Epic Real Estate Investing - EPREI 044 : A New Investor Shares the Secrets of His Quick Success

Episode Date: December 24, 2012

On this episode, Matt kicks off a new series of investor interviews. However, these are not your normal interviews. These are interviews of Matt's coaching clients. You'll hear the good, the bad and the ugly in this series of raw and uncut dialogue that Matt has with his clients. Specifically, you'll walk away from this episode knowing: How to research a new market How to take advantage of one the more "deal rich" websites on the Internet that most peole have forgotten How to build your confidence so that you can produce lasting results with as much ease as driving a car or tying your shoe. Get your free real estate investing course, How to Do Deals - No Money Required, at FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Without further delay. Your guru. Sorry. Your guide to a better life through real estate investing. Matt Terrio. Hello and greetings from the epic real estate investing podcast. This is episode number 44. And this is the podcast that will show you how to build wealth through creative real estate investing.

So you'll have the option to realistically retire in the next 10 years or less. and enjoy the good life while you're still young enough to do so. My name is Matt Terrio. I'm an author. I'm a full-time real estate investor, and I'm a family man. This is an awesome time of the year to be a family man. And if this is your first time listening to the show, welcome. Glad that you're here.

Now, you're going to want to do two things. First, go back and listen to episode one for the ground rules of the show. And two, download the free real estate investing course, how to do deals, no money required. And you can get that for free at free real estate investing course.com. free real estate investing course.com. It's a step-by-step course of where I unveil the mystery around doing deals with no money or credit.

You know, to this point in my investing career, I've implemented 12 very different specific strategies of investing in real estate using none to very little of my own money. And I've yet to use one point of my own credit score. Hopefully that can change soon. I've started to do some work on my credit score because I would love to take advantage of some of this very inexpensive money that's out there right now. and, you know, inside this free course, I gave you the very first two strategies that I used,

which I believe are the easiest two, and they are the two that can generate the quickest success, the quickest results for you, and you can get those for free at free real estate investing course.com. I take you right from A to Z. I leave nothing out, okay? All right, I'm very excited about today, as it's the first episode of a series of shows

where I'll be interviewing some of my coaching clients, as, you know, I mentioned last episode. I think it was last episode. So maybe there's two episodes ago, but I've created a new intention around this show in the sense that I'm no longer just here to inform you for the sake of informing you. I'm not just going to teach you

and not just going to give you information, but rather my new intention is to inform you for the purpose of it actually making a difference for you. I want to see you actually get the results. And I'm still not totally sure how the show will change. Maybe you'll notice a difference and I don't know, maybe you won't, but I certainly have a different intention behind my work. You know, 2012 was my greatest year ever in real estate.

I'm so blessed. I mean, so grateful. And I learned a ton. And I want you to experience the same results. I want to pass on my years of experience as I have been doing. And I want to share with you what really has made a huge difference for me this past year. And I want to share it with you in a way that you can actually duplicate my results. So that's the intention.

And today is the first episode and a series of episodes, the interviews of my coaching clients. And I want you to hear from people just like you. A lot of people just like you. I want you to hear about their mindsets. I want you to hear their backgrounds, from all different types of backgrounds. I want you to hear the process inside of their investing and what their daily activities look like and how they're finding their deals and how they're finding the money to do these deals. Everything.

I want you to hear it all. And if you hear enough people's stories, I mean, sooner or later, something's going to click for you. It's going to click. You're going to be able to identify with somebody, and it's going to be just the piece of information that you need to, you know, really just transform the results in your own business, the tipping point, so to speak. And you're going to hear from clients of mine that had great results. You're going to hear from some that had good results and some had mediocre results. And some had really no results at all. I mean, they had no transactions completed during the coaching program.

and I want you to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly, because I think there's something to learn from everyone's experience. And there's so much for me to learn from the experiences as well, because I get to hear what happened or what made one person succeed and the other person didn't when they both heard the exact same information. They got the same coaching. They got the same amount of coaching. You know, and that's really important to me,

and hopefully you can pull something out of that as well. And I want you just to basically just take this information, and so you'll know what to do, okay? Just as importantly, you'll know what. not to do. Okay? That's sometimes that's just as important. Actually, it is just as important. So on the phone today, I am joined by an awesome, awesome dude who is just coming to the close of his three-month coaching program. And he's pretty much on autopilot right now with his business. And, you know, aside from an occasional email or phone call, he doesn't really need me anymore.

I think that's awesome. I mean, that's the intent of my coaching program is to get you to not need me as soon as possible. Okay. So, So let's get into it. On the phone, I have Mr. Alan Randall. Alan, thanks for joining us today on the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast. Glad to be here. Yeah, I'm glad that you're here as well. You know, to get started, why don't you just tell me and everybody else a little bit about yourself, your background,

and, you know, and what you've been doing for a living up to this point before we met. Well, before I entered real estate full-time, I was in the mutual fund industry for five years. I work for an asset manager in Seattle, doing operations and accounting for them. And about two years into that, I began to invest in real estate part-time. As I bought a duplex in North Seattle and managed that myself. I had a few bumps along the road, but learned a lot from the experience. And about three years into that, I decided to jump into real estate full-time. after listening to the first 10 or so episodes of the podcast.

