Epic Real Estate Investing - EPREI 055 : Investing with No Money or Credit [Dustin and Corey]

Episode Date: June 20, 2013

While on a brief podcast hiatus expanding his real estate investing business, Matt received a phone call from two podcast listeners (Dustin and Corey from PA) that have been investing in real estate for the last couple of years mostly with no money or credit. In fact, recently a motivated seller actually gave these guys a property for free. No foolin'! Listen in on Matt's phone conversation with these two burgeoning super stars to learn how they're doing it. The Epic Real Estate Investing podcast will be back in two weeks with new weekly episodes and a bunch of big announcements. If you have a real estate investing question that you'd like Matt to answer on the show please call and leave your question at 888-891-7203 Download Matt's free real estate investing course 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. So welcome to the epic real estate investing podcast, long time, no talk. Just give you a little update as to where I've been. I've been expanding my business.

Business has been really, really good. Everything is growing. We're opening new markets. We've got six markets now. We're going to settle there for a minute and really establish those. Taking up a ton of time. We're opening up a new office, a new recording studio, and a green screen soundstage. I'm hiring new employees, creating new services, new products,

and it's just taken a bunch of time, and it's taken a lot more time than I thought. And the podcast release schedule has somewhat taken a backseat. So my apologies for that. However, it is all for the greater good. the release schedule will go back to a weekly schedule once the new studio is open. We started this podcast originally as a weekly podcast, and it turned into, say, every other week, and then about every, you know, three weeks, and then just kind of turned into whenever I had a free moment and could get around to it. So sometimes it was, you know, twice a week, or sometimes it was twice a month.

Sometimes it was every other month. It's just been all over the place, and my apologies for that. But the whole reason for this expansion and building the new infrastructure is to create some stability. and some predictability and just complete a consistent schedule. You have asked for it. You've definitely supported the show. You've been sharing this with your friends, and you've been sharing with me your success stories.

So I know that there's a lot of you out there that are listening and are waiting because you send me the emails, you place the phone calls, and you're like, when's the next episode? And so I really appreciate that. And just to show my appreciation, I'm going to pick this up on the production side, be more professional and more consistent and keep on giving you guys what you're asking for. All right. And, you know, I've been waiting actually to post a new episode thinking I was going to record the very next one in the new studio.

But construction has taken far longer than I thought and gone way over a budget. It's amazing. I'm, you know, basically wholesaling or fixing and flipping, you know, 10 to 15 properties. I don't know, almost a week now. And I can have perfect control over those can manage it. those those perfectly, but managing the construction on my new office and my new studio has has not been nearly as easy. But it appears I'm just days away from completion, but now I've got back-to-back bachelor party weekends in Vegas. So if I wait to record in the new studio,

we're probably still looking at least another two weeks before I get a new episode up, which I've been bummed about. And I've been kind of bummed that it's taken this long. But, but And this past Tuesday, those Tuesdays are my coaching call days, so I'm typically unavailable on Tuesdays. My assistant, Mercedes, she slipped me a note saying that she had just received a call from two podcast listeners that have experienced some recent success and that I just had to speak with them and possibly even interview them on the show because their story was that good. So it sounded good to me.

And I'm going to go ahead and I was going to give them a call. and I'm going to record the call, and I can just post that up as episode 55, of which here we are today. And that's exactly what I've done. I've never spoken to them before. I asked them just to real quickly just reserve your story, and so it's nice and fresh. And they just called this last couple weeks, so the story is nice and fresh as well. This is the first time I've ever speaking to them. This is the first time I've ever even heard this story.

So I really don't even know what we're going to get. All right. So I've got them waiting on the line at the moment, and this will be the last podcast episode recorded. out of my bedroom closet. Yes, if you didn't know, I record out of the closet. And it's not very glamorous, but it gives really good sound quality in here. But this is the last episode here, and I'll resume a regular schedule in about two weeks from the new studio, the new spot. And I'm going to share with you all of the new stuff I've been creating to help you be more successful with your real estate investing.

So without further ado, on the phone, I have Dustin and Corey. Dustin, Corey, welcome to the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast. Hey, thank you, Matt. Thanks for having us. Awesome to be here. You bet. You know, I understand, first of all, that congratulations are in order. Appreciate it. Yeah, Mercedes was very excited and said I just had to speak with you guys, so I'm glad you guys were able to make some time out of your schedule and be with us here today. So let's just start. I don't care who starts.

Let's just, I'll just pick Dustin. Dustin, why don't you start and just tell me a little bit about yourself and, you know, what you've done, where you live, how old you are, what you do for a living, and just kind of brings up to current date. Awesome, yeah. Can you hear me nice and clear later? Loud and clear, Dustin. Awesome.

So I'm from Erie, Pennsylvania, right on the lake. I grew up racing motocross, and I was pursuing a pro career. I had a lot of injuries pile up, and I was racing semi-pro for a while, and kind of got out of the whole racing aspect ride for fun, and I bumped into someone that was into real estate through motocross, actually. Wow. You mean people in the weirdest places. So, yeah, I got into real estate about two years ago.

