Epic Real Estate Investing - Achieving Freedom with Nicole Bryan | Episode 100!

Episode Date: April 29, 2014

In celebration of the 100th episode, the 1,000,000th download and the opening of Version 2.0 of the Epic Pro Academy... Nicole Bryan, Educational Administrator, shares with Matt her journey to "freedom."  It's another "can't miss" episode of Epic Real Estate Investing. ------------------------- Download Matt's free real estate investing course "How to Do Deals | No Money Required" at FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text FreeCourse to 55678 "Click" what interests you most:  Education Properties Income   Coaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Broadcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Hello. Hello, dear. Welcome. I don't know where that voice came from. But anyway, welcome to another episode of Epic Real Estate Investing. If this is your first time listening to the show, welcome. You picked a great day to find us.

I'm really glad that you're here. And if this is not your first time listening to the show, welcome back. And this is the place that I teach people how to escape their rat race by investing in real estate. And if I were to do it all over again, wouldn't change a thing. Nope, I'd do it exactly the same way. And I'd do it exactly the same way whether I had money and credit to work with or not. Because, you know, while I was finding my way, while I was navigating this whole real estate investing thing, I stumbled upon 12 different strategies of investing in real estate with little to no money.

And in hindsight, by being forced to do it that way, by being forced to find solutions that didn't involve money, that didn't involve a credit score, I believe that made me a much better investor. It taught me to look towards my intellectual currency instead of my or before my actual currency. It taught me to try and think for a solution, to use my brain before I pulled out. my wallet. And I believe that made me a much better investor. And nothing has changed about the way I invest today. And it just made me a better investor today, even though I have money now. And I still use a very little of it. And I want to make you a better investor as well. So I put the first two

strategies of those 12. I put the two of which I believe are probably the, not probably, they're definitely the easiest and they're the fastest strategies to a paycheck. I've put them into a free course just for you. And you can access that free course at real estate investing course.com. Free real estate investing course.com. And, you know, if you're all excited and you just want to access it right now and you can't wait to get to your computer and you're listening on your smartphone, I've got something for you as well, you can download the course right there on your phone by texting free course

to 55678 and you'll get the course right there on your phone. The two easiest and fastest strategies to a paycheck in real estate. Alrighty, I'm very excited about today. I'm excited about this whole week. But the reason I'm excited about today is because today is episode 100, 100 of the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast. And it just so happens. We hit our one millionth download yesterday. And this Thursday, May 1st, we will be reopening the Epic Pro Academy, version 2.0 of the Epic Pro Academy.

A lot going on this week. I've been working very hard on the academy. I say the last three or four weeks or so. I've been thinking about it for months, but I actually began implementing those thoughts and ideas about four weeks ago. And you know what? It has totally consumed my entire schedule. And I have lots of emails out there from you all.

They are piling up. I think just in my epic inbox, there's 600 plus. But I'm going to make an attempt to get to every single one of them. So thank you for your patience. I'm not ignoring you. I've just decided to be very, very focused on getting this done so I can get back to my real estate business. And thank God I have an awesome team that has been able to take care of that business for me while I've been working on this. So in celebration of all that's good, all that's good that's going on this week, I am interviewing Epic Community members every day this week.

And if you didn't catch yesterday's episode with Epic Pro Academy member Kenny Castillo, you definitely want to do that. You definitely want to do that and hear how he closed his first deal recently. I pulled every detail that I could out of him. I tried to get every single step that I could out of him. And I try to do all of that for you so you could relate. So you could pull out what you need to implement into your business to make the results for you. And you know what? Yesterday, he actually mentioned something that really resonated with me, meaning my whole approach.

And you've heard me say this before. And I don't know. I probably say it every other episode or something. So at least what my mentor always told me, well, as I was getting started, he would always say, travel as far as you see. And when you get there, you will see further, right? I say that all the time. And I absolutely mean it because that was, it's such a truth.

It just couldn't be more, more, a bigger truth inside of this journey of real estate investing. I can't think of anything else. It's just, that's the way it works. And I had faith in it. I followed it and it generated great results from me. and, you know, of all the interviews that we've had, they've all said the exact same thing. But Kenny put it a different way. He put it in his very own way.

He said, just go through the motions. And I really like that because, you know, what that says, if you read between the lines, actually both phrases, I guess, but really what Kenny says, if you read between the lines, it says you don't have to know everything about real estate investing to get started, to get results. You don't even have to be very good at it either. just go through the motions. And you'll eventually get the result that you're looking for. But you got to get moving.

You got to go through the motions. You got to just start. Get out of your own way and go through the motions. The more you do it, the better you'll get for sure. But just get started. And Kenny was a perfect example of that. He decided to just stop getting ready to get ready, decided to get out of his own way, and he just got started.

He went through the motions, and what do you know? He put $5,000 in his pocket, I think in six weeks from the day that he made that decision. So, well done, Kenny. Well done. And thank you for sharing that with us. I mean, definitely that interview was at the top of my list of favorite interviews. And I think I've got another really great one for you today. You know, on the phone I have waiting, Nicole Brian.