Really? Okay, so it was actually the podcast that inspired you to get into real estate? It was the final step. I've been contemplating, leaving my death job to pursue my passion for real estate full-time. And, you know, the epic podcast was really the final push that led me over the edge and, you know, maybe turning my two weeks notice and finally gave me the impetus to do what I really wanted to do, which is real estate. Cool. Gosh, after all the conversations we've had, I didn't know that part.

So thanks for sharing that. You know, you mentioned that you come from the mutual funds world. I mean, that's somewhat of a, not somewhat. It is an investing outlet, an investing industry, definitely a vehicle for investing. No, what was it about, you know, the mutual funds that wasn't working and causing you to even look anywhere else? Well, the mutual fund industry, ironically, is, I feel that it's not so much focused on investing as it is, you know, treading water now. It's most investors who buy mutual fund except that, you know, 10% is about the best they'll get in any year. And there's really a sense of acquiescence in the industry.

and also for the people like myself who are working in the industry, the going mentality is work for 50 years, and then, you know, assuming a pension fund or a retirement fund works out, we can then retire and start enjoying life. And that really didn't sit well for me, especially, you know, given all the training I had and all the knowledge I had about investments, I knew that there was a better way. And I've studied every investment vehicle under the sun,

And then I realized that mutual funds just weren't the right route for me, and that's why I ultimately left. I've got a couple, no, probably, I think maybe four now of past financial planners. And some of them are extensive 15, 20, 25 years in the business. And they're all, they're coming to the exact same conclusion. I met a guy actually just last night at a USC Marshall School of Business Networking. event and he worked for for morgan stanley and you know he was kind of expressing a little bit discontent with the with the industry as well um anyway side as a side note is i'm just noticing a commonality that i'm crossing paths with more and more people that are inside the industry

that have that sentiment you know so all right so tell me up to the before us meeting what was your experience in real estate um my experience in real estate was good I managed to find some really good tenants to put into the one investment property I had, the two-unit house in Seattle. And I started doing the math about a year into holding the property, and I realized it was doing really well, and that if I could just find a way to replicate it, I could build myself a nice retirement fund from that.

instead of going the traditional stock and bond route. Sure. Sure. So it worked out really well. Right? So you had one duplex when we met. What do you think it was that was in your way that was preventing you from moving forward and doing it again? By far the biggest thing was sphere.

At the time I purchased the duplex, it was sort of at the beginning of the real estate bust. It was about late 2009. and I didn't realize how deep the bleeding was going to go as far as the three-year downturn that I was about to see. I thought that the price drop I had seen in my area was just a momentary blip, but after I purchased it, I started seeing people get laid off and just a lot of financial heartache. And I guess I didn't feel that I had enough experience for resources to leave my full-time job and do the full time. In retrospect, I probably did, but like I said, the biggest, the biggest obstacle was fear at that point, you know, fear that I wouldn't be able to be successful in real estate, given that I only had about two years of work experience at that point.

So, obviously, you did take that leap. What was the, what was it that happened in your life? What was the tipping point? Just general dissatisfaction with my current route in life. You know, I realize that the corporate ladder was definitely not for me. You know, I found myself waking up every morning, going to a job that was middling at best. And just being in an environment where, you know, creativity and innovation weren't rewarded. and by any means it wasn't a bad environment. It was a good place to learn and make a salary, but that was it.

I was surrounded by people who had just sort of accepted that you suck it up every day and do that year and year out and you keep your head down, shut up and do your work. And that over time started to grind away at me. And I really saw myself in the mirror every morning and just realized, you know, I could do so much better. you know, what's stopping me from doing it. So I really did a lot of soul searching for over a year because, you know, at the same time, I thought about going the MBA route, getting a graduate degree from some Ivy League business school. And obviously, I didn't get in, so I had to rethink my entire life plan.

And, you know, at that point, I was pretty beaten down from work and, you know, being rejected by business schools. and I realized I already had this tremendous asset via my real estate holding in Seattle, that one duplex, and then also a lot of experience garnered from that, and I realized, you know, I'm young. I have to make the step, and I ultimately did. Awesome, awesome. So what I've gotten to know about you over the last few months is that you are, you seem very detail-oriented, and I can tell you do your research and you're very proactive about it. So I imagine that you would also, that was also your character before we met.

So I'm curious to, with all of the options available for real estate investing education, may I ask, why did you choose one on coaching with me and why did you choose the Epic Pro Academy? Yeah, absolutely. I must have listened or read, you know, a hundred different guru programs or books. prior to coming across the epic podcast and in your school. And so I've seen what works. I've seen a lot of charlatans in the industry. I've seen, you know, a lot of good ones.

