Epic Real Estate Investing - How to Quit a Cushy Six-Figure Job to Invest in Real Estate Full Time | 1179

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

In today's show, Matt introduces you to two current private REI ACE clients and lets you know how they left their cushy six-figure corporate jobs in the car industry to invest in real estate, full time! But first, let's kick off the show with how to get started investing in real estate in the first place. Let's go back to the basics and just make sure that we're not missing anything! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terio Media. All righty on today's show, I want to introduce you to two current private RIAEA's clients and let you hear from them how after about a year and a half or so of us working together, how they left their cushy six-figure corporate jobs in the car industry to invest in real estate full time. And you'll never believe what their business has turned into and what they're doing today. But first, let's kick off the show with how to get started investing in real estate. estate in the first place. Let's go back to the basics and just make sure that we're not missing

anything. And if you are just getting started, this would be a really great episode for you. All right? You ready? Let's go. Welcome to the all-new, epic real estate investing show. The longest running real estate investing podcast on the interwebs, your source for housing market updates, creative investing strategies, and everything else you need to retire early. Some audio may be pulled from our weekly videos and may require visual support. To get the first, full premium experience, check out Epic Real Estate's YouTube channel, EpicR-E-I.TV. If you want to make money in real estate, sit tight and stay tuned. If you want to go far, share this with a friend. If you want to go fast, go to rei-Ase.com. Here's Matt.

Okay, so I'm going to walk you through eight specific steps to get started in real estate investing, and they come in a specific sequence, and you don't want to really mess with that sequence. I've seen it over and over when people take these steps, but they kind of take them conveniently in their own sequence. And what happens is they don't get the results or they don't get them as fast as they wanted to get them and or they just flat out eventually give up. And I don't want that to be you. So, follow me through this. And if at the end, you need some additional help, I will show you exactly how to get it. Number one, get educated. Because there's a saying, there are no bad real estate investments, just uneducated investors. Now, it may appear really simple by just after

watching the latest flip that house show, but not so fast. You got to slow down a little bit because there's real money at play. Oftentimes it's your money and oftentimes it's really big money. So you better know what you're doing before you get started. But I also say don't let that intimidate you either. Realistically, today, there's probably enough free information right there online for you to get started and to get started effectively. Also, aside for me, you've got a ton of options out there.

But keep in mind, it is. is possible to over educate. Or I should say unnecessarily educate yourself. You don't need to know everything about real estate investing to get started. You only really need to see the first step. I think it was Dr. Martin Luther King who said that very thing. You don't need to see the whole staircase to take the first step. And this is just like that.

You see, there's a million different ways to make a million bucks in real estate. And you only need to pick one. So do a little digging. Take your time, do a little research. And find somebody or something that really, resonates with you, choose it, make a decision, and stick with it. If you'd like to start by looking at working with me one-on-one, and we do have some of those long-term expensive programs, but we've got other less intensive options as well. Head on over to r-ei-aase.com, answer a few questions,

and then pick a time for us to hop on the phone, and then we'll brainstorm about what type of program would be the best fit for you, if a program is good for you at all or not. So number two, set some goals. So after doing your initial research, your initial investigation, you'll have a really good idea as to what type of financial obligation may be involved. It is possible to get started with as little as a thousand bucks, maybe even less in some circumstances. And this is exactly how I got starting. And that's to say, if you want to become a successful real estate investor, money is never the obstacle. Most people think they've got a money problem. But in reality, all they've got is an idea problem. More on that later. But you

want to decide what the end game is. Do you want to pick up a few rental properties for your portfolio? Do you want to turn it into a side hustle to earn some extra income? Or do you want to take it on full time and replace your day jobs income and completely walk away from it? So go ahead and write down what you want to have happen in the next six months, in the next 12 months and the next five years. And you typically don't need longer than that to create financial independence for yourself. Next, reverse engineer your whole plan. Start from that five year point and work your way backwards. If you and I happen to get on the phone, I can certainly help you out with that. Number three, analyze your resources.

I mean, what does your money look like or your access to money? I mean, there are plenty of ways to get started investing in real estate with no money. But it is much easier if you do have some. But with that in mind, it doesn't have to be your money. It just has to be access to money. You can use other people's money. And in many cases, that's probably the more prudent way to do it. And I've got a list of sources of other people's money.

Now, depending on where you're starting, then some of these might be a little more applicable than others, but here's a list nonetheless. So the seven OPM, other people's money sources include first, an FHA loan. This is a loan insured by the federal government. And it typically doesn't come with the strict lending guidelines that a conventional loan would come with. It requires a smaller down payment, a lesser credit score, a fixed interest rate, and a long-term loan. Those are the types of things you're looking for as a real estate investor. And a lot of that, almost, yeah, all of that is available right there in the FHA loan. The only requirement with an FHA loan is you have to live in the property first, but then you can eventually turn it

into an income property. It's a great way to get started with very little money. Another great loan that might be available to you is a VA loan. Now, you need prior military service to qualify. But what's great about the VA loan is it's zero percent down. It's got a long-term fixed rate. And this two, you also have to live in first, but it's a great way to get started if you have access to it. Now, a third example of other people's money could be a conforming loan. And this is kind of what we all know as real estate financing. You walk into a bank and that loan is going to be backed by the federal government. You're going to need anywhere from 5 to 20% down.

