Epic Real Estate Investing - Maximizing Real Estate Profits: Tips from Nick LaMagna | 1354

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

In this episode of the Epic Real Estate Investing Podcast, the host welcomes Nick LaMagna, a seasoned real estate investor with a wealth of knowledge to share. Together, they explore the current market landscape, diving into the recent dip in mortgage rates and how it’s influencing buyer activity and investment opportunities. Nick opens up about his personal journey into real estate, reflecting on the challenges he faced early on that ultimately drove him to pursue this rewarding career. The conversation shifts to various investment strategies, emphasizing the critical role of follow-up in securing deals and maintaining relationships in this competitive market. Nick offers valuable tips on adapting to the shifting dynamics of hiring in a post-pandemic world, ensuring that listeners are equipped to thrive in today’s environment. Listeners will also get an inside look at Nick’s own podcast, the A Game Podcast, where he interviews a diverse range of guests, from real estate professionals to athletes and entrepreneurs. They discuss the profound benefits of participating in masterminds and peer groups, highlighting how collaboration and networking can elevate one’s business. As they forecast future trends in real estate, the duo also ventures into the realm of cryptocurrencies, drawing intriguing parallels with their past investment experiences. This episode is packed with actionable insights, personal anecdotes, and expert advice, offering listeners a comprehensive and inspiring look into the dynamic world of real estate investing. Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just starting out, you won’t want to miss the valuable takeaways from this engaging discussion! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terio Media. Hey, strap in. It's time for the Epic Real Estate Investing Show. We'll be your guides as we navigate the housing market, the landscape of creative financing strategies, and everything you need to swap that office chair for a beach chair. If you're looking for some one-on-one help, meet us at rei-a-eas.com. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Let's go. All right, please help me welcome to the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast, Nick LaManya. How you doing, buddy? Doing good, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Do you see the inflation reports this morning? I did not. How are they looking? Oh, they went back down. So it was good. Going to the right direction. Nice. I guess it just matters if we believe it or not. Right? That's always the key. Cool. So it's a 100% certainty based on the CME watch tool that they'll kick the rates back here on September 18th. Okay. All right. Mortgage rates plummeted to

day again, but they're saying no buyer activity. Why do you think that is? I don't know, man. Maybe it's the post. I know that there was the push before the school season started, but we got multiple offers on our property that we listed today. So it's out there. You know, there's a little bit less showings, but I'm still seeing, I mean, we're still seeing activity in under 30 days. Maybe there's that lolo of people that trying to time the market. They're trying to figure out if they wait another month to buy, maybe they can get a better rate. That might be the case. It makes me wonder, like, you know, what gets reported and what's actual. I mean, there's what's factual, I always say in the news. If there's what's factual, then there's what's

actual. So maybe overall buying activity is down, but what's actual is people are buying the good property still. Yeah, it's interesting too, like, because I feel like there's so many, I think you were saying it too. The last time it was like when somebody says, how's the market? It's like, that's such a general term. Like, what market? You know, what price point? What neighborhood? Like, where are they basing these studies on? Like San Francisco, New York City, Dallas, you know, Tulsa, And then there's pockets within pockets. If I'm four blocks on the wrong way, my house is sitting there. If I'm four blocks in the other direction, it's getting offers in a week.

So I guess it depends on where they're basing that on. For sure. What market are you in? Chicago suburbs. Chicago suburbs. Got it. The Midwest and the South is kind of like that, right? You go a few blocks over and all of a sudden you're in a different neighborhood entirely.

Yeah, yeah. Right? And then four more blocks and you're in a different neighborhood. Yeah, I just had a conversation with a couple that were killing it in the Southern Florida area. and they were like, you couldn't keep anything. And then all of a sudden, over the last couple of months, they were like, it went almost overnight to a buyer's market. So they're having trouble selling stuff,

but they're acquiring tons of like zero down, zero percent sub two deals. So it's always a good time. Like we were saying. That's exciting. Gosh, if you just, you go down the wrong channel on the wrong rabbit hole on YouTube, and then all of a sudden you just get plastered with, you know, the sky is falling. I actually have a YouTube coach. And so we're always looking at like what's trending.

because that's going to kind of dictate what we should make the next video on, right? Smart. And he coaches a bunch of people in a bunch of different niches. He always gets depressed when he looks at the real estate stuff. Because we always see what's training. He goes, dude, you should have to make a video on the end of the world. That's so bad. But it's funny that Florida is getting a whole lot of publicity

and anything that has Florida in the search center, the title is really blowing up. So a lot of interest on Florida and the number is like 40% surge in inventory or something like that. Oh, wow. You know, and people say that's like a bad thing. I'm like, no, this is kind of where you want. Now they're negotiating. You're going to wait until prices come back up before it's time to get it back in the market.

It's funny how people think. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Nick, tell me a little bit about yourself, your background. What were you doing just before you got into real estate? What caused you to get into real estate? And what does business look like for you today?

Man, it feels like just yesterday, but I was going to college and, Upstate New York. I grew up on Long Island. I lived in Manhattan for a long time. And I went to college just a party. And that was my whole goal was just to have a good time. And then I'll never forget fitting enough, September 11th happened. And being in the capital district around that time. It's the anniversary. Yeah, pretty wild, man. That it was that long ago. But it was 2001. I remember that day changed my life as it did for many people, but just in a little bit of a different way where all my friends who were my drinking buddies started saying stuff like, hey, we're going to go join the military. We're going to join the refugee efforts. We're going to go down and pass

out water bottles and blankets. And that's when I realized that I was just taking up space and I needed to serve some sort of purpose and leave the world better than I found it. So I changed my major to criminal justice and I started testing for all the three and four letter departments you can think of. So my goal was to be an air marshal because I wanted to stop if there was ever another terrorist attack like that. So I tested for CIA, D-EA, ATF, FDNY, NYPD, all the fun ones. And, you know, there's a process there. So as I was waiting, you take the written, then you got it to eat the medical, and you got to take the cycle. And it's years sometimes before the academy actually goes in. So during that time where I was in a holding period, I decided to get into

construction. And I went into work one day in a factory, and the machine I was working on, had faulty machinery, and the safety failed. And it came down and to crush my hand. And I went through a lot of surgeries and a lot of therapy for a couple years. And then only to get called by these departments to find that they were never going to hire me because of my hand injury, it was very hard to leave the liability of giving me any sort of position with a gun when you have partial use of your hand gone. So I was left with basically no options and my mom forced me to read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I tell everybody, if you don't know, your mom's always right. So I listened to my mom and she was right. And that kind of opened my

eyes. Like it did for a lot of people to the difference of assets and liabilities and to understanding that you didn't need money or credit to get into real estate because I didn't have any of that. And I went to my first seminar and, you know, borrowed money from my dad to go to the class and hired some mentors and got into some stuff where I really wanted to just invest in New York City. And it became really hard and really competitive to get into deals in any of the boroughs or even on Long Island. So my risk tolerance at the time was that it would be a little bit less risky if I started going into other markets. So I started getting into remote investing before we had all the cool tools that we did today. And I started investing in Georgia.

What year was that when you got into the remote? 2005, 2006, right around there. So, you know, started investing in other markets, buying properties for 50, 60, 70, putting 2030 in, refinancing, and we're flipping it 150, 175, 200. And it started getting me into getting into other markets. And since then, I've done everything right. I've done everything wrong. I've done, you know, rentals, flips, refies, land development, wholesaling, commercial,

multifamily, mobile home parks, sub twos, creative finance deals, rap. So I've tried everything at some point. I tell everybody I got a lot of experience, but I'm the epitome of a jack of all trades and a master of none. And, you know, today we're trying to go a little bit less broad and invest all over the country and find ways to build up more boots on the ground for some of the surrounding areas within an hour outside Chicago. Got it. We got started about the same time. I became an agent in end of 2001, beginning in 2002, and then I made the full transition to real estate investor about 2006. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So it was about the same time. I tell everybody, I was the reason the market collapsed. Every time I decided to get into something, it goes south. So it was like the day I decided to get in, they were like, wait, wait, everybody, be careful. It's weird. I knew the walls were crumbling down around that time, 2007-ish, eight-ish.

But it's not like what the world is today. Like, we didn't have as much information to consume. right? The news was bad, but I was like, well, I still have to go out and buy houses and I still have to rent them out. You know what I mean? It wasn't like, today I think it would be totally different. Like I might get seduced into the whole, oh my gosh, like go find something else to do type thing because real estate is terrible. See, I feel like the opposite. I feel like there's so many other people, like you were saying, information to pass across where before it was really hard for me to find people to connect to, to me any sort of positivity

to keep me going because there was a lot of people with the doom and gloom where I feel like today you can reach out to the way we connected through a mastermind and be like, man, is anybody else having trouble? Does anybody see what's going on in the news? And you can have 10, 15 people. Be like, no, man, we just sold 20 properties today or we're getting great deals on the Baha. So I feel like the sense of communication and community is much different than it was then. So I would find people to give me a little bit of confidence to stay in the game. Because I didn't know it was as bad as it was while it was happening. Yes.

That's my point, right? In hindsight, I was like, oh my God, that was terrible, right? I just got up and went to work every day. I just got up and did what I was always doing. And money was a little bit more difficult to find, but the creative acquisitions all opened up, wide open. And then I just shifted and went into short sales and had an amazing few years with the short sale strategy.

That was right when Mercedes and I met, and I still had my license was still active, so I would be the real estate agent. I mean, I shouldn't say this on the air. But I would be the real estate agent, and she was the buyer. And so we'd do it together. And then I would get the agent commission. And then she would be the buyer.

And then she would flip it. And then she would get the profit. And the two of us living under the same roof, it made for a very nice existence. And we probably did that, I don't know, 60 times in a year in Los Angeles. So profits were big. commissions were big and we were two people having the time of our life with no kids yet and but we spent it as fast as we made it that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Looking back, I didn't know it was as bad as it was. We were able to pivot so quickly and weird. I didn't even realize I was pivoting. I was like,

oh, hey, the cheese went over here, so let's go get it. Well, I agree. I feel like when I talk to people now, I did more when I knew less. I feel like there's so much out there that I'm like, well, what if this, what if this, then you see new people that they go out there and they just start swinging. And I feel like if I had the education that I had now about all the things that I, you know, you just go out there and you kind of do it. And there's something nice about that at that time. Yeah. That's so true that, you know, what they say, that ignorance is bliss, right?

And I try to share that with my clients when they're very nervous to talk to a seller for the very first time because they don't feel like they have their spiel down perfectly yet, right? They're not totally comfortable. I was like, no, this is the moment you have to embrace. because it's when you start getting good is when you start messing up, right? You know, you start learning things and knowing things and I've recognized myself go through that very cycle

where I was just kind of terrible at it and kept on bump in my head and against the wall, skinning my knee and messing up deals. But despite myself, I put deals together because I didn't stop. And then I started getting good. And, you know, I'd still do business.

But now today, I totally embrace it. Like when I talk to a seller right now, I am just being like, just naive little Matt who barely knows what he's doing. And I think that just works. It works so much better. It's so much more disarming. And it just helps move the whole process along. Yeah, I think that there's something to be said for the authenticity of, especially today when you see how much information is out there, nobody can know everything. And it's one of my pet peeves when people just make stuff up. I'd much rather say, I know a lot, but I don't know everything.

Let me go ask Matt. He probably knows that. Let him call his guy. And we'll get back to you on that. I think it's refreshing, whereas other people are just going to guess. And then when they find holes in that, that's when it ruins your credibility. Yep, yep. I've been saying it for years. The best sales game was to have no game at all. Oh, man, that's awesome. I never heard that before.

That's a great line. And have confidence in it, and it will be amazed it's how well it works. Yeah, I think people find a refreshing in the world that we live in now. I agree. I think that's awesome. Well said. Totally. You watched the debates last night?

I did not, man. I stayed clear all that. I got enough going on. I don't watch them either because I get kind of nervous when anybody is like arguing, whether it's the presidential candidates or anybody else. But if I'm a spectator watching arguing going on, I kind of have to like leave the room and dismiss myself. But I did.

I turned it on for a hot second. And then I was like, yep, this is what I thought I was. And I get it right out of there. You have any predictions on, or not even necessarily a prediction on the election, but how you feel that one candidate will impact the housing market over the other?

Man, I really don't. I wish I was more educated. on kind of the policies of what's going on, especially since this got switched. I mean, the stuff I've been hearing, everybody's like, hey, man, like as a real estate investor, obviously you want a real estate investor in the office, but, you know, I don't know. For all I know, Kamala might have 100 rentals. I know my lane.

I don't know if I don't have enough information to which way. I promise you she doesn't. But, yeah, I get your point. But, yeah, I know. I'm kind of wondering. I was thinking, like, the bigger question is which person is more inclined to keep their promise? because they're both politicians and they're both on the campaign trail

and they both have the ambition of getting elected and that's what politicians do as they say what you want to hear but who's actually going to follow through right? I also wonder is it really their decision that's the other whole deeper dive totally over the weekend

I was with my father-in-law and the guy just every time I see him he gets me in a corner with the latest political thing and he has so much conviction around what he hears, you know, and he said, you know, we have was we have a single government with dual representation like that. And so now he was taking me down this whole hole and I was like,

yeah, I know. I get it. I believe you. But he's just so passionate about it. And yeah, so there's that. You can be seduced into this whole thing and root for one side or the other or you can just kind of wake up and like, you know, it's really just one machine with this dual representation thing. But yeah, all we can do is play with the cards that are dealt to us and do the best we can in our game. So what are you doing in your business? What does it look like today? We switched recently. I've always done outbound stuff and I did a lot of deals over time just with relationships. And we made a lot of money when the market was transitioning buying like bank on REOs, but we switched a lot now more into inbound. And part of the reason we did it was because

it was getting really hard to hire people like post-pandemic, man. I don't know about you, but the bar has just been so low that people just want money, but they don't want to work for it. And everybody tells you all the right things, just like a politician, when you're going to hire them, oh, I'm going to be on the phone, I'm going to be making the calls. And then literally, like, day one, they're like, you know, I just wasn't feeling it today. So I just took the day off. I'm like, oh, well, that's acceptable. Sure. So we were like, you know what? Like, these leads that were paying for are falling through the cracks. So let's switch to inbound. And if it's inbound between me and my business partner, we could take 20, 30 calls a month.

We don't have to worry about knocking through 500 people that are telling us to go screw ourselves. So we're doing a little bit of outbound SMS, a little bit of cold calling, and we're doing a lot more inbound PPC, some inbound PPL. And then we're basically just screening the calls. And it's been a little, I wish I could give one generic answer for what we're doing. But like the last few deals, one of them was an amazing sub two that we came in and we took it over and we kept it as a rental. It was literally somebody called us and she was like, look, there was another investor that told us that they were going to, to come through and buy this home. It turned out to be some wholesaler that wasn't even in this town, let alone this country.

And now they screwed us and they're not going to close. And I've already packed my bags. I'm already moving. I need help. I got to close right now. It was a brand new house. She deeded it over to us. I gave her $2,500 to move.

And she left everything in it. So there was like big screen TV. So we'd sold some of this stuff. We donate some of the stuff. And we put a tenant in there. She's got an interest rate of like 4%. And that's going to be a beautiful subter with basically no deferred maintenance for like 10 years. And then we just did another one.

but it was a military guy that lived there with some buddies, and they trashed the place. So we got a great deal in the sub too, but we had to put like 30 grand in. So we locked it up, gave him five grand to move out, put it back on the market. We just got an offer on that,

so we're going to turn around and flip it. And then there's another one we just picked up as like a retail, a guy moved out, just a pretty straightforward deal inbound lead. So I'd like to keep anything that's got an interest rate under five that we can get in for under $25,000 worth of rehab. Anything bigger than that? we're looking to potentially wrap or lease option or sell.

And if there's anything that just is like a really heavy lift, then we're basically just fixing and flipping it. I haven't been wholesaling lately. I've wholesale a ton of properties in my life. But for whatever reason, just the extra step of trying to dispo when you can fix it up and throw it on the MLS just seems silly right now. So we wholesale them if we can.

But the last bunch that have been coming in, they've just needed so much work. But like perfect world, grab something, hold it at a sub tour, or just wholesale it, throw it on the market, clean it up and resell it. Got it. You have a license? So I do, but the only reason I have it is because in Illinois, they post that stupid law that if you were going to wholesale more than one deal of you, you had to have it. But it's been working out because you know, you get referral fees on stuff. And there's been a couple of deals where some of my private money guys are

doing different things. And they're just like, hey, throw your name on the contract. Let me buy this. Let me buy that. So there's been some cool things that I didn't realize where I was able to make like a quick 10, 15 grand for basically doing nothing just for having the license. But if somebody calls me and they're like, hey, my sister needs a house. I'm like, I'm not going to go show you a kitchen. Right. But yeah, it comes in handy for some stuff. But I try not to use it when I don't have to. Right, right. That's why I ask because I know you're in Illinois. Yeah. Do you have any assessment of how many wholesalers left the business when that passed? It seems like a lot. There's a lot of people. And aside from, and this is kind of where it's been interesting because on top of the fact that a lot of

wholesalers left. I think a lot of investors get their license and then they forget about investing and they focus on being a realtor. So that's totally cool with me. So I feel like the competition's been a little bit less. Illinois also has a really bad rap. Like there's so many people that are like, I don't want to do business in that state. They have this whole thing about like if you're anywhere near Chicago, you got tenants in there that'll never leave and they're going to be in your property for free for 10 years and you're going to get shot. And it's like, dude, it's not what reality is. So I feel like I let people have this negative connotation of it because there's still really good opportunities here in some good neighborhoods. And there's competition, like just like anything else.

Like I offered, I think 100 grand with a seller I sat down with last week. And the house needed like $160,000 worth of work and it was only worth like 360. And I got on a call to him yesterday. And he's like, man, another investor offered me $19. And I was like, dude, take it. There's competition. But I'm not seeing the competition of wholesalers like, you know, you're seeing in some of these markets like Colorado and Florida. in Arizona, but, you know, there's still competition, but I'm sure it chased a lot of them out.

Can imagine one you just said when you told the guy to take it. How long ago was that? Yesterday. Oh, okay. I would put, you have them on your follow-up? Oh, yeah, yeah, because I was like, guys are not closing on it. Like, it happens all the time. We had a deal recently. It was funny because the realtor accepted our offer. And I'm usually not dealing with stuff that's on the market, but for this one, we were looking to buy a house for somebody and we were going to fix it up. So she called me and she's like, offer accepted.

And then like an hour later, maybe four hours later, I get another email that says offer not accepted. And I was like, so I'm screenshot and I'm like, I don't think it works like that. Like you don't get to just change your mind. She's like, well, we have another offer now of 345 and you wanted to pay 325. So if you want to match it, go ahead. And I was like, I know what happened. Like you got somebody in there.

You leverage our offer against theirs and you pressured this person into offering more, which means they were forced to make an emotional decision that they're going to wake up and they're going to regret. So they're going to call us back in two days. And 100% they did. And then it became, hey, buyer backed out. Do you want it? We were like, we do. But we're going to need a $35,000 discount. And so we got it for, you know, but it's the game. It's like, man, if you just would have done good business, you know, and I reached out to a couple brokers. And I was like, isn't this illegal? They were like, it's not illegal, but it's just bad business. So I was like, okay. Like, I'll remember that. So crap like that happens all the time. But this guy was really nice. I can't

blame him for trying to get an offer 180 more. But if I'm betting, it's, it's, another wholesaler that doesn't know what they're doing. They don't realize the extent of the work. And when they go in and they send people in there to try and buy it from them, they're going to find out that whatever their rehab budget they did virtually is never going to hold up and they guys probably going to call me back. But if he doesn't, that's okay. Because as my business partner always tells me, you can't look at the deal for what it was. You have to look at it for what it is. And what it is right now is 190 grand that I'm not willing to spend on it. Yeah, it goes both ways too. I mean, you might have a seller that tries to pit you against the other investor or

Like you said, it's someone has the best intention, just wants the most for himself and someone does come along. And then they realize like, oops, they overbid. They got to come back to anyway. So, portion is in the follow up for sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that's our best deals we're getting now is people that don't take our offer or our business first. And then a month or two later, they get left high and drive by somebody else that wasn't really going to perform. And now they call back and they go, okay, like now I need this done.

So wait it out, right? What is your follow up look like? just reminders and you just call? Up until today, it was me just texting. Like, hey, what's going on? Has everything going? But I recently picked up my buddy Paul DeCampo, and he's starting a whole follow-up process

because we switched over from Podio over to freak himself with my buddy Rob Swanson. So he's now doing a whole nurture sequence that I don't because I'm telling you for sure, I am losing deals because I don't have a good follow-up system. But that changed today. We signed up for that. That should definitely help.

Paul DeCampo? Yep. Does that include, like, direct? mail, email, text, phone, everything. Text, phone, email. I think his stuff's called Omnidrip, and he doesn't send out mailers. And again, I'm just starting with this. But I had him on my podcast.

It'd be a great guest if you want me to do a late. I've had him before. I think he's been on the show. I didn't recognize Paul DeCampo. But I recognize Omni Drip. I think I had him here before. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. And the reason I leaned in that direction is because he actually looks at what

distress the person came from. And based on what their rebuttal was or what their distress level is, they get very targeted messages. So it's not like... He's a copywriter type guy too, right? Yeah, yeah. I think I definitely had him on the show. Yeah, and a couple guys,

they know that have been like killing it with follow-up. Before I signed up with him, I was like, hey, what's your... Are you doing this? They were like, oh, yeah, I go, so you set it up. They were like, no, this guy didn't. I was like, okay, I got enough people telling me

that this is the guy, so, yeah. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, all of your deals are going to come through the follow-up anyway. I mean, how few will close on that very first or second phone call, very few. That's such a good point because you watch all this, I was struggling with that up until this week where my buddy Ryan Weimer, shout out to him. The guy's been incredible for me. But he's crushing it. And he was like, dude, one in 20 are one call closes. And I'm like, all right, well, I got to stop listening to these other guys that are full of crap on Instagram going. It's not one and 20 deals. It's one in 20 of your closes happened on the first call. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've been toying with this thing because I always kind of pick up my business in not during the holidays in November, December, because a lot of investors leave the business.

They think that's working and, you know, they're spending their money on other stuff. And routinely, Mercedes and I will always do our biggest deals during the holidays, almost always. And what I was kind of toying with for this year is there's so many, you mentioned it earlier, the PPL type leads, like the pay per lead. There's so many of those services out there right now. I've actually talked to four of them this week, just kind of seeing what their process is and how they're generating their leads and everything. I'm just kind of doing the math.

A lot of them have the feature where you can just turn off and on and take them as you want them. So you don't have to be on the phone or on call, you know, 24 hours a day and freaking out. You can turn out, okay, I got nothing to do for the next three days. I'm going to turn my leads on and I'm ready to pounce, right? And then this weekend I'm going to go on vacation, so I'm going to turn it off so I don't lose any deals.

But I was just thinking with the cost of marketing and kind of the expertise it takes to market these days. I mean, there's a huge learning curve if marketing doesn't come naturally. You can't just, the days of just putting an old stale postcard in the mail and expect then, you know, a deal from at least one deal from every batch. I don't know if these days, that's really happening a whole lot right now. Do you kind of agree with that? Yeah, man, when you look at the guys that are doing it, it's interesting because you see

people that go, well, I'm going to do social media and I'm going to be a real estate agent. I'm going to do sub-toos. I'm going to do all these different things. they don't realize that there's people out there that they focus on nothing but that, and they've put millions of dollars in education and experience in there to figure out the right fonts and the right colors and the right time, like, there's a science to it that I just don't have the time to learn. So that's where, you know, I've always been like, I can't be great at all this stuff.

Let me find somebody who already is and let me just hire them to do it. Yep, yep. I think marketing today is sophisticated as has gotten and is as sophisticated as the consumer has gotten. It could be a full-time job. It's a full-time study to where you could be so into that to where you're not actually talking to the leads when they come through. To that point, you want to talk about throwing technology in there. We were out to dinner the other day, and I got a call, like, because I have a separate line, obviously, for when it's like a motivated seller or somebody. And I get this call, and I'm having a conversation with this girl on speaker.

My business partner is there with me. She's very smart. She catches a lot of things. And after about 20 minutes of talking about our property, I go, I put her on mute and I go, I think this is a bot. And she was like, no way. I go, I think it is. Like, hold on.

So she's like, so what do you think the best you can do for the property is? And I was like, well, first they need to know what's your favorite flavor of ice tea. And she goes, I think we're getting a little bit off track here, Nick. Let's talk about the property. And I was like, I can't move on. And I hit it like seven times until finally it tripped up. And I was like, son of a bitch, it's a bot. But it fooled me for like 30 minutes.

I feel like I'm pretty savvy, so it's come such a long way. But I use that for sellers when they're like, I just got an offer for 190. I'm like, well, who are you talking to? Shelly, okay, well, are you sure? So it's a wild man. It's such a wild time. With Shelley, animal, vegetable, or mineral?

Right? Yeah. So that's funny. That's good. Yeah, so I was thinking like, you know, you do a direct mail campaign, a small, moderate one locally. It's got, if you're doing postcards, it's going to cost you two, three grand with minimum. If you're going to do letters or anything a little bit more sophisticated on the mailing

piece, you know, you're at four or five grand. But if you go and put five grand into any one of these services, you can get 10 to 20 solid inbound leads that came in and raised their hand and they're looking to sell their house now. So you grab 20 of those. And if you got a good follow-up system and just plug them all into there and then just watch those 20, you're going to get two or three deals out of those. I'd have to think. Yeah, I'll tell you, if you haven't done PPL. The trick here is you have to really be on top of them because there's so many of them that come in that are straight up trash and you have to dispute them right away. And different companies have different policies. I've seen some of them that say you can't. Other ones give you

24 hours. Some give you 72 hours. But there's been a bunch of what you try them a couple of times. And then you find out that it's a garbage lead. They never filled anything out. And then you go back and they're like, sorry, you already got charged for that. So if you're going to do that, you just got to make sure you jump on them quick and find out if it's something you need to dispute. But if you do that, like my buddy Adam Whitney, he said it's his best marketing channel. But he's like, dude, I dispute 60% of the stuff that comes in, but I close 40%. He's like, and it's made me like 500 grand this year. So it's like, hell yeah, it definitely pays off.

Yeah, they all have their refund policies in place. So if it's listed on the MLS refund, right? They don't answer the phone, refund. So I really like it. I've never done it before. But I think I'm going to give that a world this November and December. Because my follow-up system is stellar. I have that dialed in.

I just need to put people in it. And if I keep that thing full, I know I'm going to close deals. But it's just like everybody else, getting enough deals or leads in there that are real. Yeah. Let's somebody else do the work. And if you're going to refund bad ones, I was like, well, why would I ever want to do it to this myself again? I was talking to one guy. I mean, this is the type of geniuses there are.

This guy was talking to and he has three SEO websites out there. He pays for nothing at all. He gets 5,000 leads a month nationally. Now, he doesn't have the market, like the specific market, but he gets $5,000 a month nationally for free just because he's an SEO whiz. But just think about the time and expertise that went into having that level of awareness on search engine optimization. You can't do that in flip houses at the same time. Exactly. Right?

So I'm like, I like this new model. I think I'm going to do it. And as much as I love marketing, because I am a marketing geek. But man, if there are just people out there that are 10 times smarter than you that can just flip a switch off or on, then why not leverage that expertise? Because the real money is in the real estate, not the marketing. I couldn't agree with you more, man. I agree a thousand percent.

Awesome. Cool. So podcast. You got a podcast. Yes, sir. You were a fantastic guest recently, by the way. Man, I can't wait to let that episode get out there. But, yeah, Matt, I appreciate you coming on.

You killed it. You bet. You bet. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. And the name of your podcast is. It is the A Game Podcasts, Real Estate Investing for Entrepreneurs. Super. Check Nick out. It's not exclusively real estate, is it? No, no, it's not. We put it in there for the SEO as I was directed. But this week we have John Attick from the head commentator guy with Joe Rogo from the UFC.

I've had astronauts. I've had Super Bowl champions. I've had athletes, musicians, all kinds of entrepreneurs, tons of UFC fighters, jiu-jitsu guys, comedians. It's been pretty cool. It's been pretty awesome. It's people that are successful in anything I've learned whether it's real estate, whether it's fighting, whether it's athletics or whether it's being the best comedian in the world. It's the same stuff. It's the same obstacles.

It's the same hard work. It's the same mental toughness. So you find a lot of the same similarities. And it's been cool because all the athletes and fighters want to do real estate and all the real estate guys want to learn about the athletes and the fighters. So I married the two and I've been the gap between it. And it's been pretty awesome. Right, right. Yeah, I want to be a professional golfer.

So I don't want to do it. I think I'll start inviting golfers onto the show. Yeah, man, that's the key. Right. Then you get invited to the good stuff. Totally. I belong to a number of masterminds. Do you belong to any masterminds?

Sure do, yeah. I was part of four, and now I'm only part of one. The only one I'm left is the one that I think I'm in with you is a family mastermind, which has been fantastic for me, man. I can't say enough good things about that. Everybody in there has been amazing. Yep. No, totally.

And so I belong to three right now. and just to a point on your podcast. One is the one that we're in, so they're more of an internet marketer, internet information, coaches and software's and stuff like that. And this is the one that we're in. Then I'm into another one that's exclusively just real estate investors.

Nobody is doing any coaching or anything like that at all. And that one's amazing. So I get tons of stuff from there. Really important to be intentional about creating your environment, I think, with. There's that total adage you or the average of the five people you hang around with most. Not a cliche at all.

That is the real deal. But the one that I'm in with a bunch of other entrepreneurs where I'm the only real estate person in there, I think I get more out of that one than all of them. Huh. I think it inspires the true spirit of the mastermind concept because nobody feels that they're in competition with each other. And so I feel there's just as great as the ones that I'm in with all the real estate people. It's a different level of giving. It's a different level of generosity and sharing and support.

Maybe that's just a particularly good one. But I learned so much from other people's businesses and able to look at my business from a different angle. You know, there's a guy that he coaches attorneys on how to build a profitable real estate business. And I'm just like fascinated by that. And he's just like, give me, here's my drop box. Here's all the documents. Here's everything. Just do this and just change attorney to real estate and you'll be good to go and blah. And I was like, It was such a huge give, you know, from such a high-level player that's run circles around me as far as when it comes to annual revenue. But yeah, I just get so much more. So tune in to Nick's podcast.

The name of it is that A players? The A-game podcast, if they go to Nicknick, Nick.com slash links, L-A-N-K-S, they'll be able to find it everywhere. Fantastic. Well, Nick, what's in the future? What are you most excited about? Man, what you said, actually, I'm really excited. I'm busting my butt right now getting marketing leads because what I have found just like you found is everybody that says no to me in September and October turns into the best deals in November,

December. So I'm excited to crush Q4 and have a really nice holiday season. Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about the real estate market overall, say, over the next 12 to 24 months? If I only had that crystal ball, but I feel like if we kind of do, but I want to hear your answer first. I think we kind of do have a crystal ball, but go ahead. I feel like there's going to be, as rates come down, I feel like it's going to make everything go right back up. I think there's going to be a false sense of optimism post-election because everybody feels like there's been a change. So I think as far as selling things, I think when interest rates come down, I think prices are going to go up. I think competition is going to go up. So it'll be interesting to see on the buying

the deal side, how it goes, but maybe wholesaling back to funds and everybody that's going to jump back and I think the model might change a little bit. And then I think like 18 to 24 months, the honeymoon is going to be over. And then I think things are going to come back. And then there's going to be another really good opportunity to buy. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I think there's additional stuff there that even supports that even further. I definitely think the rates at some point, I mean, in the last four months, we've dropped a full point in mortgage rates,

but it hasn't really brought the buyers back yet, at least nationally as it's being reported. So I'm just wondering, like, what's that number where the dam breaks and people start going. Where are we at right now? Six and a half or six and three quarter, something like that. So I've done a bunch of research on where the funds like and a lot of the things that I'm seeing, it's a 5%. When it hits that 5%, that's the magic number that it goes green again and they start buying. And when the interest rates come down to 5%, I think you get a big boost from buyers just in general that want to afford the home.

But then I think it also kicks back that the funds are going to be buying again, which kicks back all the wholesalers that come back in and sell it to the funds that they weren't able to do for a couple of years. So I think it goes right back to where we were kind of like mid-pandemic when the market was on fire. Yeah. What about other assets? Do you own any other assets? I have a cell phone tower. We have some land. That's it right now. Some crypto and some stuff like that, but nothing, stuff that I got to just got lucky with and threw money out, like some stocks and stuff just to see how we'd go. But yeah, right now, we own the land, we own the cell phone tower and then just some houses. Got it. What does your crypto holdings look like?

I bought like $20,000 worth of Bitcoin right that day that it skyrocketed and I just held it. And then I diversified a little bit into some like Ethereum and some sheep, but you knew because Somebody told me to do that, but I just bought it and I never did anything with it and never even really checked it because I was like, this is just a long-term place. So I should check it. I'm sure it's gone down and up. But oddly enough, I actually just hired a crypto mentor because I was like, it's just sitting there. I'd rather have somebody tell me what to do with it once a week because there was opportunities. I'm sure I could have moved and shaken, but I didn't know enough about it.

So now I am. So I do plan on actually doing something with what I had because I'm sure it's gotten up over the last five years or however long. Well, sort of. It's gone up and down, like you said. But I see right now the last run-up, I made a killing, but I didn't sell anything. So I watched it go all the way back down. It got up to a significant number where it dwarfed my real estate holdings. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Holy crap. It was a lot. But it just didn't feel like it was enough to be, I'm done forever money, which is kind of what I was counting on. I wasn't quite there. I'm kicking myself all the street now for sure. But this timing that we're about to go into right now, it impacted real estate the exact same way. But it was just going into an election because we're at the end heading into 2000.

We're in 2020, right? So we're going into an election. And we were in during COVID. So they had all the stimulus out there. They were printing lots of money. And that was also lined up perfectly with the crypto or the Bitcoin halving cycle. And that's when it's. really took off about January.

So we are just about exactly four years from that point again. And I'm just wondering, like, I should probably put some more money back into the crypto. Interesting. Is what I'm thinking. Yeah, you got me interested now. Yeah. We were right there right at that moment. I didn't pay attention

the last three years to anything when I was such a crypto hound for a while and I knew everything about damn near every single coin out there. But now I don't. And so now I'm a little bit more cautious. But I think just put some money into some Bitcoin and some Ethereum like you got, I don't think it could hurt you at all.

Yeah, because Black Rock is buying a shitload of it. So smart money is buying it. And all the politicians, even Trump has changed his tune on it. Who else? There was somebody else significantly that bought a bunch. But just something I'm thinking about. It's the entrepreneur, the gambler and me. Perfect.

Well, Nick, it's been a pleasure. Let's stay in touch and we'll do it again. 100%. man, thank you so much for having me on, man. It was a blessed. You bet. And the name of the podcast is the A Game Podcasts, Real Estate Investing for Entrepreneurs. Love it. Take care, bud. 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, we got the cash flow. You didn't know, home for us, we got the cash flow. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.