Epic Real Estate Investing - What's Working Now with Real Estate Doru - Nasar El-Arabi | 1083

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

In today’s episode, Matt is re-joined with an old friend, Nasar El-Arabi, a real estate Doru and a co-author of Matt’s book, No Agent Needed. Stay tuned as Matt and Nesar discuss the efficient ways of lead generation in the midst of a crisis, what are the predominant causes of a seller’s motivation right now, what Nasar is doing to prepare himself for the new market, and much more! 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-A's.com.

Here's Matt. Hey there, Epic Investor. It's Matt Terrio from Epic Real Estate. And back from vacation. And this is where we show people how to invest in real estate with an emphasis on retiring early. This is the Epic Real Estate Investing Show. And I do this show because I know that most people are living a life of financial sacrifice and betrayal. So we've built a system that creates an opportunity for one's money to work harder for them than they did for it. saving them and their families from a lifetime of financial worry.

So I know that real estate works. And I just believe that everyone deserves a chance. You at least deserve to know about it. And you can make your decision based off of or make your decision after that. But if this was the one thing that was going to turn everything around for you, wouldn't it make sense to at least get the data? So if this is your first time here, glad you found us. And if you like what you hear, make sure you hit the subscribe button before you go.

and if this is not your first time here, welcome back. And thank you for sharing this with your friends and family. Love that about you. Thanks again. Well, I was able to get on the phone, an old friend, and we met in a real estate mastermind several years ago. And I remember him specifically, and I remember this moment vividly. There was one day where he came up to me and he gave me a gift just out of the blue. and it was an Amazon fire tablet.

I had no idea what it really was at the time. I do now, and we use it. But it just came out of the blue. And as he gave it to me, he had thanked me for what he had learned here from this podcast over the years. But little did he know that in that moment, that I was actually more grateful for him than he was I.

as nothing makes me happier to hear about listeners of this show, just going out and applying what they learned here and doing good with it and making some money. And fast forward several years to today, he's making a lot of it. He's doing really well for himself. And I'm really proud of him, I guess, if that's the right word. Maybe inspired is more of the right thing. And it's just fun to watch. And he's also a co-author.

in my book, No Agent Needed. The hottest tips, tricks and hacks from rock star real estate investors that anyone can use to sell their properties fast and for top dollar without a real estate agent. Long title. I know. Well, that's the subtitle. No agent needed is the title of the book. And I wrote this book with several other real estate investors.

And it was really designed to be a lead generation piece. I've shared it on the show of how in the beginning when I had no money for marketing that I became very creative and innovative. And one of the books that I always carry around with myself, one of them was Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and the other one was for sale by owner book. I would just place it everywhere I went. I'd place it on the desktop next to me.

If I was in Starbucks, I'd place it on the Starbucks counter, and I'll just kind of do my work while it sat there, and I kind of put it on the edge so people could see it as they walked by. And I would just wait for people to ask about it. And then that was my cue to go into a conversation. about if they had a house for sale or if they were looking to put their money to work, stuff like that. Anyway, so I decided to write my own book for that purpose, no agent needed. And our guest today was a co-author in that book.

And he's got a great story, an inspiring one. You can read all about it in addition to one of his most challenging deals that he's ever had and how he overcame it. And that's all in chapter 13 of no agent needed available at amazon.com. Anyway, so I've got him on the phone, and I want to discuss what's working right now with regard to lead generation and what are the predominant causes right now that he's seeing of sellers motivations today. And also what he's doing to prepare for the new market and a bunch of other stuff, as he loves to share his experiences so you can avoid the mistakes that he's made because he too has a genuine interest in helping you grow your real estate investing business or doesn't motivate you. to want a better life for yourself and kind of help you and give you some ideas on how to get it. Great dude. You're going to love him. So without further ado, please help me welcome to the show.

Mr. Nasser Elarabi, Nassar, welcome to the epic real estate investing show. Hey, man, Matt. Thank you for having me, man. It's been a few years, man. I'm glad I could be on. I'm also a fan of the show as well. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And that's kind of why, I mean, one of the things that inspired me to even contact you is that, you know, we both kind of travel somewhat parallel paths for a while and I just wanted to check in with you because you're on the other side of the country and I know real estate is really local and it's different. It's not really a national conversation. So I'm just trying to expose the audience to the different aspects of people that are actually in the in the weeds and doing it. So I'm glad we could get together.

