direct mail part of things. And I agreed to kind of set appointments and go on appointments and get deals under contract. And we'd split the profits. And so that's what we're doing.

So you guys are partners instead of, you know, fighting and competing and saying, you know, this is my. Yeah. No, you guys. I mean, we don't have an entity. no contract, anything like that. It's just, you know, we're just agreed to work with each other. And in fact, we closed another deal Friday. Nice.

That was a good deal. And so, I think that was just under 18,000 on that one. Nice. That's great. Did you get that from direct mail also? Yep, that was another yellow letter. Nice. And it was a, that was another one that went on for three, four, five months.

Wow. Really strung out. So, yeah. So you really want to be patient and, you know, wait it out because something that you may think is a dead deal in time if you really continue to work it can work out can it yeah and it's sellers are funny they just like they'll just disappear off the face of the earth and then out of the blue they'll give you a call yeah this is why like i hear holsters all the time say or you know like the ones that are

really good at direct mail is you just keep mailing being i think jerry puckett always says consistent and persistent right like just it's just you keep going because you never know and And if your yellow letter is sitting on their table when they're ready to sell and you're going to be the one they call, and you just never know. Yeah. And yeah, with this one, it was one of those deals where he, you know, had, he was an absentee owner out of state, lived in Florida. And he thought the house was in a lot better shape than it was. And so he actually called me when he was on his way to come check out the property. And I asked him if he'd seen it lately. And he's like, well, no, why? And so after he's seen it, I didn't hear from him for a long time. And then through it, I even send him a couple contracts in the mail. And a couple months went by.

And he sends me a text message. He was like, should we try this again? And I knew he was ready at that time. So I jumped on it. Nice. How else do you mark it besides yellow letters? I mean, you've got a website. Got a website.

I'm starting to get some good leads coming in off of that. Nice. I've really been trying to learn about a little bit of. AdWords and SEO and that's the whole thing that I find it's a real distraction for me. I'm easily lost in the rabbit hole chasing shiny objects. I mean, I'll spend two or three weeks researching websites and SEO and you haven't sent out any letters and wondering why I'm not getting calls. And it's so easy to get lost.

The guy's really just got to, you know, I think the key for me now is having somebody that I'm accountable to. So if I'm not holding up my end of the deal, I know. It's, you know, it's going to get tougher. So that really helps me is having somebody now to be accountable to. And that's the partner you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I mean, hands down today. If I decided, you know, I'm going to become a full-time wholesaler. I want to make a lot of money wholesaling. The very first thing I would do is find a partner just like that. Because I know that me personally, I need that motivation. Like, I mean, that's kind of like with bigger pockets, right? Like, Josh is my motivation to do stuff on BP because, like, you know, like he pushes me

I push him to like, let's drive things better. Let's do this and that. The same thing with my real estate. Like my wife with my rentals, she pushes me. But there's never been anybody that pushed me wholesaling. So I never did a whole lot of it. And that's exactly what I would do is to find somebody to keep me accountable and to push me. You know, like, I think that's great.

So anybody listening, I mean, if you don't have that kind of partner or whatever, maybe, you know, go throw up an ad in the marketplace. So. And on that note, I want to talk real quick about managing your time. Because, you know, you mentioned like it's easy to get down that rabbit hole of, of, of shiny objects. So when you quit your job, what was that like? I mean, all of a sudden, now you've got full time all day long to do whatever you wanted. It's a good question. I thought it was going to be awesome. I thought it was grand, you know, sit at home, you know, doing your work at home, work from anywhere. But we just, my wife and I just recently

bought her first foreclosure at auction. And so we're rehabbing that and going to be moving into that. And I'm happy that it's actually going to have dedicated office. Because right now, it's so easy to get distracted, especially if you're a little bit ADD like me. It's like I could be here building my list and my calls that I need to make. And it's like, oh, the yard needs mode. So it's just, you know, I thought working at home was going to be great. But it can be a real distraction. So I guess a guy just tell you to try it, you don't know.