And the epic program was really the best combination of, I think, solid material, realistic expectations and just a really well-polished presentation. I've seen a lot of programs that either hit one or the other. but the epic podcast was really the first time I'd seen something that was brutally honest but also informative and you know had a very very slick polish to it so awesome thanks so since you've been involved in and what has your experience been inside of the epic pro academy it's been good it's been good it's foremost for me has been inspirational um you know the personal side of the podcast, you know, where you share your background and story is really refreshing

for me because it's not coming from the perspective of someone who is or claims to be a guru or someone who has all the answers. It gives me motivation to get up every morning to do this because it is proof that the average person can, you know, with a little bit of effort, make an outstanding living from this industry. My next question is, and maybe you already answered it, but if you can elaborate on it, that would be great. What about the Academy has made the biggest difference for you? Well, the personal coaching has really been beneficial to me.

That is probably the biggest impact from the Academy as far as my career has gone because that's held me accountable to all these, you know, goals and plans and ideas I had in my head and, you know, forces me every day to, you know, to get up in the morning and actually do the legwork. You know, before when I was just studying this on my own, it was very easy to, you know, put off cold calling prospects till the next day because, I mean, let's face it, no one likes to face rejection. But knowing that every week I had to, you know, I had my feet held to the fire, it really

kept me disciplined and kept me on the cycle of success. Any epiphanies or busted myths about real estate investing this far? Yeah, the biggest one is there is no magic formula. I mean, prior to about three years ago, I believe that one had to be a certain, you know, of a certain person. owner of a certain dynamic personality to be successful in the industry and that there was some magic secret to drawing leads and prospects and that's you know how could the average person you know being of mortal status be successful in the industry because so many gurus make it

out to be that they're superhuman and I realized over time just doing what I did through the program and staying to the plan that most likely those people who claim to be, you know, Herculian are probably lying. And if they aren't, you know, they haven't been able to replicate that level of success because it was purely luck. And so I guess the biggest epiphany was, you know, hard work pays off. It's not rocket science. It doesn't take a genius. it just takes doing small right activities every single day. And eventually, eventually success will result.

Awesome. So speaking of success, tell us about your success this far. Okay. Yeah. So within the last, I think, two and a half, three months since I started doing this career full-time, I put a North Seattle house under an option contract for about, $60,000, $70,000 less than its tax-assessed value. And that option is just being recorded right now with the county, and it will be good for the next 10 years.

And then the next deal I have under contract right now is a duplex in Cleveland, Ohio, that if all goes well, will pay me about an equivalent of 20% of my previous full-time salary at my old job without much effort on my part. on the management end. Mm-hmm. Awesome. Cool. So that's good. In the first two and a half months or so, we've got two deals.

Let me, let's go ahead and dissect the one in, you actually are in Seattle, right? I am. Okay. So you live in Seattle, and you found a deal in North Seattle, which you've created an option for. So first, let's just talk about how did you find that deal? It was through the yellow letter writing. I really went on a fierce marketing campaign with that and wrote probably about a thousand letters by hand and just sent them out to certain zip codes to certain properties in the Seattle area,

you know, three-bedroom, two-bath houses and, you know, the nicer zip codes. I got a lot of rejections, got a few weirdos and a few jerks. But a lot of people responding saying they were interested. And then this one house that I put under contract was a situation where they were interested and really had to make something move or had to get a transaction done. I had originally gone in there with a plan of either rehabbing or wholesaling the property, but that didn't quite work out. So I figured at that point my only option was to write a real estate option for the property. and the owner who was under a bit of financial distress had agreed to it. She's going to lease out the property while she moves out and pursues her retirement,

and then I have the option to purchase the property at any time within the next 10 years. And during the process prior to inking the deal, it took a lot of negotiation, a lot of education of the real estate process for her and really just employed a lot of the tools that you mentioned in the podcast that negotiation is as much about presenting myself as it is learning about the seller. And it worked out amazingly well. Very good. So the value of this property as it stands right now,

what would you estimate it as? I had an estimate it's about $240,000. It's valued at 240, okay? Yes. And then, so why did she agree to you purchasing an option on that property at 60K below that? Well, I explained to her, you know, my position. I was up front that, you know, this is how I make my living, so there has to, I couldn't purchase it for fair market value.

Otherwise, I can't make anything. off the property. And I outlined her, you know, my estimated costs of rehab, you know, of completely redoing the property because it is quite old and tired looking. And then I also factored in a certain margin of profit. So that's, that was really the whole just of why, why she agreed to sell it so much lower than what it's after repair value would be. Okay, so the after repair value was 240.

Yes. Okay, perfect. And so why wouldn't she sell it now? Basically cold feet. I haven't been able to identify the exact reasons why she backed out from selling at that point. But I imagine she was just not ready to sell, but she was entirely open to doing it at some point in the future. Got it. Okay, cool.

So how much did that option cost you? $100 plus recording fees. Wow. So you've locked into for yourself into the future some point. You know, probably if the market just stays as it is, it is. You know, probably $10,20 grand. And all it costs you was $100 to reserve that right. Yep.

