Epic Real Estate Investing - Creating Wealth with Randy Lawrence | EREI 170

Episode Date: August 31, 2015

To kick off today’s episode, Matt is bringing back his Shreds the Threads segment to discuss real estate investing education.  Then he welcomes fellow investor Mr. Randy Lawrence to the show.  Randy is a seasoned and highly successful investor from Florida who shares his simple secret to success: working the basics.  It may not be sexy, but if you genuinely work the basics, it works and both Randy and Matt are living proof!  Enjoy! ------- The free course is new and improved!  To access to the two fastest and easiest strategies to a paycheck in real estate, go to FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text “FreeCourse” to 55678. What interests you most? E ducation P roperties I ncome C oaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are two steps to wealth. First, stop doing what poor people do. Second, start doing what wealthy people do. The wealthiest people work their strengths and hire their weaknesses. If only you have the time and resources to do it, now you do. We're VAs for Real Estate.com, and we have some free information for you. Get the five-step shortcut to hiring a rock star virtual assistant that will make you millions. Go to VAs for real estate.com.

Stop doing what poor people do and do what wealthy people do. do. VAs for real estate.com. This is Terrio Media. From Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Yeah, the epic real estate investing, the place where I show people how to escape the rat race using real estate.

You just got to shift your focus. That's all you got to do. You got to shift your focus from making piles of money to making streams of money. change that one thing just one time and you are on your way to financial freedom. Now what I mean by just shifting your focus? How all I got to do is shift on my focus? Well, if you shift your focus, your actions will follow. So if you shift your focus from making piles of money to making streams of money,

if that is your focus and your actions, follow your focus, you are on your way. It's not the most exciting path. Promise you that, but it is the fastest. And that is a promise as well. And once you get their life then becomes exciting. And if you'd like to get started the same way that I did with no money or credit, I had neither one of those when I got started. You can access a free course that I created just for you at free real estate investing course.com.

Free real estate investing course.com. Now, if you got some money and you got a credit score, it's going to be even easier for you. But if you have neither like I did, you got a shot, a real, real shot. All righty. So let's get on with today. Exciting last week, right, for the first week. right for the stock market is exciting yes are you concerned are you worried are you scared what's going on in your mind you a little nervous i'm not not really i mean i know i know that

maybe i should be or maybe i should know a little bit more about the stock market or you know but i don't i don't necessarily to really to know too much about that in my opinion i mean i probably should know more about the global economy and how that affects real estate that would be some information certainly valuable. But I'm not invested in the stock market. But the global economy, I know it affects real estate. So that's just my perspective. My perspective on the entire thing really is there's nothing you and I can do about the actions of the president of China, right?

There's nothing we can do about if the prime minister of Greece wakes up on the wrong side of the bed tomorrow. Or even our own president and our own leaders for that matter. Nothing we can do. But what we can do is, when it comes to finance, what we can do and how we can secure ourselves or create as much security as possible in this world is bank and invest on the basic human needs. We're going to bank on those basic human needs never going out of style, meaning we as humans will always need food, will always need air, will always need water, will always need energy, and we'll always need shelter.

So as long as we can control a certain amount of these basic human needs, we can control to an extent our own little personal economies. And if we can control enough of these basic human needs, like more than we actually need for ourselves, others will pay us to consume or use them. That's what we control. And that's why I'm a real estate investor, an income producing real estate investment. investor because people always need a place to live. I don't see that going out of style ever, not in my lifetime. And they will make an exchange for that shelter. They are going to give me something in return to use my shelter. Now, what they can exchange for that shelter, that may ebb and flow. The amount that you receive for that exchange may ebb and flow, but there will

always be something coming in. And, you know, should the shit hit the fan, we're just going to, we're going to have much bigger fish to fry then. And perhaps literally, right? Perhaps your tenants will be paying your rent in fish, or they'll be paying their rent in goats or chickens or pelts, whatever. So as long as you're investing in one of the basic human needs and investing for income, probably not a lot of reason for alarm when the stock market acts up the way it did.