So, Nicole, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Matt. I'm very excited. Very good. and I want to hear why you're excited. I'm glad you can make it. Are you a full-time real estate investor or do you have a day job?

I have a day job. Okay. I do. I know. Awesome. That's okay. And what do you do during the day? I am an educational administrator.

I'm the managing director for a charter organization. Okay. And I think I'm actually one of the few people who are very passionate about my day job. So it's not the norm. Right. Well, that's super. Yeah, I am. don't plan on being there forever, but I currently love what I do.

Would absolutely love more freedom and flexibility. However, just I get to work with school leaders and children living in poverty and really give them an awesome shot at having a great education. So something awesome to wake up to every day, but I know I can't do it forever. Right? Super. Well, thank God for people like you. Making this place a better place for the less privileged.

So far so good. Very good. Thank you very much. So, okay, so you're passionate about your job. Where and how did your interest in real estate investing come? That is a great question. I have a bunch of those, by the way. A bunch of great questions.

I know, I know, Matt. I went to Georgetown and graduated in 2000, and I will never forget. my dad saying to me, you know you can't be a teacher, right? Because there's no money in that. And, you know, I had tons of student loans like everybody else does and was very, very nervous about choosing what my passion was, which was teaching and helping children living in poverty. And just remember thinking, oh, my God, I'm going to be broke forever if I do this.

And so I decided to go ahead and follow my passion. I taught all through college. I lived abroad and I taught when I was abroad so that was all I knew when I loved it but because I didn't want to you know depend on my family and not be able to spend for myself I was always interested in figuring out how I could do what I was passionate about

but still have financial freedom and so my first year as a teacher I remember talking to the counselor there because it was on my mind and she recommended a series of books and I recall reading just a few books by Suzy Orman at the time, which were all about just not getting into debt or paying off your debt. So I actually became debt free and paid off all my student loans and everything else within two to three years. Super. So something that Susie Orman actually, something that she says actually works?

Yeah. The debt free advice, that part. Okay, very good. So it was a good start. Yes, I mean, I think just distinguishing good debt from bad debt was my major takeaway. and I had gotten into some credit card debt, and I had student loans, and really wanted to free up my cash in order to be able to invest. So I think at that point, after paying off all of my debts, including my student loans, I began reading Robert Allen's money down books.

I lost to read clearly. And this was like at the height of the real estate market when everybody was giving money away. Sure. And you didn't have to have adult payments to get properties. I started without a strong education and background around real estate, just knowing that I wanted to invest. So I wasn't well educated. I wasn't well informed.

I was simply highly motivated. And I just really started buying a lot of properties. Got it. I became a real estate agent, like, became very familiar with my market and started buying properties. But I was really speculating because I wasn't running the numbers. I didn't know what I was doing. I just kept saying to myself, buy them, figure it out, hold them for 30 years. Something will have to work out.

And I think it was a risky move. And actually, I think it's one of my failures was with the market crash. I was like, oh, my God. Now I have these, you know, six rental units at the time, and they all, like, depreciated 30% in value. And I did not know what to do. I still had my day job, but I just saw my equity just pretty much disappear. Right.

And I thought then about either doing a short sale or a foreclosure and just getting rid of them, but there was just something inside me that just said, just hold on and try to see it through. You know, you can't afford them. I was fortunate to have properties in decent areas. They were still, they weren't cash going heavily, but the tenants were making the monthly payments and so I held on. Mm-hmm. Okay.

I think... Mm-hmm. See, that's a very common story. Yeah, right? Very uncommon ending, though. I mean, you did hold on to them, so that's good. Yeah. So you learned something from Robert Allen, obviously, because you didn't buy them too poorly.

I learned to make sure that at least the mortgage payment would be covered. Perfect. Okay. Yeah. Very good. So after that, then what? Then I... I had tried a lot of sort of different types of ventures outside of real estate,

you know, selling health insurance just so anything to make extra money because at that point I was just thinking my real estate is not going well and as an educator I'm not really making great money. But I've always worked hard and have been very fortunate. I think during that time I started getting promoted every year or every other year. and so my income started to increase dramatically. And when that started to happen, I started to realize that, you know, these properties were a lot less expensive than when I purchased my original property

that it probably made more sense to get back in and try to have stronger cash flow than pulling out. Because I did have good credit. I had excellent credit. I was able to refinance most of the properties I had purchased. for a lower rate. So now, I was cash flowing at a lot, you know, stronger rates. And then I purchased a single-family home and renovated the basement. I put a kitchen in there and got that rented out.

There aren't many multi-families in my area. And I realized that that one unit was generating more cash flow than the six previous units that I had. Wow. And I was like, wow, this is a great time to do this. And that was about 2010. And I think that was a light bulb for me because I realized that if I could just do this, I kept saying to myself, just do it five or six more time. It would be good.

Right. And so I think there are many ways to invest in real estate, as we all know. I felt that for me just really maximizing a 30-year mortgage, a very traditional 30-year mortgage, a 4% interest rate or a 4.5% interest rate was very tough to be. and so I just kept saving. I've always been a saver. I just kept saving and investing. I didn't have any debt because I had, because of my credit card back in 2002.