You're going to get a fixed rate. You're going to get a long-term loan also. But this, you don't have to live in at first. You could use this for an investment property or your primary residence. If you have the credit score and the financial means for a down payment, this is a really great loan to acquire also, especially with interest rates as low as they are right now. Now, another example of other people's money is a portfolio loan. Now, this is a very different type of loan.

It still comes from a bank, but you're going to have slightly different lending qualifications. There are going to be different guidelines. And what's different about this loan is it stays within the bank. That conventional loan I talked about earlier, that bank is going to take that loan and they're going to sell it on the secondary market, where the bank gets money back, which gives them more liquidity to go out and lend that money out again. With the portfolio loan, that's going to stay. internal and they're going to be responsible for the servicing of that loan and they're going to be

liable should their borrower default. But what's really nice about this is they can be much more flexible and if you have a really good relationship with your bank, that could be a great option for you too. Now, fifth option for other people's money are what we call hard money loans. Now, these are asset-based loans. And what that means is the lender's not going to so much look at your credit score as they are going to look at the asset that you plan to purchase with their money. That ultimately represents their security. Now, with these loans typically comes a shorter term, so it's not really a long-term situation for you, but it's great to acquire the property and arrange different types of financing later. And they're also going to come in with higher fees. But it's a really great tool of

the real estate investor to go ahead and make their acquisitions and figure out permanent financing later. And then there are private lenders, private money you might have heard of. And that can be a real big mystery for people because they're always looking for private money lenders. And what they don't realizes that private money really should be referred to as relationship money, because that's exactly what it is. It's your family, it's your friends, your associates who you go to for these loans, and they can become the bank or the financing for your real estate investments there. What's really nice about that is through that relationship, you can get some really great rates, and you can really create some magic for yourself if you've got the right lenders in your

corner. Now, the seventh form of other people's money is seller financing. Now, this is my favorite. It's what I've used to build my entire real estate portfolio. So traditionally, where you go to a bank to get a loan to purchase a property, in this case, the seller becomes the bank. The seller steps in and gives you that loan. Now, they don't actually give you a loan, but what you're doing is you're essentially buying that property with an IOU. You're saying, here's a little bit money now, and then I'm going to give you this amount

of money over time. If you'd like to go deeper into seller financing and other creative financing methods, you might really like what I put together for you over at Epicbreakthrough.com. It's a great way to get started in creative financing. Epicbreakthrough.com. So the type of financing that you choose for your real estate investments is really going to depend on your financial situation and your experience. Just understand the more options that you have available,

the more real estate investing you'll be able to do. The more profit you'll be able to generate. Now, here at Epic, we provide 100% financing for our clients for their fix and flips. and we provide the best rates in the business for their buy and holds. And if that's something you'd like to take a closer look at, head over to REIA's.com. You'll answer a few questions. Then you'll have an opportunity to pick a time for us to hop on the phone.

We'll brainstorm some ideas about what the future of your real estate investing looks like. And if there's a good fit, we'll tell you exactly what there is to do next so you can work with us. If there's not a good fit, we can give you some options that might work out better for you also. So number four, choose a specific real estate investing strategy. And this doesn't need to be a long, drawn-out. complicated process either. Looking at your goals and your experience is going to give you a really good idea as to where you need to begin. At riaease.com, we can help you navigate that for free if you'd like.

But for example, if cash is your biggest need, then maybe wholesaling or fix and flip is going to be the best option for you right now. If you're looking to build an income portfolio or really kind of build on to your wealth, then buy and hold single family homes might be the best starting point. But don't overthink this. The goal is to get started. You can make adjustments on the way. Just remember, you can't steer a parked car. So just get started. Number five, pick your market. And a lot of people struggle with this because they think that their market is too competitive,

that it's oversaturated. And they think they have to go invest in a market other than theirs to get real opportunity. That couldn't be further from the truth. You know, I've got a client, Jeremiah, and when we met, he wanted to invest in a different market. And I advised him, don't do it, don't do it. And then at the same time, coincidentally, I had another client, Chris, and he wanted to invest in another market as well. And I told him the same thing. Don't do it. Don't do it. So Jeremiah, he ignored my advice and invested in the other market. And he did really, really well for himself.

