Epic Real Estate Investing - Secrets to Consistency Pt. 1 | 878

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

The biggest challenge for real estate investors is producing consistent income. Thus, we called our guests, Maura McGraw, Tony Jardieu, Jack Hoss, Josh Koth, and Ryan Bagley, and asked them to share their secrets to consistent success. Tune in and replicate their strategies and achieve your goals as swiftly as they did! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Success in real estate has nothing to do with shiny objects. It has everything to do with mastering the basics. The three pillars of real estate investing. Attract, convert, exit. Matt Terrio has been helping real estate investors do just that for more than a decade now. If you want to make money in real estate, keep listening. If you want it faster, visit R-E-I-Aase.com.

Here's Matt. Hello, and welcome to the epic real estate investing show. This is where we show people, everyday people, how to escape the rat race using real estate. I've got a really special show for you today, and it's all about closing deals consistently. That's really the biggest challenge for real estate investors, producing consistent results, so it produces consistent income. And I've been thinking a lot lately, how do I help people be more consistent? And I don't know. I've shared with them everything that I know.

I think, and I mean, there's really no mystery to it. All it takes is consistent activity, the right consistent activity, like generating leads, setting appointments, and writing offers. And there's some other, you know, there's some other smaller activities that you'll find on the Daily Success Report that I've talked about here so much. But that's the gist. Generate leads, set appointments, and make offers, and do it every day. Anyway, I know you've heard that from me, and you've heard it from me more than once.

And recently, though, I noticed something inside of the Epicprocadamies Facebook group. We do something in there called Follow Through Friday. and every Friday, what they do is members of the epic community, members of all different levels of participation, but the epic community members, they go in there and they post their wins. What were their big wins that week? And here's what I've noticed. First, a lot of wins are being shared in there each and every week. There's some really top producers in there, but there are specific names that I see posting

their wins like every week. Like, I mean, they're always there. I mean, there's some real rock stars in there that have the secret to consistency. So I've invited them to come onto the show to share. share that secret with you. As well, I'm going to ask them about their best source for off-market deals, like what's working for them right now. I'm going to ask for them their criteria for determining a seller's motivation, you know, whether they go on the appointment or not. What's the common denominator in the deals that they win versus the ones that they lose?

And I ask them, what's their best strategy for finding the money and finding buyers? And then what we're going to do is we're going to dive right into their biggest secrets around their consistent success. And I think it's worth noting here that everyone joining me here today on the show has been in the business less than two years and some less than one year. All righty. So let's get started. So please help me welcome to the show from Fargo, North Dakota, Jack and Josh. Ryan, you're in beautiful Florida now, right? Not yet, brother. I'm getting there though. Okay. We're going to talk about that, Ryan Vagic. And then Marr, are you in Alabama or D.C.? New Hampshire right now. Oh, well, there we go.

I probably should have done some homework. And then Tony, you're in Cuba, right? Oh, no, I'm in Texas. Yes, yes. Yes. I didn't want to get yours right and mess up everybody else, so I wanted to make you feel a part of the group. Thanks, man. So, welcome to the show, guys.

I've got six specific questions and what does kind of go around, and you all answer is directly and specifically and offer what else ever else you think might be, people might find helpful too, okay? No trick questions here, though. So, Tony, I'll start with you. Best Source for Off-Market deals right now. Best source for off-market deals. For us, it has been networking. We have stumbled upon a new market that we entered into in October, right after the Boston Epic Intensive.

And it has been quite successful for us because we just started network with people. We jumped into it by looking at some properties from realtors. And that led us to having a business relationship with one of them. She brought us a property off market. That led us to the seller who has now sold us several properties. That's led him to introduce us to other folks. And just yesterday I had his air conditioning guy call me up and said, I understand you're interested perhaps in buying more properties here.

And so we are on tap to buy. We've bought seven in that market and we're under contract to buy eight more. on March 1st, and we keep getting leads from just networking with people. We've spent a total of $1,000 on marketing there. And we're looking to have by March 1st upwards of 15 properties. Super. So networking, building relationships, kind of leveraging that success, sharing the stories, and that's turning into new stuff.

Yes. Is that pretty much right? Good. Fantastic. Great. Mara, you've been with the RIA's program for a little over a year. I remember right in the beginning, we had launched all your marketing. You'd call us up probably six weeks later and said, stop.

There's too many leads. But you've been very consistent. So share with us. What's your best source of off-market deals? My main source of my deals are property finders, agents, and other real estate professionals. I've just found that that's the method that I prefer. and that works best for me. And so I kind of trained a handful of people about what I was looking for.

And now they just bring them to me. So every day I opened my email and there's usually several deals in there, a lot of foreclosures. And that's what I focus on right now. That's great. Can I ask you, how did that start? How did you start finding those people? And then what's your process for training?

So it started a few different ways. Definitely our network on the ground helped. and that helps source about three of them. But then I also used one of the methods that you taught me, which is to advertise for property finders on Craigslist, on Facebook. And so I was pretty successful in recruiting a few more people and training them about what I was looking for. And my training process is pretty simple.

I put together a PowerPoint brief that I go through with all of them to highlight the five main neighborhoods that we focus on, the property type we focus on a bunch of other little details. And when they bring me a deal that doesn't fit my criteria, I always make sure to tell them why it doesn't fit so that the next time they bring me one, hopefully it fits a little bit better. So really, it's just a simple process.

That's awesome. Tony, do you happen to compensate your referrals at all? We do. With the realtor, we told her if you, and actually I got this from Mara, at a mastermind in Boston where we were talking about what she does with realtors. And so we used something very similar and we paid her $1,000 for bringing us a deal that we closed down.

Now, she had to do some work to make it happen. But that's our standing offer to her is pay her $1,000. Got it. Mara, with your property finders, how is that compensation structure work? Yes, usually it's a flat fee that we negotiate. So it's usually between $1,000 and $3,000. although I do have one agent that we work on commission with, but usually it's a flat fee. Got it.

Cool. And that's on a deal closed, right? Yes, yeah, on a deal closed. Perfect. Ryan, what's your best source for off-market deals? I know you've got a different approach, but I haven't talked to you in a while. Has it changed at all? Share it has changed a little bit.

Assumptions are getting much harder because sales are getting better for regular retail sales. So I've kind of changed a little bit. took your advice so for certain. I have a property manager to do all 26 of our properties now. And this is, this will be a good take on property managers. So literally my, my manager brought me my latest deal. I could have walked away $15,000 wholesale if I wanted to. But taking your strategy with the buying hold, I told them, no thank you. Let's put it in the portfolio and keep it for buying hold. So property manager, I mean, how awesome is that? And not only not paying the man to management properties, but he literally put a deal in my lap and we closed on it. So

property management one, I'm definitely going to take from Marr and TJ and Jack and them networking. I mean, my marketing budget is, you know, it's been that since day one. So networking has been phenomenal. And then what I do personally, sorry about the dogs, what I do personally is I do notice of default. So I'm literally knocking on doors for notice of default. And that was one of the three that I picked up this year. Fantastic. Thanks for sharing. Your approach, when you knock on someone's door that's obviously struggling with paying their bills, what's your approach to that?

So, I mean, I just take my wholesome Midwest attitude with my military background, and I flashed it right in front of him. Hey, I'm retired Air Force 21 years. I know that you're struggling right now or things are happening that are unforeseen. I know what I can do and I can help you if you're willing to. listen, I give my business card and either wait and call back or I approach them again, and that seems to work several times. Straight into the point, right?

I love it. Jack, Josh, what is your best source for off-market deals at the moment? I'd say with a qualifier, we get about half our deals straight off the MLS, so technically that's on-market, but that's where we're getting half our deals, so that's important to note. but direct mail is the best source for producing deals for us off market. And I will add to what everyone else said, the nitrous that really amplifies that is the networking piece. So reaching out to realtors directly,

we're both in networking groups, kind of like BNI Master Networks type groups, to network with other people in the industry and outside of the industry, just letting everyone know what we're looking for, what we do. So direct mail and training agents in town. So I think we also had the benefit that we really didn't have an established real estate group here in town. So we started one.

And that's been growing pretty rapidly. So now we're moving into a second market. It's fantastic. When, what is your criteria? What you're all really saying is this is a people business. Right? Absolutely.

What, Jack, Josh, what is your criteria for determining whether you actually go on a seller appointment or not? Since we don't get a ton of calls, since we have a fairly small list, we default to going there and running them through the sales process because that's going to give us the best chance to see if there is any true motivation there. So we default to going until our phone starts blowing up, which I don't foresee it ever doing because our list we mailed to is so small. even with a good response rate, it's only a few calls a week.