And so I was able to really save heavily at a pretty high rate. Don't have a lot of family members and friends that were able to partner with me, and they all thought I was crazy. So I think I was pretty much by myself. And just having learned from that one property that had such a high cash, so I still felt pretty confident. And at that point, I started listening to your podcast and just learning so much from you and the message you were sending.

And I was like, oh, my God, I'm not crazy. I really make some sense. Right. You really taught me a lot. I really benefited from hearing you say, look, it's not about, like, they try to save $2, 3 million, dollars, which was what my approach was before. It's like we were trying to replace your income, and once you're able to do that,

you can do anything you want. That message was so motivational. Like, I just kept thinking about it. I played that episode a million times. And I just kept saying, that's true. It's so much, I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel by doing this. I can't see $2 million in the next five years. Right.

have the type of revenue stream coming in each month. It allows me to really think about what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. That's super. I mean, I think it's just, I really remember just playing the podcast over and over again and thinking, okay, I'm going to do this. Right. Do you remember what episode number that was? I do not, it was one of the early ones.

One of the early ones? I did not remember. I drove home and I played it again. I don't remember whatever I could. You were saying something like, you know, take a chance. Like, don't do what everybody else is doing. Like, normal is not that cool. Like, normal is broke.

Why not live in your basement? Why not have a roommate? And just all these things that I had kept thinking about that most people don't do. You know, my friends always say, you make so much money. Like, why do you live the lifestyle that you do? Why would you run out your basement? Why would you do all of these things? And in my mind, I'm like, well,

to the general income. Then I could buy more properties. It was great to hear you validate that and to hear your story and your success in doing it because I know you talk a lot about mentors and having the right people around you and I have a great family and great friends, but nobody's thinking about this stuff where I am right now.

I have a lot of virtual mentors. I went to one of, I get together a couple days ago with some of my closest friends and we all had 30 minutes in the hot feed, and we had to talk about three or four different topics. No one would talk about finance. No matter how much I push. It's just not something that we do.

So for me to be like, well, I'm trying to build up my revenue stream and retire in two years, and people look at me like I'm crazy. So it was just great to have access to podcasts. books just being pretty much free nowadays. It's a library and being able to download these books. But I think all of that came to me at a time when it was a really good time to invest in my area and it really stayed off.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So a few things that... Congratulations, by the way. That's just super. I'm so excited. Not where I want to be, but I'm making progress. And I'm really pumped about it.

Totally. You're totally making progress. You can see a light at the end of the time. tunnel when 95% of the country cannot. So I'll take it. Yeah. I was just reading, USA Today this morning did a poll on, it called 1,000 random Americans. That's not that big of a section, but a thousand people.

That's a good, that's a good number of people. And I think it said like 73% of the people that they called and have less than $1,000 in their savings account. Wow. Yeah. That's unbelievable. No, it was less than $1,000 saved for. retirement in some sort of retirement vehicle.

Oh my gosh. And I was just like, I know it, I know it. And that's, those are real world numbers. That's today that came out in the USA today. But super. And then you save money, which I love. Actually, I don't love, but you save it for the purpose of investing, which I love. So congratulations there.

Perfect. And you're focused on building revenue streams. Your friends asked you, you know, why do you live the way that you do is because I so I can continue to build income. That's the secret. That's you've got the right mindset. You're in the right space. That's super. The fact that you've preserved your credit score over the years and you can take advantage of 30-year mortgages at 4%.

That's just insane. There's never been an opportunity like that ever. Oh, my. I know I was going crazy. Yeah. In the history of banking, there's never been an opportunity like that. And you're getting 4, 4.5%. Super, super, super, super job.

The interesting thing is I couldn't convince anyone else to do it. It's ridiculous. I know. I know. I know. Do you realize 4%. Nobody alive today, nobody walking this earth has been alive when the rates were lower than that. No way.

Yep. It's all-time low. I mean, half of my units are at 4%. It is insane. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And there's a huge people, a huge number of people in the 70s and the 80s that were building great wealth at 10, 15, 18 percent. Yeah.

Yeah. I read about them. I'm like, that's, I mean, if they could do it at 10, 15, 18 percent, we could definitely do it at 4 or 5 percent. Absolutely. Absolutely. So what market are you in? I'm in the D.C. area. I live in Maryland.

Okay. And I invest in Prince George County and Baltimore County. What was the first county? Prince George County. Prince George. Right outside of D.C. Got it. And I actually did that strategically.

Actually, the surrounding CalMuse property dollars are twice or five. Mm-hmm. But the rental income is the same. Very good. And we wanted to maximize my income that way. Mm-hmm. It's paid off. Definitely have.

Super. Not easy, but doable. Right, right. How many units do you have today? So I'm at 11 units. Okay. And by next week I'll be at 12. based on my calculations, if I continue to get similar types of returns,

which is unlikely the way these prices are going, I've calculated that once I get to 20, I will be able to duplicate my income. That's super. So just knowing that makes it hard to go to sleep at night. Right. Because I'm like, how fast can I do this? Can I do it in a year?

Uh-huh. How many of you done this year? I've done two properties four units. Okay. Two properties, four units, and you got a third one closing next week? Yes, which will only be a one unit. Perfect. So we are in the month or March, that's one a month.

One a month, I know, but I'm running out of money. Okay, I was going to say, you could do that. You will be done by the end of the year. That will be exactly plenty. Yes, I think I'm going to be forced to slow down unless I can form some strategic partnership. Got it, got it. Which, and I know there are a lot of pros to that. I just, I haven't gotten in that zone yet.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Okay, so let's discuss that. So you say you're running out of money, so you're going to have to slow down a little bit. You've got 12 units. Have you gotten all of these via conventional financing? Yeah, all of them. Because they are, it's 12 units, but it's seven properties. Seven properties, okay.

Perfect. And then you just- Because my strategy has been to, improve the basement and rent that out. Got it. Got it. Great strategy. It works. Increase the income. It sure does. Especially if you live in an area where, you know, that's an acceptable way of living if it's conducive to fixing up.

You've got some markets that I'm in that, you know, you probably don't want to live in that basement, even though they have one. So that's good. Well, we don't have multifamily units at all. I mean, we have probably 20% of the county, 80% of single-family units. It's something that's very commonplace. Okay, very good. So as far as finding your properties, how are you going about finding your deals? I'm relentless.

I still hold a real estate license. So I have sort of different ways to do it. I'll either go for an awesome property to try to be the first person so they can offer. That they'll accept. So I try to use speed. I can. So that's when it comes up on the multiple listing service? Yes.

Okay. So I, even though I have a full-time job, I check probably four or five times a day. You check four or five times a day? Mm-hmm. I love it. With the things are current, and then I'm so familiar with the market. I could tell in five minutes if it's a good deal. Mm-hmm.

It just doesn't take me any time. Mm-hmm. And so if I'm able to get there first and negotiate with the agent, I pretty much get an opportunity to have a better deal. Mm-hmm. It doesn't always work. I try to make a lot of offers. I've been fortunate the last year I've gotten have been at least 10 to 20% below market value,

needing some work. It's just getting harder. It really is. And I think my approach now is to try to get properties that are, that most investors would have to pay for in cash, but that I'm able to finance. Got it. Got it. So, for example, a $60,000 property in Baltimore County doesn't go as quick. for the all-cash buyer

for some reason, and I'm able to qualify for financing. Got it. So it's not like, look, in that county, like, the properties that are below 40

would go to the cash buyers a lot faster. And I think that strategy has helped me to sort of get in and qualify for some deals as well. Got it. Super.

You're figuring out a way, and I love it. I'm sorry? I said you're figuring out a way, and I just love that because, you know, there are so many different ways to make money in real estate.

Like you couldn't possibly know them all. And sometimes you just kind of have to look at your resources of what you're working with and then the market that you're working with and, you know, put the pieces together and make it work for you. So that's what it looks like. Patterns. That's all I do as I just look for patterns. Patterns?

Patterns. Like which properties are staying on the market the longest, which when we're going quickly, which price rate is they're going to cash buyers. I just try to find that the patterns and then if I see a pattern of a particular type of property, taken longer on the market or not going to cash buyers, but I can qualify for it. I'll go for it. There's like some kind of a gap that I exist. It takes a ton of time.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel like that's what I do. Sure, sure. No, this is a, it can be a very time-intensive business. And I love that, I love what you said here because I think this is really, really important. And I actually learned this as a real estate agent myself in, I think it's 2002. 2003, where the market was just insane in Southern California. And I guess it was kind of like that in some parts of the country this year. But I remember, this is how I learned to be a real estate agent was in a market where a

property came once it was posted on the multiple listing service. I mean, it was sold within an hour. It was that quick. I believe it. Yeah, yeah. So as a brand new agent, not knowing a whole lot, if I wasn't the first one, on the on the doorstep i wasn't eating that month so yeah you know that's how i learned to do this and i conditioned my my clients and i said once i got a really clear picture of what type of property they're

looking for i'd say hey when i call you that means you got to jump because this is what the market's like right now yeah and you're probably going to have to lose a few properties before you really understand this and believe me but when i call you it's it's game time and uh i took that whole strategy right into a to being an investor that that's the only way that I knew how to do it so I think speed is so important and that's why I teach the way I teach where you know just run your quick numbers get your offer in the ballpark get that thing under contract and then go and do your real full investigations and everything I totally agree totally get out there make an offer yeah because I lost too many in the beginning by being slow and trying to be cautious so I learned the how the the contract works

how to word my contract, so I was secure and safe, and I could just submit an offer with confidence. And I knew then if it didn't check out, hey, I went on to the next deal. And I just think that's so smart because, I mean, there's a financing contingency, there's the appraisal contingency. I mean, there are many several ways out. Right, right. I mean, I think I at first had some fear around that, like, oh, my God, you're making an offer.