And then Chris listened to my advice and invested in his own market, did not go to the other market. He listened to me, stayed in his own market, and he didn't do really well. In fact, I don't even know what he's doing today. And you might be thinking, well, this is great, Matt. If we just do the, Opposite of what you say we're going to be successful? No, my point is, Jeremiah ignored my advice and invested in another market was very successful. Here's the irony. The market he chose was the very market that Chris lived in. So it's not the market that's going to determine your success. It's the real estate investor. So the quick and dirty way to choose your market is, first, pick one within driving distance of where you spend most of your time. And what I mean by driving distance is, if you

are sitting down at the dinner table with your family and you get a phone call from a motivated seller and they say they are ready to sell their property, how far are you willing to drive in that type of situation to go out and get that contract signed? That should be your driving distance. So that's number one. The second, look for your working class neighborhoods, like your blue collar neighborhoods. Where do your police officers live? Where do your school teachers live? Where do your government employees live? Where's the neighborhood where first time home buyers move to like that newly married couple, they go out and they buy their first house. Where is that in your area? That's the market you really want to look at because that's where all of the activity is. Typically,

people will move into there, they'll make a little bit of money and then they'll move out. So there's a lot of buying and selling on those markets. So there's a lot of opportunity for you to get as well. And then you kind of want to factor in. You want to get right at the median or just below the median price point for the area because again, that's where all the activity is. And then you want to look for three bedroom two-bath houses because if you're going to be flipping your house or you're going to be renting your house out, the three-bedroom, two-bath houses are the ones that are in highest demand. Follow those guidelines and that'll be a really good start. Again, you can make some modifications along the way, but that's an ideal starting point for most people in most markets.

Number six, establish your minimum deal standards, meaning what is the minimum profit you'd be willing to accept if you were to flip a property? And what is the minimum cash flow you'd be willing to accept if you were to hold the property. For example, the first thing I do when I'm looking at a property and determining whether or not I want to look at it any deeper is I want to know two things. Does it have equity and will it cash flow? So I'm looking for what is the purchase price that I'm likely to get this property for and what is it worth and what's the difference? Is there a potential for me to hit my minimum deal standard there if I were to flip the property? Further, if I were to hold on to it, what is it rent for and what's the purchase price? What's that ratio? So is it

likely to cash flow if I were to buy and hold it. It's got to be a yes for both of those for this to be worthy of my time to do further research. The most successful real estate investors are able to make quick decisions and act fast. And because they know exactly what their minimum deal standards are, when they see it, it makes fast actions really, really easy. The best real estate investors, they're not buyers of real estate. The best real estate investors are shoppers. The more clear you are on what you're looking for, the easier is to shop. The easier it is to make quick decisions, the easier it is to act fast. And the faster you act, the more successful you'll be. Number seven, create a plan and find deals. As much as I'd like

it to be true, good real estate deals just don't land in your lap. You got to go out and look for them. And it's akin to, you know, mining for gold. You got to sift through a lot of dirt to find those nuggets. Now, there are countless methods for finding deals. And every one of them works. Nothing doesn't. Now, contrary to popular belief, you only need one way to go about it. And that's good news for most. The better news is you actually get to pick which one you want to do. I mean, you can work with real estate agents. You can network your way with other real estate investors or centers of influence like attorneys and CPAs. Those are all really great ways to find deals. If you're a people person, that might be right up your alley. Not to mention, there's no expense

involved. You could also drive through neighborhoods. You can walk through neighborhoods and just look for signs of distress. And when you find one, you can make contact with that owner. and present an offer to them. That's another great way to find deals. You can pick up the phone and just start calling or texting for sale by owners or pre-foreclosures or expired listings or absentee owners. You can place ads in the classifieds, whether online or off, you can send direct mail, you can work social media.

I mean, you can place digital ads all over the internet. Or you can put a sign on your car and people see your name and your phone number as you drive around. Or you can take those signs, you can put them in the ground, you can put them up on telephone polls. Essentially, anywhere you see advertising or marketing is a potential for you to attract deals to yourself. Number eight, now schedule it. You got to schedule the work. If you don't schedule it, it ain't getting done. Now, maybe you've got lots of time or maybe you don't. You know, you really don't need that much time in a few hours a week. You can still become a successful

real estate investor. And I put together a free training on this very thing. I think you'll really like what you see. Head over to mats free training.com and I'll walk. you through the process step by step on how to find deals, how to become a successful real estate investor in as little as an hour a day. Please stand by. We've got overhead to pay. We'll be right back. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Oh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo. Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep. Grooving. Hey, I won. Feel the fun.

Boarding will begin when passenger fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close you, call 18665331-260 or visit Comexonterio.ca. Coast to coast, epic investors are doing the most. It's time for another epic field report. I'm going to bring on two clients. We're still working together.

We've just been working together for a little while. And we were engaged a lot in the beginning. in helping them get started up in their real estate investing, but the more time passed, the more independent they became. And now there's absolutely crushing it. And it's a partnership in the second partner just left his job. So now they are both financially free and out there in charge of their own lives financially, personally, and just overall.

So without further ado, please help me welcome Mr. Tony Romero and Mr. Matt Young. Welcome, gang. Hello. Hi. This is where you say, welcome. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you.

Welcome. I wanted to say, too, it's no second or Romeo. What did I say? It's like the Spanish way. It's really common. Very good. I knew it was Romeo, but my eyes just went off. Didn't trust myself and I trusted my eyes and the eyes were wrong.

There you go. Lesson learned. Anyway, welcome, gang. I wanted to bring you on to talk about how you've made this transition from this nice six-figure job that you guys both had and you made this transition over to becoming full-time real estate investors. And now we got our eyes set on seven figures. So 2022, I know, is a very exciting year for you guys. And so I want to talk all about that and how you made this transition. A lot of my clients are in the same boat as you. Some are further along than others. But recently, a bunch kind of fit into that category.

