Epic Real Estate Investing - Getting Started Automating Your Investing Business | Episode 85

Episode Date: January 20, 2014

A business that works with or without the owner is a dream most real estate entrepreneurs chase. As long as one understands that there's a lot of work upfront before the auto-pilot switch can be flipped, the idea of an automated real estate business can be a reality. On this episode Matt shares the first step in automating your investing business and simple instructions on how to access the very "how to" steps that he followed to create his own automated business. This episode concludes with Matt answering a caller's question about "How to let a seller down easy when you don't want to buy their house." ---------------------- If you have a question you'd like Matt to answer live on the show, call the Epic Real Estate Hotline at 1-888-891-7203 Download Matt's free course How to Do Deals : No Money Required at FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com Don't have a buyers list yet? Borrow Matt's until you do at EpicWholesalers.com Get "done for me" income properties with "guarnateed cash flow" at CashFlowSavvy.com Hit the streets and join Matt in the field in one of his cash flow markets at EpicRealEstateTour.com Subscribe to Financial Freedom Fridays on Matt's YouTube channel by visiting EpicREI.tv Subscribe to this podcast and access all episodes at EpicRealEstateInvesting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Broadcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Welcome to another episode of Epic Real Estate Investing. If this is your first time listening to the show, welcome. Really happy that you're here. If this is not your first time listening to the show, welcome back. This is the place where I teach people how to invest in real estate. I do that at the Epic Pro Academy. You can find that at Epic Pro Academy.

me.com. Got some updates for you about that, by the way. Or actually, I can do the investing for people at cashflow savvy.com. Why would people want me to do the investing for them? Well, very simply, they're busy. They've got careers. They don't have the time or maybe they don't have all the knowledge that they feel they need. They don't have the systems in place. They don't have the teams, whatever it may be. So I run across a lot of people like that. They want to invest in real estate, but they just don't want to go out and do all the heavy lifting. So I'll do the heavy lifting for them. And I do that for people at cashflow savvy.com.

And the next Epic Real Estate Tour for Cashflow Savvy is coming up very soon, February 20th and 21st. Seats are filling up. Even more have filled up since our last episode. And those seats are limited. So if you plan on joining my team and I for a tour of the Memphis market, be sure to go to Epic Real Estate Tour.com for the details and register. Epic Real Estate Tour.

All righty. If you happen to have a question, comment, or concern that you'd like me to answer or address here live on the show, please share them with me on the epic real estate investing hotline at 1-888-891-7203. 888. Excuse me, that's 1-88-88-891-7203. Got a good question for you today that I'm going to get to. But before I got a couple announcements, an update on the Epic analyzer. as many of you know, and for those of you that don't know, the Epic Analyzer tool, the tool that I give you to help analyze your properties and your deals, I give you that inside of the free real estate investing course of which you can access at free real estate investing course.com.

If you haven't done so already, or if this is your first time listening. But that tool, it was hacked by some malicious people. So it took it down for a couple weeks, and I didn't have a proper backup. So shame on me. I've got all that fixed now, but it's a little too late to go ahead and launch it the way that it were, restore it the way that it was. But I am happy to say that it has been restored. It's been rebuilt, actually, with a couple of new features. Nothing major.

But you should notice a difference. It seems to run a little bit smoother, has a little cleaner look. And yeah, so that's back up. For those of you that have been asking me, I've been getting lots of tweets, lots of Facebook messages, lots of emails, informing me of that. So that is Epic Analyzer's back in effect. Epic Pro Academy. Got an update for you there. I was hoping to have that back online and open to the public.

But apparently my wish list for all of the upgrades and additions, it's a little bit easier said than done, I guess. It's very simple to me, but I'm not the techie person. I'm not the IT person. But from what I've been told, they are doable. It's just taking some time. My team is working to get all of that up and available for you ASAP. I'm looking probably at another two to three weeks, though, unfortunately.