But, you know, one thing I found that I fell into was the NPR. I've said this before, but when I quit my job, you know, the last time and I said, I'm going to be, you know, full-time real estate. I found myself doing repairs all the time. I started working in my business and I just kept focusing inward instead of outward. And it wasn't until like really we started doing this podcast like Josh, like, and all the guests are like work on your business, work on your business, on your business. That's really when I started saying, oh, you know, that's right. So the last two years have been quite a, you know, a change where I don't do any repairs really anymore at all. Yeah. Despite what Ben Labovich thinks and makes one of me for daily, I don't actually

do my own repairs anymore and I've been working. So, yeah, I think that's just, I think it's a progression people make. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, if you're going to work on your own, you got to do it. So anyway. So what do you do to manage your time? I mean, you say you're easily distracted. You know, you say in the future you're going to have an office, but today you don't. So how do you make sure you get up, you know, start work at whatever time and kind of get through the day and get your work done? What do you do to force yourself to do that? kind of what my schedule is now is I've made myself, there's a few out there. I kind of customized one that I found, but it's kind of your breakdown of your day.

I get up, I jot things down at night before I go to bed and then I get up. First thing I do in the morning is go over my priorities, you know, what has to be done today, no matter what, you know, organize the projects that I'm working on and pick out one or two tasks out of those projects that need to get done, people I need to contact. And it just kind of, it really having that on paper, and I really suggest that for people who are easily distracted, is having it on paper so that it's there, not just on your phone or on your computer, but something you can look back to multiple times a day just to keep you on track. And that's really helped me a lot. And I've only been doing that the last month, but it's made a huge difference as far as if I catch myself outside, you know, working on the house or doing something. pull that out of my pocket and, you know, oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Get your ass back to work.

Nice. That's great. Yeah, I know. It definitely helps me having it on paper. I find the same thing. I do it with Evernote now. Yeah. And I've got Evernote too and I was using it, but I found that it's easy not to open the app. And if it's there, if it's sitting right in front of you or you feel it every time you put your hand in your pocket and you pull it out, it just works better for me to have it on paper. I still do post-it notes. Yeah, post-its. Yeah. I got those. You know what I really like? I really like these little notebooks that I get at conferences.

Nice. And these things, you know, it's just like a little, they make like a Moleskin notebook, like a reporter's notebook. And I find these really handy. Just, you know, jot your notes down, keep them with you. Because Evernote, I'll be get all excited. I'll be like, yeah, let me put everything in Evernote. And I'll put like all these things in. And then it lasts for a day.

and then six months pass by and I've done nothing. There is one app that I still use and it's called To Doist. I know it. But I do like that one as far as organizing your projects and kind of keeping track of things. I still do use that one. But what helps the most is keeping it on paper, writing it down. Nice. And everybody's got their own system and whatever works for you is going to work for you.

So that's great. Well, cool. Listen. Do you hear that, Josh? Yeah, what? Do you hear that? It's time for the fire round. All right, the fire round. These questions come straight from the bigger pockets, forums, and we're going to fire the match you, Kyle. You ready for it?

I'm ready. All right. Number one, what do you think is more time consuming? Wholesaling or rehabbing? I would say rehabbing means I've done one. Okay. Especially since you did it yourself. Did it? Yeah. Yeah. And so that's another thing that gets you off track. So there was two, almost three months where I wasn't sending out mail, wasn't making calls.

And it definitely takes more time rehabbing, especially if a person's doing it yourself. Nice. So that's what I would say there. Right on. You don't need to say anymore, man. That's perfect. All right. When starting out wholesaling, is it best to begin finding motivated buyers or motivated sellers?

So, you know, do you build a buyers list or do you just go and find the deals? I would say especially the experience I've had finding the deals. Yeah. You can, especially nowadays, you know, everybody's pushing their wholesale course and buyers are getting calls from people who have never done a deal. And they're not going to take you seriously if you don't have a deal to present to them. So I'd say go, I'd say go find a deal. That's great advice. Yeah.

All right. So the next question then is kind of related. How are you finding your buyers? How do you find cash buyers? How have you done it? I've got a few buyers off of Craig's list. And now I do a little history on them to make sure that they're actual buyers. But also the partner that I work with, he's been doing it a lot longer than I have.