All right, man. No, I'm definitely appreciative, you know, and glad we can get together as well, man. So, you know, and I hope you and the family is doing very well these days. Yeah, thank you. And I wish you the same too. It's kind of a weird situation we're going through right now, the whole world, really. Whole world. Yeah, very weird. Cool. So we could go down the actual path of how you got started and that. But let's just start with what is, tell me about your business. What does it look like today? All right. So basically, I narrowed it down, not doing any new construction. We do have one rehab going on. It's kind of like one of those patterns. passive rehabs. And so I'm primarily wholesaling. We're doing it between five and seven deals a month right now. And, you know, currently so far for this month, we've got about 60,000 plus in escrow, you know, and just getting more deals. So just wholesaling is primarily when I'm focused on. I am picking our rentals,

but that's passive as well. So once I buy them, rehab them and give them the property management, you know, that's the end of it. Then you're all done with that, right? Good. So how is business different right now than say it was, I don't know, six months ago? Definitely slowed down. I still got some homeowners who are skeptical with me and anybody trying to get them closed over the phone. Tenets are using the excuse, which is I don't want anybody in my house, which before COVID, it was the same thing. But now they have a really relevant excuse and, you know, they want to protect themselves. So things are slowing up. People are being more smart about purchases. And actually, but our stuff is just starting to pick back up, man.

I mean, during the COVID and the lockdown stuff, we were down to like two to three deals a month close. Mm-hmm. Which was, you know, a lot different for us. So therefore, you know, it did kill our revenue, you know. Buyers were not buying at high prices, where they are, what they were previous before. You know, so we would take it stuff. We had to give properties back and things like that. but that's the big difference.

Have you noticed a fluctuation in the seller's motivation in your conversations? These days, now that the last two weeks, yes, I'm noticing more motivations. People are getting more realistic that, hey, look, this property has to go. You know, I don't want the tenant hasn't been paying me, etc. Some people can't file invictions. Some people can't follow visions. So, you know, it's, yeah. So the motivation is definitely changing.

But you still have, I'm still hearing the COVID, you know, the COVID's excuses, which are valid. So that, you know, they don't want to do anything right now. Right, right. So is that the primary motivation that you're dealing probably with absentee owners, I'm guessing by your conversation that, you know, people aren't paying rent? Is that the primary story that you're hearing? Not paying rent, job loss, need the money to cash out. Also, I want to get my equity out now before this turns, this gets worse. So it'll be taught.

Right, right. How are you reaching out to sellers right now? What's your main source of your lead generation? Ringless voicemail and texting, SMS marketing. Okay. Are you using those together or separately? Separately. Separately?

All right, so I've never had much luck with the ringless voicemail as a tool all by itself. How does that work for you? So basically, you buy a list, get traded into the regular voice mail system, whatever you would like to use, and multiple out there, and you drop a message.

Ideally, I like to use a female voice. Basically, say, hey, this is Sarah, and we bought some houses in the neighborhood, and we wanted to buy four more this month. You can call it back if you're open, and then I send them to a press one, press two type of automated service.

they press one, they get pushed over, they press two, they get removed from the list. Got it. So with that, what's the type of, I guess, response rate that you get? How many do you send out and how many appointments would you expect to set from that? All right. So we're doing, I would say, about 6,000 RBMs a month just here locally, and probably a lot more in SMS. We run through the SMS data very fast. So let's say we get like 6,000 that. actually get delivered with all of our lists. And the delivery rate is the stuff that actually gets delivered. But as far as the response rate, I would say, you know, we're at three to five percent response rate, man. We did a lot of calls, you know, more than what mail was, you know,

in the past, is definitely, and it's a lot more cheaper. So I enjoy doing it. And we're still keeping that same volume and remaining profitable. Sweet. And then you just said SMS. you're sending a lot more SMS. Yes. How are you distinguishing who you send SMS to and who you send ringless voicemail to? Well, what we do is after we load it up, we'll send them in the voicemail,

and then we hit them up via text message. The same list. Got it. So just basically trying to hit them two different ways. But what you know is with SMS, you run through that data really, really fast because we try to do at minimum 2,000 a day. So you run through that data really fast,

So the RVM is kind of like more I can stretch it out over the month to keep my reps and everything visit. Now, you get more delivered to like SMS than ring of voicemail. But even in these times I currently were in August 2020, it's starting to get saturated. A lot of major carriers are blocking those out. So, you know, the window of opportunities getting smaller and smaller, but it's still effective for us. Nice, nice. Cool. So that incoming call, they hit one or two.