I mean, I know I said we'd be open in January, but I don't think we're going to make it. So I'm really promising for February. And to make up for that, to make it up to you, I've got a very free gift. It's very free. There's no money required, no email required, nothing for you to do. And this is also somewhat in response to a coaching call that I had last week, a gentleman that currently lives outside of the country and wanted to get coaching on whether or not that he should start his investing inside the U.S. from abroad or wait until next year when he

returns back to the U.S. to get started. And, you know, we had a long conversation about that and we want to look at his resources and his experience. And the subject of how I set up my teams here in the United States, how I've done that in six different markets, that came up in conversation. And he wanted to know how I've set up a system so that I can actively invest in six different markets from a location that's not anywhere near those six markets. So he was thinking that he could do that from outside of the country. And, you know, some people do. Some people don't.

Some people can. Some people just simply can't. And it's all for various reasons. And I bring this up today because I do frequently get this question. And specifically, it's along the lines of how do I set up an investing system that's on autopilot. Another version of that question I receive is more simple. it's along the lines of how do I build a team or even simpler.

How do I find a realtor that will work with me? Or how do I find an escrow or a title officer? How do I find, I don't know, insert the team member? And I've been receiving these types of questions regularly from the very, very beginning of this podcast. I'm such a big believer in teams. I talk about teams. I talk about who you're going to delegate stuff to all the time. And people just don't know where to find those people.

And in response to those questions, this overall challenge, that many investors are, I don't know, plagued with. I did what any good business owner should do. I built a solution and offered it to you. It was a while back. I created it as a standalone course, the epic team builder. It's its very own course, and I offered it at only $97, just a one-time fee. It's like 50 minutes of video.

Got 50 minutes of video instruction and the links and resources, all that stuff. I put everything in there that I did to build my initial team. and my national teams. And to date, I think only two people have taken hip on the offer and purchased that. So that one has left me scratching my head a bit, to say the least. I mean, it's such a common problem, but apparently not a problem urgent enough to pay $97 for and get that solution. And believe me, if you follow the steps within the course, the course could essentially be priceless. Absolutely priceless.

I mean, there's no way that I could do 20 transactions a month. every month without my team. And if you aspire to do more than two or three transactions per month, you're going to need a team also. In fact, if you've yet to do even one deal thus far, you should still start building your team. That should be your mindset of the people that you meet. Is this going to be a good fit for my team or not?

I mean, I know. It's not that exciting. I'm actually, although I'm scratching my head, it's something that you're probably not going to realize until you actually build a team. you're going to wonder, why don't I do this sooner? So I know initially it's not that exciting. It doesn't directly put money in your pocket,

meaning by building your team, it's not going to help you pay your car note or your rent or your mortgage this month. It's not going to do that. But what it will do is enable you to build a profitable business that can run with or without you. That automated business, the automation that everyone is always looking for. A real estate investing system on autopilot.

That automated real estate investment, that thing that thing that so many people are looking for. So in exchange for your patience with me and the delay in me reopening the academy, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you that course for free. I'm going to give it to you, the whole course, all six lessons. And here's how you're going to access it. As you know, last Friday, I added a new show into the epic real estate investing schedule, Financial Freedom Friday.

and the first episode was released just this past Friday titled How to Invest. If you missed it, go back and download it. It's awesome. And these are going to be very short, weekly, three to eight minute lessons to keep you going over the weekends to give you something to think about, to keep you headed in the right direction. That's the intention of that new show. And you can listen to Financial Freedom Fridays right here on the podcast. You don't need to do anything different except plug your mobile device in on Friday so you make sure that you download it. or you can go to EpicR-E-I-T-V and watch them there, as they are also videos.

EpicR-E-I-D-V-V-T-V is just a fancy domain name for my YouTube channel, and my partner, Courtney, will upload all six videos and the downloads to the show notes at EpicRealestate.com. Okay, so it's going to be like three different places you can access it. So make sure that you sync your phone or your iPod or your computer, this coming Friday, whatever your mobile device may be, and that course will be yours for free. and it's one of the more powerful lessons that I can give you. I mean, it's what's going to put your business on autopilot. It's going to take some work.