So we try to go on almost everything. And, you know, it's been working. So we maximize our chances by going there. All right. So you basically proceed with the assumption that... Until the calendar, yeah, and until the calendar fills up, we might as well continue to exercise that muscle. It's good practice, yeah.

Very good. Tony, are you meeting with many sellers face-to-face, and how do you determine whether you're going to meet with them or not? Yeah, we do meet. with a lot of sellers. And if it's through our direct mail, then I'm going to have an interview process on the phone. Your interview script is very good. We use that quite a bit.

And you can tell the motivation on the phone, tire kickers versus those that are going to be serious. If those that are serious about selling and they're sending it up, I know that in some cases, they're holding the letters and they're waiting to the opportune time for them. and they have a number of investors all at the same time. When that's fine, we'll go on those calls. With our new market, we're meeting with mostly everybody, similar to what Jag Josh just said.

With our new market, we're just trying to get our name out there and trying to meet with everybody. Got it. Mara, are you meeting with sellers face-to-face, or is it more of a phone thing? Because I know you do a little bit of a virtual-type business. No. There really are.

Yes, so I'm not even located in my market most of the time, so definitely I'm not the one that's going to meet face-to-face. My process is usually I'm a big spreadsheet numbers person. So when these leads get sent to me, they have to pass my initial test before I'll send one of my people to go inspect the house. But that's all delegated. Either it's one of my partners or one of my property finders or agents. So if it passes my initial assessment, then I will have one of them go look at it, send me some pictures, and then write an offer if it looks like it's going to be good. Got it. So your assessment is based is just numbers and data driven then?

Yes. Got it. Got it. Cool. Ryan, what determines whether you go on appointment and meet with a seller or not? Pretty much any lead that comes across my desk or my computer, I'm going face-to-face. Every time it's a people business, communication skills, just being there. These people are getting letters like 24-7 so to have a true person come to their door and talk with them.

Significant. And then if I can say that, you know, I'm local here, then it helps as well. So I'm pretty much going on every single lead that comes across my way. Got it. Interesting. I actually wasn't expecting those answers, so that's nice. What would you say, Ryan, is the common denominator of sellers for when you actually get the contract signed? Is there something there that you notice consistently that causes you to get the deal?

Can you actually do that? That's their question to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, like, you know, the deal. that I do with the defaults and just really saving a lot of people, the assumptions, and just a lot of like, oh my God, you've been a lifesaver. Thank you so much. I'm going to refer you. It's just, it's really a great feeling to be to provide that kind of service to these people as well. It's just the entire industry. You get it on a good deal. You take care of the

family. You put contractors to work, agents to work. The whole cycle is just an unbelievable thing. So it's really a sense of thank you and relief from my sellers. Right. So you're finding motivated sellers then that do have a problem and you are solving it for them. Exactly. Got it. Maro, you have a different approach? Are you noticing a common denominator between the deals that you get and that you don't get?

We do get a lot of foreclosures. So I have some agents that are connected to, you know, bank-owned properties and bring me foreclosures. So I guess if I had to say the most common type of property that my offer gets accepted, it's probably a foreclosure. But outside of that, it's hard to say. It's a mixture of just, you know, life situation. And I do buy from wholesalers, so a lot of times wholesalers will bring me deals. Got it. Good.

Jack, Josh. Is there a common denominator you're noticing amongst sellers that, actually end up signing the contract with you guys? Yeah, I would say it's a combination of, you know, we're kind of in a buyer's market right now, so they've just had the house sitting, they can't sell it, and they just want to wash their hands of it,

and they have the ability to, since we're marketing to people with high equity, they have the ability. So the combination, that overlap of the ability to sell, and then just kind of being tired of having the property in their possession anymore, and it's become a problem. They don't want to fix it up.

They don't have the funds, or they have maybe problem tenants, just the typical signs of motivation that are there are typically what lead to a signed contract for us. And those ones that we haven't gotten to sign, I think we find that the more time we spend with them and allow them to talk and help and let them reveal what their struggle is, those are the ones that we have a better success rate

where we can get them to talk. Yeah, we're really, that's why we really like to go face to face because the longer you spend with them and the more questions we ask, the more they talk to us. Just, I mean, the odds just go up significantly. Right. Good old-fashioned report building. I know, Tony, you've got something very similar to that answer, right? Is there anything to add? Yeah, definitely building the rapport with the sellers is our common denominator.