That's my take. But there are a lot of people that are very concerned with type of volatility in the stock market, aren't there? Yeah, there are. There's a lot of those out there when it starts acting all crazy like that. You know, in a nutshell, what really causes the concern and worry for people, it can be summed up as the unknown. That's where fear comes from. You just don't know what's going to happen. And they don't know what's going to happen. So they're fearful of the future. And they may feel, you know, based off of what they do know, that they're just not prepared for it based on what they know, they know they're not prepared. But is there something that

they could do to prepare? Yes, of course. There's always something that you can do to prepare. Might not always work, but you can certainly hedge your bets in most situations. And I can't really think of an exception. I thought if I sat down long enough, maybe I could. But right now, no, there's always something you can do to prepare. But if you don't know what to do or what's coming, then how do you know how to prepare or what to do or what to go how do you know what to learn when I say learn

there's a big realm of knowledge out there that falls under the category what you don't know that you don't know and really the only way to tap into that resource of what you don't know that you don't know is to seek the information

that you know you don't know and it's through that process that what you don't know you don't know, starts to reveal itself. So education, constant and never-ending education is so important. And I don't think there are too many people out there, if any, that would really argue with that idea. And what I find ironic, though, is in our world and how we've chosen to make our living is the amount of bashing that real estate investing education receives. And it gets pretty harsh. I've seen some of the posts underneath my YouTube videos under my Facebook posts,

some of the iTunes reviews, not really nice. Darn right, mean. And I mean, the word scam comes up frequently. And the same sentence, that word actually comes up in the same sentences where any real estate investing education is mentioned. Or when the guru of the day is mentioned. And I know you've heard such things, right? You've read them. You might have even uttered those things yourself.

or at the very least you thought those things. Like, is this thing going to work for me? Is this guy just pulling my chain? Is this a scam? What is this going to, how is this going to pan out? Should I trust this? And I want you to be really careful with this subject. As your opinion on the subject,

maybe the very thing that's holding you back. I'm going to explain. I'm going to get into more detail. And I don't necessarily mean that the lack of education is what's holding you back, that you need more education. No, but your opinion of the education, your position on the subject

of real estate investing education in general, maybe that's what's holding you back. So let's talk about this for a bit. I'll explain. And actually, I ran across a thread on a popular real estate investing form to help me make my point. So it is indeed that time.

In a world where the internet has made experts of us all and provided us a platform to share that expertise. We must guard the information we consume like never before. What we think about comes about. There is now a man on a mission to protect you from stinking thinking. It's time for Matt. The Threads.

I stumbled upon this thread and the poster writes, the person that wrote the thread, the poster. This is what they wrote. Has anyone looked into Renatus? It claims to be a college on how to become a real estate investor from the best around. There are different courses that offer financial aid and give you access to online classes or you can go to the school, I believe, in Wisconsin. Has anyone tried it?

So that's what, that was the question. And there are a bunch of responses. This was a really long thread, and I'm certainly not going to read all of them. There was a very small number of them that were supportive. There was a slightly bigger chunk that were kind of indifferent, but then there were a bunch that were really negative and nasty. And I want to point out a few so that should you share these perspectives or maybe you develop your own opinion or perspective based on what these others had to say,

you could seriously be hurting yourself. Now, before I read any further, before I go any further, I want to make a very clear that I do not represent Renatus in any way. They have a direct sales aspect connected. to it where the students can invite other students and those students will get compensated based off of the students that they enroll. So there is that involved and I just want you to know that I'm not affiliated in the slightest. I used to be.

It's been several years now, but I am no longer affiliated with that company whatsoever. And although I did get my start at Nouveau-Riche, of which eventually became Renatus, so I did go to that whole educational platform, this discussion isn't necessarily about the organization. but because I did get my start there, I just felt I needed to disclose that to let you know that there's no weird angle coming in here. And I just, I feel I'm rather qualified to speak on the subject and make some good points of how damaging certain opinions can be. All right. So the first response is, my advice is to stay away from organizations like this if you're really intending on becoming a real estate investor.

I won't accept rent from a felon because I won't rent to them. and I certainly wouldn't pay a felon to teach me how to invest in real estate. All right, so this person has a strong opinion about this organization. And so the first thing, and I'm going to break all of this down, but the first thing is the person's advice and very first comment is to stay away from organizations like this. Stay away. Now, from my perspective, having come through this organization for my real estate investing

education, that causes me to scratch my head a bit. And to be fair, though, I don't know this person's experience. Maybe they had just an absolute terrible experience. But all I can really speak on is my experience. Because it's this very education that built a multi-million dollar real estate portfolio for myself and a very blessed life for me and my family. Now, I do know, however, several people, I know several of these people personally, that attended the same organization.

It did not get the results that I got. So how do you explain this? Myself, even Mercedes went. That's how we met. We met at this organization. We were both very successful doing real estate before we actually became a couple. So we sat right in the same room with everybody else. We heard the same information, received it from the same people, got the same little workbooks, got the same little action plans and homework.

How did some people get good results and some people didn't? is it the organization or is it the student? For example, does the unemployed person with a degree from USC blame his college for not being able to find a job? I mean, are there people out there right now with college degrees that don't have jobs? They are, right? Or maybe they have a job that's well below their qualifications. Do they blame their school for that? Do they blame their college for that?

this Harvard diploma is worthless? What a scam that college was? No. That's not uttered at all, right? At least I've never heard it. That'd be ridiculous, wasn't it? But that's what people do when it comes to real estate investing education. You know, at what point should the student take responsibility for their results?

You know, just because you join a program like that doesn't mean you're automatically a real estate investor. You still have to go through a curriculum. You still have to learn and then you still have to go implement what you learned. And I've been to the rich dad events. I've been to the Fortune Builder events. I've been to Armando Montalango events. I've been to events by all the big dogs. And sure, you know, it has a strong feel.

This is more of a sales organization than an educational organization. And we've all been to those events, right? And they all share really awesome, inspiring, motivating stories that get you all excited. And they might even, with their slideshow and the way they explain it, make investing in real estate look really easy. They might embellish a little bit on how easy it is. But are they actually lying? Are they sharing information about real estate investing that actually isn't true? You know, they say, go do this, that, and this.

And instead of finding a distressed house there, you're going to find a distressed car. Like, are they sending you down the wrong path? I haven't been to them all. So I can't say for certain, but for the many that I have attended, I don't recall ever hearing anyone lie about real estate. And all I'm saying here is the information is there. The information is real. People have succeeded with that information, and there's people that haven't. So is it the organization to blame, or is it the student?

Now, the person that's looking for information on this forum, I don't care if they join Renatus or not. I really don't. Nor do I care if you do or not, or any educational platform for that matter. But here's what I do care about. Here's what I care about are the people that this person's words are going to affect. That's going to steer their decision one way or the other. Because I know if I had read something like this prior to joining Nuvo, reach, I probably wouldn't have joined and I wouldn't be where I am today.

And that's a very scary thought for me. That's why I'm bringing this up because it's important. That could have altered the entire course of my life had I read something like that based on one person's bad experience. Now there was a lot more than one person on this thread, but I just pulled this one out as an example. Now the second part of this person's comment reads, I won't accept rent from a felon because I won't rent to them and I certainly wouldn't pay a felon to teach me how to invest in real estate.

I really don't know what they're referring to as accepting rent from a felon because they won't rent to them. I understand what it says, but I don't understand how it's relevant to this. But the second part that they write, they wouldn't pay a felon to teach them how to invest in real estate. Now, I probably do know where this is coming from because I do have some information on this. The person is speaking, I'm pretty sure, of the previous owner. Not the current owner of Renatus, but the previous.

owner, the owner of the former company, Nouveau, Risch. I'm pretty sure they're speaking of Jim Piccolo. And yes, from what I've heard, he is a felon. I haven't actually even done the research myself, but I've heard he's a felon. But here's why I heard the story that as far as I know how it went. When he was in his 20s, his girlfriend crashed her car and he tried to get rid of it and dispose of it and claim the insurance. I think he got busted for that.

That's what I heard. Now, I don't condone that. I'm not saying that was a good thing to do. But his felony had nothing to do. with real estate and it had nothing to do with his business. He just made a dumb move when he was a kid. And we've all done that, right? And he made a dumb move for a girl.

I've certainly done that. So the point here is, you've got to be careful where you take your advice from. There's a lot more to this story than just don't give your money to a felon. Now, I will go on to say that the breakup between Jim Piccolo and now owner Bob Snyder, it wasn't pretty. and Jim did seem to come out on the wrong end of that separation with a damaged image and reputation. But I'm not going into that. For one, I don't know much enough to speak on it one way or the other. And two, the details really have nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make here.

So let's get back on the track. The point being is I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for the educational program that that, quote, unquote, felon, put together. And if I had read these words or heard, these words prior to joining that education, I probably wouldn't have purchased it. And what a shame. I mean, what an awesome life that I would have missed out on. And I think about all the people that are reading this thread right now that are forming an opinion and not pursuing it.

Now, I don't know if they're going to have the same results as I had or not, but how do you know? and who is it this person's right to make that decision for them. Just how I'm looking at it. And that's why I brought it up because it made me like, wow, if I had read this, I wouldn't have joined. And I have no idea where I'd be today. Maybe back in grocery still. I don't know.

Maybe I'd be the manager of the grocery store. All right. So the next comment on the thread. How about a class for real estate agents? You don't have to take the test and become an agent. Just so they're saying that maybe you can go and take the real estate agent education. which is I guess far more cheaper than what new or Renatus would be. But then no, you don't need to get your license.

All right, so that's their advice. I want to be short and sweet with my response here. The education you received to become a real estate agent does absolutely nothing to prepare you to become a real estate investor. And I have two points to make here about this. First, a real estate agent, this is what bothers me. And I actually, I made the mistake in the beginning. So I'm guilty.

But now that I know better, and I hear people talk like this, it drives me nuts. A real estate agent and a real estate investor, although they both have the word real estate in their title, have nothing to do with each other. They're not even remotely the same thing. It'd be like thinking you could go to a flight attendant school to become a pilot. Yes, they both earn their living in a plane, but they are not even close to the same thing. So that's my first point. My second point is the real estate education. that's given to you to get your real estate agent's license,

not only doesn't it doesn't prepare you to be a real estate investor or nothing to prepare you to be a real estate investor, it hardly prepares you to become a real estate agent. I mean, you may get some moderate contract law in there. You may learn how to stay out of jail when you do a transaction, but it does nothing to show you how to represent a buyer, shows you nothing, how to represent a seller, and shows you nothing how to get either one of them,

how to help them get the best deal possible. and that's why people hire real estate agents because they want a good deal. They want to find the best house for the best price or they want to sell their house for the most price for the highest price.

It's one of the bigger jokes in life that I've ever been exposed to, ever. It's really sad. I mean, if you want to be a good real estate agent, all the education that will help you do that comes after you get your license and is 100% voluntary. Voluntary.

They force you to, go through the process and pay to get an agent's license that doesn't even pay you to be an agent. To become a good agent, you have to pay for all that afterwards, and that's just if you want to or not. Terrible advice. And so those are two points. This person, if you're looking on the threads, you just got to be really careful what you read. All right?

I mean, we all know everything on the Internet is true, right? We all know that. But still, you got to take it all with a grain of salt as well. And there are plenty of more comments there that I could have read. But these two really made my point. So no need to beat this dead horse and go through every single one of them. What I want you to leave here from, or from here, thinking about is, I guess what I think is going to be the most helpful to you is,

if you're not getting the results that you want, is it the information that you're operating from, or is it you? Is it the information that's not working, or is it you? Here's another really good question in the same vein. Are you doing everything you know to do and are you doing it as well and consistently as you know to do it? Right? Are you doing everything you know to do? And are you doing it as well and consistently as you know to do it?

Answer that question for yourself. It's a very personal question. I'm going to let you sit with that all by yourself. Answer that question for yourself and then take action on that answer. Thank you, experts. Please keep your heads in the clouds and your fingers on the keyboard, so Matt can continue to Shred the Threads! Contrary to popular belief, a lack of funding is not the biggest barrier to starting a business.

It's excuses. But don't let a lack of funding be your excuse. We are epic fast funding, and we'd like to fund your business with up to $150,000 in revolving credit lines. If you've got 60 seconds and a solid credit score, you could have access to your funds in as little as seven days. Go to Epicfastfunding.com to fill out our 60 second application. It's fast, it's simple, up to $150,000 in as little as seven days. Go to Epicfastfunding.com. I've got a special guest on the phone, a very experienced and very successful real estate investor,

to share with you what's working for him and what's not. and the lessons from the past that he's carried forward, the lessons from pre-crash to post-crash and how he's now preparing for the future. So on the phone, please help me welcome Mr. Randy Lawrence. Randy, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Awesome, man. Matt, it's great to be with you, my brother. Yeah, finally, huh?

We've been working on us. I know, I know. We've been trying to connect, so I'm glad that we could finally get it together. Super. Where are you calling from? I'm right outside of Tampa. So sunny Florida, well, we're getting tons of rain, but normally sunny Florida. God, I know.

They're just there last week. I didn't know you lived in Tampa. Yeah, thankfully, I know we're part of the same mastermind, of course, but I'm 20 minutes up the road. So when it's here in Tampa, it's an awesome. I'm just, you know, bam, just drive down and I'm right there. Yeah, that's convenient, for sure. Cool.

So I guess bring me up to speed. We haven't gotten to talk a little bit a whole lot. We certainly pass in the hallways and give each other high fives. But tell me a little bit about your background and how you got into real estate. Yeah, my background is, I owned a money management company, was involved in that, and then probably about 2003 really got focused into real estate on the investment side and began moving into that first with rental acquisition and rehabbing rentals, and then probably 2005 started more so

moving into kind of rehab and single-family homes and building rental portfolio. And, of course, you know, things were going well here in Florida, and then probably 2008, everything fell off the cliff, you know? Right. So it was at that point, you know, we really had to look at saying, well, what are we going to do? What's going to be the focus? Because we were full-time in investors and the business at that time. And so we really kind of put our focus into what was taking place with the market, working with short sales, developing, working with all the foreclosures.

and that really was probably our focus for 2008 through 2012 and just had a single focus on that because again we probably had a lot of things going on with rentals and rehab and some wholesales and when things were falling apart we really had to kind of focus on the one thing and so we really focused on the short sales and foreclosures during that time frame so were you flipping those?

Yeah yeah well exactly with the short sales we were flipping them and the foreclosures the same flipping them. Really, in that time, we weren't doing any rehabs. And then, again, as the market started to change and, you know, started to come back, then we began to implement more of our rehabbing. Because, again, my background, I enjoyed the rehabbing kind of part of it. And, you know, so we really started resuming that focus probably in about 2012 as the market started to come back.

Super. Okay, so here we are in 2015. What have you been doing the last three years? Just rehabbing? Yeah, the last three years, we still had the short sale company, because again, Florida is having a lot of short sales and foreclosure still. But we really begin to ramp up the focus on the rehabbing, just because, again, the economics of it, you can make a lot more money, and it just worked out in that regard. And so for the last three years, we've been virtually, I would say 90% of our focus has been on the rehabbing and then selling to retail. Got it. So you're looking for a retail, the resident owner as your buyer? Pretty much, yeah, pretty much. Just again, that's what's been a solid part of the marketplace here where we're at in Florida.

Fantastic. I know you're building a rental portfolio pre-2008. Any plans on doing that again? Are you doing that now? Yeah, well, and again, like here in Florida, when that happened, we got kicked in the teeth a bit, you know, just because even stuff that we had that had significant equity, when things just fell off the cliff, it affected that as well. But we actually have started rebuilding that, just because, you know, the ownership of rental properties long term, that is definitely a pathway for creating wealth. And so, I mean, we probably have a handful right now. maybe about 10 or so.

And then starting to look to add to it. I mean, we just added one last week, you know. So we're being selective. You know, we still do a lot on the rehab front. We've got a pretty massive scale going with that, which is great. But we're starting to add to it, yeah. Okay, perfect. So I'm curious because I started building my rental portfolio pre-2008.

And I was in various parts, mostly Illinois and Tennessee. and we certainly experienced, you know, whatever the rest of the country did with the price is plummeting, but we weren't really affected that much. I mean, we lowered their rents a little bit to accommodate our tenants, and it wasn't, we weren't affected that much. So I'm curious, what was different about Florida? And you mentioned even the properties that you had significant equity in. What happened there and what are you doing differently now to prevent that from happening again? Yeah, well, and that's a very good question.

I would say one of the significant things that we really took away in, learn from that. We had a lot of low-end multifamilies. So like I had a seven-unit apartment, two buildings, seven units, multiple duplexes, triplexes, that kind of thing. And so now again, normally you think, hey, that's a great strategy, just because, again, multiple cash flows coming off of one property, that kind of thing versus the single-family rentals. But what we experienced here is a lot of those properties, one, they were geographically spread out. because, again, we were acquiring in a period of, like, you know, three, four, five, and six, which was a super hot market here in Florida, so we had to really, you know, get distressed properties.

So they were geographically spread out. Plus, they were in lower economic areas. And so what happened is as the market crashed here, there was, you know, really a situation where most of the apartment complexes and then even single-family landlords completely lowered their standards so that then you had people who otherwise couldn't get into a nice apartment building. They're now getting in there with the pool and the tennis courts and all that. So what tended to be left was the absolute worst of the worst bottom of the barrel type scenario for people who look into rent, real unstable individuals.

And so that affected like even that seven-unit building. It went from $500 on one-bedroom places down to $300. and that was typical of the area that was there. And then even to the values, that building was probably valued at about $400,000 and then was down to about $170,000. So it just really became a very difficult scenario. So, I mean, my takeaway from it, and then what we're doing now is single-family rentals, I think, and again, I know this is part of the bread and butter you're in,

single-family rentals really provide a much more stable scenario. You've got good quality people that are looking for a quality home for them and their family. And then, you know, fairly much regardless of what's going on economically speaking, there are always solid people looking for a home for them and their family. Got it. Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, if you got the, two things that kind of hit me there. if you're in low and multifamily and it's performing, and all of a sudden they can upgrade their living conditions significantly for the same rent.

Like, who wouldn't take that? And that had a lot to do, I guess, with Florida being overbuilt to an extent, right? It was, yeah. And you had that situation where there was just a lot of that opportunity, plus then people trying to rent out their houses. And a lot of the foreclosure landlords, you know, they had multiple properties that rent foreclosure. They're virtually giving it away because they're keeping the rent.

too, you know what I mean? So they're, you know, whatever, instead of charging $1,200 for renting the house, they're renting it for $750 because they're pocketing it and not paying their mortgage. You know, so it was a number of dynamics working against us. And, you know, like with all the rentals that we have now, which, I mean, it's not a bunch. Like I said, probably about 10, they're just, you know, good people living in the home, pay the rent, and, you know, never hear any problems out of them. And they just mail the check in.

So that's more of the focus of. as we add, we're adding in that capacity. If I was looking at single family and we have, or excuse me, multiple family, we'd look at larger scale apartment buildings, you know, probably something on the scale of like 80 to 100 plus, because then you can get a better dynamic and, you know, learn from the lessons of the past, so to speak. Right.

Yeah. For sure, we want to take those lessons and make sure we don't make the same mistakes again. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's, you know, I mean, I think one of the things, even, too, the folks that are listening, and the benefit of, you know, maybe having people like yourself or, like, with what we provide now, too, trying to help and give solid guidance and direction to people, that's something that, you know, in a realistic way, I did not have that kind of, you know, solid mentoring or, you know,

I mean, a lot of the things I learned, I learned from the mistakes I made. And so there was a high price to pay for learning those things. It's funny that, did you say that? because, I mean, every investor that's been in the business for more than a year, you know, has some very expensive, painful lessons. Yeah. And I just, when I hear people badmouth gurus for the price that they charge for their education, I was like, that's a deal compared to what the real world lesson is.

Yeah, that's a bargain. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Well, it's like, you know, and that's just the truth. It's like, you know, I was just. talking to somebody the other day, if I would have had a lot of the insights and or help that I have subsequently received, it would have cut down tremendously on the mistakes that I made and or the losses that I experienced. So yeah, I mean, that's, you know, for sure without question.

I think the number one thing I would say is people having the right help, the right mentor, the right insight education or handling is, you know, that can really accelerate the result. that they get. Right, right. I just always think that when I hear someone badmouth the price of an education, I'm like, you ain't been in the business long enough because you wouldn't be bad mouth on that if you saw, if you were in the business. You ain't done enough real estate.

Yeah, I mean, if you could pay 10, 15, 20 grand and get the insights and the track that's going to help eliminate, you know, whatever, 80% of your mistakes, that's in fact. I mean, you know, I can get, I guarantee you I lost more than 20 grand. Yeah. Yeah, I had a six-figure lesson in 2011, 2012, and it's still, still bleeding a little bit. I haven't totally suppressed all the hemorrhaging, but, yeah, I get it. All right, cool. So you're rehabbing right now.

What is the source? How are you finding most of your deals? Well, we have, I mean, we just discontinued probably in December, the short sales. We still get stuff coming through us. We've got a number of bird dogs that are out there. Also centers of influence people, attorneys, just from the number of stuff that we've done in the work that we've done in the past. As well as the MLS in the variety of still foreclosures that are out there, there's a number of, you know, government-sponsored sites with HUD and then some of the other auction sites that are out there, we're still able to source deals from that.

And then also, too, we do direct seller marketing, because that's really had been our background with the short sales is mailing default lists and that kind of thing. And so we've just shifted gears to focusing on other parties that are non-default. And that continues to work well with where the area that we're at. So nothing tricky, just the basics. Yeah.

Yeah. I think part of the thing, I guess a lot of times people want to look at, you know, here's the quick flim-flam, you know, here's this new cutting-edge ninja stuff. And it's like the truth of the matter is, just like you said, nothing new just the basics. It's like if you work the basics and genuinely work it, it works. You know, and that's something, it may not be sexy. You know, a lot of things, it's like, well, that's not sexy.

but, you know, being able to have the luxury of being able to spend time with family, drive the kind of car that I want to drive, go on vacation, operate a business and, you know, live in the level of lifestyle that we have, that's sexy. You know, some of the day-to-day operations aren't sexy, but the end result is, you know, it's a blessing. I just hired a new business coach, and our first session was yesterday, and he had said something that I've never heard before,

and I thought I'd had hurt them all. He said, the best businesses are boring businesses. Yep. And that's just kind of what you touched on right there too. Yeah. It's so true. Event that we did, we talked about systems. And, you know, the turnout was decent, but it wasn't as big as it, I thought it should have been.

Just because the word system is just a boring word. Oh, yeah. But the system is what makes the business run. You have to create a system out. Even if you choose all the sexy elements, you still have to create a system out of it for it to work for you. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Well, and it says so true. I mean, I can tell you this. Like, at the one point we had a $5 million portfolio in the rentals. And, you know, the primary system, I mean, we had some, you know, minor things in place, but the primary system was me telling people what to do. And that was so terrible because I was, like, realistically, I was a slave. And it was out of that that I realized, it's like, you know what, this is terrible. I have to develop the systems to free.

me up. And it was hard work to look at doing that. But the net result of that is having those systems in place, then provide a greater level of freedom. But like you said, like that doesn't sound sexy. It's not fun. But that's part of the truth of what it really takes to, I think, be successful. And like what your mentor said is, hey, some of the best businesses are boring. And that's just the truth. Right. Absolutely. I mean, people ask, can I just follow you around for a day. I just want to see what you do. And I was like,

I even had a guy fly in to, and brought his team to sit here and watch. I was like, you're going to be bored to death. Are you sure you want to come? Because it's not exciting. You know, I think he's expecting to see the six guns flying

and fireworks and sparklers and everything. Yeah. Super. So, all right, so you're acquiring your properties, good old-fashioned ways, MLS and HUD and auction.

com. You're doing some direct marketing. You've got your relationships in place. You've got some bird dogs in place. So that's how you're getting your properties. Yep. And then you're going through and you're rehabbing them for the consumer market.

Yep. So you're going for a maximum dollar. What are some of the strategies or techniques that you're using to get maximum dollar? Or is it as simple as just slapping it up on the multiple listing service? Well, there's a couple of different approaches depending on the property and the location and its desirability. With some of them, yeah, we're just, you know, boom, putting it up on MLS and, you know, depending on the location, it's a very attractive location and it goes pretty quick.

Others, too, we have done an open house type strategy where we've offered the property at a lower than market price. And then with that, there's a tremendous amount of interest in the property. And then we, you know, drive everybody to that focus of the open house on that Saturday. So when you get there on Saturday, you've got, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 15 people kind of coming and going. So it creates that element of where there's just kind of a frenzy mindset of, you know, of the takeaway where people are thinking, hey, other people are interested in this house. And then that's also been something that's, you know, been an effective approach of helping to then get multiple offers in on the property.

And even now we see like some of the REO asset managers doing that same approach. You know, instead of throwing a property out on the market at $100,000, they'll offer it at $75 or $80, knowing that it's like, hey, we're not going to look at offers for the first 10 days. So they get five, six, seven offers and, you know, get more money than they would have otherwise. Right, right. Yeah. So it's funny that, you know, the old saying, you know, pre-2000, I guess, even just up to a couple years ago, when we'd always say that, well, the banks aren't in the real estate business. They just want to dump their stuff because they're in the money business.

and, you know, as I was working short sales as well in 2009 and 10 and a little bit into 11, we started to notice like these banks were developing real estate divisions of the bank. Yeah. And so what you just saying that is like they're all in. If they're creating like an auction type open house environment, then they're now in the real estate business. And they've figured out how to maximize their dollar as well. Yeah, they are. They definitely move in that direction to, you know, try to.

capitalize on that. And, you know, so I mean, that's something, too, that, again, depending on what market people are in and, you know, what the level is, you know, again, like here in Florida, we still have a significant number of foreclosures and that, and again, it's tightening up. But you see the banks, you know, they're really trying to maximize every penny out of what they have. So what's in your future, Randy, that you're super excited about? Well, we're, you know, we're continuing to grow the real estate business and expanding that, which has been exciting. Also, too, we actually have a podcast that's going to be rolling out in September called the Real Estate Preacher, and so really excited about that.

It's going to focus on a lot of what we do with the specifics on the step-by-steps of the rehabbing, because, again, that's 90% of our focus, but also have mental and spiritual principles as well kind of infused into it. So that's exciting, and, you know, that's kind of the next focus for us. And, you know, I mean, I definitely have been blessed with just the results of what we'd experienced. And so it's kind of that opportunity to help empower other people that have a specific slant towards doing what we're doing as well.

Got it. I did not know that you're doing a podcast. Congratulations. Yeah, it is. I know I didn't get a chance when we were together this past week to share that with you, but I figured when we talked today, I would. Awesome. Yeah, that's exciting.

We're working on that and, you know, got some great content. And, again, like I said, a lot of that focus is going to be on the step-by-step-step how-toos of rehabbing because we really have dialed it into an approach that works and the systems that work. And, you know, so it really does work well. And that's part of my desire is to share that with people so that they can benefit from it like I have. Fantastic. So the real estate preacher is the podcast. Is there any other way that if someone wanted to get in touch with you, they should.

Is there a website and email a phone number? They can go to the real estate preacher.net. You mean the dot com was taken? Yes, dot com. I got dot net and dot org and then a couple other dot biz and that kind of thing. But yeah, real estate preacher. Dot net. And actually, too, there's a book that's available there.

It's a download that I have. It was a book called Dare to Success. that I was a co-author with Jack Canfield in. And so that's something that's, you know, we're giving that away to people as well. And then on Facebook, it's the real estate preacher that they can connect with on the page there as well. Fantastic.

Super. Well, awesome. I learned so much about you that I had no idea about. Let's do this again for sure, right? Yeah, absolutely. I look forward to it, my brother, and definitely connect together again. Definitely.

So worst case, we'll see you in November. Absolutely. Worst case, we'll do it, but then even two we can hook up before then. Cool. Awesome. All right. Well, it's been a pleasure. Have a good one. Hey, you have a good one now. Thanks. It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. Flipping houses can make you rich, but holding them will make you wealthy.

Subscribe to a new real estate investing podcast. Hold That House with Matt Andrews and Matt Terrio. Subscribe for free. Listen, learn, and earn. That house. Subscribe today. That's it for today. I'll see you right here next week on another episode of Epic Real Estate Investing. I'm Matt Terrio, 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.

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