It's not just a switch of a button and boom, you got this money-making machine. It takes some work to build the machine first. And I mean, and if you're not going to buy this course, I'm going to force it on you. I'm going to give it to you and I'm going to instruct you to actually watch it, okay? And I want you to apply it. You know, I care about your results. and it's that important to your results, regardless whether you know it or not.

And, you know, logically you might think, yes, I believe you, Matt. I know it's important. But if you haven't done anything about it, then what difference doesn't make knowing that it's important? So keep in mind, it's going to come in six short separated lessons. That means six separate downloads right here on the same podcast feed that you're listening to right now.

And I'm sharing that with you that it's going to be six separate videos because, or six separate downloads, because depending on how you have your mobile device set up, it'll likely only download the latest episode. So what's going to happen, if you're not careful, if you're not paying attention, you'll end up with just lesson six and you're going to miss lessons one through five. So you have to be a little bit more intentional to make sure that your device downloads all six episodes. So look for that this Friday.

And that should keep you busy until I get the final touches all done on the Academy. And I'll be able to make that available to you hopefully very shortly. I'm looking mid-February. Deal? Cool. All righty, so this past week, I received this call from Lafayette, Louisiana. Hey, man, how are you, sir? My name is Octavian.

I'm in the Louisiana market, Lafayette, to be exact. And I've been listening to your podcast for a couple of years now. And man, I've been doing deals just because of listening to your podcast. So I really appreciate that. But, man, I do have two quick questions for you. and this may sound kind of weird. How do you tell people that you don't want to buy their house? I'm just kind of curious to see how you normally handle that.

I've been doing a lot of marketing. And as you know, I've come across a lot of houses that I really don't want to buy. And I just wonder, how do you handle that, you know, after you talk to the people in view of rapport, and you have to let them down, especially when the people, really want you to buy their house, but the numbers just don't work for you. And my second question, man, I was just wondering, can you give me an example of a bread and butter deal using no banks?

I want to eventually, I'm a wholesaler right now, but I eventually want to give them to buy and hold. And I was just curious to see how you would do a typical bread and butter deal, I guess, a single-family house, not using a business. bang. How would you structure? How would you use the money? I guess that you would get from your private lenders.

I guess that's it. And I really appreciate the podcast. I guess I've been doing deals just from listening to your podcast. And, man, you really can help me out a lot. So I'm going to say. My name is Octavian, Lafiel, Louisiana. Thank you so much. Okay.

Octavian. Thank you for the very nice words. And thank you for the questions. particularly the first one is actually a very common one. And it's a question that I invariably get from every single one of my coaching clients. It's one of those questions that it lets me know that my client is actually doing the work. I mean, you just wouldn't think to ask this question. How do I tell people I don't want to buy their house?

You wouldn't know that unless you're actually out there in the trenches, generating leads, and talking to sellers. I mean, that wouldn't even come and probably wouldn't even cross your mind. And it can be very uncomfortable after you've taken a call or visit a motivated seller's house and you've got to tell them after their hopes are all built up that you're going to help them and then you have to share with them the bad news that you can't. It can be very uncomfortable and sometimes it can be a little sad. So, Octavian, thanks for the question and I can tell two things about you by you asking this question. One, you're out there doing the work.

So keep it up. Congratulations. And two, you've got a good heart. Okay? Just the type of person that I like to help people like you, you make the epic community a great place to be. So I just want to acknowledge you for that. And awesome to have you here.

So I'm going to go ahead and answer that question first. And then I'll address your second question. Second afterwards. Okay. So to let someone down easy and let them know that you won't be able to buy their house and you won't be able to help them out of their bond. it's actually very simple. You don't let them know at the end that you can't buy their house.