A lot of people have signed on to this great resignation. And they're trying to go out there and take financial control of their lives. And that's what we do here. So thanks for being here. I really appreciate. it. And I want to talk about how you did that specifically. But before we start, when we got started working together, when we first met, what was it that you guys were actually trying to accomplish? What was the actual goal? Tony, I can start with you. Our goal together was to get as many doors as possible. And I want to think it was like our goal was 100 doors in two years. So our first original goal was to become landlords and buy as many houses we possibly could. Then, of course, it's changed twice since then. And now we do a little bit of everything. But that was definitely the start, and that's where we were thinking it was going to go the farthest. Got it. So you wanted to be landlords. That's something that you don't hear very often. What did you interact with or what was your experience before we met that made you decide that's what you wanted to do?

We thought it was the quickest way to financial freedom. Cash flow per month. That's cash flow is king. That's what we wanted. That's what we wanted at the beginning. Then we realized that to buy all those houses, we need to have some, sort of secondary income to put down payments for leveraged loans on those properties. That's where we kind of switched to another option.

And we started wholesaling deals and we weren't keeping everything. Yeah, that's kind of our second area when it's over into the wholesale deal. Got it, got it. Matt, anything to add with those are your same goals? Yeah. I think when we originally started with like this like pyramid idea where we could add four and they get four more. and then after like 15 years of adding four a year,

we could refinance those out every year. I think that's kind of how it originally started. And then we're like, well, I think we could do more than four a year. And then we started talking and just researching and seeing who could help us and what we need to do because I was still working full time at the dealership. Tony was doing the stay-at-home dad thing, but just finished at the dealership. So we were just trying to brainstorm on what the fastest way to get there was, and that's how we end up finding you.

Perfect. Perfect. So if you're able to get out there and be able to accomplish that, Matt, what would that have meant to you professionally? I think I came to a realization probably about two years ago, maybe a little more than two years ago. They didn't want to be in the car business the rest of my life. I just really wanted to get out of that 70-hour week grind where you're at the store from 7 in the morning until 8.30 at night every day. And I just felt like real estate was that answer. So that's when we started going that route. And I thought about Tony when I was thinking real estate because he originally had to

have the car business to do the same thing when he was already out free to move around. So that's why we partnered together. So you had to be that boots on the ground step why we were transitioning. Got it. Got it. And Tony, if you were able to accomplish this, become the landlord and create that financial freedom, what would that have meant to personally? Just the financial freedom is the biggest thing, having that cash flow every month

to be able to not have to worry and just like guaranteed money coming in. Yeah, I mean, literally it's true freedom. The meaning of freedom to me is to be able to have that cash flow a month and to be able to live off that. Got it. So you explained a little bit when we first started talking how your initial goal was to become a landlord. And then you decided, uh-oh, we're going to need an additional income to go ahead and fund those down payments. And so it's kind of transitioned.

And now you've got a bunch of stuff going on. So explain me, what does business look like today? What did we start working together? That was about a year ago, right? A little year and a half, maybe? I want to see, yeah, closer to a year and a half. I want to see it was the end of the summer in, was it 2020 or? July of 20, I think.

Yeah, it was kind of like right when we had that initial opening after the initial lockdown of COVID, right? Right after. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. So, yeah, a year and a half, what does business look like for you guys today? I mean, you can pretty much call us full on answers at this point, just because we do a little bit of every single part of it. We find deals, wholesale deals, take down and manage our own deals.

We do hotels as well, be able to take them down, do a little rehab, put them on the market. We have done multifamily deals in the past as well, too. We've never done a commercial deal as of yet, but we have our first piece of land under contract right now. We have 10 to 11 acres in South Des Moines, Iowa that we just literally got under contract yesterday. So that's a whole other step into a whole other game of like servicing land or surveying land and getting that put together. And then I feel like there's a whole other. Oh, yeah. And then also, too, we have Airbnb. So a little bit of everything. And really it's just whatever property makes sense for that exit strategy or other way around. Exit strategy makes sense for that property. So a little bit of everything. But our majority of our thing is we find deals and wholesale deals to other investors here in the Des Moines market. And then, of course, we hold property to. We have 13 properties as of today under our control, slash. we own outright, or not own the leverage money. I'll let Matt jump in.

He's probably got two or three more things I'm forgetting. Sure. No, and Matt, let me kind of tee you up a little bit also and kind of segue into the next question I had. You know, you kind of hung out at the job a little bit longer than you anticipated because COVID was kind of a blessing to the car industry, right? And you couldn't walk away from those big paydays. So kind of leave off where or pick up where Tony left off.

And if you can, kind of share me some stats and some numbers of what actually enabled you to walk away from what was financially very fruitful. Yeah, definitely was one of the hardest decisions I think I've made is to leave the dealership. We were set in record after record month. They had a budget, I think, last year of $3.5 million for the store. And they more than doubled that by the end of the year. So that's an incredible amount of increase year over year. but the biggest thing was I knew that I needed to make that step and go full-time with Tony to be able to keep growing the business.