What does kind of that voice tree sound like? You've been contacted to sell it property. If you would like to sell your property, press one. If you'd like to be removed, press two. Okay. Press one. They go to one of my assistants who will pick up the phone and do the screen. Sweet.

Yeah, you know, I think when we met, you were pretty much a one-man band, and now you've got a team. What does your team look like? Okay. So, yeah, I have one acquisition. virtual systems last year, we gross about 1.9. When me and you met, and thanks to you, I was a, got to recommendation and get into the mastermind, I probably was like, you know, $200,000 a year, one man, band, you know, doing everything and then just ruled out from there.

It's awesome, awesome. Congratulations on that, by the way. Been watching from afar and you're making some big moves and you're doing really well. So when it comes into your virtual assistant, Are they just kind of asking for name, phone number, address, or are they taking it through the sales process? Yeah, they're going through the whole cell process. Okay. And as far as, the only thing they don't do is ask for is give the hard number. My opposition guy will call back and give the hard number. But yeah, no, they're going through the actual sales process, the screening.

I keep them in a mutual contact of ours, John Martinez, sell trade. Everyone, you know, we just, it's over and we join again. just so you can match with that sales process and you want to keep them motivated and learning new techniques so that they can stay motivated on the phones. Right, right. Are your virtual assistants here in the U.S.?

Are they overseas? They're actually overseas. Two of them overseas and my acquisition guys are here. I'm down to the one acquisition guy right now, but yeah, the other ones are across the use. Got it. So what's your role in your business now? I'm just basically controlling the marketing,

make sure the markets go out. what's going out, handling issues. Now, I do help to look at properties. Sometimes to help out my guy, he gets overwhelmed. But that's basically it. But my main focus is just to grow it. It's kind of hard to scare right now during this COVID. But, you know, this COVID shall pass as well.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Are you in one market or are you working in some other markets virtually? No market, just here locally, Charlotte, North Carolina, the whole metro area. So I'm doing Charlotte, the outside counties. But yeah, just in Charlotte. Sweet. So yeah, with this pandemic, how are you, how is it changing the way you're looking at the future right now? I mean, is it going to be business as usual? Do you see yourself making some permanent adjustments or temporary adjustments? Trying to make permanent adjustment. One of the things we're trying to do is get more stuff closed over the phone. Get more stuff over the phone. We just walked through the whole process over the phone. Now, some, everybody was personality is different. Some sellers will not do business with you, they haven't met you. Some want you to look at the, how.

house. So, but for the most case, I'm going to try to keep most of the deals closed over the phone. From my experience in the past, and I almost, I mean, I try to do everything face to face when we can. But I had no problem closing the business over the phone. I mean, getting the actual yes from the seller, but where it always kind of broke down and turned into like a 50-50 deal was getting the actual signature on the document. Absolutely. Right? What's your process for ensuring that and getting those signatures. And all right, so, say great. So we get the yes over the phone

and we send them over the contract. That's when it goes 50-50. But we're offering, hey, look, we'll come meet you. And we'll go over your questions and concerns in person. And we'll correct them right there on the spot. So, you know, try to eliminate that communication. However, you still get to people with the time of sign and just disappear. Mm-hmm.

And we're just trying to work on that piece. Right, right. Yeah, we've tried, um, We've tried obviously email and docusign. We've tried through the mail. We've tried run down to the fax if you got one. We've tried the FedEx. We even sent mobile notaries to the door, and people won't even answer the door, right?

So that's just like one of the big pieces. I mean, because if you're going, if you're getting a yes, then you go to 50-50, I mean, it essentially doubles your acquisition cost, right? So I haven't found the magic bullet for that. And I was just always curious is when people are doing it. virtually and trying to close it over the phone if they stumbled across a secret. No, I need to say the same type of stuff, but we're offering to meet people and, you know, things like that.

Got it. So moving forward, people are talking of a shift in the market, even you were saying the sellers, they want to get their equity out before it all crumbles. I actually thought we would have experienced some sort of downturn a little bit by now. And I was talking about it heavily just like four months ago, and it hasn't happened, right? I had Jeff Garner on the show a couple weeks ago, and he's just like, he's not sensing any pain

or any fear yet in sellers. But you say that in the last couple weeks, they might have been starting to become a little bit more realistic and come down to Earth. Yes. And when I say realistic coming down to Earth, meaning I got to sell and I got to sell now. Not as far as I'm going to discount the hell of this property.