You let them know up front before they get their hopes all built up. And here's what I mean. And I'll give me a couple of key phrases or a few pointers here that you can use, the same ones that I use over and over for many areas of my business, actually. So it looks like this. You get a call from a motivated seller and or you meet the seller at the property to, you know, you're building your rapport. I know you're doing that. You mentioned that. You're building the rapport. You're making friends and you're evaluating the situation. And before you get too deep into the

actual discussion of the deal, okay, about the real estate conversation, you're going to say something to the effect like this. Mr. Seller, Mrs. Seller, as you can probably guess, I am an investor and I have to make a profit for this to work for me. I mean, this is how I make my living and how I feed my family. by helping people like yourself. Unfortunately, I'm not able to help every person in every situation. The market just won't allow me to do it. So with that said, I do promise to be straight with you. If I can help you, I absolutely will.

If I can't, I won't. It's entirely up to the market and the market conditions they change daily. So either way, I'll only give you a straight answer. Is that fair? Okay? So that's what you would say. And it doesn't have to be those exact words. but you should have these three elements in whatever words that you do come up with.

First, let them know that you are there to make a profit. You have certain numbers that you have to hit for you to proceed. You're an investor, and this is what you do for a living. This is your business. That's the first thing you've got to let them know. Second, let them know that you're not sure if you'll be able to help them or not. Maybe you can. Maybe you can't.

You won't know for sure until you conduct all of your, standard research, the same research that you conduct with every single deal. Okay? So that's the second thing. The third thing, let them know that ultimately it's up to the market. It's not your decision. You know, you don't even know whether the market is going to allow you to hit your numbers or not. So it's up to the market, what the market says.

So if you give them a reasonable amount of doubt up front, it's not a big deal to tell them whether or not you can or can't buy their house. You know, another indirect benefit for sharing these three points with the seller is that it lays the ground for a win-win negotiation. It removes the adversarial relationship that can form between buyer and seller. And it puts the seller on your side to try and help you solve their problem. It's a good practice all the way around that sets the stage for a smooth and easy transaction, if there indeed is a transaction there to be had.

Okay, make sense. So let them know that you're there to make a profit, that you're an investor. This is what you do for living, is how you feed your family. This is your business. Second, let them know that you're not sure if you're going to be able to help them or not.

Put some reasonable doubt in there. Maybe you can help them. Maybe you can't. You don't even know if this is going to make sense for you or not based on your deal standards. You won't know for sure until you conduct all of your standard research. And three, ultimately, Mr. Seller, Mrs. Seller, it's up to the market.

It's not my decision. I'm not sure if the market is going to allow me to help you or not. But you know what? Once I do my due diligence, once I conduct my research on the property and the market conditions, I will certainly let you know. If I can, I will let you know. If I can't, I'll let you know that too. Fair? Cool.

So that's the gist. And you have that up front. You don't want to build all this rapport and get their hopes all up. And then at the end, you're saying, sorry, good luck. You know, that's just kind of a crummy way to do it. Okay. Awesome for you, Octavian, for having these people's emotions and feelings in their situation at heart. Because when you're dealing with motivated cells, you're going to run up against all kinds of different situations and scenarios with people.

And sometimes it is sad. Sometimes it can be a little bit depressing out there trying to help people, especially when you can't help them. Now, your second question, you want an example of a bread and butter buy and hold transaction that doesn't involve the bank. And I think I understand what you're going for when you say bread and butter. I wish I could ask you directly, but I think you're looking for a typical way to do this. And unfortunately, there's not really a typical way. I mean, this is creative investing, creative financing. There's just too many variables at play for me to answer this question adequately.

What I can offer to make this a little bit easier for you is for you, if you haven't done so already, to define your minimum deal standards. Minimum deal standards. What's the minimum you're willing to accept in a deal? That's what that means. So maybe you have those set for yourself already. Maybe you don't. If you don't, you want to set those for yourself.