I've been into it a lot more heavy almost full-time the past year. I was working, fitting knee braces and back braces. I got fired from my job and had to pursue something with no college experience. So I got into real estate as much as possible and established Bay City buyers with my best friend. Awesome. Awesome. And in what capacity in the last two years have you been involved in real estate? For the first year, I really kind of did it on the side.

I really wasn't as committed as I should have been, and I wish I would have been way more committed last year. But this year, I pretty much delved into things pretty heavily. and been listening to the podcast a lot, and that's really what sparked everything for me. And I'm not the typical guy that looks like he'd be doing real estate. I had gauges in my ears. I got rid of those. I have a couple, had two holes in my ears. I don't look like a business guy, but, you know, we'd clean up and get the job done.

It's fun. I enjoy it a lot. That's good. That's good. And how old are you, Dustin? 24 years old. 24. Got it. Corey, your turn.

Yeah, for sure. So this is Corey. I'm 22 years old. It's a little younger in Duffington. I also was born in Newark. I moved to Ohio when I was younger. Pretty much spent on my weekends racing motorcross. That's how me and Duffin had the general connection when I moved back to P.A.

I moved back to Pennsylvania when I was like 12. And spent up with Duff. We've been best friends ever since. got into a bunch of trouble together. And after graduating high school, I knew that eventually I wanted to work for myself, but I wasn't really sure. I kind of saw a society through the college thing. I never really enjoyed college, went to Penn State Fair and locally.

And it was always on the Beds list, but, you know, I was never really looking to work a full-time job right after. And I started doing that and basically met up with Jim Winchell, who's a conference. I'm in friend of me and Duffin. We met him through motorcross, like Dustin was saying. And for his age, I think he was like 28 or so, and we were amazed at all the stuff he could afford. We had no idea what this dude was doing for a living and kind of started picking his brain and he showed us what are you doing with real estate. And that was back when I was 18 or 19.

Me and Dustin kind of followed around and tried to hang out with him and his partner, Ben, Berlin, as much as possible. And they got us into it. Like Duffin said, you know, I'd say I've been real estate for two years. now and the first year, you know, just really on a part-time basis, I was a full-time student. I just graduated college, you know, about two months ago. So I've been a full-time student for the past four years and holding the job down. So, yeah, that's about it. I mean, we're here now talking to you.

Sweet. Sweet. So you guys have both been doing this for about two years now. Did you guys start doing this together? Yeah, we actually started with Jim. You know, you just kind of, we just tried to follow him around as much as we could. You know, we were totally lost. We were like your typical people that, you know, say, oh, is what you doing illegal?

You know, when we first met him, we were dumbfounded with what he was doing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's always my favorite question when people ask me what I do if what I do is illegal. You got to love it. You get more than you would think. It happens all the time. I'm just like, well, well, I haven't gone to jail yet, so hopefully.

I can still get away with it. But, uh, cool. So describe it to me like, you know, what was your, what were your first deals like? Well, or let's talk about your first deal. What did that look like? Yeah, we, um, actually my sophomore in your college, um, I found a two unit right next to my college. I've still living at home until, uh, as of last week, actually.

And I found a two unit next to my college and didn't have the money. I actually used some scholarship funds. and some school loans to help pay for a $20,000 two unit. I bought that and rented it out was cash flowing really well. And that was really the first real estate, you know, I had ever owned. And, you know, after acquiring it, me and that one started talking. And, you know, I told them, you know, this real estate thing really does work. You know, you just got to hook the time.

And we decided then and there that, you know, we wanted to do a deal together, 50%. And we had a single family home. thing at home, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was $44,000 we got that fork. We traditionally financed it. We had to put up, we had $8K a piece under that thing. Yeah, we literally scrounged up $8K out of our savings,

and I actually refinanced the tune in that I bought a little bit. And we each put an AK, 1 in 50%, and spent a couple weeks before we're doing painting, little stuff, barely anything. I mean, we had $300, dollars where you had been doing it between the two of us with paint and I think I was it really paint. Mow and then from there we rented it out for two months while we searched for someone.

We knew that we wanted to owner finance it out so we didn't have to get stuck in a landlord trap. We ended up finding somebody to put $10,000 down and she was the first time homeowner, just bad credit but had cash and put $10K down. and she's been rented out cash morned every month for us and also getting that $10,000 consideration payment. Super. Super. So your first deal was you basically got created with your financing and got loans from a different source, not necessarily real estate loans, but you were able to purchase that property and you rented that out.

And then you're able to leverage the equity from that to purchase the second, right? Exactly. Cool. And then you did an owner of financing. So you took a note on the new property. And cool, cool. Is this some of the stuff that you're, was it Jim that was, he's showing you some of this stuff?

Yeah, for sure. We, you know, we've been following the podcast as well. You know, we've gotten so much information from this podcast. It's ridiculous. Awesome. You know, we're structuring deals and stuff like that. It's just, it's crazy how much you learn from just listening to an educational podcast. Awesome, awesome.