I'm in a growing market. So, you know, everyone has the next up-and-coming area and they want five million dollars for the house, etc. With that being said, it's kind of realistic of, yeah, we have to do something. We have to do it now. So, yeah, we're just trying to get those people, you know, to sell. They're selling, you know, to say, hey, look, I want to sell, I want to sell. But Charlotte, the retail market is on fire here, man. So, yeah, stuff is still getting, you know, four and five offers. If it's done right, it hits the market right now. So money is extremely cheap.

Now, I'm going to say this, right? And Matt, you're a clean-cut guy, you know? You keep your brand 100% clean, so I'm going to say it's as clean as possible. All right. Historically, during real estate, during election, it slows down. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right.

So we have two candidates here, and I'm going to say the current administration does not mind right in the blank check, okay? To fix things. I, this is just theory, if the current administration stays in office, it's a possibility the real estate market might continue to survive. If a different administration comes in, they're going to have to deal with the realization of that there was some band-aids being passed up, and we are losing, I believe it was like 1.2 million jobs a week.

So I'm not saying, I'm not telling anybody be on either side. I'm just saying, you know. Right. What's the loss of 1.2 million a week? What's that in reference to? I'm sorry, the jobs. Oh, jobs, yeah. Yeah, unemployment claims.

So unemployment claims are, you know, when I read that, are pretty much being consistent at like $1.2 million unemployment claims a week. So, yeah, I don't see it getting, you know, real estate pricing, because I thought they would have dropped by now as well. However, I do know starting September and October, deferment lows are due, the ones who deferred payment, those are going to be due and a lot of major corporations

have loans due at the end of the year as well. So it's interesting. So right now to protect myself as an investor it doesn't matter your party affiliation whether you're Democrat or Republic but to protect myself, I don't have any big rehabs going on. I don't have any new construction stuff

at that half a million dollar price point. So I pulled out of that because I want to see what's going to happen as well. Right, right. No, I think that's smart. I should probably dig this up because I think I said, predicted on this show probably two years ago when someone had asked me about with the current administration, as you put it, what the type of impact they would have on real estate, right? And I was like, you know what? I think, oh, because we're talking about recession.

That's right. Because we're kind of due for a recession, right? We're due for a market adjustment, totally. And I was just saying, as long as the current administration stands, I don't think it's going to go anywhere. I think it's going to continue to thrive. And I think there's a potential that the future of the country could be leveraged so the person could say it didn't happen on my watch. Right. I strongly agree.

I strongly agree. Yeah. And so I was always saying like, okay, I think you got three, four years to really make it happen. Right. And here we are. So now you got three months to make it happen. Right? But yeah, man, I look at the, I'm glad you brought that up because it's been heavy on my mind and I'm not a political person at all.

But I think the COVID lockdown has put me right in front of the darn TV and all of a sudden I'm addicted to the stories, you know. And I see good and bad pros and cons on both sides. I just know that life has been pretty good for me the last three years, four years. And I'm a little bit nervous about a switch, a shift, right? but I understand why some people want a shift as well. So, yeah, I think pulling out of your big giant projects, I think is really smart, right? Probably doing the quick flips in the wholesaling like you're doing right now, I think is smart to stay safe. I think of the buy-in holds as long as you cash flow comfortably, I think you'll probably be safe there as well.

But yeah, the future, it's, man, if you had said we were going to be in this situation just seven months ago, six months ago, you know, there's a lot of people that thought you were crazy. Like, oh, you're a big conspiracy theorist. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Right? But here we are. So now we've got to deal with it. So any other thoughts on moving forward?

Is it just kind of a wait and see for you? Yeah, I'm keeping the same. Wholesale, small rehab, pick our rentals. The rentals I normally pick up. They definitely have equity in them. So not worried about that there. But, yeah, I'm just, I'm doing those things. And I work with local banks to refinance out of hard money.

So I'm just, trying to put myself in position whereas I'm not over leverage and I can play it safe. And I don't want to be, when this thing comes crumbling down, because right now, you know, at one point last year, the half a million dollar enough stuff slowed down here in Charlotte. Now it's back on fire. But it's the window. And I don't want to be one of the guys who's caught inside when the window's closed. And I'm like, hey, the house is burned down.

I need to get out. So I'm just playing the safe. And wholesaling is, as you know, one of the safest ways. I mean, if let's say the market turns overnight, okay, we give back contracts. You know, you're not giving back a property to a lender. They don't have to foreclose or you. You know, you don't have all that bads. Right.