And sometimes I hadn't even seen yet. I was on my way to the property with the offer right now. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly. I'd be like, I'm showing, we'd write the offers right on the hood of my car. I'd say sign here. Hurry. You know? Whatever it takes. Right. I mean, it's, I think what it helps to really know your market, though. When you look at the property and you're like, if I show up and it looks anywhere the way it looks online, I'm going for it. Mm-hmm. I think it means you run the numbers before you get there.

Right. Right. Okay. So you purchased a good portion of your. properties if all of them, maybe not. Maybe, I think you said, 10 to 20% below market. Is that accurate? Only the ones I purchased after the market crash. Oh, after the market. Okay, right.

Before that, I was just buying properties to buy properties. Yeah, we don't care about the past. We just want to know what's going on now. Okay. So, very good. So you're getting some good discounts in a rather competitive market. Other than speed, what else are you using to get your lower offers accepted? Looking for short sales is one strategy.

Okay. Because, again, like, I get looking for patterns, most of the buyers out there who are looking to occupy a home, they prefer standard sale. A short sale could take three months, six months, nine months a year. It's a wildcard, so they tend to be a little bit less competitive, especially the property condition isn't that great. So I would target short sales, but I would have, like, two or three at a time on the contract. contract because only half of them tend to close. Right. So besides speed it was, I typically didn't go for a standard sale.

I haven't done that in a while. So I'm going for a short sale. I'm looking for one with only one bank. I'm looking for something that I know where I could sort of improve it to add to the value because it needs some work. Right. And this might sound really, really horrible, but in some cases, this agent spoke Spanish and I would use my Spanish.

Take whatever you got. It works one time. Your tools and resources, absolutely. Absolutely. Whatever I can use. Right. It's great. It's great.

You just give me this deal. Yeah. God gave us all individual gifts and we all should use them. I believe. Absolutely. I've tried. I think those were my big things. Just looking at the condition, I didn't want anything that was, you know, in perfect condition.

Mm-hmm. So something that needed some cosmetic work. Mm-hmm. You know, landscaping, carpet, things like that, primarily short sales and getting to them as quickly as possible. Typically with a short sale, the bank is just looking for at least the asking price or something just a little bit below. And the asking price since already the low market value. Right. Or sort of that was my circumstance.

What is the short sale market looking like right now? I mean, it's definitely not the way it used to be. There are still some, but there are fewer short sales on the market. That's one. And I think my other noticing is that the ones that are in the market are not as significantly below market value as they tended to be before. So they're like lifting them at market value. Right, right. It's not as attractive as it used to be.

And also because inventory is low, I think it's even lower than it was then, a lot lower than it was then. there are, you know, a lot of buyers going after short sales now, where before that wasn't the case. Right, right. Because this is not the truth from. The competition is definitely there. And I think the banks got a hell of an education in the last few years on real estate, didn't they?

Oh, they were forced to. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So what do you see for the future? I've read a few headlines recently about shadow inventory, possibly being released again. I've read some articles and some, we've seen some headlines about the hedge funds,

maybe getting bored with real estate and going to liquidate. You heard anything like that? I have. I've heard both. And, I mean, I wonder how, I mean, everything in grocery is market-specific. So I feel like it still depends. I mean, I think clearly there are still great deals and good deals, at least, in certain areas.

As far as my market, I feel like I capitalize at a time as best as I could when there were great deals there, and now there aren't many investors left in the market. But at the same time, I feel like there may be some other markets where there still are some opportunities. Right. Indeed. Yeah.

So when you say good deals, when you define a good deal or you define an opportunity, what are you using as your barometer? Great question. I would say below market value, 10 and 20 percent, 20 would be better. That's really hard, so I'll take 10 these days. Typically what I do is I like when I purchase a two units, the first unit covers all of the entire mortgage, principal interest, tax of insurance, and hopeless on maintenance,

and then the entire, like, the basement is all cash flow. To me, that's typically it. If I actually purchase a two unit, I can rent one unit, and that covers everything, and the second unit is all cash flow. good. I tend to look for anywhere between 25 to 30 percent cash in cash per time. So I try to always get close the cost assistance, anything I can get from the seller to make sure that I'm not, I'm putting in the least amount possible. Right. So if I'm investing 15,000, I like to know that my cash flow will be at least 30% in a year.

I mean, I've been able to get 100% return. It's not normal, but 2010. So, I mean, I know, like, for me, if I can double what I would make in the stock market, which I've known nothing about, I'm going after it. Sure. Because I'm investing in my 401K blindly, so I'm like, this is not the way to go. Mm-hmm. I can't keep doing this.

I scale back significantly. to max it out, then I kept, the more I read, the more realized that I made no sense. So I stopped maxing out my 401k, but I do have a company match, so I contribute up to the match and then invest the rest in real estate. Perfect. I love it. There's two things that I heard. And one is you absolutely do have your own set of minimum deal standards. As long as you can get one unit to pay the expenses and you can have the second unit to cash flow to be your your profit, then that's a good deal to you.

It totally is. Right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. So you've got some minimum deal standards.