We do that right from the get-go if it's through a phone call. I tried to establish a little bit of a relationship, a little difficult on the phone. sometimes, but if you can grab on to something that they're saying, and I'll ask some questions to try to get there. If they have lived in the house before, I'll ask that if they've lived there. And sometimes they have, sometimes they haven't, but if they've lived there, and I'll ask this follow-up question, would you like best about living in the house? And it's just to get them to talk so that you can try to find something that then you can go down that path with them, and you're building that rapport. If they're moving away, I'm going to ask them where are they going,

why they go in there. And if we set up the meeting and I'm going to go face to face with them, we try to steer away from the house and just start talking. And we'll look at something in the house if they happen to live there or have they've lived there. We'll try to pick something that just, it's a conversation piece. We've attended some almost like get-togethers at some of these houses because they're waiting for that time they're going to pick out a day or two and they're going to call up all the investors that they've received letters from. And I've shown up when there's six, seven investors just rolling through that house.

My wife comes with me a lot on these calls. We will try to dominate that person's time. We steer them away from everybody else and we just start talking. And we'll be there an hour. And then we leave them, always leave them with an offer. And we've been... Did they leave them with an offer or leave them? leave them with an offer.

We leave them with an offer. We use the three-option letter of intent, and we leave them with an offer. And that has worked remarkably well for us because we're spending time with them. And then there was one other thing that we just started. Because we've established a relationship with them, my wife has sent personal letters to them. Like later that night, the next day, she sent personal letters to them. And in two-tile situations where she's done that, we've done that.

acquired the houses. It's just a little different. They're typically not getting a letter. So those personal notes, those things work? They kind of work. And they are very personal. She keys off of what they've told us when we're spending time with them. And it could be something about one of the fellows was military. And so she keyed off of that. And another, there's a couple of guys that were living in this house. They're moving. and they just didn't have the funds to bring the house back to what it needed to be. And she just talked about that in the letter and just made it extremely personal and said, we would really like to buy your house.

And that's the gist of it. And it's worked remarkably well. Fantastic. So once you've got the contract signed, and for the properties that you're going to sell, the ones you're not going to hold on to, what have you found to be your best strategy or best source for finding money or the buyer? Jack, Josh, I'll start with you. Well, because we have that real estate investing meet up here in town, if we do any kind of wholesaling, it's typically to that group. Although we have started to change our strategy a little bit because we have just started over the past couple weeks marketing to local realtors in our community too.

So, yeah, that's been our biggest strategy when it comes to the wholesale part of it. of it. Mm-hmm. Got it. Ryan, I think you're holding everything. Are you selling anything? So I am selling a couple properties in taking your advice with the lease options. And I'm actually loving the lease options because you can literally turn a turd into a diamond.

So your best source for money or the buyer is from where then? Just the strategy that you're promoting? So, you know, building the portfolio, like you say, with the buy and hold, truthfully, lenders out there love what we do. And when you can present them a portfolio of some nice properties, they're begging to give you money and to go continue doing that. So, you know, I got burned with a partner a few years ago. And so if I can't do it my own, I won't do it right now.

So we've basically partnered up with a local bank that's giving me a nice line of credits. and I use my line of credit as an all-cash purchase, and then two weeks later, they'll put it on a loan with their bank and then replenish my line of credit. So every two weeks, the cycle just continued. So it's really through my personal. Good. Mara, your best source for money or buyers for the properties that you're selling?

For funding, I started with private investors for my first few deals, and then after we did a few, we were able to get a pretty big, line of credit with a bank. So now I can just use my line of credit for most of my projects, which is great. And I do a lot of selling because I do builds and flips a lot. So for selling, I'm also involved in a lot of professional groups. So I do sell directly to individuals. And I'm also part of a couple big network groups of investors who want to buy in my market. So those are my primary sources for sales. Got it. You know, Ryan, you were saying that when you show people that they want to get involved. And I think you'd said one keyword, like, you show them some nice

properties, right? Is it really the deal that attracts the money, do you think? Exactly. And I forget how you classify them. Is it A class properties? I don't know. I'm thinking like, what is an investor actually looking for in a property for them to want to give you the money? So they just love the location of my properties, the condition of the properties, the rent rules, the equity that they built. And then so they're lending me money based on the location, the equity, and in the portfolio is not all Section 8. It's not, you know, houses and bad neighborhoods. It's close to military installations.