So we use his buyers most of the time. I don't have to focus on that part of it. How many buyers do you guys use? Well, and the ones that I've been involved with, there's just been three. Yeah. And that's, you know, that kind of goes back to the other question, right? And I think the gurus are all out teaching guys, build this buyer's list, build your buyers list. We've got software that helps you build a buyers list, all this stuff.

And I'm like, this is crazy. What are you people doing? I got it. You've done all these wholesale deals and you've used three buyers, right? The average wholesaler that we talk to you uses a handful of buyers. You don't need a big giant buyers list. Yeah, I would suggest instead of having 100 buyers, find one buyer that does 100 deals a year. And I like, you know.

I got a, I got it. This is not, I'm not even kidding. I got a private message today on this exact thing. And here's what the private message sent on BP. It said, hey, what do you think of this program I just saw online? Links to it. And he says, it says that I can get cash buyers delivered to my inbox automatically and I don't have to do any work and I can make money wholesaling. Do you think that's legit?

And I'm like, I don't even understand how that's like a question that people can ask. You know, like, if everybody did that, then everybody would be doing that. I mean, if it was that easy, everybody would be doing it. it. But like, you're going to sit in your underwear and just going to magically, buyers are going to show up in your inbox and then magically sellers, motivated sellers, going to show up in your inbox. And all you have to do is like click a button and it joins them together and you all of a sudden make 20 grand. And that's what wholesaling is, right? Well, no, that's how the gurus make the money selling to the guys who think that things are magically

going to appear in their inbox. But, you know, blows my mind. It blows my mind. Anyway, that's crazy. All right. Last question. Last question. Here we go. Fire around. Last question is what is the best strategy for finding wholesale opportunities? Obviously, well, for me, the yellow letters have been the best. Get the best response rate. I don't send, and mine aren't branded. They're just handwritten font, yellow letters, handwritten envelope coming from, you know, John down the street that wants to buy your house.

Is that the return address, John down the street that wants to buy your house? Yeah. Can I ask anything fancy. They're just real. I actually couldn't believe the response I got when I started using them. They're just real generic. And what is your response rate? It varies, but it's between 12 and 16% on yellow letters.

That's great. That's higher than a lot of people here. I wonder how much of that is like, now you, I know we've got to move on, but like you're not doing these yellow letters in your little tiny town, right? Aren't you going like outside like Olympia or whatever? Yeah, I don't work. I mean, there's. Yeah, there's not an market. He's arrested everybody in his little town.

No, the closest market that I work, I mean, it's an hour and a half away. So when I set appointments and stuff, you know, that's come back to scheduling. And I try to set them all for, you know, a couple days a week so that, you know, you guys not spending all your time driving. Yeah. I think that's great. And when you are driving, you should tune in to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Absolutely. Yeah, I've actually told people that many times before.

I'm like, you know, I always say that line that you can find good deals. within a two-hour drive of anywhere in the U.S. I mean, you kind of prove that. You're in the middle of nowhere. But, yeah, like within an hour and a half, two-hour drive. And so, yeah, use that, I mean, use that to gain the education. We got, what, 150 hours of podcasts now or something? Yeah, turn your car into your mobile university.

Just don't listen to music, you know, listen to something that's, and that's what I do. I have, there's three main podcasts that I listen to. One's bigger pockets. The other one's more, you know, working on mindset. And the other one's another real estate podcast. but you got to, I'm not a big book guy. I listen to a lot of podcasts, a lot of episodes. Cool.

And the interesting thing about finding deals, you know, typically we're doing the opposite. Typically, we're talking or defending, hey, you know, you're in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, you're in a big city and you could find it within two hours. Well, we forget that the opposite's also true. There's a whole lot of people who live in the middle of nowhere. Let's just take anybody in North Dakota. And, you know, now I got to piss other people off than the phone. in Michigan.

But yeah, listen, within two hours, yeah, you could definitely find deals. So I think I think that's great. Well, fantastic. Yes, yes, yes. I think it's time for something. Time for the famous for. All right, famous four. The famous for these questions we ask everyone.

So, Kyle, I know you've heard him before, but we're going to fire match you right now. Number one, what is your favorite real estate book? Now, you said you're not much of a reader, but do you have a favorite real estate book? I do have a favorite real estate book. And my favorite real estate. And for those people who cannot. No or low money down. I'll give you your 20 bucks later.