You've got some buying criteria. And I think that's why you're succeeding now. And so very good on that. And then you also said something else, which I think is very interesting because frequently people ask me, well, what type of ROI should I go for or what's a good ROI? And, you know, it depends. But in your definition of that. that is, hey, if I can double what I'm getting in the stock market, that's a good deal.

And... Pardon me? Yeah, so me it is. Right. Yeah. No, to you it is. You know, it's... And it just depends.

And then, you know, I kind of look at 33% is my minimum. So if I can get all my money back in three years or less, then that's something that doesn't take a whole lot of thought on my part. That's something I will move forward on. But that's for me. And then, you know, there's other people that got, you know, hey, my name. savings account is getting 1% if I can get 5% that's a good deal there's other people that you know I've never used my own money and I get an infinite percent so there's everything in between

right I mean I would love the latter I just haven't never figured that out yet yeah yeah well they're a lot of fun and I've only recently started deploying my own money but up to this point I have almost it's almost an infinite return on almost everything that I own and uh That is amazing to me. I hear you talk about it and I'm like, I just want one of those, just one. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because once you get, you figure it out, I feel like I just need to figure out how it's

a one and then I'll be golden. Sure. Because that is, I think that's inconceivable to people. It's, okay, so it's not. And here's how simple it is. Okay, you being a real estate agent, you have access to the multiple listing service and you're out there and you're submitting a lot of offers. Run a search for people and maybe network within the real estate agents that you know

if you're an office or not, if have any contact with that, just ask for the properties that offer seller financing that are willing to finance. Okay. And just keep asking that. And, you know, you're going to, some agents are just, they're so, you know, they're so out there that some of them will even laugh in your face. Like, ah, if I could get that anymore by it, blah, blah, blah. But they're out there.

They're out there all the time. That's my favorite question for realtors. So you ask for seller financing. Then whatever the down payment is, okay, well, you factor in, you factor in what your ROI would be with the seller financing. So say, you know, that they're going to, let's just play with nice basic numbers. It's $100,000 property. They're going to carry back 80%.

So they're going to carry 80,000. And you have to come in with 20,000. Okay. So now that, so on the 80,000, I don't know, what would it rent for? So let's say just a normal 1%. So it rents for a thousand bucks. So that 600 would be your net. six times 12 is what, 72?

So 700 or 7,200. You follow my math? Yes. Okay, so 7,200 is your annual cash flow. And so you divide 7200, divided by the $20,000 you'd have to put down. But there you go. There's a 36% return right there.

Totally. Right. But the $20,000 is out of my own box. Right. We're not going there. We're just figuring out the numbers right. now. Okay. All right. All right. All right. So you got the 36% and that would be interest only payment. If it was fully amortized, then, you know, it'd probably be a little less net. So let's just

round it down and say a nice, even 30%. Okay. Okay. Now, who do you know? Maybe someone else in your administration that has money in their 401k and last year it got 4% return. Would they be open to an 8% return on $20,000? Because you're getting, you're getting 30% on. You're getting 30% on. on that $20,000. So of course, now that you have the property under contract, you have an agreed terms with the seller financing, you've got 30% return on that 20 grand, so now you know how much you can give,

what type of return you can give to whoever gives you your $20,000 back. And then their property, or their money will actually be secured with a second trust deed against the property. So their money is more secure there than it is in a stock market, and they're getting a higher return.

That is so true. So when that's it, when you can explain like that to somebody, money actually is very easy to get. And once you pulled that off, Nicole, now you have an infinite return. Oh, my gosh. There's your infinite return. I mean, I'm thinking through, like, my friends and tell me, I'm like, okay, who could I do this with? Because I really want to try it.

And I think one huge thing you have an advantage of with your friends and family, your skeptics, your cynics, the people that think you're crazy. Well, hey, I got 11 properties right over here. I have 12 units after next week. I only need eight more, and I get to retire if I want to. Yes. Thanks to saying that again. Right?

So you have proof. You are the real deal. They should trust their money more with you than they should with anybody else. So if you have that mindset and you approach it and you explain it to them and you can educate them in that fashion, infinite returns are very, very easy. And then would you then, if you were able to get that $20,000 from a friend or a family member, would you then give them like a 10% return or 15% and you take the rest? I'll give them whatever they want, as long as it's not over 30, and it doesn't put any stress on me.

Right? So what I would say, this is how I would do it. And I've raised over a million dollars of cash before I even owned a property doing this exact same thing. Once I had the deal under contract, I would ask them, Hey, Nicole, would you be open to an 8% return on your money? Nobody ever said no. Well, of course, but who's going to give you that? Well, you know, I've got a situation that is probably going to pay that.

I don't have all the details yet, but, you know, if I did come up with that, what type of money would you have for that type of deal? And then they'll say, I don't know, for 8%, I could probably come up with 50 grand. Okay, cool. So I'm working on some things. let me see what happens and if it comes through, would you like to get together for coffee and I can go over the details with you?

Well, sure. Okay. Boom. So you know you can give them 8%. And if you can prove to them that you can give them 8%, you know you got $50,000 to work with. But you're not closing for anything right now. Okay? Because there's an education process that has to happen.