It's just nice properties. And for that, they love my portfolio and they basically are, I can go to any bank locally and they want to lend. Got it. So it's a nice property that's got some equity in place. and it performs. Exactly. Imagine that.

Mara, so, you know, when we were doing your first deal, we were scrambling there at the last minute looking for a source of money to close on. What do you think was the determining factor with that last person that you ended up with? The numbers. The numbers? I'm a big, like, numbers person,

and so I was really careful with my first two deals to find really good deals that even to an amateur, you could show the breakdown and the ROI. So every person I showed the deal to was like, this is a great deal. So then it was just a matter of finding someone that had the cash that wanted a certain level of ROI. And then it was up to me to make sure that, you know, construction and everything performed. And we've been able to perform on our deals.

So I think that's the numbers for me of, and even now, you know, because I sell to a lot of people who want to invest in real estate in my market. and it's not really about the location, although they do care about the quality of the rehab. And I care about that too, but more than anything, it's the numbers in the ROI that sell. Got it. Tony, I'm interested in your answer. You come from the banking world. You're a money guy.

What has been your best source of money and what's your strategy for finding money or a buyer? Well, our current position is, it's our default position that, any property that we put in the contract, we're going to hold it. And whether that's going to be a rental or we'll sell it with owner financing, so we continue to have a stake in that asset. And so our selling today will be to an owner occupant. And that's an interesting process here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and in Waco, where we are also,

because all we have to do is stick signs in the yard, and it generates a significant amount of attention. The acquisition is through private lending, and I have some excellent private lending sources, and now I've established banking relationships with two banks. And it didn't hurt that I came from the banking world, and I presented them with packages before I ever, packages of who we are, what our business plan is, financials, what we've done, and we did that before we even had a deal that we presented to them. So I just wanted to let them know who we are.

And I went around to a number of banks talking to them about what their terms are. And then I selected the two that were the most aggressive. And that's what we're doing today. We have a number of financing requests in. We've had financing provided already. And this is all fairly new because we jumped into this new market, an hour and a half from us, and to establish the bank relationships. And for them to just start lending significant summaries,

of money was a pleasant surprise. So you don't know until you go and start talking to them. And so I would highly recommend for those who want longer term money is to at least entertain that idea of going to a bank. But have your business plan with you, have a mission statement, tell them what you're all about, have your financials together. I know Morris done that. And we had talked some about that a few months ago.

When you go prepared, it shows that you have some credibility. Yeah, and I'm also hearing what you had said just a moment ago was when you went in prepared, you were able to show everything, then you had kind of the opportunity to choose which one you wanted to go with. They were almost competing for your business, right? Yes, exactly. I turned down a bank. Yeah, there you go.

I don't care for their terms. See, if you got the deal, the money will find you. I love it. And I did not even know they were going to be asked that question today. We were going to talk all about consistency. That's what we're here for. and that is the next question. So, Jack, Josh, what would you say is your secret to consistently posting deals

each and every week inside of the Epicro Academy Facebook group? For us, we make sure we write offers every day. That's the, you know, if we boiled down to any single one thing, it's that offers are going out the door every day. Because, I mean, even just yesterday, I got a text from my realtor saying, holy crap, they actually, they're ready to accept this. And it was from, you know, two months ago, I think. and finally the seller was just wore down and was ready to take our deeply discounted offer.

And if we hadn't submitted that offer two months earlier, we wouldn't have it. So we just, if we spend the time analyzing a property, we're going to submit an offer because you already put the work in. You might as well submit the offer. So we make sure to write offers every single day. And, you know, we have our threshold that we try to do per week based on our market size. And if we, that's probably the single biggest thing that's result. in us getting more deals than our competition.

That Facebook post has been a big thing too because we really hold that follow through Friday as a accountability check. So thanks to that, you know, we almost feel like we failed the week if we don't have something to post there. Yeah, it's going to be a sad day when I don't see you there. But so consistently writing offers produces consistent results is kind of what you're saying, right? Every day.