Yeah. All right. What is your favorite real estate book? The most interesting book I've read, and I haven't read a lot of them, to be honest with you, but was the one by Peter Conti and David Finkel, the one on lease options. I don't really don't remember the name of it, but that's what it was. Yeah, I have it sitting in my room here. somewhere. It's like, yeah, I don't remember either, but yeah, they can look it up on Amazon,

those two guys. It's like making big money and something, but yeah. Yeah. And the other one, if I were to put it, I've never read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but I have read some of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Real Estate books, and the Guide to Real Estate investing is a really, really good, breaks down the basics and how to get started. And so that was the first ever real estate book I actually read was the... Is that like the ABCs of Real Estate? real estate, that one? Or the real book of real estate?

No, it just says a guy to real estate. Okay, okay, cool. Nice. What about business books? What's your favorite business book? My favorite business book would be probably how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. Yeah, that's been my favorite book so far. And I actually read that full front to back. Nice. Didn't stop halfway through and started.

Awesome. Awesome. Cool. All right, man, what about hobbies? What do you do in the middle of nowhere? I mean, other than... I like to hunt. Cow-tipping? Yeah, cow-tipping. There's cow-tipping.

Yeah. What do you hunt? Man, people. People. Yeah, I used to hunt people. That's actually tried to you. All right. I like the outdoors, elk hunting, deer hunting.

Nice. You should invite Brandon down and get some video of... I would have a hard thing. I would enjoy watching. making my d-go dressing. I like my fuzzy animals too much. Squeer like a pig boy. All right.

My last question of the day, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors, especially newbies, from those who give up, fail, quit, you know, run away, crying.

What sets them apart? Definitely, I think what sets them apart is just to keep pushing forward even when it gets tough or you come across obstacles. On any of my deals that I've done, none of them, except for the one big one has been easy. They've all had their challenges,

and it would have been so easy just to walk away from it. So I would say persistence and perseverance and just keep working through it. That would be my... Great. Awesome. That's great. That's great.

All right, Kyle, where can people find out more about you? I can find me on my Facebook page. I don't even know what the URL is on it, but just search me on. You'll give it to us. Yeah, I'll link to it. Yeah. That or my website that you can't spell right. What is that website?

It's elite acquisitions northwest.com. Elite, well, it's not Northwest. It's NW. NW. Yeah, elite acquisitions, nw.com. Okay. Awesome. Awesome.

Great. Well, guys, this is show 97 of the Bigger Pockets podcast, with Kyle Pettit. Kyle, it's really been a pleasure. If anyone wants to ask you questions, they could do it on the show notes page at biggerpockets.com slash show 97. And I'm guessing they can also find you on Bigger Pockets as well.

Yeah. Absolutely. Cool. All right, man, well, listen, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. We really do appreciate it. Thanks for having me on, guys. All right, guys, thanks again to our sponsor,

Realty Shares.com. We really appreciate them supporting us in the show. and otherwise, thank you to everybody for listening. It's a lot of fun, a lot of fun talking with Kyle, and we definitely appreciate him and his time. Otherwise, if you are not already active on Bigger Pockets, we definitely recommend you jump in. Bigger Pockets, it's just such a great place to meet guys like Kyle

and all our other guests. These guys come in, they hang out, they help one another out, they do business, they do deals, you know, and it all kind of stems from getting on, creating your account, not just creating an account, but being visible, communicating, connecting to people, posting on the forums, interacting. So if you're not doing that, I definitely recommend you do so. Otherwise, check us out on Facebook, on Twitter, on Gplus, on LinkedIn. We're even on Pinterest. But check us out, you know, find out about some of the cool stuff

we're sharing. And that's all I got for you. Brandon, Charlie, got anything for us? No, we're good. You good, Charlie? Charlie would be Brandon's lap dog sitting on his lap, not his imaginary friend for those of you who cannot see us. But sounds good. Well, listen, guys, thanks for tuning in. Show 97. You can check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 97.

And until next time, I'm Josh Dorkin. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, You're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com.

Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calico content.

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