We had so many things going on when Tony's running around, trying to transaction coordinate and go on these appointments and set the appointments and then follow up on the new leads coming in. So I knew if we were going to get going any faster, I just had to make the jump and jump in and help Tony make those calls, set up those appointments. And since then, I've been out, I think, three months now, really about almost four. but the first couple weeks we just had newborn babies. So I didn't spend a lot of time in the business.

I had a couple things at home to attend to. But now that we're about three months full time into it, we're just really trying to systemize our process, focus on getting the leads called. Although we did have a pretty good first year, we had a bunch of leads that we fell to the cracks we didn't follow up with. So the last three months, we've just been going back and hammered through calls

trying to catch up and pick up those deals. And we've got 10 houses actually on the contract right now because of that. And we've already closed on for this year for holds ourselves. So I'm off to a great start. We got a couple of people on the disposition side of those 10 contracts. And then we just got a couple more signed up that we're starting to disposition. But yeah, Tony mentioned we're at 13 properties. I think our total in that year where it's 1.7 million in total real estate under our control with a debt of about a million dollars, just over a million dollars. So we picked up some good equity and some great cash flow in that year.

And we just got to keep growing that. So that's the plan. Awesome. So 1.7 net almost a million bucks in your first year of equity, right? If we've added all the wholesales, we'd probably hit that number, right? Yeah, I think we did about 150,000 in whole sales. Okay. Perfect.

So fantastic first year. And I think you kind of described to me a little bit logistically. And the reason I'm asking this question this way is because I think this is a big decision people deliberate with as far as real estate is going well. Do I wait until my income from real estate matches my day job? Or do I see so much opportunity it makes sense for me to make the leap because I know that income will be there? So do you think it was more your decision that was more logistic driven or was it more financially like the security part driven? Logistic driven. Yeah. I'm a little ways away from catching up for the dealership. Okay. All right. That's where I wanted to get at.

So, but perfect. I mean, you saw the logistic gaps and then that resulted in 10 new deals just like that in three months. Yeah. Is that? I definitely think we can keep that consistency throughout the year. And we do 10 wholesale deals a month, then I'll be back to the world. Perfect. Perfect.

Okay. So, hey, if you're going to do this all over again. And Tony, I mean, you were, you'd already walked away from your job before, right? I made a decision that Matt made about me and there's 60, 70 hours a week curve. Yeah, it's just a lot. Right. Okay. So what I'm not clear with was how much real estate or experience you had under your belt before we met?

So personally not a whole bunch, but my dad owned 19 properties when he passed away. So I did kind of the disposition after that to help get rid of a bunch of those. I was only 17 at the time. I was only 18 at the time. So I didn't have a lot of like power to be able to swing around and do what I would have like to do. like to do or I didn't have the knowledge today that I would have been able to use then as well too. But I got to witness it. I got to watch it. And you can ask Matt this as well too. I have pretty good connections in the community here for the labors, the people that to fill the houses that we have.

There's just a, I got to witness a lot of it and put it in place, but actual education wise, very, very little to know. Okay, perfect. So I'm going to ask you both this question. since you guys did it very differently. If you were to go through this and make this transition from your normal day job to becoming a full-time real estate investor, you had to do it all over again. What would you do differently? Like if I had the crystal ball, I would have taken my 401k money, put it all into Bitcoin the day that I signed up with you, quit my job, let that thing go up six times, and then

borrowing from that out of a wallet and just investing in real estate. the whole time and then pull blasts the whole time. Well, the crystal ball. I know it had been a tough thing to walk away from that potential of the year, but looking back, that's what I wish I would have done. I actually have that same thought. Seriously, when I went to meet with you in Las Vegas, I had that in the back of my head. Like, should I just take my whole 401K right now, put it in.

I think it was at $10,000 and then use that, but I didn't do it. And I stayed at the dealership. We did borrow the money. I borrowed 100 grand for my 401k. And we used that to buy some deals, burr out of them and while it's working. But I wish I had just took it all, put it into that and they borrowed against it.

You know, when you brought something up that a lot of people are very emotional about, and that is their 401K, and depending on how long they've been at their job, it could have gone to a, you know, they've got 10 years at a certain position, and they've been contributing to it. Now it's like it's this amount.

And it's not enough to return. tire on, but it is a decent amount in many cases. And the idea of pulling that out and thinking of taxes and penalties and all that type of stuff really frightens people into just leaving it there and doing nothing. What would you say to somebody? I know there's some mouths dropping open and like, oh my God, what an idiot. He would have should have never done that or something, whatever, that's going through people's minds. What would you say to them? Do you have any regrets about doing that? So I didn't take it out, but I wish I was. have. My financial advisor advised me against it because of the taxable benefits of it or the

taxable consequences of it. But looking back, I mean, easily if I would have made those moves, that 40% hit, even if it was 40%, which it probably wouldn't have been, wouldn't have been nothing, you know what I mean, compared to what I could have made on. So I remember when we were sitting in Las Vegas, you talked about how when you're investing in the 401K, you're kind of retiring your money now so that you can use it later. And I've really been thinking about that ever since that moment on how I can kind of free up that money. And now that I'm out of the dealership, I'm working on rolling it into a self-directed IRA so we can use it as private money lending on our deals and just keep building it,

since it is still all intact. I think that's my new plan with it. It just kind of depends on the situation. I think maybe for some people, it might not be the best move depending on where they're at in their life, but another people's situations, I think it might be the way to go. Right. I agree. I think it depends.

If you've got a plan for that money and it's going to produce more for you now than it would later, then absolutely. You know, even despite all the taxes and the penalties, if you're going to make up for it, then, you know, why not enjoy the benefit now? Because you guys are super young, right? And so, I mean, you really want to wait until you're 62 years old before you get that money? Or could you put it together now and have a whole lot more money to play with by the time you hit age of 62, right? Tony, if you were to, now that you had a chance to think about it, if you had to do it all over, What would you do differently? I think like Matt said, I would have went all in faster.

Of course, you just have this thing in the back of your mind thinking, you know, is this the right idea? Is this something? But the thing that I've learned just in an experience in life so far is persistence pays. So as long as you stay persistent with something, and especially if it's something like this, that's a proven asset range or proven income, just staying persistent within actually doing the day-to-day and making the phone calls and making the relationships and all that. I feel like if I would have built that stronger in the beginning,

we'd be double as far as we were today. Yeah, I think relationships and then going all in in my mind instead of the second-guessing. Right, just going, just committing. Yeah, it's something that's proven. I agree that's a good way of putting it. I mean, it's proven, so just commit to it. Over and over.

Yeah, over and over. Super. So let me ask you, what have been your three favorite things about working with Epic? Tony, you can go first. Communication, being able to send you a message and it get responded in a timely manner is awesome. It's, as Matt will probably tell you this, it's helped us tremendously in not making the mistakes because we have somebody that knows what he's doing slash has been through those experiences before. We still ask you questions.

I feel like we just asked you a question this week that you answered immediately. And like you said earlier, we've been in this over a year now to where, you know, you kind of could have put us off a little bit. But no, it's an immediate answer right then and there. And it got us right to where we needed to be. So I'd say open communications number one. That's so awesome. The educational videos are insane.

And then third, I learned from seeing. So being able to go and meet with you. It was a big thing. And your intro to this, I would love to come down and see your guys set up in the new office or whatever. I didn't know that you were transitioning to an office down there. So I would love to come to see that at some point. Yes.

Well, the invitation is open. So anytime you want. Yeah, for sure. Saturday, all remodeling and everything should be done. My office is done today. I'll be moving in the office tomorrow. But we have a huge classroom now. I mean, a ginormous classroom.

And that's all being done. It's really cool. Yeah, so please. We're about to do the investor labs anyway, so we're going to have our monthly mastermind day. So you're going to come and go to those as many times or as little as times as you want. Okay.

Okay, for sure. Matt, anything to add to the favorite parts about working with Epic? Yeah, I think the education and then support throughout the process the same time we got stuck and then the creative aspect to it. Oh, yeah. I feel like we really have saved a lot of our deals with that creative aspect, which we started to do. in the beginning kind of going in trying to get these creative deals put together.

And then we kind of learned throughout time that it's best to maybe just get the house under contract, figure out that if we can make the deal work traditionally. And if it doesn't work, we've been transitioning back to that creative conversation once we're already under contract saying, hey, you know, this doesn't really quite work in the way we thought it would. And then we go back to like a subject to or some kind of option like that. We just put a deal together where we gave a lady $10,000 down with a balloon in 120 days of $50,000. So the house is worth $100,000.

It doesn't need any work. We put a renter in it like two days after we closed. And we're in the process of getting a loan in place on that property for that 50 grand. So we'll be in it no money and we acquired a house. And I think without going through this course, we'd have never have thought about doing that. That's awesome. That's awesome. So before we started recording, Tony and I were talking just a little bit and he said you were really excited about 2002.

Right. So now both of you guys are freed from your corporate jobs and now it's all in on real estate investing. So tell me what are you so excited about for 2022? What do you see for the future? I think being able to consistently get that wholesaling business down to a consistent monthly number where we're doing it part time. We had that where you fill your pipeline up. you sell through all your houses and you have to like rush back in to fill your your high line and you have those moles where you're not getting a deal close every month

and we're trying to get a deal close every week so we're getting paid constantly. So I think just to be able to get that consistency in the deal flow to be able to reap and turn take a salary back from the business and keep growing our rental portfolio. We do have some commercial lending but we still have I still have four mortgages I can put on my name and Tony has 10. So we definitely want to get a salary going, use up those mortgages, and then go back to the commercial side. Perfect.

And then rolling right back into a portfolio loan and start all over again, right? Super. Yep. You got it. Tony, what are you most excited about? Anything to add to that? Yeah. Just the opening of opportunities, like I said, we just got into contract some land.