So you've got to work them through it. You've got to massage it. You're just doing this to help them along in the process. Okay. So a day or so later, you say, hey, I got something, that thing I was talking to you about, it's going to happen. Do you want to have coffee real quick, and I'll just show you how it works. Okay. Okay, and then you got coffee, and then you just explain everything I just explained to you.

And then here's how you'll seal the deal. You know what? I said that, Nicole, I said I was going to be able to give you 8%, and, you know, that's actually inaccurate. I can give you 10% on this one. Right. Make it better, make it even better at the second meeting. I love it. Okay.

And that's the strategy that I used over and over and over again. And all it takes, now, once they agree to that, and you might have to go through a couple people before you get the first one accepted. But once you get that first one accepted, your whole job is just to make sure that you never miss a payment to that person and they get their money back exactly when you told them they were going to get it back. And do you then just send them a check every month or deposit something in their account every month? You can do it that way or you can set it up with a note servicing company who just takes care of all the accounting for you. Right.

Those are my follow-up. Okay. It's not so simple. Why? I think I have a mental block. It's extremely simple. It's extremely simple. And what most people don't realize, and this is going to, this number is going to increase very soon as the baby boomer start to retire, is that more than 30% of all the properties in the United States do not have a mortgage on them.

Right. You said that I learned that from you. So that means. I learned that from you know, previous podcast. Perfect. So good student. So there's a lot of opportunity out there. Remember when there was a lot of short sales and everyone was doing short sales?

Because that's the low-hanging fruit. There was never 30% short sales in the country. So there are 30% homes paid off free and clear. I think homes paid off free and clear is the low-hanging fruit. Because now you get to deal directly if you market and you get to deal directly with the seller. now you can craft all these types of creative deals where you get seller financing and where you can help out your friends and your family, increase the returns on their money, and you get infinite returns. I love it. Wow.

I got all excited myself. I mean, I kid you not, Matt, when I say I just need to figure out how to do it once. So now I understand it intellectually. And I just need to figure how to operationalize it. I'm going to, yeah, I get it. I get it intellectually. Super. Super.

I think I should go and like lift all my friends and family and think about who may be able to do this. Yes, but. I don't think it's hard to actually find the deal. No. And that's, it's so much easier to get the money from your friends and family, your associates, when you actually have the deal under contract. Right. So when you come to the meeting at the Starbucks or the coffee being your place of choice,

you actually bring the contract with them with you. And you say, I got this deal. And then you bring out your numbers. and this is the pluses and minus. It's just the way you figure out your other properties or your, yeah, your other deals. Right, because it's the same. It's the exact same. It's the same formula.

And you just show them and all of a sudden they go, aha, okay. So I get it. I'm down. I'm in. Okay. I think I should add this. I have 50 goals for the year. I know that sounds crazy too.

You have what? I have 50 goals for the year. 50 goals. Okay. One of them are really like tasky, but it keeps me motivated. I think I'm going to add this to that. I try to do this at least one time before the end of the year. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you should. I think it's amazing. It's almost like you're creating cash out of nowhere. You are. And you do it once, and now of a sudden you won't want to do it any other way. I would be totally hooked. Why not? Right?

You know, and another thing, Nicole, once you, I mean, you've got seven properties. Essentially, you only have three more loans left anyway. Oh, yes, exactly. You're going to have to do it. Yes, or go commercial. Right, right. But I mean, you're essentially going to have to. I mean, if you want to get up to 20 units,

you're going to have to figure out how to do it without a bank loan. Yes. Okay. I've actually gotten to the point where I've gotten a seller to agree to seller financing. Mm-hmm. The terms just were never favorable enough for me, and I was still going to have to use my cash to the 20%. So I think that's the piece I was missing.

Well, that's what you thought at the time, yeah. Yeah. You thought you were going to have to use your cash. That piece of advice of wisdom, it's probably worth a million dollars. Oh, it's built a million dollar portfolio for me, for sure. For sure. It's worthless. Yes, absolutely.

All right, so you have these seven properties. You've got 11 units. Are you managing these yourself? No way on earth. No. Why would you say that? Why wouldn't you want to have control over your properties? Because I used to.

When I just started, I managed them myself, and it was while working a full-time job. I was not doing a good job. My tenant was taking advantage of me. I was allowing them to do that because I was too busy. And I realized that it didn't, it wasn't worth it. I wanted to have time. I wanted time. Like I'm doing everything I'm doing right now to have time.

And so my goal is to have great property managers who get what they're doing, who have great tenants, who provide new updates weekly every other week. electronically and I only call it if I see an issue. I really want to have to maximize my time. And I realize that with my first five properties, I did not want to be a landlord. I would like to be an investor. Right, right. And I feel really strongly about that. I have people asking me when I purchase people like, oh, why don't you just manage it?

No, no way. I cannot be convinced. Right, right. There's nothing, nothing feels better than having the income being generated. and not even having to, like, create a tenant, you know, myself. That's awesome. And my income on my day job,

I mean, to be honest, I'd be working for a lower wage by managing them myself. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. You're brilliant. I'm sorry? I said you're brilliant.

I couldn't agree with you more. I realize that's when I'm running around town. I'm trying to feel like right. I can't. Right, right. I mean, if you're not paying someone 10, percent to manage your property, 10 percent of the rent collected, what, it might be, what, a hundred bucks a month?

That means you're working for a hundred bucks. Exactly. You know? Absolutely no sense. No sense. I said it was a no-brenner for me. After I got burnt out trying to be a landlord effectively, I was like, this is a, there's no way.

Right. Right. You know, yeah, I would like to scale what I'm going, and in order to scale that, I have too. I know I have to have great systems and great people. Again, that's something else I learned from you. But I was doing that even before I started listening to your show

because I value my time. I love what I do now. I will not be doing it forever. I have a few years left in me and I'm already getting excited about the prospect of figuring out my next chapter. I can't tell. I'm more driven now.

My friends, again, think I'm crazy because I feel like I can't sleep. I'm reading a book a week. I'm always up and about figuring something out. It is a human exciting to feel like I'm in control of my life. That is novel. That has not always been the case. Right.

And I think once someone gets to that point, it's hard to not be this motivated. Because it's like, this is actually possible. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's very exciting. I really have a hard time sleeping because there's so much... I'm in love with podcasts. I'm like, I'm like,

I would have been here before if I had this content. Where were you back? Where were you five years ago? I know. I was trying to figure out myself five years ago. It's so exciting. It is. It is.

I can hear it in your voice, and you've been an absolute pleasure to talk to. Looking back, now that you've got the seven properties and you're going to have eight properties and 12 units next week, what has been the biggest surprise to you? Hmm. The biggest surprise? I would say that more people aren't doing this. I just, it's almost as if I have this secret that I invest in real estate. My friends don't need to know or care. I could try to bring it up.

My family members don't really care. I mean, I have a day job. I help kids. I help leaders. I feel like it's something that's so critical. It's a really amazing way to get your life. life back. Mm-hmm.

And I'm surprised people aren't, like, asking questions. Like, why are you buying all these houses? Mm-hmm. What is it doing for you? Like, people don't seem not interested. Mm-hmm. That amazes me. It does, doesn't it?

It amazes. I mean, I, um, just to be totally transparent, like, my whole family struggles financially, every single one of them. Mm-hmm. I think, um, my friends do. I think people embrace their situations and see, like, there's not, a way out. And I mean, I've always read a lot.

I've always been an extremely curious person. And I believe there's a way out. There's several ways out. But when I think back to the gathering with my girlfriend last weekend, they were just like, why talk about finances? It's boring or I really don't know I'm not willing to work hard enough to figure it out. Right. And I think it's fun.

Call me crazy. This is the best board game out there. Well, freedom is fun. Right? I love your answer. You're surprised more people don't do it. And quite honestly, I couldn't have come up with a better answer. And I agree with you.

I can't believe more people just don't do it. And the more people that I interview, and I've made it a practice of entering more and more of the Epic Pro Academy members, because I like to find out looking back, you know, what was the big hurdle? And the other, almost unanimously across the board is it just wasn't that difficult. I can't believe I waited so long. And you're here saying, I'm surprised more people don't do it.

So that's awesome. And I know you've made a huge contribution to a lot of people listening today because a lot of people are there just waiting to hear someone like themselves who have done it and have succeeded. And you've been an amazing example. Thank you so much for sharing your story today. And thank you so much for all that you are doing. I'm not even sure that you're aware of how much you've helped me.

And as a result, will indirectly help a lot of people. Because I have a lot to share. Right, right. And so I really appreciate you. You're doing awesome, awesome work, and just thank you for your contribution. Thank you so much. I'm definitely a fan.

Thank you so much. You know, I don't know if you want to do this or not. It's okay to say no, but if anyone listening wanted to contact you for the sake of creating a professional connection, what's the best way for them to reach out to you? Sure. My email address, which, should I give that to you now? Sure. It's Brian McColl, so B-R-Y-A-N-I-C-O-L-E-E-128 at g-mail.

At g-mell.com. Perfect. Perfect. You know, almost everybody that's been on the show that's shared their story with me has made an impactful relationship out of their appearance here. So I just hope that continues because you're an awesome person. I love what you do during the day. And I love how you're so motivated and you take action.

And you're just an example and keep doing what you're doing. And you'll impact many lives as well. Thank you. You bet. That's the goal. Exactly. It's the goal. I love it.

It's goal number 48, 49, number two. Which one is it? It's actually on my, it's there. It's on my list of 50. I have actual numerical criteria for how many people I like to impact in which way. I love it. I love it. Hey, why now?

We're all here for a reason. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being so giving with your experience. And stay in touch. My line is always open to you. I want to help you any way that I can.

And let's create some more stories and come back and share again. Sound good? Sounds awesome. Thank you so much, Matt. You bet, Nicole. Have a good one. You too. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Okay, so that's it for today. I'm Matt Terriel, living the dream. You've been listening to Epic Real Estate Investing, the world's foremost authority on separating the facts from the BS in real estate investing education. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to visit iTunes and share your thoughts. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you next time here at Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.