And so what that means is in this scenario, when you're talking about buying and holding, you want to define what's the minimum return you want if you were to hold on to the house. And you can define that minimum return. You can define your standards by a minimum dollar amount per month. Like I won't hold this property or I won't hold this property unless I can make $250 of cash flow per month. That would be your minimum. I have to cash flow at least $250. Pick whatever number you want.

I'm just using that as an example. I have to cash flow at least $250 for me to move forward on this deal. Okay? So you can express it in a dollar amount or you can define it as a percentage. You know, last episode, last episode or two episodes ago, I'm not sure I can't remember. We talked a lot about ROI and ROE. So you can define your minimum deal standards as a percentage, like a 15% ROI, return on investment, 15% ROI per year. And so if you know what your minimum deal standards are, then,

it's much easier to decide which properties you're going to hold and which ones you're going to sell to someone else. Okay? So that's the first part of it. The second part of your question is how to do it without a bank. Again, there's a bunch of stuff at play here. There's just too many variables, too many moving parts. Not every investing strategy to do this without a bank is going to fit every scenario. See, when it comes to looking for money or financing without going to a bank, you know, you have a lot of options. And so not that there's not probably not a right way to do this, certainly plenty of wrong ways, but there's not an absolute right way that's going to work every time. But when I, when I come up against this situation, I'll just kind of walk you through what I'm thinking. Here's the order that

I typically look for the money. My first choice, and you know what, and even this is changing all the time because it still depends. There's still things that could cause me to reverse or change this order up a little bit. But typically, the first place I'm going to look for the money is the existing financing on the property, if there is any. See if I can assume that or take that over subject too. So that's the first place I look. The second place I look is the seller themselves. Do they have equity in the property that they would sell to me over time?

Basically, seller finance. Would they create some terms for me to pay them back their equity? Okay, so the second place I'd look for the seller. The third place would be private money, outside investors. And that could be, you know, that could be a, friend or a family member or associate, or it could be a hard money lender, or maybe a private lender that does this for a living. Could be anything.

Could be someone's retirement account. Could be anything, anything but a bank. So that would be the order. I'd look at the existing financing, then I'd look for the seller and their equity, then I'd look for private money. Or a combination of all the above. This is where you have to really master crafting your terms. This is where your intellectual currency comes into play.

You know, last episode, I gave you an exercise around crafting different terms. I think it was last episode. Maybe it was the episode before. But I gave you, like, say the amount of $100,000, come up with 10 different ways that you can divide up that $100,000 on how you can pay it. For example, I'll give you $10,000 now and then I'll pay you $2,000 a month until it's paid off. That would be an example of terms. So go back and listen to that episode and get really good with your terms. and you can use a combination of the existing financing,

a combination with that existing financing and the seller's equity and maybe also some private money if it was necessary. So I hope that helps. I've actually covered this quite a bit. I've covered in the past, and those are taken over entire episodes. And actually, just as recently as episode 70 and episode 80. I did a part one and a part two on this very thing.

And I also shared a bunch of free tools and access to additional training on those episodes as well. I think you can find a lot of what you're looking for right there, Octavian. I know many others are or have, as those two episodes seem to be my most downloaded episodes of the last six months. So that's episode 70 and 80, and they're creating cash flow with little to no money parts one and two. Okay? So hopefully that helps you out there. I wish I could give you a more define and definite answer, but I just can't.

There just isn't one. I'd be doing you a disservice if I did. So two great questions. Thanks for those. And if you, if you happen to have a question, comment or concern that you'd like me to answer or address right here live on the show, please share them with me on the Epic Real Estate Investing Hotline at 1-88-891-7203. 888-891-7203. And be sure that you look out for this coming Friday, Financial Freedom Friday, number two.

I'm going to give you all six lessons of the Epic Team Builder. I'm giving you that course for free. Okay? So now you know, but it will only work if you do. That's it for today. I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream. You've been listening to Epic Real Estate Investing, the world's foremost authority on separating the facts from the BS in real estate investing education.

If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to visit iTunes and share your thoughts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. time here at Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.