Yeah. If you're not using that daily success report, you should be. Brian, secret to your consistent success. And you know, you're not the high volume guy, but you are in there regularly and you're posting your deal. So what's your secret? So like anything else, it's a muscle. When you use it and you work at it, you get success in a deal. So unfortunately, sometimes my attention is distracted to other businesses or what.

unfortunately. I mean, you know, there's only 24 hours in a day. So I just find when I'm actively looking for properties, I find properties. And that goes with what Jack and I were saying with the Daily Success Report. I know you did a podcast before and I was laughing about it because you said, you know, it's just that easy. Do the Daily Success Report and you see results. And I'm like, I do do it. I just don't check the boxes every day. And I guess I imagine that if I was like Brad Donnelly, then maybe, you know, I would have the number of houses that he does and it's just going to take him out of time. But it is. It's just doing those things that are in the Delea Success Report, whether or not I'm checking the boxes or just mentally noting that I am

actively working to find houses. 100%. All the successful real estate investors that are consistently producing results, the one thing that they all have in common is they all do the money-making activities. You know, they might not check the box, but they're still doing. doing it, right? And that's why they're getting the results. So good observation. Mara, what's the secret to your success? Well, I agree with what everyone else has said, especially what Jack and Josh said about writing offers. I write a lot of offers. But I think my success probably comes down to two main things. Having clearly defined goals and constantly tracking our progress towards those goals

and having what we call from the military background a battle rhythm and a schedule Yeah exactly So I think in the business world they call it systems But we start every week Monday with a team conference call We review our goals

So everyone on my team knows what I think success looks like for the week The month and the year And then we analyze how you know, if we're on track to achieve those goals. Tony, a little bit of a slow start when we started working together, but you are up and running and you're really consistent now.

What's the, what changed? What's different from now than before? Right. Well, the key word was consistency. And there was a lack of consistency. There was a family situation that made me have to go to New York quite a bit. And it's hard to start and stop, start and start. Right.

Stop. And you just keep doing that. and then you got all of the other things in your life that are weighing on your mind. Once we were able to get that settled, we were more consistent with our marketing. And that was key. I didn't want to market if I wasn't going to be here and be able to do that. And I wasn't going to be able to apply my time appropriately. And I felt like it was going to be a waste of our funding.

So consistently market it. And whether that's through direct mail, you just can't do it. it once a month and expect to have the results you want longer term, it's got to be something you're persistent with and consistent. We've done that. And now it's also certainly writing the contracts, obviously, that's the goal. But to get there, it's just continuing to meet people. Continue to meet people.

Let them know, and I forget who said it, but let them know. Jack, I think you might have said it. Let them know who you are and what you're all about. Don't keep it a secret that you're into this real estate thing. because once they start finding out what you do, questions will arise. Consistent action produces consistent results, specifically the right actions, because you all mentioned that consistently writing offers, which is what it all comes down to. So thank you so much for sharing that. And I had all of the four of you here, I guess five of you, Jack and Josh, excuse one person there, for a reason, because none of your names are Brad Donnelly, Jeremiah Johnson.

or Parker Stiles. And because they've been, they've been around for a while. I've been working with them for a while. They've built very successful businesses. And my question, or, yeah, I guess my next question was, we've been, I think, collectively, maybe give or take a year or so, under two years for sure, I think for everybody. What have you found to be the biggest surprise?

What do you know now that you wish you knew when you got started? Jack and Josh, I'll start with you. Hmm. Boy, you put us on the spot. All right, we'll come back. Ryan, what do you wish you knew? What do you know now that you wish you knew before you got started? It's all possible. Oh, sorry. Jack Josh, you guys are cut off. You guys can think for a second. Ryan, go ahead. You know, hey, this isn't blowing smoke or anything like that. It's just like truly believe in your mentor.

Find a mentor, believe in them. and listen to them because I've had some ups and downs in my in my real estate investing journey. And you've given some phenomenal advice that had I taken a couple years ago, would have saved me a lot of time headache, dealing with partnerships and stuff like that and legal issues. So I would say looking back, you know, find a mentor and truly listen to them because they've been down that path. They've spent thousands and hundreds of thousands and had those difficult. times and they're sharing that with you for a reason. And so I wish that looking back, I would have taken that advice. And then, you know, the biggest thing too is listening saying buy and hold, buying hold.

Everybody that I hear that you talk to, the last question you asked them, is this exact question? If you could have started and turned back to clock, what would you have done? I would have bought more and sold less. So that's why every time you talk to me, it's like, Ryan, you only hold. I'm like, yeah, I love that strategy. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for sharing. All right, Jack and Josh, you got your thoughts collected?