It's something that we never really thought about before. We were only thinking houses. And so that opens up a lot of options to either just wholesale that land, actually get it surveyed and parcel it out, or maybe even try developing down the road. We don't have our connections in place right now to do the developing, but we're on track and we're meeting people constantly. We started having realtors ask us to go to lunches.

That's kind of cool and new. I should show you my Facebook messenger. It's kind of mind-blind. I probably have 40 people in there asking me how to, to wholesale slash how did I start slash what happened. What was the downfall? Stuff like that.

So just our market is noticing us. That makes me feel good too. People calling us asking them questions and stuff. Right. It's remarkable, isn't it? It's fun too. Action. Right?

The action speaks for itself for sure and people follow that. They're attracted to it. One thing we were also talking about before we started recording was I was telling about Corey, who one of my older students, and he's been very, very successful. And I remember the day that he quit his job. And on his way out, his boss actually called, asked him into the office and said,

hey, I'm kind of tired of this place too. What are you going to go do? Can I come with you? And it made me think of the story that you just shared. So kind of share a little bit about that, Tony. So we kind of hired on our first employee. And it's interesting, I shouldn't say first employee, first caller. He is known as one of the better closers here in the state of Iowa when it came to

car deals or car sales transitioning his word tracks and verbatim or verbiage into a housing market took a little bit of time like a couple weeks to try to get that switched over but now our boss is our employee as of today so it was quite quite the transition that way almost the same exact thing as cori but it actually happened not the guy just asked right right that's awesome that's awesome So you guys want to stick around just to answer a couple of questions. Yeah, yeah, sure. Cool. Sure.

If you have any questions, then go ahead and fire them into the chat, the live chat there. And if you like what you're here, let us know by hitting the like button, that'll let you know that you like it too and they'll show it to more people and more people get to benefit from this. So this question right here, good one. From Rob, do you all find that homes for sale from distressed sellers seem to come about easier now that you are in the rental business? I don't know that it's easier to find distressed. properties that were in the rental business. I think we understand that portion of the business a little better.

So when we're talking to an absentee owner about the situation, when they're saying that they're having a problem with water in the basement or whatever the issue is announced, we've kind of gotten through it. So you can have that rapport and common ground. I think it's easier to kind of have those conversations when they can tell you know what you're talking about as well, because definitely in the beginning when you're talking to the people and you're just

bringing it. Some people catch you. So I think just being in it kind of helps a little bit. Right. But I don't know that it helped you find more sellers that way. Let's go deeper into that. A lot of people are thinking that the market is so hot that no one wants to sell their house at a discount. But obviously, you're still finding them.

I think people think it's so hot that it's a good time to sell their house because they're taking advantage before it's too late. So I think you run into that a lot. But I think the absentee owner is still our biggest area of deals. We find the most of our deals from absentee owner. We do get a little bit of people that have been in their house for five to seven years and they're just to the point where they want to move and we're the easiest answer. But I think the majority of our deals still come from the absentee owner. From the absentee owners.

And how are you reaching out to them? We're using gopher clothes primarily. We just started our first direct mail campaign. But we've been using go for clothes. and we just call the leads as they come in. And now that we are whole time, we're going back and we're recalling all the leads we've gotten since the beginning.

So even the ones that we did have conversations with them in the beginning, and we did do the greatest with, and we didn't make them deals. We're just calling back fresh, like we never talked to them forever. And I just working on reputting together that deal, just like it's brand new.

So, Tony, is that where these last 10 deals came from, just following up with old leads? maybe three or four of them might have been a new leads but the majority of them are definitely rekindling deals or rekindling leads. Right. Are you finding that

like your old leads as a lot of people do once they've been in the business for a while? If they'll actually go through the process, finding that your old leads are your best leads. Oh, 100% they're the best. It's surprising the amount of people that don't want to call somebody, you just got to think about it in your own life.

Like today, I'm way different of a position than I was six months ago than I was a year ago. So just think, every time you touch that person, you're planting that seed

that, hey, I'm the answer for you when the time is ready. Here's a question. And I know I just walked you guys through this, but I'll let you guys explain it. You guys doing any sub twos? Yeah, yeah. We actually have,

we own three sub twos, and I think we have two under contract right now. So the last one, if I remember, remember correctly last one I just I reached out to me Matt was something a little bit created can you explain that one to me yeah so the last one I reached out to you about we took over a property she refinanced it with a home equity line of credit and her grandma was living in there she has her own residence her grandma was living in this one and she was just

renting it to her grandma her grandma needed to move to an assisted living facility and she went to go sell that house with a realtor, but because she had so much debt on it from her home equity line of credit, she had to come out of pocket to pay the realtors commissions to sell the house. So we gave her $1,000 and took over the lien. And then as we were doing that, we realized it was a home equity line of credit. And they're like, well, shoot, she could probably draw back on that line of credit. So that's why I reached out to you and she had to get those answered and we have to get that set up so she cannot do that but and it's just an interesting deal how can you do that because that's a unique situation was something that i had actually never

encountered but uh we pulled our resources together and got a good answer so how did it work out we haven't got it completely yet okay but the what we need to do we at a claim of action with her and uh yeah basically we got to get on the phone with her and her bank let her bank know that we are the property managers of the property and that if she was to increase that line, we'd have to be notified and also give the okay because we have interest in the property. Very good. Yeah. I'm sorry.

I didn't want to cut you off. You're good? No, you're right. Now, we are in the process of doing that. We just have like seven different things going on at all times. Perfect. Let me ask you this question because this is going to come up a lot. And I think it could become an issue, particularly if the Fed does raise the.

rates in March and again in June and maybe a couple more times by the end of the year where the mortgage rates are going to be changing, right? And that could have a negative impact on subject two's. I don't know for sure. But it certainly could is, you know, the new loans being written up at a higher rate might make them, the banks a little bit more inclined to go back and call the original subject two's due because they're at such a low rate and maybe they might want to rewrite them at a higher rate. That's kind of what, that's the philosophy. And it hasn't been an issue because over the last 30 years, rates just going down, down, down, down, and there hasn't been a whole lot of incentive for banks to call those due. Walk me through your process when

you're taking over subject two. Tony, maybe you can do this one. Do you actually call the bank? Do you use a trust? What is your strategy for that? So we don't typically talk to the bank. I know that's an important step. But we just kind of roll the dice until it happens where we get into some heat and then we kind of figure it out. So we haven't really had too many issues. We did have one of the banks just show up at a property. We're rehabbing it. A lady from the bank just walked up, knocked on the door and was taking pictures of the house. I had no idea what she was doing. And I told her I was the new owner of the property. Little that I know that she was from the bank that has the loan on the property still. But nothing ever came of it. She never came back. And then

They sent us a letter a few days later that said that the foreclosure process was no longer in process. So, but yeah, that's a perfect example where they know that we own it and we're just taking it over the payments. So if they were to come to us to say that they wanted to call the loan due, we would probably try to go that trust route and see if we could save it. If not, we'd just refinance out of it if possible. Got it. Interesting. Typically, our idea is to burr out of them. as our plan going into them.

So that's why we didn't go through all those steps up front. But we did partner with Anderson Business Advisors to do the trust side of things. We just never went through full circle with it. Okay. Super. Next question here. We'll go ahead and wrap this up right after this one. What if I have capital but lack consistent proof of work history? How do I get in the game?

That seems like more of a question to you. It does kind of, right? But I got you guys here. I just want to know what you guys' advice would be. hear my, for 10 years, they've been hearing my advice on this show about that specific thing. I wonder what you guys would say. I don't know what lack of concept or work history means. Like, so it's basically saying that they don't have consistent jobs so they can't get a traditional loan.

And in that case, I would either find somebody that you could partner with that can get the loan and do a deal with them or two. Or see if you could lend some money the money and let them show you the process, but you don't make sure that they know what they're doing before you give them your money. or just trying to find a creative solution like someone that really is behind on payments and you happen to have enough funds to catch those payments up and take over that loan something like that could work too. Got it. Okay, now that you read that question

totally differently than I did, and I think you nailed it. He says, what if I have capital? That rarely comes across. But I have capital, but lack of work history, so it probably means they don't have trouble getting the financing, right? Yeah, yeah.

That's what I would think. They're not getting the financing. There's actually, that is tough to do, the finances. I'll put a little, it's not going to be the best rates, but it's better than hard money.

What's it called? Let's go to, right here, for long-term hold, epic lending home could be a really good source for long-term hold. It's going to be more expensive

than your traditional banks, but they are going to look at the deal before they look at you or more so than they're looking at you. And it could be good enough until you are able to go ahead and do a right to refinance. Okay?

with a more traditional sense. But we've used that a couple times already. Let's see. Okay, we'll do one more. Here we go. Here's for Jason. All right. Tony,

this is a land question, I think, right? Land is an easier and higher yielding option for investors that dig in 200 plus percent returns, though the deals are generally much smaller in value. What are your plans with the land? That's the thing is we don't have the exit plan yet.

Part of it is we need to have the land surveyed and then also to just to our, or local investors that we've kind of put the birdie in their ear about it. We have some good amount of interest. So most likely on this one, we'll just watch the process and wholesale the deal than actually doing it. But the nice thing about it is we have another house under contract that has 11 acres just probably five to 10 minutes farther south than that one

that we can actually run that process on. And that one has a house on it. So it's a little bit more of a safer gig for us because it's something. we've done on a consistent basis. That's the best way I could answer that in my mind just because we're so fresh into the land game that we don't have a lot of experience with it, yes. So we're going to probably be asking you some questions and also too, asking our community some questions as well.

Perfect. All right, guys. Well, let's wrap it up. I really appreciate you guys taking the time out. And congratulations, Matt, for being your own boss now. And then you guys have a great year. and you guys know how to get in touch with me if you need me already. Yeah, for sure.

Okay. Thank you. Take care, guys. And that wraps up the epic show. If you found this episode valuable, who else do you know that might too? There's a really good chance you know someone else who would. And when their name comes to mind, please share it with them. And ask them to click the subscribe button when they get here and I'll take great care of them.

God loves you, and so do I. Health, Peace, Blessings, and success to you. I'm Matt Terrio. Living the dream. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice,

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