So over the last two years, how many deals have you done? We've done about eight deals total. We've done everything from, we've flipped a couple mobile homes. We have a four unit that we hold strictly as a rental just for the good cash flow that it provides. That's actually our only traditional rental. And we also have, you know, a couple more fix and flips, mostly that we've done with Jim, you know, and also Ben, they've been huge influences. You know, we wouldn't be where we're at in real estate to begin with without those guys.

They're basically an older version of us. You know, they like to have fun and their bikes on the weekends, too. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that's pretty much it. And then we actually called you because we just put our most recent deal together. We got down payment as of two days ago, and we decided after getting the down payment,

what better way to celebrate than to call Matt Perio and try to share our success with it. That's awesome. So before, I want to talk about that. That's why I mostly want to talk about is this newest deal that you guys called about. But, you know, you've done eight deals over the last two years, which is very respectable in your first two years. But let me ask you, what do you think it has been or what was it that was in your way from,

in your way of doing even more deals? Just really acting. And honestly, it's probably been the past year. I mean, we did one deal last year, and the motivation really kicked out at the first of the year. So that's when we really stepped our game up and started working, you know, head to the grindstone. I mean, we've been pushing since the first a lot harder than ever. So I really just worked at the speed of education. Mm-hmm.

Nice. So what was the motivation that kicked in for you at the beginning of the year? Right. The fact, what's your motivation, Dustin? I mean, financial freedom, I don't want to work. Right. Right. I mean, I do not want to work a 40-hour week at all.

Unless it's something I enjoy. Sure. I can appreciate that. But was there something that was pivotal around the beginning of the year that, you know, just decided you guys started taking action? Yeah, well, I mean, the beginning of year, me and Duffin actually sat down for the first time in our life. We're big followers of Tony Robbins as well, and we kind of followed the, awaken the giant within, and totally committed ourselves to studying up decode goal plans, business, and personal.

And we decide what better way to start it, just cliche as it is, at the first of the year. And after that, you know, we knew that I was graduating college in May, and, you know, I was kind of had something going on after that, and also, you know, Dustin looking for full-time employment. Losing your job is kind of a pretty big influence to do something new. Sure. Absolutely. So that's cool.

And I'm starting to understand why you guys have been successful. You started off with a mentor where, and whether that mentor even helps you do one deal or not. Sometimes or oftentimes, just by having someone close to you that you see. doing it, like, it puts it as a reality. It puts it as a real possibility in your life of, like, wow, if they're doing it, I can do it. It's not, you're not listening to some guy at the front of a stage or reading a book about some theory. You actually can touch somebody that's living and breathing that's actually doing it.

So I know you guys got a lot from that or else you probably would have never taken action in the first place. But the fact that they were there to help you even do the deals, that's awesome. And I just can't stress the importance of mentorship. I mean, it's so important. And you'll have various mentors. They'll serve you in different ways all along the way. And so keep looking for mentors.

Hang on to the ones you got. Don't burn those bridges for sure. But keep looking for mentorship and advice and guidance and examples from all different angles because they show up in all different shapes, four sizes, sexes, heritages, ages, everything. So cool. And then you mentioned one book. It's actually a book I read at least. least once a year, Awaken the Giant, and just the fact that you've pulled out of, you know,

you set a plan and you followed the plan. So that's awesome. Congratulations to you, too. Hey, thank you, Matt. We really appreciate it. You bet. That's great. Yeah, I totally second that, you know, I mean, it's the mentor that really gets you the

motivation. And like you said, make it real. When we adopted close that first deal, I think, you know, we actually had no clue what we're getting into it first. I mean, we actually made an offer on the house. And then she accepted it right off the bat for 52K. And then we were like, well, I think we aimed it a little too high to begin with. And she had for 44K, and we were still scared at that point.

And after a couple weeks of painting and stuff, you know, we ended up selling the place for 82.5. So it was like, that's when it became real to us. But if we really just put it in time, this could work. Right, right. That's a great profit. Was that this most recent deal you're talking about? No, that was the first deal we did.

That's your first deal? Okay. Yep. Super. So let's fast forward to the one that inspired this phone call. Tell me about this deal that you have right now. Okay. So we had, you know, we have a website.

We also have bandit signs out there. And, you know, they all generate leads. We have direct mailing. You know, we try to cover all the bases like you talk about. We had an internet lead come, and it was a farm with 52 acres. It was at risk and foreclosure, but it had a very high payment. So it wasn't something we could just turn around and rent to somebody or lease to somebody. I mean, we probably could have, but we kind of wanted to pull more options.

So we got a hold of gym, actually. This is where the mentor came again. And, you know, just like you said, we don't want to bring up. Bridges, so we handed over, you know, part of the deal, and we said we'd work with him, and we shared with him, and he came in. He's a developer also, and we had talked about subdividing laws. We now have 10 lots for subdividing. We just had to get a move-out date for the family that was there.

So I'll let Corey take this part of the deal. This is kind of a two-part deal. Okay, so just to recap, this deal that you're talking about, it sounds pretty extensive, and this came just through one of your Internet leads, through one of your websites? Mm-hmm, correct. Fantastic. Okay, and it's a giant piece of land that's going to be subdivided. Is that accurate?

Mm-hmm. Ten different lots. And different lots. It's about 50 acres with a lot of road footage that goes up at hill. Super. Okay. I'm up to speed. Keep going.

Yeah. So, you know, obviously these people need a place to move into, and that really was holding us up at that point. We knew we had their property secured. We just wanted to find a place for them to move. And with them having not so good credit, they need an owner finance deal. Their one thing was they said they'd be willing to work with us if we can find them a rent-to-owned situation in the country. I don't know about you, but our market specifically, you know, it can be difficult to find something in the country, rent-owned, that someone's going to fall in love with.

And it just happened a couple weeks after we started going on that deal. We got a call off one of our band at times. And these people as an elderly couple, and they were just sick of being landlords. They had a cottage that wasn't performing well for them, and they were just getting real caught up with the landlord trap and wanted to get out of it. So we went and checked it out, and it makes sense to us.

We ended up getting it under contract when it wasn't flooded for $25,000. They were going to hold the financing at $250 a month, zero interest. That little piece there was definitely stole from the podcast. Awesome. Aiming for the zero percent in trying to get as much financing as possible. So yeah, we got that under contract, and right after getting it, the day we got to access to it. We invited the couple over that was selling their farmhouse to us, and they were able to check it out. They instantly fell in love with it. It looked like somewhere they wanted

to retire to, and they were able to downsize from a farm, and, you know, obviously not only save their credit and everything from the previous house, but looked comfortably in a smaller house. So we got that under contract with them two days ago, got $3,000 down. They're going to be making payments of $6.50 a month to us and also covering all the insurance and tax costs. Super. That's awesome. That's awesome. So there's something here that I want to point out, and it's probably the biggest reason why you guys were able to put all of this together. in the beginning and for a long time for well it could be a year or two or it could be several years depending on on how diligent how much time you put in your investing but lead generation is everything

lead generation is is the is the engine that drives your whole business and you guys mentioned you're doing direct mail you have websites and you're doing roadside bandit signs so doing as much as possible i highly recommend and this is the perfect example why um so Tell me about your direct mail. What are you sending in your direct mail? So we are sending to the NOD listings, the foreclosure listings. We're also sending to divorce. And we are looking for fire damage as well.

Awesome. Awesome. So those are the lists that you're sending to, right? The groups of people. Yeah. Okay. And how are you guys acquiring your lists? Through the courthouse.

online. Okay. Like what, like list services? Yeah, mostly, we're mostly using the courthouse for the, you know, divorce listings and the notice of foreclosure. Cool. Are those online searches at the courthouse or are you physically going down there? We physically have to go in there.

That's awesome. That's awesome. And you're getting those leads because it takes an extra step of effort and there's less competition with the more effort that there is. So congratulations to you guys for that. your bandit signs, how many of those are you putting out? We just put a batch of 60 out last week, or actually two weeks ago, except for the couple that the cops called on and the pedal of conversation had to take them down.

But we're worried about three less than we put down last week. But we try to put them, we do a blast of them every couple months. We have it all systemized now, so now we're able to have someone else do it for us instead of us taking time driving around and the work truck ranger, putting up a bunch of roads on. Super. So now you're leveraging those efforts, so very good. And then as far as your websites, how are you driving traffic to your websites? Our website, I actually, I created our first one, never created a website before. Just use Webley.com.

So anyone coming to do some basic that worked well. But we didn't have the SEO that we were looking for. So I had a buddy of mine from college, actually. You know, that networking ability, I think, is the good thing you get out of college. And he's a genius with that stuff. And we paid him, and he built a website for us, and we can get some leads ever since. Okay.

Cool. So is he doing SEO for you or getting the stuff from search engines? Yeah, he did all the SEO for us and I just do general maintenance on the website as far as, you know, putting stuff off, taking stuff down, just showing people what we have available. Super. Do you advertise your websites anywhere else? Yeah, we've also advertised it on signs, also in the newspaper. You know, we just throw Bay City buyers in the newspaper and, you know, people can follow it from there. I mean, it's a little thing, even like, you know, our license plates at our mentor Jim and also Ben, they put that license place on their truck. And, you know, I remember before we start doing it, we looked at them like, you know, why would you even put that on there? But the ability to spark up a conversation with someone and just, you know, refer them to what it is you do. Right.

You know, that networking ability, it goes a long ways to keep it a business alive. That's awesome. Awesome. Cool. So you've got this one deal, these lots under contract? That hasn't closed yet, right? Not yet. We're actually in the process. Their move out date is the 29. Okay. So, you know, once they move out, we're going to go and start the process of, you know,

finding out the lots perk for our septic system. and we're in a subdivide and you know we're thinking probably about 20K a lot and that's conservative sweet and so we're gonna we're gonna try and get 150,000 for the house 20K per lot

so I mean conservatively you know there's room for 200k profit because there's 120,000 load on the house still 120,000 note on the house So the people that are living there right now, they moved and they basically just signed it over to you as long as you found them someplace else to go. Exactly.

You mean there are people in this world that would just give you their property? Can you imagine that? That's one of the more common questions I get through email is, why would anyone sell you their property at a discount if they could just go hire a realtor to sell it for them? I get that all the time. So why don't you guys answer that question for me? Because people get emotionally attached. I think that's what we've seen the most. I mean, I personally, you know, you walk into a place and at someone's house,

it's where they've been for the past 20, maybe even 40, 50 years. There's a lot of emotional connection where, you know, an investor can come in, look at it like a problem they need to solve and add value to that person's life. But, you know, we look at it from the math perspective. It's simple. I think that's one of the most important things that, you know, Jim, our mentors ever pulled up. He just said keep it simple.

If the math doesn't make sense, don't do it. Exactly. And I also believe over-leveraging and just really, yeah, in this market, you have to be creative. Mm-hmm. To sell at market price, you just, you have to be creative or you can't do it. Right. Yeah, that's good for it. Right.

So they're in a situation where they get off a little bit more than they could chew. Now they're in a market where they don't have an easy solution. They can't just call a realtor. So they connected with you and you solved their problem. Yeah, exactly. Simple. And I break that down in somewhat as elementary a way as I can because the answer is life happens to people. and life happens every single day.

And believe it or not, a realtor is not the solution to all of life's problems. Sometimes it takes someone with a little bit more creativity like real estate investors. And so congratulations to you guys for doing that. And you're just a great example of that, you know, you can buy property with no money. You can buy property with no credit. In fact, people will just give you property for free. So. Exactly.

And, you know, people just don't believe it until it actually. actually happens. So anytime I have an opportunity to talk to someone that has done it, particularly when they've done it to the extent that you have, it makes, you know, the smaller little deal sound like more doable and easier. But, you know, it exists out there with the big giant opportunities as well. So fantastic. Anything else to share about the deal or any epiphanies or anything like that about how it went down? I mean, the way we look at it, you know, we're we're normal guys, we're not anything special. So really anybody can do it.

All you got to do is put in, you know, the work. And it's not easy, but you just, you got to put in the work and, you know, pay attention to what you're buying and anybody can do it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I think a good way to really explain it. I mean, it's a little stuff even like in your podcast. for example, my price, your terms, your price on my terms line that you always throw out there.

And that we, after listening to the podcast, I probably went over that line 20 times, sitting in the parking lot of my school before final and memorized that. And then me and Dustin actually went out and this is when we first got that first deal under contract, the farmhouse. And we used that, you know, exact terms. We're just really much more calm about it. And when we spoke about the deal, you know, we let them talk more than us talking. And getting, you know, my price, your terms, your price on my terms into their head, it really makes it clear to them.

It almost seems like, wow, this is really fair. These guys are being fair with me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I mean, tell me about that conversation. When you say it's a, hey, we can do this deal in one or two ways. We can do with my price in your terms. or your price in my terms, which one do you want to go?

Like when you first present that to someone, like, what's their initial response? I think they're kind of a little shocked at first because everyone just assumes, you know, if you're going to buy a house, you're going to either hand me a check or, you know, some sort of cash and buy the house. I think it catches them off guard at first. And, I mean, this particular situation, you know, they obviously were facing foreclosures. So it was really a matter of, you know, trying to work with the bank to do a short sale and take a ton of time and, you know,

I'm not sure if it's going to work or not, or allow us to catch up the back payments and take over your property and we're willing to save all of your credit. And, you know, to a lot of people, that's extremely important. And at the same time, be willing, I think they trusted us enough. And I think building rapport with them allowed us to, you know, really move forward. and then they trusted us that we would work hard enough to find a house for them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

What do you think was the secret to you, or, you know, what was the strategy, or what do you think it was that allowed you to build such good rapport and have them trust you? Being extremely personable. You know, a lot of investors don't really have the personable touch, I guess. You notice it sometimes, but, I mean, we're really personal guys. We're young. you know, we're, we don't really come off as investors. Yeah, I mean, for example, when we showed up,

the one couple, the husband was out, you know, with his guns and insulin, you know, we sparked up a conversation. I mean, deep down inside, we race motorcross, we're pretty much Hicks on the weekend. So, right. Now, instantly, we sparked up a conversation about shotguns and hunting and stuff like that. And, you know, it's just the ability, I think, to create rapport with people first before you act on, you know, the business and be able to give them time of day and just listen to them. I think that will get, you know, anyone trying to do this business, you know, a time of success.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Awesome. Cool. So tell me, what's next for you guys? Well, what's next tough? Really pursuing, I know you say in almost every podcast, you know, to pursue one certain aspect, But we really found success in pursuing all aspects of real estate. You know, we do lease options.

We take over foreclosures. You know, we take, you know, assume that we take over subject to. You know, we just pretty much hit every aspect of it. We don't really like to categorize ourselves. No, and I think that's smart. And whether you think you're doing it just one, like you're not categorizing yourself or not, you kind of are. And I'll explain to you to what I mean by that. Is that, you know, whether you want to work, you know, whether it's commercial real estate, whether it's probates or its foreclosures or whatever it is, you still have to generate leave.

and when you're out there and you're doing your marketing you're generating your direct mail you've got the roadside signs you've got your website out there you really don't know who's going to who's going to see it and who's going to give you a call to see if you can help them you have no control over that but you do have those three means of of attracting your business so you you in that sense you've got that one those those are your strategies for attracting business and then you're open. I always say you should have one or two ways of attracting the business that you really specialize in, but then learn all of the – you've got to know all of the exit strategies because you never know who's going to call. So the fact that you have lease option as an exit strategy, you have a subject to as an exit strategy. You've got the seller financing as an exit strategy.

You guys are doing it exactly right. So I'm not surprised at all that you guys are having the success that you're having. having. So you guys are rocking it. You're totally killing it. So did you answer my question? What's next for you guys? Yeah. So one thing we would like to do is we would like to find some deals where we can really use our private investors. We have a couple of private investors that are great people in our local area that whether they haven't got in the real estate yet or they already have been a lender. We just want to make a win-win deal for them. And we really haven't been able to do it because we've been taking a, you know,

paid out of your book and doing it with no money down and none of our own money so far. You know, I'm having the owners hold the financing. So we would like to have some of our private investors get some deals where we can get them to come in and, you know, kind of over-promise and, you know, I should say, over-deliver. Right, under-promise, over-deliver, right. Exactly. I think you guys are in a perfect position in your investing careers to do that. Because you have a track record.

You've been doing this for a couple years. You can say, look with this. We've done this. We've done that. So you've got some credibility. And if they're friends of yours, they already like you. You've got that credibility that's going to install the trust. And they're going to have confidence that they'll be confident that you're confident investors.

Now the next step is, and you know what, if every deal that comes your way, is you can do it with no money and no credit, there's no reason to borrow any money. But to do bigger deals, I mean, if you have private money out there, it's going to open up more possibilities on the deals that you do attract. But kind of what I would recommend is find out what their money is doing for them right now. Like, you know, hey, if some, this is what, you know, Corey and I are out here, we're busting our butts.

We're doing good deals. We did this. we did that, we did this, and, you know, I don't know, would you be open to like maybe an 8%, 7% return on your money and then just be quiet. And if they say yes, like in this day and time, who's going to say no, right? They'll say, of course, of course, who wouldn't be? You'll hear that every single time when you ask that question in the right way. And you say, great. So just kind of with a, you know, a curious next question and wow, how much money will,

would you have available for that type of investment? And you just be quiet and you listen. Some people are going to say $5,000. Some people are going to say $5,000. Some people are going to say $5 million. Regardless of what they say, you're completely unaffected. Okay, so you're just going to listen. Oh, okay, interesting.

Act like you do this every single day and whatever number they throw around is the type of numbers you work with every single day. So it's no big deal. And then so step third. three of that is, well, we're working on some stuff. If something comes up, which I think it probably will pretty soon, would it make sense for you and I to get together and I'll show you how you can get that type of return with us? So that way, you've opened the door,

you've laid the foundation, you don't necessarily have a deal yet, but at least you know when that deal comes up, then you can call and say, hey, remember that thing I was saying, well, now's the time and you kind of suggest it would make sense. Do you think it would still make sense for us to get together. I'll explain to you how this works and we can get you your 7% return like that. Makes sense? Exactly. That's how we do it every time. Oh, we actually, every time we go to approach a situation like that, we listen to the exact podcast right beforehand in the car.

Oh, okay. Well, awesome. You're already doing it. I thought you were kind of asking me, you know, you guys are stuck there and how do you get it? Yeah, we just want to, we want to get to where we, you know, finding some deal. where we're able to use that it uh I mean that's huge the even just what you get off this podcast just from a negotiation standpoint the present a simple statement and then just waiting it's huge I think we've increased you know the spread on what we can make on a property simply because we know that we can wait in a conversation and just be patient and listen for the other side to talk

awesome awesome yeah so just all i would say my only recommendation if you even want it i mean you guys are doing great all by yourself but my only recommendation would just be to keep up with the lead generation don't ever let that slow down and sometimes it's really easy for it to slow down or for you to lose sight of it if you have a bunch of deals in the pipeline but that's the time that's the time when it's most important for you to to keep that lead generation going and that keeps your business growing so it's it you go that's how you're you go that's how you're you go that's how you you go from eight deals in two years to 16 and to 32. Makes sense?

Numbers games. Absolutely. Absolutely. But it's really... You guys are making... I was just going to say that the one trap that a lot of people will fall into. And right at your specific situation is that you're doing some deals, you're talking about some bigger money, big money to most people in this country.

And when you start making that kind of money and you guys are still young and you like your motorcycles, you probably like to go out and have fun and do all that stuff, it's really easy to, once you start getting some of those paychecks, to go out and start having fun, which there's nothing wrong with that. But you just got to keep the lead generation going, keep that steady and consistent. And it's a lot easier to do now that you guys have started to leverage other people's efforts and doing that for you. So create a system out of that.

So you always got the leads going. And if you always got the leads going, that money will never stop. But if those leads stop, your money stops. Yeah, I appreciate. We both appreciate that information. And one day I want to ask you, you know, we're really in that transition now where I'm actually, you know, going back to work full-time just on a basis for some leverage and I got a, you know, I have a contract that I have to respect. We're really looking to automate, you know, as much as we can with monotonous stuff, you know. Our biggest thing is, you know, buying, farm, our deals. That's what we should be focusing on.

So we're really, one thing we do struggle with right now is just finding a way to automate all our daily things. And we've looked in the virtual assistance pretty heavily in the past couple weeks. I mean, what would you say for anyone out there, and this is us specifically, we're really on that brink of, you know, we've got some deals, we've got some cash flow, but we really just want to take it to the next level and just pushing through that next level barrier. Perfect, perfect. So your time is best spent talking to sellers and building that report, writing contracts, and selling properties. Those are the three things that you really want to stay in control of. Everything else is what you want to automate.

Okay. So do you guys use the daily success report? We don't use it actively. We probably should start doing it now are being put on the spot. But definitely, we've kind of represented our own version of it, but it's not. not nearly as detailed. Okay. And that's okay.

I mean, you guys are doing, whether you guys are keeping the daily success report or not, if you're doing deals, you're doing all the right activities. It's just if you're not doing deals, that's when you need to go check in with the success report

and to see where you need to start picking up the pace. But on that report, in the left-hand column, those are all the money-making activities. Those are all the activities that are required. And you can just start

from the top and work your way down and aside from talking to to the motivated sellers and from presenting offers and selling property everything else there other than those three things you can you can automate and you mentioned virtual assistance absolutely um there are some tasks that you might want to have somebody local but most of all that stuff it's you know it's no more than $8 an hour type work. Putting up roadside signs is not, you know, that's not going to take rocket

scientist type salaries to get that done. Writing yellow letters and assembling your direct mail. That's not rocket scientist type salaries to get that type of work done. I mean, that can be, you know, one of your family friends, a 14, 15, 15 year old girl.

I like to use 14, 15, 16 year old girls because they seem to have nice handwriting. And it's nice and cute, and it's disarming when it shows up in the mail. So look at that, and maybe it's 25 cents a letter or something like that. What was the other thing I was just thinking of? You know, your Internet stuff. You got a friend that's already doing that stuff.

Maybe start throwing some money his way, so he starts, you know, actively generating those leads a little bit more. But I like the fact that you guys have done, you've done all of these activities yourself. So now all you have to do is find someone and teach them to them. and just teach them how this is how I do it, this is how I want it done, and what I started to do,

and I'm in the process of doing this right now, and it's part of our expansion. I'm actually hiring employees because it's gotten to the point where I need more help, and I need to have physical bodies that I have access to. But you guys aren't quite there yet, but you're getting close, but the process is the same.

So as far as, say, and I've learned this the hard way with virtual assistance, but now I got it nailed down. is to, for example, let's say, writing your yell letter, like all the way from getting the list until it gets in the mailbox. So when you go and hunt down your lists, and whether you go to this website to buy the list or this realtor to get your free list,

or go down to the courthouse and go through these files, write down every single step, so it's totally dummy-proof. So you're writing a procedures manual for what you do. and when you get that specific, you know, you don't want to say, you know, put left foot down, then right foot down, left foot down, and now open the door to the courthouse. You don't want to get that specific, but you do want to say, go down to the courthouse at blank, blank address. Go to the second floor to the registrar's office. Once you get in there, make a right and go into the microfiche machine and start looking for divorce files.

Once you find the divorce files, write those addresses down on a piece of paper. Once you've completed those for the day, bring that back and write this type of letter. You know, getting that specific and giving them examples and pictures and diagrams as much as you possibly can. Once you can do that and you can hand that off to somebody, great, I'll give you, you know, five bucks an hour or eight bucks an hour to handle this for me. and it's that specific, and then that's a system. And then it also makes that person, if they don't work out, you can easily just slide someone else right in there and have them do it. Does that make sense?

So you guys have done all these activities, so you just need to create your procedures list of exactly how you do it and exactly how you want it done, and then, you know, it costs money to get the labor, but it doesn't have to be a lot of money. It could be maybe a percentage of the deal, so it's a lot less money out of your pocket. It could be if there's other favors.

Hey, I'll tune up your motorcycle or something like that, whatever it may be. But think creatively in that sense as well as just how you do in your real estate. You know, really recording those systems and getting them in place, you know? Yep. It's just another thing to do. But now that you guys have got some money reserved and you've got your lead generation going, it's okay to kind of slow down and then go ahead. and create that, maybe taking a step back so you can take the two steps forward.

Yeah, I think I find, you know, this ironic because when I was in college, I actually had a computer systems class, and, you know, I was a good college student, but my computer systems teacher actually gave me an academic integrity against the school and threatened to throw me out because I networked with a student on a homework assignment that we were allowed to talk about. and he told me when he took me to court for it through the school system

told me I would never be successful and that I told him about me and my partner's business and he said we'd never be successful and it's just funny he was a systems teacher and looking back out of it now you know

yeah he really wanted to highlight you know that stuff I've heard that before and I've thought about that before you know what's considered cheating in high school is just considered good business out in the real world.

Exactly. You know, duplication, finding out what works and doing the same thing yourself. So, yeah, that's the next step for you guys, is start delegating that stuff, those pieces off one by one. And don't be overwhelmed by it. You don't have to do every single aspect of your business all at once. But just take the one part. I would say, just take your direct mail and get that dialed in and get someone locked in and have that done for you consistently. You know, whether it's 20 letters, 30 letters, 50 letters, 50.

letters a day. You can just, just tackle that one spot. And once that's up and running, then you go and you fine tune, say, the lead generation and driving traffic to your websites. And then you get that going. And then once that's all, all you got all your marketing. Because it sounds like you already got your roadside signs. And now you might want to train someone on the basic script to use to answer the phones

for you. So now your phones are always being answered. They screen those calls. And they identify, you teach them how to identify who should I call back if they detect any motivation, then you'll call them back. So you can totally have that set off the side. There's call answering services that that's all they do. And they're pros. You can get sales services as well that that know how to do that. And once you got that, then you've got, so now you've got your appointments and you have to physically go to those and write offers. But then once you get the offer

accepted, now you've got a transaction coordinator, you just hand it over to and they process all the paperwork and make sure everything straight for you with escrow. automated business right there. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Everything can be automated. And there's just, you know, the few different parts where you're really an integral part is this point. But you know what?

You know, down the road, you can, hey, go and duplicate that. And you can duplicate yourself as well. And pretty much, you know, you can start taking those long vacations and have your business still running for you. But that's down the road a bit. Just start one little piece of time and build it step by step. Yeah, I mean, we've got to get out there one. these weekends I have a beer with you so we better start automates. Absolutely.

And you guys are in Pennsylvania still? Yep, we're in PA. That's awesome. Awesome. That's one market I have not looked into. Maybe I come out there and see you guys too. You're more than welcome. Super.

We'll get you on shooting some shotguns and no-time. Oh, I love it. I love it. That'd be great. Well, you know, guys, thanks for spending this time with us and sharing your success and sharing what you guys are actually doing. And what I really want to point out, there's no secrets.

It's just actually doing the work. It's doing what you already know to do, but there's the fact that you're doing it. I'm not surprised at all that you're getting any results. In fact, I'd expect you to get your results. So, again, awesome, awesome. Anything last you want to say before we wrap this up? Well, we really, really appreciate your time

and, you know, the chance to speak with you and take it a line out of your book. shameless plug. You can check us out at Bay Citybuyers.com. That's Bay Citybuyers. Bay Citybuyers.com. You city buyers, yep. Yeah, we tried to incorporate the closest to the lake in our company's made.

You know, you got to keep a local. Right, right? That's awesome. That's really good. Is it spelled absolutely the way it sounds? Yeah, Baycitybuyers.com. That's a great domain name. That's awesome.

I'm surprised some realtor didn't get it from you. That's cool. Super. So you guys have my phone number. Anything comes up. You need any help. Feel free to call. You're more than welcome to use it.

Perfect. Thank you, Matt. You know, I mean, I'm sure you do, but, you know, your podcast has really been on that push-ups to the next level. And, you know, I just want to say, you know, towards the end, you know, when we first started getting in the podcast, it felt like it was a never-ending book. I mean, most of them were just plugs the whole time and no sense. sort of content.

And after discovering years and being able to get into the first, you know, well, the 12 to 15 episodes and literally, you know, expanded our knowledge tenfold right off the bat. You know, we knew we were hooked and, you know, it's almost surreal talking to you on the phone now.

So, thank you very much and we do appreciate everything you've done. You guys are very welcome, and thank you for actually taking what I say and putting it to work in and getting the results. That's the biggest compliment you can give me. So thanks, guys. And for those of you listening,

We'll be back in a couple weeks, and we'll be up on a regular schedule, and I'll share all the new stuff with you, and we'll be back every single week, okay? And that's it for today. I will talk to you guys soon. Dustin Corey, thanks again, and feel free to come back anytime that you want, okay? Thanks a lot. Thanks, Matt. Talk to you.

You bet. Take care. Bye. 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. This podcast is a part of the C-suite radio network. For more top business podcasts, Visit c-sweetradio.com