Yeah, I was going to say just the biggest surprising thing is that people will actually accept these offers sometimes, you know, that it's possible. Because when you start, you think, well, no one's ever going to accept this. I would ever accept this offer. Why would anyone else? So just getting over that mental hurdle that these deals are possible and you can consistently get them with consistent results. So that was surprising to me. That's great. That's a good one. I think that's a big. eye opener for a lot of people. Like, they're really going to sell me their house for this. Money's not the biggest motivator for some people. It's not the biggest problem. Yeah. I remember when Parker first came to me and he's like, I got this house for free. Like,

what do you mean free? They just gave it to me. You know, one of the things that I think is really the big thing that a lot of people struggle with. And we see it on a regular basis just because of the meetups is that it's surprising how many people go through the work and the actions of putting their numbers together, even walking a property, and then talk themselves out of submitting the offer. So if you're going to put in that time and effort into it, take the two seconds and submit the offer. Right, right. Now, wasn't Parker, that was Corey. actually said that. I just remembered a long time ago. Mara, what do you know now that you wish you knew then before you got started?

I think the biggest surprise, although there's been many, has been around money. I think a lot of people when they're starting out, maybe they're not independently wealthy and they wonder how they're going to fund their deals. And I know that was definitely the case for me. I didn't know how I was going to fund my deals, but it was just everything that you said, you know, find a good enough deal and you'll be able to find the money to fund it. which was definitely my case, and I had a little bit of dramatic, crazy situation on the first one, but the deals was good enough. I got a private investor. That relationship developed, and now

money is not a problem at all for me anymore, which if you told me that when I first started, that I would be at a point where I now turn away money, you know, I probably wouldn't have believed you. Right, right. No, that's definitely something I think everyone will come up against and realize, wow, the money is actually the easiest part of the entire equation. You got to find the deal that actually attracts the money. It's probably where the challenge is. Tony, knowing what you know now, what do you wish you knew when you got started? Well, it's two parts.

One is I wish I had joined the mastermind sooner. And the golden nuggets that come out of masterminds are so beneficial. And they've proven to be extremely useful for us and generated quite a bit of, we've generated quite a bit of success already. And I'll give you one example. Jack said it in Boston at the Mastermind when he talked about how they use for rent signs, have a number. The number goes to a voice message.

It eliminates tire kickers, maybe realtors, but eliminates having to run out and show that property all the time. So they do a single showing. We've incorporated that since Boston. And we've done it on six rentals and one FisBull that we're doing. doing with owner financing. Incredible success with all of that. So joining a mastermind sooner would have been extremely beneficial.

And the second is, and this is a big one, it's mindset, changing the mindset. I came from a philosophy of living with scarcity, and that's changed to living with abundance. And the way I can describe that would be with this saying that we use in our business. And it epitomizes the difference between the whole living with scarcity, versus living with abundance. It's when you're in this real estate business, it's not how much it's going to cost you. It's how much will it make you?

And that difference, I didn't grow up with that difference. That was foreign concept to me. And so when we look at deals, am I going to do a repair as myself? Because I want to save a couple bucks or I'm going to hire somebody to do it. Well, I have a better use of my time than to do an repairs myself.

Even in marketing, well, I don't want to do it. yellow letters. One, I don't want to do them. Two, you can't read my writing. I want my wife to do them. So we hired out for that. Personal, handwritten yellow letters. Plus, we benefit other people by doing that because we're paying them. But having a mindset of living with abundance versus living with scarcity where you're always concerned about where all your money is going rather than how you can better utilize it. That's been a big change for me. Good. Yeah, those were all great. Thank you for sharing. That was my last question, but I do have one last one to ask you guys. we've been here talking for, I don't know, 45 minutes or so, we're about to wrap it up.

What was the biggest thing you learned from the other people that were here sharing? Ryan, did you take any notes? Do you have an aha moment, a big takeaway? Yeah, like trying to expand my business working with real estate agents. So, Maura, sharing that I want to work with real estate agents. I mean, there's enough partners, there's enough deals to go around, but it seems like, you know, traditional website agents are more, concerned to work with us as investors. So if I just, you know, break the ice and be like, look,

I can pay you and I like that, what she said, look, my standard compensation is one or $3,000. Who wouldn't want to make that real quick? I mean, we can close in a week's time. Why would an agent not want to work with us? So that is really going to help me tremendously because I can talk to anybody. And so if I open, break the ice with the agents and let them know that, hey, they're going to get compensated. It might not be their 7% standard, but consistently I can get them deals and get them one or three K. Maura, thank you so much.

I love that. Awesome. Morra, can you reciprocate? What was the big lesson you got here from the other members? Well, I got a ton of value, learned a ton of things, but I did write down Tony's question

that he asked whenever he's talking to a seller, what's your favorite thing about the house? I just thought that was a really unique way to approach the conversation that I hadn't heard before. And even though I don't personally do a lot of the seller calls,

I always am talking to my agents and my property finders about little ways to negotiate. So I just thought that was a really good little tip that he gave. It was a great one. Thank you for repeating that because I missed that. That was good. Tony, what was the biggest takeaway you got from the other members today or the other participants?

I need to be more consistent, just more consistent, particularly in the area of writing the contracts and just following through and just making that a habit. setting the goals like Mara mentioned, but Jack and Josh are writing contracts every day, and that's really, I believe, they're out to go. Awesome. Jack, Josh, what was your biggest lesson today? I love Tony's idea about after, and since we do a similar business of visiting a lot of face-to-face

with sellers, you're sending the personal thank you letter afterwards. We've done that sporadically, but I know if we do that consistently every time, there's no way that's not going to pay off. And especially if you were just there earlier that day or the day before, if you can really make it a personal thing that references things that you spoke about, there's no way that that does not pay off big time. Right. That was a good one.

Nice work, Tony. Give Cindy some credit on that one too, I guess, right? Yeah, her idea. Jack and Josh, I hear you have a very special anniversary coming up. Congratulations on your 100th episode of the REI Rookiees, your podcast, your very own podcast. You guys are going to have to change the name here pretty soon. Have you thought of that? Well, we're still going to be educating rookies.

So that's, that'll be the angle, even if we're not. All right. So we won't be RIA veterans come. Very good. Yeah, so if you haven't checked out their podcast, it's fantastic. They're wonderful people, wealth and knowledge. They're in the trenches. Everything is, you know, from their own personal experience.

And it's real stuff. So congratulations to you guys, much success going forward. You guys can volunteer this if you want. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to do that? You could just refer them to the Facebook group because you guys are in there all the time. Or Ryan, do you have another way?

Sure, the Facebook group is great, but my business website is www. www. true north prop, prop.com. www. true north prop. dot com.

True north prop. That's good. Perfect. Mara, if someone wanted to get in touch with you, or what's the best way for them to do that? You can visit our website. My company is called Deradus Properties, D-U-R-A-T-U-S. You can visit our website or our Instagram, Facebook page.

I'm trying to be more consistent with my social media outreach. I see you out there. I see you. Yeah. What does Deradus mean? It means to endure in Latin. Nice. I love it.

Yeah, endurance is one of the Marine Corps leadership principles. Sweet. You know. Gosh, how'd I miss that one? I don't know. I was sleeping that day, too. Anyway, if you'd like to see something really cool, is the marketing that Mara does for her properties when she's ready to sell them. She does some really amazing videos and they're really good looking.

So go follow her, check her out to her website and I'm sure you got them posted there, right? Yes. Perfect. Tony, if someone wanted to get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to do that? You can do it through our website, certainly through the Facebook group that you have. And our website is Sintan Property Solutions. and it's C-Y-N-T-O-N property solutions. Perfect.

That counts. And Jack and Josh, I've spent some time plugging your podcast, but is there a different way or a better way for them for someone to reach out to you? I think R-E-IRookies.com is probably the best way. They can reach out through that. Check out the podcast there and get in touch with us if they need to. Also, feel free to hit us up on Facebook as well. Fantastic.

Well, everybody, it's been an honor to share this time with you. And I'm just really impressed. and ooh, they see the hair, they just got some gooseys real quick. I was about to say something really emotional, but the goosebumps that preceded that. Anyway, I just love you all so much, and I really appreciate you coming back

to share with the community of what you've learned and what you've gotten out of this, and I think that's just a testament. I think that's another reason you guys are consistent and successful because of your hearts and your character. So thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Thanks, Matt.

Appreciate it, Matt. And there you go. So you'd like to do deals, subscribe. Subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel because I give it all away in those two places for free. But if you'd like to go fast, go to R-E-I-Aase.com. Ready? So that's it for today. God bless to your success.

I'm Matt Terrio. Go. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. You didn't know home world. This podcast is a part of the C-suite radio network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.