Cool. Cool. So not a home run, but there's nothing wrong with having a stack of those in your desk and exercising them as they come up. That's one of the more challenging things that most people discover in this business is finding deals. and, you know, if you find an opportunity that you just don't meet eye to eye with a seller today, you know, putting an option agreement on that property, and hopefully appreciation can bring it up to where it will be a deal somewhere down the road is a great strategy.

So congratulations on that. And I will give you some credit on that because we didn't talk a whole lot about options. I don't teach a great deal about options. I cover it in the academy, but you definitely took that upon yourself. You're proactive about that. I just want to congratulate you on that. That's the type of initiative and incentive and, you know, and creative thinking that doesn't necessarily,

it's not necessarily required to succeed, but it certainly increases the opportunities that you'll be able to seize. Does that make sense? Yes. Perfect. So awesome for your, for your intuitiveness on that. So the next deal, you've got a duplex that I know is under rehab right now in Cleveland, Ohio. So tell me about that one.

First of all, it's in Cleveland, Ohio. How did you end up there from Seattle? Really just I went where the deals were. I found that deal doing cold calling via Craigslist. I called a lot of real estate for sale ads that were posted online and had to sit through a lot of interesting transactions and finally settled on this one. And it was really just one call out of the 100 that I made.

And it turns out this, the person I'm buying it from is a distressed property broker for the entire United States area. And he had purchased this duplex as a bank-owned property for a very low price, I think about half of its tax-ass value. and, you know, I had not gone into the transaction thinking Cleveland, Ohio was going to be my place of operations. You know, actually, prior to calling him, I never thought I would go out of state or, in fact, I hardly even knew where Cleveland was. But I familiarized myself with the environment where this property was located and realized it fit all my criteria. It was in a decent neighborhood. It had a strong economic backing to it. where I could find and retain good tenants.

And it was a decent-looking property that could command a certain level of rents. And at the price that he was willing to sell it to me for, it really seemed like a home run. So I've done property management for about three years, four years prior to finding that deal myself. So I was very comfortable with the logistical steps of building out a team of agents and property managers and rehabbers on the ground. in Cleveland to manage the property and without me having to constantly be there. So I settled on that deal because the rent to price ratio was just amazing. And if I could, you know, if I could replicate that deal several times over, I would gladly do it. Right, right.

Well, it sounds like you're on your way to doing something along those lines, right? Mm-hmm. Cool. That is correct. Let me ask You went through this really, really fast About finding this guy Cole calling from Craigslist

He had a deal, a duplex in Cleveland, Ohio And then you went and did your research And built the team and got familiar with the area I think that's the part where most people get stuck It's probably the two most common objections When I'm dealing with people through our cash flow savvy business Is that either They're uncomfortable dealing out of state,

or the other one is the spouse isn't down for it. Those are the two most common reasons people don't. But really, the investing out of state comes up most frequently. So how did you become familiar? If you didn't even know where Cleveland was before, how did you become familiar with that market? Well, I know where to go to pull basic demographics and economic data. Perfect.

So where did you pull that from? Census Bureau is a good place. The BLS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trulia.com has a nice set of heat maps that one can see climate or school statistics. And there's just, you know, if you search, there's a lot of information online. I mean, the internet has really made investing out of a state of an accessible business, in my opinion, because all this information is available for free and instantly. So those are the information sources I go to to get a,

sort of a bird's idea of the neighborhoods that I invest in. And then the next step really is just getting in touch with a good property manager. I go through the National Association of Reel of Residential Property Managers to find a good representative on the ground. And really, they're the next step and probably the most critical step in determining whether I should make the purchase. Because if their bread and butter is to find good tenants, and collect rents ongoing.

And they have a vested interest in making sure that the property is located in a decent neighborhood. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Cool. So, Oxfam's, go to the Census Bureau, the BLS, that's the Bureau of Labor and Statistics,

truly has a good resource, and then the National Association of Residential Property Managers. That's .org, I believe, right? I believe it is. Yeah. But if you do... Yeah. Perfect. So those are all great resources, resources that I've certainly used in the past. And so congratulations for using all of that information and making your decision. So now you've got, now you know your area, you're satisfied with the area that you're investing in. You've, through a few different interviewing a few different property managers, you've decided on one there. And now the property's under rehab. How did you find somebody to fix it?

Well, the seller's taking care of all the rehab. His original plan was to actually flip the property, but because of his circumstances, he is actually going to just, well, he's technically still flipping it to me, but he was already in the middle of rehab as when I contacted him. And so he's just going to finish out, you know, cleaning up the floors, replacing the roof, and getting a tenant ready. Perfect. Perfect. So a little tip just on hearing that, because I didn't understand the exact logistics on that, but a little tip on that is if you like the job that the rehab team does, that's certainly someone's information that you're going to want to get if you intend to keep on rehabbing that area. So that's just kind of how it works. You go from one contact to the next to the next to the next and all of a sudden you end up with an awesome team and it's no different than investing in your own backyard. It becomes that easy. So awesome. Let's see. So that property, you're in escrow on that property right now, right?

Exactly. Perfect. And when is the closing date on that? The closing date is about two weeks from now. Two weeks? Cool. Yeah. Well, awesome.

Congratulations on this rapid success. I'm very impressed. There was one thing that you had shared with me over one of our calls. I'm not sure it was the last call to call before, but through your cold calling, and also congratulations on that. Most people won't do that. It can be a scary proposition. First of all, based on just what I just said, what has your experience been cold calling?

You know, it's actually been mostly positive, which I found a little surprising. I've done maybe about, I want to say about 500 cold calls since we started the coaching program. and in very few of them have I gotten the nightmare scenario where I have someone screaming in my face. So it's overall been a good experience. Most people are polite about rejecting me, but out of the calls maybe about 10% are receptive to selling a property. And then, you know, the rest are not, they decided not to sell a property to me ultimately. but I was still able to add them to my network.

I would say about maybe 60% of the time. So even though I wasn't able to pull properties from 100% of my calls, I had a pretty good success rate in just finding interesting people to talk to and people I could add to my network either as a potential buyer, seller, rehabber, or money lender down the road. Okay, so through this activity, you actually met people that you can see yourself working with down the road. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I probably added about a couple hundred people to my network. Really? That's significant. Significant. Fantastic. There's a question I'm going to ask about the cold calling. You've done a ton of calls. I'm very impressed by that. Oh, this is another frequent question I get from people inside the academy, particularly people that live in less populated areas, I guess. but, you know, they ask me where to, we don't have any problem finding addresses to send yellow letters to, but what a lot of people have trouble is finding phone numbers of people to call.

So you've made 500 phone calls at least. Where have you, what's been your source for phone numbers? Really, for rent, real estate for sale and real estate for rent as posted online. Got it, got it. So you've been calling people that obviously have real estate for sale. Have you been calling brokers also, or are these just for sale by owners? Mostly for sale by owners. I have maybe about 15% of my calls have been to other brokers.

Okay. Very good. You said 15%. Mm-hmm. Cool. 15. And real estate for rent. Tell me about that strategy.

What's your thought process there? Well, the thought process is, you know, I figured if people are putting ads for their property for rent, They're at least somewhat business savvy and hopefully somewhat open to the idea also of selling the property. Because at least in the Seattle area, just from discussions with a lot of landlords, I feel a lot of property owners who are listing on Craigslist are not landlords by choice. They're either rehabbers or people who just got caught in the downturn who weren't able to sell in the last year and got ate up by. by costs, and so they have to go to Plan B and rent out. And so I go in there with a mindset that that is half the time the scenario I'm dealing with. So they've considered a possible sale in the past when able to do it, so they're renting out the property.

Perfect. Yeah, I really go in there with a mindset that, you know, I mean, everything's for sale. Mostly everything's for sale. it's just I had to find the one that's willing to meet me at the right price. It's an awesome, awesome strategy, and it's actually my favorite strategy. It's my favorite person to purchase from our distressed investors. And, you know, if you find people that have properties for rent, obviously they're not living in them. So it is an investment to them.

So it's a great indicator of contacting or a great way to find investors. So perfect. You had a lot of success with that, and I'm not surprised at all because, distressed investors, they've probably been the source of most of my deals. Tell me about what are your today now. Let's see. Got a few questions written down here. Okay, here's the one that this would be the next one.

So what's really different right now between, what's different about you that is allowing you to accomplish this and has given you the confidence to continue to do it? It's having the proof in my own life that hard work does pay off and persistence does pay off. You know, if you were to ask me before I started doing this, you know, four months ago, if I could be successful through, you know, repeated actions on the right track, I probably would have given, you know, somewhat positive answer, but now I'm a positive answer, but now I can, now I'm absolutely confident and having, and I have faith that my actions will ultimately lead me to the, to where I want to go. And that really is, that really is a lifeblood of

any successful career, in my opinion is, it's, it's, having that faith because otherwise we, we wouldn't get up in the morning, we wouldn't make the calls, we wouldn't write letters, we wouldn't follow up on leads. If there was, if there was a doubt in the back of our minds that our hard work would pay off, then why bother? So I would say that's the biggest difference. And it's, yeah, I've been immensely positive on my life. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You'd mentioned at the very beginning, the reason that you hadn't really gotten started, hadn't done this full-time, was fear. How do you look back now and view that fear? It's almost humorous to me now. And, you know, I have a luxury now, given that I know that I'm not going to end up in the poor house by leaving my standard 95 job. I look back on this year, it's, I think it was a product of a number of things. I think one was the environment.

The environment I found myself in was very much the traditional mindset when it comes to building a career. It wasn't It wasn't very entrepreneurial It was It was almost like being on an assembly line It was just I wore a suit to work every day So yeah I think that was

That was a big reason why I had that trepidation You know going into this business And ultimately that's That's what prevented me from Diving Head First Earlier than I should have I think also

I see it as, it partially is irrational. Sort of like the fear we have of the unknown. I had no idea what it meant to be an entrepreneur. I came from a family where entrepreneurship wasn't necessarily discouraged, but I just hadn't seen it a lot in my own life. Most of my friends and their families and all my relatives had stayed with traditional careers. and their highest achievement in life was to get, you know, quote-unquote, a good-paying job. And so I was really embarking on a path that I had never seen function well before.

And I guess because of that, not having that proof, I assumed it didn't work, which is, you know, looking back is completely unreasonable. You know, your very first response when I asked how do you view that fear then, and your first word was humorous. And I frequently get that email, those questions in the email, I'm just scared of getting started. And my advice is like, just start, just start, because I guarantee you you're going to look back and you're going to scratch your head and you're going to laugh and wonder what you are so scared of. You know, and it's just the word that you, and it is humorous. It's funny.

And you laugh at yourself. And that was your first response. I'm batting a thousand on that advice. So if you're having trouble getting started out there, just start, and you're going to look back and you're going to laugh at yourself of what had stopped you. That there's really nothing to fear out there. There really isn't, you know, the famous quote, there's nothing to fear but fear itself. And it's, you know, it's too bad. That's a cliche because it's so true.

Let's see. So right now, what are your day-to-day real estate activities looking like? Well, when I get up in the morning, I do some motivational activities, just get myself started, check emails from my brokers and bird dogs and wholesalers. And I do that for about maybe an hour in the morning. And then for the next couple hours, I review deals, I follow up on leads, and I make cold calls. and then write offers if I've come across properties that interest me. And then after I finish up those daily activities, I tried to do at least one or two hours of, I guess, research into new markets or new techniques.

It's sort of like building out my knowledge base, just so I can be ready in case the transaction comes by. And then after that, usually it's either more research or I'm in meetings with potential sellers or money lenders or talking to my brokers. And then do that for a couple hours. And then after that, it's, you know, I follow up with some more, you know, motivation to keep myself going. and then from there, that's pretty much the end of my day. I would say I work about five to eight hours on any given weekday, and I do that for anywhere between four to seven days a week. Let me ask you.

You mentioned that you begin your day with motivation, you end your day with motivation. What type of motivation do you do and what kind of value do you see in doing that? Why do you continue to do it? There are two things I do. One is I review the goals have set out for myself through the epic coaching program. And I really internalize that and I repeat it almost like a sutra because it forces me to stay focused on my goal and realize why I'm doing this. And then the second activity is I read The Ten Scrolls by Agmandino.

And I'm about maybe halfway through that. and I think I think it's tremendously valuable. You mentioned this on the podcast before. It's like motivation's like breathing or bathing. You have to do it every day.

Because without it, it's pretty easy to get discouraged. Without doing these activities, I know some days when I'm lax about it, it's just jerks

get to me more easily. You know, it's easy to get down about my activities and, you know, start to lose faith in the values of the process. And then I refresh myself that I had no choice at this point, that this is my career, is either this, or I, you know, go back to my old job. Well, then that gives me the kick in the pants to redouble my efforts. Right.

So, yeah, I think it's, it really is like air. You need it at all times. Absolutely. I mean, amen to that. Because earlier you had mentioned that the business, you just have to do the work. It's not rocket science. But it can wear on you. It can be frustrating. It can be discouraging. And I spent a lot of time on this show, you know, trying to inspire, trying to motivate.

Because it's not difficult to pick up the phone and call someone who has a property for rent to see if they want to sell it. It's not difficult at all. but why people won't do it every day, obviously there's some sort of disconnect. And that disconnect is really in the reason why they're doing it in the first place. And, you know, the general word that encompasses all of that is motivation. So definitely, awesome. And it's obvious. I mean, you're doing these activities consistently because you are motivated to do them.

And you're very aware of the alternative. if you don't do them, it's back to the job. So that's a great motivator all in the end of itself. And you're getting the results. And I'm not even surprised. I'm not surprised that you're getting the results because I know people that do the activities, they get the results.

And people that don't do the activities don't get results. It's really that simple. So right now, Alan, what do you see in your future for real estate investing? Well, I think it's going to be successful. I mean, I've gone through enough, enough of the process and seeing what happens to realize if I keep going the route I'm going, I'm going to be acquiring properties at least at the clip of one per every quarter, which

if I play my cards right and I stick to deals that makes sense. You know, really within two years, I'll be able to match my old salary at my old job with even if I don't really do anything. That's just from pure rental income. And I don't have any active management part in that. So I think that's, you know, the next immediate place where I see this, where this career will go. And after that, I mean, all bets are off.

I could, I'll probably throttle it up and start pursuing larger deals at a faster clip. Simply because by that point, you know, I'll, I'll be just, you know, it'll be such an ingrained part of my thinking and my daily routines that I won't want to stop doing it. But at the same time, I'll have the luxury. If, you know, things do change, I'm not, I'm not bound to any particular location or job. I could just, you know, I could effectively retire. And that would be, um, be before, well before I'm 30 years old.

That's awesome. That's awesome. I wish I would have started at your age. that have been, life probably would have turned out much differently. Not that I'm disappointed with life, but I could have probably started enjoying it a much earlier age. So I guess we'll finish with this.

Any words of advice? If you sign up for the free real estate investing course, the people that are listening right now, when you sign up for that, I think it's the first or the second email that I sent to you. I ask you directly, what is your biggest challenge in real estate investing? And I respond to all of those emails.

Sometimes it takes me a while, but I do respond to every single one of those. And the most common one is I'm just having trouble getting started. So what would you say? Any words of advice to somebody that's having trouble getting started? The best piece of advice I actually got was from a different mentor I met about four years ago. A local investor, and he owns his own brokerage in North Seattle. and the thing he always used was you can't steer a parked car.

And I guess it didn't really sink into me until about a couple years ago. And I mean, really the wisdom is it doesn't matter if you're going to the wrong direction or the right direction. Just move. Because if you're just standing still, you have 100% certainty in the result. And that result is nothing. so just realize that even if you make mistakes, even if you make several of them in a row at the beginning, you're still ahead of 90% of the population,

which has basically confined themselves to jobs or lives that they don't like, but they're just too afraid to take action. So those would be my best words of advice is, you know, action. action beats non-action or inaction, you know, 90% of the time. Just go out there and take that first step. It doesn't have to be big. You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to hit a home run. Just do something.

I love that. Can't steer a parked car. Great advice. Absolutely. Great advice. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experience. We'd love to check in with you somewhere down the road and see how things are going.

Would that be okay with you? Absolutely. I look forward to it. Awesome. Well, Alan, thanks for joining us, and you have an awesome day, and we'll chat soon. You too. Take care, Matt. Thanks.

Bye. Awesome. Awesome interview. And I want to draw your attention to a few things that Alan had mentioned. And I have a feeling that this may be a recurring theme over this series of interview episodes, is that if, you know, you perform the small money-making activities consistently and you do it with persistence, you're going to get the results that you're looking for. I mean, for some people, the results will happen quickly and for others slowly and for others in

somewhere in between. But if you perform the small money-making activities consistently and you do it with persistence, the results will happen. They have to. They absolutely have to. And that's the one thing that I heard in Allen's interview. And another thing is calling in and responding to Craigslist ads. You know, we kind of like, I guess

It kind of went over that vaguely, but it actually turned out to be a strategy that has proven very effective for Allen. And I've taken a look at it myself a little bit more closely since I've been coaching Alan and you'll have to wade through some garbage. There's a lot of garbage on Craigslist for sure. But there are real estate deals there.

There are some real estate deals there. And in fact, I picked up one recently for myself as, you know, I'm starting to notice a growing number of deals particularly in the South and particularly in the Midwest that are offering seller financing. I'm noticing more and more of that. And you want to keep your eyes and ears open for seller finance deals. You should grab as many of those as you can.

Don't stress over the purchase price so much. I mean, don't be foolish about it, of course, but don't let a slightly inflated price get in the way of building your portfolio. You know, if the seller is willing to carry back a note and the property is going to cash flow for you, grab it. Okay, grab it. And just get as many of those as you can. You know, okay, let me just say this.

At least that's what I'm doing right now. You can do what you want, but that's what I'm doing right now. And here's why. You see, we have a window of opportunity right now to buy real estate at a significant discount. A significant discount. And I have no idea how long this window is going to stay open. But it's not going to stay open forever.

That we know. It always changes, right? opens and shuts, opens and shuts, opens and shuts, and it's much easier. You see, let me put it this way, it's much easier to manage the financing and manage the debt that you have on your properties inside your portfolio after that window closes than it is to find deals after that window closes. Does that make sense? You know, if you get a bunch of these properties into your portfolio, it's easier to

manage that debt after this window of opportunity no longer. exists after it closes. But after this window closes, it's really tough to go out and find those deals because the window's closed, right? So if you can get your name on title through a seller financing deal and the property cash flows, it really is most of the time. It's most of the time it isn't a no-brainer, especially right now. See, with so much of the country's real estate priced well below replacement value,

and that's how I determine a real discount, by the way. If it's cheaper to buy a house than it is to build a house, that's a discount. That's a property you want to pick up. I mean, you've got really just, you've got built-in appreciation there. And this past year, there has been some movement in certain parts of the country with regards to new home builds. And I'm not sure if that's going to continue or not, or how fast builders are going to build and to what extent.

But when they decide to start building consistently again, all of these things. properties that you purchased below replacement costs are going to appreciate significantly, almost overnight. As fast as the new building happens, that's how fast those properties are going to appreciate. And that's real appreciation. Now, I have no idea when this is going to happen. I have no idea. But I do know it will happen because the population gets bigger and bigger and bigger and

and we need more places for those people to live. So we're going to have to start building eventually. So I don't know when it's going to happen, though. But as long as your name is on title and the person, property is cash flowing in the meantime. Who cares? Right? Who cares? Anyway, I'm getting a little off on a tangent here. The point is, if you haven't checked out Craigslist lately, take a look.

I'm finding some deals on there, and I'm sure you can too, and it's obviously working very well for Alan. He's finding deals, and you heard he's building a very nice database and network while he goes through the process as well. And we talked a little bit, I think last episode of the episode before, your team is really important. That's a great way to start building your team, especially in different parts of the country. Now, some of the places that Alan is doing his market research, and he talked about the Census Bureau, so definitely add that to your bookmark that page, because you might

need to investigate a new market. And that's at census.gov, census.gov. And that'll give you information on your market's population and economic indicators. And the Census Bureau, I mean, they even has their own, they've got their own app now. I think it's called America's economy. We have all that information right there on your smartphone. And then also the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. You can find that at LB...

Well, I'm sorry. How do you spell Bureau of Labor? BLS.gov. BLS.gov. I got a little dyslexic there. Sorry about that. More awesome info can be uncovered about your market there or your prospective market.

You know, Alan lives in Seattle. He's a brand new investor. He lives in Seattle and he's investing in Cleveland. This is really important to take a note here. I know some of you live in really small towns. I know because you email me and tell me so. And I know some of you live in very expensive areas. And those two factors might be interfering with your results a bit.

I don't know. Or maybe there's something else that's unique about your area or about your situation that you feel might be hindering your results or hindering your success. I mean, this business can be conducted anywhere. All right? There's deals everywhere. There's opportunity everywhere. I mean, anywhere where there are people living and they buy houses to live there.

But maybe you'd like to look at a market with a bit more opportunity, one that kind of fits your knowledge base or your resources a little bit better, or maybe even just a different type of opportunity. Census.gov and BLS.gov, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, are two awesome sources to conduct your research for other markets. And then, you know, kind of going together through calling on the ads on Craigslist, it's an awesome way to create some contacts in those markets. Alan is doing very well with this approach

and he essentially kind of did it on accident is kind of how it happened but it's working for him and now he's doing it with a little bit more intention and there's no reason that you couldn't do that either kind of one of the reasons I have I'm doing this series of interviews is so you can learn what other people are doing

and how they're doing it effectively there's a million ways to build this business and I just really want you to be exposed to as many ways as possible so you can choose the one or two ways that are actually going to work for you. All right? So it's working for Allen.

You can do it as well. You don't have to, but you could if you want it. You've got evidence now from someone relatively new to investing that's doing it, that it's working for them. Another point I want to comment on from Alan's interview, he cold calls. He picks up the phone and dials. Now, I think it's more of a warm call. I mean, he's calling on people that have real estate for sale, people that have real

estate for rent, but he's calling them. and that's something you also want to take note of. You see, in the beginning, your number one job is to generate leads, and you can do that in one of two ways. You can call them, which I call hunting, of which is absolutely free, by the way. You do not need any money to do that. You just need to be able to pay your phone bill, I guess.

Or you can market to them and get those leads to call you, which can get expensive, really fast. I mean, you can get carried. away with it for sure. The point is that you have to generate leads and you kind of have two ways to do it. You can hunt for them. You can be proactive about it and go out and seek them or you can fish for them. And that's marketing and advertising. And Alan, he's getting after it. And it's, and there's no wonder he's getting results. And the investor with the most leads is never at a loss for opportunity. And Alan's got a new potential deal like every day, at least several times

every week. And he's just doing what it takes and that's why he's got all the opportunities He's right there at his feet. You know, what I noticed about Alan is his confidence level. Very significant. I think he mentioned it as well. I mean, he doesn't even sound like the same person when we got started. His confidence has really gone through the roof. He says it's what has made the biggest difference for him.

And it's what will make the biggest difference for you as well. I mean, and he got there by just simply getting started. You know, his quote was, you can't steer a parked car. There's a lot of, there's a lot of wisdom in that one right there. You know, if you make a mistake or if you find yourself going the wrong direction, hey, just throw the car in reverse, back it up, make a U-turn, go the other way now. Whatever. I mean, just get moving.

And what you'll find, there's nothing to be scared of. Meaning, nobody's going to get hurt, nobody's going to die, you're not going to jail, all right? I mean, you get in your car every single day. Now, that, that right there should terrify you. I mean, car accidents, number five killer in the United States. but you get in your car every single day and drive from point A to point B and then you drive from point B back to point A

and you do that over and over and over again you do it without giving it a second thought. And how did you get to that point where you get in this death machine every single day without even giving it a second thought? How did you get there? Well, you started driving, didn't you? You were nervous then in the beginning,

but you've done it so many times. You now have the confidence to get in the number five killer every single day and you go places and you arrive safely every day. Real estate investing. It's nowhere near, not even close to being that dangerous. So I know you can do this. So just get started and watch your confidence level rise

and soon you'll be investing in real estate with the same ease as you drive your car. Same thing. It works just like that. All righty? So big thanks to Alan today for sharing his experience over the last few months and that's really it for today. So until next time, As a very wise person once said, you can't steer a parked car.

To your success, I'm Matt Terrio. Living the Dream. Thank you for spending this time with Matt Terrio and the Epic Real Estate Investing Podcast. When you have a moment, stop by iTunes to leave your comments and let us know what you think of the show. And if you haven't done so already, get started investing today by visiting free real estate investing course.com. To access Matt's free course, how to do deals, no money required. Until next time, to your success. To your success.

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