So with that said, with you doing the five, seven deals a month and doing a lot of wholesaling, who are your primary customers you're selling too? Landlords. Landlords, okay. One is a tourniquet company, but landlords. Got it. Got it. Sweet. All right. So, seeing you making a big splash, it seems like, recently on social media. And so what's the goal? What's the objective there? You know, I'm going to open up the education stuff soon. Don't have it all mapped out right now,

but just put myself back out there because I went dark for a few years and just focused on business because I'm like, well, you know, my business is grossing. Seven figures, things were running. So I was just focused on that, but linked up with a good friend of mine, Max Maxwell, and Chris Jefferson, and we was, you know, game playing behind the scenes. And I decided, you know, get back in. Yeah. So, I mean, their intentions are pure, Matt, right? So one of the things, right, and I don't, your audience probably don't know that you're one of the people I always listen to because I always like because you were just so real and down the earth. Like that you're not too far left and not too far right.

You just respect you, you know. You told your story how you used to work in hip-hop music and all that way back in the day, but you know, you're a likable guy. And it's one thing like we actually discussed you like, yeah, Matt, the Matt, cool, man, I don't like Matt. So with that being said, so, you know, it's just to put out the right form of education, you know, because you have some people who only in it specifically just for the money. And that's why I've been involved in real estate for years, 13 years in all,

I did my first wholesale day in 2011, but I did it four times in 2012, but I just always want to do the right thing. So, you know, when the timing is right and I have the right product or services, then I'll put them out. But you just have to make, I just want to put out the right form of education like you do. And not just ward it down BS and try to sell people to something else and something else and something else. Right, right. Yeah, you got to sleep with yourself at night, right? I mean, it's funny because, you know, we got into the education aspect of it because we thought this would be a nice cool little side stream income, right? Little additional revenue stream.

And then we discovered it to be a whole business all by itself, right? And so about a year ago, Mercedes and I were kind of scratching our head like, you know what, this is a lot tougher than we thought it was going to be. We should just go back to doing real estate. And so that's what we've actually been pulling back a little bit on. on the education right now and moving back into more on starting our marketing machine and we've been doing a lot more deals this year. So it's funny. It's just like everybody. The grass is always a little bit greener, you know. Yeah, good. I wish you the best of luck. So what's in the future that you're most excited about? Just picking up more rentals, man. I'm just focusing on that,

man. So I should have a lot more doors than I have, but just focusing on that and picking up more rentals and just transitioning into that, you know, eventually because I just want to grow. You know, I wanted to be a real estate investor since I was 19. So we're talking about 03, you know. So I mean wanting to, you know, want to be a real estate investor. Now, you know, it's just I want to climb up the real estate chain, you know. And that next big thing for me is, you know, getting to development and things of that nature. Awesome.

Awesome. Well, congratulations on everything. If somebody wanted to get in contact with you, what would be the best way for them to do that? Instagram, real estate guru. The reason why I'm the do-ro, I'm not a guru, because I actually do this business. Love the name, by the way. I always have. It's a real estate duro, which is D-O-R-U.

On Instagram, same thing on YouTube, and my blog is real estateduro.com. So those are the best ways to get in touch with me. If you have real estate questions, you can go to wholesale with the duro on Facebook. Fantastic. Well, thanks, man. It was a pleasure connecting with you, and it's a shame that it took so long. for us to do this, but I'm glad we did. So let's stay in touch. All right, you too, man. Matt, and take care, bro. Our new format here at the show would not be complete if Mercedes didn't share

her deal of the week. So Mercedes, it's all yours. Mercedes Torres here, your turnkey girl from Cashflow Savvy with your amazing deal of the week. This week's property is located in Florissant, Missouri, just outside of St. Louis. Now, This area is awesome for rentals because it is a super well-de-manacure location with blocks of home that makes it super appealing to renters. This single-family resident has four bedrooms, three-bats at 1875 square feet. The classic style home comes with a two-car garage for a property price of $125,000. The property is sold with a one-year lease in place, and the rent is $1,200 a month, reaping a solid cash-on-cash return. If you want to see our feature deal of the week, go to cashflow savvy.com that's savvy with two Vs.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and download the frustrated investors' guide to passive-involve. and you too will start receiving the deal of the week. Catch you soon. For more information on the deal of the week and other properties just like it, and to get a free copy of the frustrated investor's guide to passive income, go to cashflow savvy.com. Now, if you found this episode valuable, there's a good chance you know somebody else who would as well when that person's name comes to mind. Please share it with them and ask them to click the subscribe button when they get here. I'll take great care of them. That's it for today. God loves you and so do I health, peace, blessings, and success to you.

I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream.