Epic Real Estate Investing - Wholesaling Virtually During COVID-19: Parker Stiles | 1086

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

In today’s episode, Mr. Theriault interviews a returning guest, Parker Stiles, an REI Ace private client, and virtual wholesaling expert who thrives during the COVID-19 Pandemic! Tune in and find out what Parker does differently due to crisis, how he predicts market conditions in the upcoming months, and ultimately how you can join Matt’s and Parker’s FREE virtual wholesaling course that will be held next Wednesday, September 16th! 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. Hey there, Epic Investor. It's Matt Terrio from Epic Real Estate, where we show people how to invest in real estate with an emphasis on retiring early. And if this is your first time here, really glad that you found us. 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. More than 10 years on the run with this podcast.

You are the absolute best for doing that because, I couldn't do this without you. So thank you. All righty. So Donald Trump and the White House announced last week that it would ban evictions through the end of the year of tenants who are unable to pay their rent. So what does that mean for you as a landlord? And what does that potentially mean for you as a tenant if you are renting your primary residence?

Who potentially has the bigger problem here with this eviction moratorium? Well, on Tuesday, via President Trump's executive order, the CDC issued a temporary eviction moratorium and will impose penalties on landlords who violate that ban. So that sounds kind of serious, right? I'm not sure why the CDC is the authority here. Doesn't make sense to me. I'm not sure. Maybe like housing of urban development should be or Department of Health and Human Services should be.

I'm not sure why the CDC. is. But anyway, maybe you know, maybe you're, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there that know more about this than I do. But according to this CDC emergency order, a landlord violating this eviction ban may be subject to a fine of up to $250,000. That's like another house, at least, maybe two more houses you can get with that. So we don't want to do that. So the Secretary of the Treasury, Stephen Mnuchin, I think that's how you pronounce it, uh, Mnuchin. There's an MN. There's like no vowel in between there.

So I think it's Mnuchin. He explained in testimony that the order would impact up to 40 million renters, 40 million tenants, which probably translates close to an equal number of landlords. You know, if there are two people living per house, that would be 20 million landlords. That's a lot. That's a lot of us, right? Now, before the renters, though, before you go out and start to celebrate, and before the landlords panic and put their properties up for sale,

there are some very key stipulations here that you're going to want to know that kind of changes everything. It kind of makes the headline not as scary as it sounds, at least for the landlords. Under this CDC action, the temporary moratorium only applies to tenants who are unable to pay their rent due to a loss of income directly from the COVID-19 pandemic. All right. So only tenants that have lost their income due to the COVID-19 pandemic will even qualify for this moratorium. So all other evictions are permitted to process. So to qualify for this moratorium gets a little bit tougher for tenants. They must apply for eviction protection by signing a form by declaring or signing an authorized declaration and certifying before a judge attesting that they lost income due to

COVID-19. So you have to say that like in a sworn statement and before a judge. And additionally, the tenant has to prove that they expect to earn no more than $99,000 this year as an individual or in $198 as a couple. So if you make over $100,000 a year, you don't qualify. 200 grand as a couple. Tenets also have to show that they attempted to pay the landlord as much as they could afford. And they also have to show that they tried to obtain. all government rental assistance available. And if displaced, they also have to show that they would be homeless or forced into a shared living situation.

So that's a pretty big burden on the tenant to qualify for this eviction ban. But if they do, they are still not relieved from their obligations to their landlord. their obligations are only postponed. And landlords are even permitted, per their lease, to add penalties with each passing month. And I think I even said something about interest and fees and stuff like that. So not that bad of the news for the landlord as you might think. It might suck for a little while if you have to go without rent. But really what I'm seeing out there, and I know this couldn't possibly be everybody's

situation because there are a lot of people out of work that aren't getting paid. So I'm sure they live somewhere. I know there's been a huge amount of people that have moved back in with their parents. I've heard about that. But I know there's landlords out there that aren't collecting rent. So I feel for you. I just haven't had that experience over here. And my landlord friends haven't really had that experience,

at least not to a point where they felt it. They've had individual cases. But nothing that's like brought portfolios down or anything like that. Now, many U.S. states have imposed these moratoriums or other measures to limit evictions. That's been in the news over the last few months. But the new order, this new order, would supplant those that are less expansive. And it would actually allow states to impose even stronger measures. And actually posted this update on YouTube a few days ago.

And people are starting to share their stories of how they've been, what they feel is evicted unfairly, not made aware of this. and then landlords have chimed in with their stories and saying how, well, my state is making it more difficult to do this and do that and blah, blah, blah, blah. Because I think there's a couple states where, I think it was Virginia, was one of them, that the landlord actually has to help the tenant do all of this stuff.

Like the landlord actually has to help the tenant qualify for government assistance and has to show those types of efforts. So each state is a little bit different, but that is federally the moratorium, and this is going to run three. December 31st, 2020. Now, the move has drawn a very mixed reaction. I mean, what does it actually mean for landlords and tenants, right?

As to what doesn't draw a mixed reaction these days. It seems any subject that comes up creates a divide in the country. It doesn't matter what we're talking about, it seems. But there is praise that the eviction moratorium is going to potentially keep tens of millions of Americans in their homes. And that's good news. But there's also justified concern that it only moves back the inevitable. potentially just setting people up for massive evictions next year because they would continue to accrue back payments and penalties during this pause and unlikely or, you know, being very difficult for them to catch up to that. So what do we do?

Well, here's what I recommend. All we can do is, I mean, we can all get through this thing in one piece with everything kind of our life still intact. I think we can make that happen if we work together. Now, I know there's some really terrible situations out there, and I feel for you. I mean, I just can't wait until this thing is over, and people can get some sort of, not even normalcy, just some sort of control back over their lives. But tenants, I just say, do the very, very best you can. Stay in communication with your landlord.

Let them know what's going on. I know, based already from some of the comments I've seen on the YouTube channel, that those pleads and those conversations have fallen on deaf ears. And, you know, you got some either their unempathetic landlords or their landlords that are going through a tough time themselves, which is very, very possible. You know, landlords kind of get a bad rap, in my opinion. Everyone thinks that we're all stinking wealthy and were impervious to any sort of financial hardship, which is just not the case by any means.

But that's the perception from non-landlords. And then, so tenants, do the best you can. Stay in communication. And like I said, do the best you can. It's not going to be a full proof system. And I'm not saying just because you're talking to your landlord, it's going to work out. But just understand this moratorium. It's not a free pass to skip out on your responsibilities.

So if you can, even if it's a really tall order, do your very best to pay the rent. And it's going to make life much easier for you down the road. Now, landlords, I'm going to request that, you know, you have a heart. This is our opportunity to prove that we're not all a bunch of ogres. If you can, right? I'm not saying your financial hardship or your emotion and your compassion has to supersede your financial hardship. You got to do what you got to do. But just, you know, everybody understand none of what we're going through right now is any of our faults.

The tenants included. So if you can, get creative. We've been talking about creative real estate investing here for several months because we're all getting ready, right? We're all preparing. But get creative. I mean, explore win-win solutions for you and your tenants. and just as I request tenants to do their best, I'm requesting you, landlords, to do your best as well.

I mean, I really see this as an opportunity here to actually bring a significant portion of a divided country together without a political agenda, but rather a humanitarian one. And, you know, that sounds good to me on the surface, and I don't know your specific situation, and you might be yelling at me right now,

saying that's BS, no way, Jose. And other people have said, saying, yeah, I guess I could ease up a little bit. I get it. We're all in a different boat with different experiences and different resources available to us, going through different circumstances. So I'm not even sure if that's possible. I mean, what do I know? But it's a thought to process, right? It's just a thought for you to think about prior to filing those eviction papers. I mean, just ask yourself the question without doing that. How else could we both get through this? How else could I get through this? You can make it very personal if you'd like and very selfish.

How could I get through this? And what I mean by selfish? is it's, from my experience, it's better to have a tenant that's paying half rent than to kick them out and potentially go vacant for three months. So just kind of think about that before you make any critical decisions. I mean, can the tenant do some repairs in exchange for rent for you? Do they have a service or do they have a product or a talent of which could be bartered? You know, do you need graphic design services and your tenant's a graphic designer along those types of lines? and or can you give them a monthly break now and then just kind of add it in on the back end after we pull through all of this or a combination of any of those.

If you can't, hey, you can't. That's fine. Do what you got to do. But just something to consider trying to take any adverse and uncomfortable, not to mention costly actions that have to do with an eviction. All right. We're going to get through this. And if we work together, I think we're going to all come out better people on the other side of things.

I really believe this two shall pass, and I really do believe the best is yet to come. Because if we look back in history, you know, we've always felt desperate before. We've had those moments where we felt like nothing was going to work, and we were in this dire straits. And here we are today, living and breathing. We pulled through.

We're all tougher than we think we are. So let's look forward with that type of optimism. The one thing that pops out to me here is these evictions, and absentee owner vacant house possibilities. They're coming, right? They are definitely coming. So does that mean frustrated landlords dump their properties and run for the hills

and head over to the stock market or go buy gold or Bitcoin or whatever? You know, I don't know. Or does it mean, you know, all of the landlords inadvertently end up just swapping tenants and then business resumes as usual? I think there's going to be a good amount

of both of those scenarios. Some people are going to be scared or stretch to their limit and have to dump their properties. I think other people are going to evict tenants. And then the landlord across the street is going to take in that new tenant and everyone's going to start fresh. I think there's going to be a good amount of both of that. As well, the rest, you know, just everybody else there will be pulling through and just

coming out on the other end just fine. You know, might have a bruise here or two. Might not have been totally comfortable. But coming out just fine, nonetheless. We are in unprecedented times. We all know this. and really nothing would surprise me this year at this point. I'm doing the best with my clients right now

because they're asking me essentially to predict the future for them. And we've been through downturns before. I've certainly been through the most significant one in recent memory in 2007, 2008. And it's really where I built everything and thrived. And so I got through it. But you got to be resourceful, right? It's not your resources. That's going to make the difference.

It's your resourcefulness. Thank you, Mr. Tony Robbins for that because I never, ever forget it. But really, I mean, nothing would surprise me this year at this point. We're all kind of guessing and hoping for the best and doing the best that we can right now. And preparing for whatever the future may hold. I think if we prepare for the worst, that's probably the best thing to do. I mean, and not playing this massive game of defense and hiding and hoarding.

I'm talking about preparing for what the economy does being the worst. worst and positioning yourself to thrive through that. Because money doesn't leave. It just changes hands. And if you want to be on the side of the, or in between those finances or changing hands, right? I mean, there could be an event tomorrow that changes everything and everything I just said is completely obsolete.

Like I said, this year, nothing will surprise me. But what we can watch though is are the things and the signs and the symptoms of property owner distress, financial distress, personal distress, and the property itself being distressed. All righty. So I'm sure this is not the last time we're going to talk about it. But I did want to cover that because it is in the news. And if you missed it, now you know more on this subject to come. But today, if you've ever wanted to work in a market other than where you live, this will be the episode for you.

Today's guest, returning guest, he's an RIA's private client. We've worked together for several years. And he got his start here at Epic. Did really well for himself that first year and ventured off like every good entrepreneur should do and expanded his horizons, expanded his network, made huge investments into his education and just kind of brought it all back here. He's been able to put it together two different virtual operations right now. He's wholesaling mostly.

virtually, and it's allowing him to live that laptop lifestyle with the ability to run his business from anywhere in the world, of which he's put to the test extensively, at least within the U.S. boundaries. And he's thriving right now in this COVID pandemic market. Didn't start off that way, but he's thriving now. And he just came off one of his bigger months ever last month. So please help me welcome back to the show to talk about it. Mr. Parker Stiles. Parker, Welcome to the Epic Real Estate Investing Show again. Glad to have you back, Bud. How you doing, Matt?

Doing great. Thank you. Glad to be back on. Yeah. So we haven't talked in a while. It's been like a little bit over a year, really, probably. We've had some texts going back and forth, I think, since then. But yeah, we're in a whole new world than we were in when we last talked.

What are you? Yeah, right? What does business look like for you today? Oh, it's still trucking along, looking at my boards over here. I mean, we definitely kind of, you know, it's been ups and downs, as there were before COVID, you know, with any business, there's ups and downs. Just trying to figure out how to navigate. I know back in March, you know, kind of got a little scary there for a bit. And, you know, just those circles that I was a part of, we were talking with just staying close with everybody that we were connected to and seeing what changes we needed to make, what pivots we needed to make to be able to ride this out.

you know, whether we need to pull line of credit money out because we thought it was going to get frozen on us or whether we needed, you know, gear up to make some acquisitions and start holding rental property. You know, we thought it was going to have like kind of crash, so to speak, a little bit sooner than it has. I think all the forbearance and, you know, postponement of, you know, evictions and foreclosures and all that stuff. I don't know. It's just kind of really throwing everybody for a loop. But, you know, we're still closing deals. I think we closed 11 deals last month, which was, you know, one of our larger months. So it's been, we've been playing catch-up the last couple months in August, another great month going into September. So things are still rocking and rolling.

We just had to tweak some things. God. Good. God. I'm not him. Yeah, right? I don't know where that game, row. Well, good.

to hear it. So when you got together, you're the group of people, your fellow investors, I'm assuming, right? What in the beginning back in March, can you kind of go back there and you kind of had the plan of pulling out some money, right, from your credit lines, just in case they seized up those credit lines? What were some of the other things you guys were kind of thrown around? Really tightening up the ship as far as expenses. You know, what are we spending money on? what do we not need to be spending money on that we're spending money on? You know, and that was really going through our expenses with a fine-tooth comb and just saying, okay, like look at our bank statements, let's write down or highlight

every statement expense and, you know, put it in three categories, kind of, you know, hey, this is a necessity. We don't need this and this is, you know, something that let's spend a few minutes talking about it and decide if we can either tweak it, replace it for something cheaper, We truly just don't need it after we talk about it for a bit. Put those into different buckets and we ended up cutting a little bit over $1,000 a month from our expenses. And we haven't added those things back. Just didn't really need them.

Changed our systems and processes around to where, you know, the new format, the cheaper format stuck. And so that was kind of cool. And other than that, just trying to do more. with what we had, focusing on conversion, focus on training, focusing on how do we further market to the data that we already have, how do we try and pull more out of the leads that have already raised their hand and say, hey, I'd like an offer, stuff like that. So then we kind of look at PPC and, you know, we're saying like,

wow, all these I buyers that pulled out of PPC, now there's a ton of market share that we can jump in and grab. And that didn't really play out like we were hoping it would. We kind of went all in on PPC and we're dropping a ton of money. And long story short, we just called it quits a couple weeks ago just because, you know, the die buyers got back in and the lead quality just really wasn't there. It was a lot of listing kind of retail type product stuff. And though we were closing deals, it was just kind of sporadic. And we figured we'd take that out since it was such a bulk of our monthly spend,

we can reinvest that into something that's working better. So just really tweaking the knobs. Right. Okay. So you tried PPC. You tried following up with your old leads, which is always a good practice regardless of market conditions. What else does marketing change or what else did you do differently?

We didn't stop marketing. That's one thing. A lot of people stopped marketing or they really pulled back on their more expensive stuff like direct mail. We didn't put our pedal down or put our foot on the pedal, so to speak, like to give it more gas, but we didn't take any gas off. And I think that helped us get through that period and set us up for the catch-up that we've been playing the last few months. So that was one thing. But other than that, you know, just really focusing on the appointments and not just making a cash offer and saying, you know, buy if it doesn't work out, but your cash offer,

multiple seller finance offers. If it's low equity, maybe subject to financing, taking over the equity. If nothing, then we've set up a good system between us and our referral real estate agent in the two markets that we're in. And we're just focusing on, you know, a good kind of symbiotic relationship where, you know, we kick them stuff and edify and talk them up. And then they do the same thing for us with their working lead that end up, they can kick them back to us. If it ends up not being something, you know, a lot of people want to go retail, but then once they actually go down that road, they find out they might have to do X, Y, and Z to the house, or it's going to take longer than they thought, or just something changes, timing and circumstance, right?

That's what fuels this business, changes and they can take it back to us. So making sure that we can, whatever they decide to do, we try to control the outcome or at least profit from it. Well, with 11 deals this month, which is a really strong month for you, as you said, do you notice a single channel or a predominant channel that those leads and those deals are coming through? Direct mails always are kind of bread and butter. You know, we do a lot of it. It's a volume game. We've played around with some data lately and we're trying to see what kind of changes for the better,

hopefully, not for the worst, that that's going to make due to some privacy law. stuff has changed in South Carolina. So we're monitoring those KPIs, but really, I mean, it's a consistent 3X minimum, meaning, you know, spend the dollar on direct mail, get $3 back out on the other side for our gross revenue. That's the biggest provider. Is your direct mail mostly a postcards, letters, combination? What are you sending?

Parts. Yeah, we're doing about, it usually varies anywhere between 50 and 40,000 and 50,000 pieces. of postcards a month. Mm-hmm. And we kind of rotate between like a niche factor-stacked type list where you've got your tax delinquent, probate, vacant, stuff like that. And then we kind of have a blanket. That's a smaller list.

There's a larger blanket list that is more of absentee owners and owner-ox, maybe that have owned for five years minimum. It's within our geographic area. It's within our price range that we want and really basic stuff there. And we mail them less frequently. So we might mail a group of 40,000 people in a market every eight weeks. We'll split it up into eight drops and do weekly. But on week nine, it goes back to the first one slash eight.

And then the niche people, they get hit every month. Got it. Do you send them both the same marketing piece? No. One's kind of like a cursive, handwritten from the desk of type postcard. Do the niche people? The niche list, the smaller list? No, they get something more motivated, kind of like, hey, especially now with virtual, kind of like, you know, virtual closings and mailaways and, you know, minimal inspections and stuff like that, kind of more geared towards a motivated seller. Got it. Not that they couldn't get both. I just haven't split tested that.

It could be just as good. Well, the deals are up. I mean, the closings are up. Are you noticing that the response rate is similar? It got bad for a little bit, but it has picked up. I haven't looked specifically at the response rate for the last couple weeks. But it's, you know, it's about average for us. It's about that 0.8 to 1%.

Right. Well, good. So you had mentioned that you were kind of expecting, I was right in the same, but with you expecting a little bit more of a collapse or a big market shift right in the beginning back in March or April. And same thing over here on this side of the country,

didn't really notice anything happened. In fact, maybe even retail went up a little bit, right? And prices appreciate it a little bit. What's going on right now when you're having those seller conversations? How is the motivation changing? And what is the primary motivation when you're talking to sellers? So during COVID, our problem was that the sellers didn't really see it affecting the real estate market yet, but the buyers saw the writing on the wall and knew it was coming.

And so the buyers wanted to be here and sellers wanted to be here versus normally you can kind of get the seller here and the buyer here. But it was flip-flop. So we had that arbitrage that, you know, we just couldn't close the gap. And then we had some other deals just fall out even one day. before closing. Guy just said, keep my earnest money. I got to stay cash heavy for this.

This is worse than I thought it was going to be. And so now it's kind of changed to the seller motivation has increased. There are some people in financial struggle that have kind of come out of the woodwork, but it's nowhere near like what we thought it's going to be or what I think it's going to be next year. I don't know. No one has a crystal ball. But there are those people out there.

There's always those people out there that need to sell yesterday. It's just how many people do you have to put your message in front of in order to find those people? And that affects your costs per deal and all that stuff. So they're there. But we're working for them. Got it. Yeah, regardless of what the market is doing, I mean, life happens to everybody every day. Right.

And I don't know if you've been noticing this. Because, I mean, we're watching the market. We know, like, what you were just saying, real estate being this lagging indicator. The sellers are typically the last ones to catch on and really see the big. picture of what's going on. But if you look at life happening to people, you know, we've always talked about the four Ds, right? The death, disease, drugs, divorce, and I don't know, there's some more D's in there too. But those are all those life things that happen to people, right? That caused some sort of distress where they've got to sell their house to alleviate that distress.

And if you look right now, I mean, the suicides are on the rise, the bankruptcies are on the rise, the divorces are on the rise, the drug addiction is on the rise, the domestic abuse is on the rise. All of this stuff is, this life is happening. And as you had mentioned, I think we're being falsely supported by the moratoriums on the evictions and the foreclosures. I think it's coming too. And I think, you know, we were just talking about this before we started recording. There's a good shot that this thing might be a totally different story on November 4th the day after the election, right? Right, right. And I don't know how much that it's going to affect home values. I just, this is my prediction. I think it's going to be more of an influx in motivated sellers

more so than it is going to be like it was last time with an actual like sharp 30, 40% decrease in home values. Right. I know, you know, home values can be affected by a surplus and inventory, but I don't think it's going to be that much. I just think there's going to be a lot more people getting evictions and through evictions is more pissed off landlords. Or I don't know, it's been drug out so long. Maybe the landlords will be happy to get the eviction done so they can do what they want to. But still, there's going to be a handful that's going to sell the property after they get it vacant. And we've actually had some that have come to us that just can't wait anymore. And they want to sell it now, but they're selling us a property and a problem, meaning the tenant's still in there that they

can't get out. And so we can get it for cheaper. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a better deal because we get it's cheaper, because we have to sell it cheaper if we're going to wholesale it. But the thing we've been playing with is inventory that's been so tight in markets across the country that we've been looking at stuff and trying to wholesale anything that we safely can where we're buying it and we're taking that property down. We did one where we pressure washed it, painted one room, and replaced a water pressure valve, and sold it and made roughly 35 grand. And that was one we probably would have made 10 to 15 on the wholesale on. So really just kind of, and it sold, mind you, for $5,000 over asking price in less than 24 hours on the market. And the asking price was a solid $15,000.

higher than I thought it would realistically sell for. So it's just kind of crazy how fast stuff's flying. Yeah, the demand is still there. The demand hasn't gone anywhere. Right. And, you know, you had mentioned also, because I know you've got rentals now, and I've got a bunch. I haven't actually had noticed a bunch of issues in collecting rent.

How has that been for you on your side? We have had 100% rent collection until this month. my wife told me this morning actually that we have one property that we have not collected rent for last month on. And then she said she's about to pay both months today. So fingers crossed, that happens. But over the, you know, our rental passive income is kind of split up into three buckets. We've got traditional rental property. We've got commercial rental property, triple net lease type stuff that, I'm,

I have partner shares and then we have loans, hard money loans that are out. And so out of the rentals and the commercial, that's the only case of non-payment that we've had. We've done some stuff like, hey, do you want to pay weekly or bi-weekly? Does that help you more? And gosh, I mean, we haven't even reduced rent for anyone. We would do that to try and help and keep them in, but haven't had to. Right. It's interesting.

that that's kind of the story I'm getting from everybody I know, and I know between you and I, we know a lot of real estate investors. And so it makes me wonder of the people that have lost their jobs, where do they live? Whose houses are they living in? I've definitely heard on, you know, social media and stuff from people that I know that they're, you know, having some struggles with it. So I have, I know it's out there, but it's not as, you know, I haven't heard it from as many people as you'd think that. You'd expect, right? I mean, I just talked to a guy who has over 100 rental properties in Atlanta, Georgia,

and he did reduce his rent to help keep his portfolio from having a ton of vacancies, percentage-wise, but they've all been paying. So his net has gone down for this term, but he's keeping everyone, and they've all been 100%. He still has a net, which is good. Exactly. Yeah. Right? Sweet. Cool. So the leads come in, the marketing is working and seems like it's picking up and the motivation is still there.

How is the, what does the buying process look like now? Has that been affected? Has that changed at all? Because of the low inventory? No. Thank goodness. I mean, that's what's fueling this is that, you know, the demand is still there and the supply is low. So the inventories, same thing. But to answer your question, we've been able to. able to kind of stay at a 75 to 80% ARV less repair formula for the whole time. There was a period where we dropped it lower and we did, you know, we were like, hey, don't go above 70%. And then we just started seeing stuff being sold by other people. And then, you know, we'd try and squeeze a couple of them and some would sell for higher than we thought. And so we're like, all right, let's kind of start inching it back up. And, you know, we sold one in my Charleston's South Carolina market about a month ago for 83% of ARV less repairs. That was a landlord buyer

who made his money outside of real estate and it's just kind of tying stuff up in rental property now. So he wasn't looking for like a slamming deal. We've sold some thin flips in Atlanta. And you know, we're still trying to leave meat on the bone. You have to. But then again, everybody runs their numbers differently. And these aren't people that, you know, are just buying property thin because they don't know what they're doing. I mean, these are like repeat buyers who are coming back and buying again and again. So it's got to work. Got it.

So that kind of answered my next question. I was like, how are you finding your buyers right now? So if they're repeat buyers, and who are they? What are their plans? Are they fixing flippers or are they landlords? All the above. Yeah. Some, I would say most are flippers.

Some actually, this, so this guy that has 100, rental properties. This was his kind of plan. I realized that he was double closing on the backside of my assignment. And so I called him and I said, hey, I'm fine with this. As long as it doesn't affect our closing, I'm fine with you selling it to somebody else. But like, what's the, what's the deal here? What are you doing? You just find somebody that wants to pay more. And he said, no, so what I actually do is I have a group of, you know, students that are getting started and flipping and they go through a program. And then I'm, I find the deal. I've been doing this for 30 years.

And so I'm on wholesaler list. And I get some stuff from agents and direct and stuff like that. And so when I find a deal, they'll be good for a student to flip. Then I buy the deal from you, which I'm doing. And then I'm double closing it to him on seller financing. So he's funding it. And then he's selling it on terms to the student. So the student only has to come out of pocket for repairs.

and he has the rehab, he's got 100 plus rental properties, done flips, he has the crews. So he holds the management of the rehab in his pocket. So he's not being, you know, property that he owns

isn't being renovated by a shoddy contractor that she's not going to do good work or screw anybody over. And he just controls the whole thing. And then he, you know, has a balloon at the end. So he makes a,

there's a small down payment. I'm sorry, by the buyer. So he makes a little bit of, of money now. He does the lending on seller financing. So essentially he's a hard money lender, but it's on terms. He owns it. And then he makes a spread on the back end too. After the flip it's done, takes a percentage of the flip. So there's just all different kinds of, you know, there's not like just flipper buyers out there. And that's kind of what I thought in the beginning. And those are the lowest paying buyers. So if you can really get out there and it just takes,

you know, time and networking and stuff like that, but you'll you'll bring in these other buyers. that actually pay, you know, they'll break your formulas on what you thought. Right, right. Well, I'd imagine with, you know, the retail market being so hot that wholesaling, where you take a property that could use some sprucing up and you just put on the MLS, right, and expose it to the retail market rather than looking for an investor buyer, you're doing that, right? And you're getting more money that way?

Right. You know, we're being cautious about it. If it's something that needs more in repair, you know, we're getting a home inspection first. If it's a heavier renovation, we're just not getting into it. And there needs to be good comps. So like this last one we did, there were like three comps within the last eight months that sold that were like cookie cutter. It was like a 1995 build, you know, builder went in and built them all at the same time. So it just like made sense.

So if it jumps out on us or jumps out at us, yeah, we're taking it down and doing that. we could probably be making more money by doing more of it. We're just being a little bit more cautious about it. What is the caution in that? Because it seems like with such a high demand that any property that you would come across, and I haven't really experienced this because I try to hold every single thing. I don't really, my flipping isn't in my mindset unless the right situation comes along. But I think like I have this house that I'm going to sell for 100 grand to an investor buyer

with the demand so high and the inventory so low. if I just threw it on the MLS, I'd probably get 110, 115 for it. Yeah. If the comps are there, we'll do it. Right. But I mean, you already, the comps have to be there if you're already going to sell it to the investor buyer, though, right? Yes. There's some properties where we kind of just get an inkling that it would sell, but there's not as much solid data saying that, yes, it would at this price.

Or if we do the inspection and the seller wasn't truthful about, you know, the condition of the property, which happens a good bit, especially when, you know, we'll talk about it later probably, but with buying virtual and over the phone and stuff, you know, on top of the seller, thinking their property is in better shape than it actually is, which is, you know, always happens when you add a little bit of untruthfulness in there too, it can be a big difference. And then you show up and you're like, oh, this is different. That doesn't sound like a seller to me. I've never talked to a seller that ever liked.

Right, right. All right. Cool. So you mentioned earlier some of the changes that you've made in, And I think a lot of people have experienced this because we've experienced it as well when we went and looked at our expenses right away and eliminated all the frivolous stuff. And it was just focused on the necessities, what's going to keep everything running. And we haven't found that we've really missed anything. I think you kind of said something like that.

So we haven't even put any of the new new innovations in your business that were COVID-inspired that you're like, hey, you know what? I think we're just going to keep this rolling this way. I mean, I really like the art of perfecting the art of phone appointments. It's definitely doable to run a virtual business. There were a lot of people that didn't want inspectors in their house, or they didn't want buyers in their house, or they didn't want you in their house. So to, in essence, you've got to get in there, but you can be way more hands-off than we originally would have.

So we got really good at phone appointments. you know, training and just building rapport, sales negotiation, all that stuff. And then we would go and do a kind of like a initial walkthrough for pictures. You know, gloves, foot, booties, mask, stuff like that, 20 minutes in and out, you know, 75 plus pictures, got a format of like what we want, trying to get every defect on there. then we have also, when we haven't been around the property, we've done companies that go, you know, we go look, you used to be one, they don't do it anymore for real estate investors, but there's other companies out there that will go in and get you, you know, 75 plus properties

and, you know, send you a Dropbox link. And so that's been cool to use, and especially if it's vacant, it's easier. And then getting all of that documentation on the property, being a little bit of, more specific about kind of what the property does have, you know, five-year-old roof, eight-year-old H-FAC, a picture of the label of the H-FAC, all of that stuff, lease, et cetera. And then we've been selling properties sight unseen.

We started kind of marketing that direction and giving, we could have done it before we did, but I just, I didn't really, I didn't break it into my buyers network. So I sent a couple email blast out to my buyers saying, hey, like, I just want to let you know you have the option to do this now. So we set it up like, this is how we're going to take offers. We're going to wait until it's an asking price. But if you come, we'll set up a showing, say four days from when we blast the property out. But at any time, as we're building people to come to the showing, if you want to call me and say, hey, I'd like to take this property site unseen, I'm ready to go.

and it's a company with $5,000 of non-refundable earnest money, you can eliminate competition right there. So we've got a couple people on different deals that have just come in and said, hey, I'll take it. So we'll call the other buyers and say, I'm sorry, someone took this site unseen, and they're the only buyer that's allowed to come to the showing now. So that drastically reduces the traffic flow in and out of these houses,

which the sellers are really happy about. And big pluses just takes a load. off the shoulders of anybody running dispositions having to set up all these showings and tenants. Right. I can imagine on the acquisition side, that's probably something that will stick for a while. I think even when the vaccine comes out, when the cure comes out, there's going to be a lot of residual fear of this virus. And I think that type of marketing, that type of process will really resonate with sellers. Right. And there's some markets that it's, maybe doesn't work as well in.

We see in our, in the smaller kind of like southern country, Charleston, South Carolina market, they like the face-to-face stuff more. And so we'll try and set, we do both, but we'll try and, if they're, you know,

anywhere near motivated, we're trying to do an in-person appointment. And I talked with my acquisitions manager over there, the other day, and asked him what kind of pushback he was getting and even my lead manager, what type of pushback she was getting when she's setting these physical appointments. And she said she hasn't been getting any. So I don't know if people are just getting more confident about it or if they're just over it and don't care anymore.

But, you know, we're doing our part to try and stay safe about it and not, you know, funnel people through these homes, especially the ones that aren't vacant. But you do have an element of that. It is definitely easier to get a property under contractor of the phone in Atlanta than in Charleston from what we're. we've seen. Interesting. I wonder what the big difference is. Is it just a culture?

I think it's cultured, bigger, bigger metro areas, just more kind of lively and faster pace moving. I haven't really been able to put my finger on it, but. That would make sense. Just in the city, they're maybe just a little bit more aware. It impacts their life a little bit more on a day-to-day basis than the country, right? Very true. I just got back from Lake of the Ozarks with the Jesse Carner.

I love it. It's so beautiful there. And gosh, we were there and you wouldn't even have known COVID existed. Yeah. It didn't exist. I think we saw maybe one in 200 people actually wore a mask. Wow. They really looked kind of like fish out of water.

They looked out of place. Yeah. Yeah, I'd imagine the cities that would be very different. Because when we drove into town into the actual St. Louis, then all of a sudden, the mandate. where everywhere, the masks were everywhere. Right. Yeah.

Sweet. Well, you know, we were talking about this before we started recording Parker that, you know, we put this virtual wholesaling course together. No one knows. We put this course together a while back. And Parker and I, we've been working together for a really long time. He works in two markets now, right? Still just two?

Yep. You're in Atlanta and Charleston. We're doing a little bit of stuff in Columbia, South Carolina, but primarily Atlanta and Charleston. Okay, super. So you really dialed. in the whole virtual thing and really got a good grasp on that and you're running successfully and have been for a while. I think one of the great stories was when you know,

you and Casey had spent a year. Well, actually six months was the plan in those in Colorado, right? We're doing about 18. Yeah. And everything was going so well and your virtual business supported you while you there and experienced all your extreme sports and everything. I followed you on Instagram. I saw all the skiing and dirt biking. And so we put this thing together. Like we got started together and then like any good entrepreneur, you went out and made further investments in your education, further investments in your network and in your training. And then you brought it all back here and we only shared it here with the people at Epic. So with the COVID thing and with the advancement or I guess the higher use of all of your

virtual aspects and virtual practices, I think it would be a good idea if we went and updated that whole course and kind of made it a little bit more ground level, a little bit of a little more open to the rest of the public because it was kind of an advanced course. So we'll certainly keep all of that in. But let's kind of start back from maybe go start more from the beginning and then introduce every, all these new innovations that you've experienced through having to work a little bit more virtually these days. Yeah. You down for that? I am. That sounds great. Okay. Sweet. So we'll go ahead and we'll update the wholesale training that we did there. And we'll do that live. Let's just do next week. Let's get together for a webinar.

one of these online virtual sessions. Boy, don't you wish you bought stock in Zoom? Oh, my gosh. There's a couple that I miss. Right. I think we all did. But Plexiglass, that would have been another good thing to invest in. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So if you'd like to join us and go over these updates, it'll be absolutely free training. Next Wednesday, it's September 16th. Hopefully you're listening to this by then. You can go to wholesaling virtual. dot com. Wholesailing Virtually.com.

Register and then Parker and I'll get together a week from today and we'll go ahead and kind of connect the dots and insert some of the more of the virtual stuff that's going on and update the whole thing. Because I'd imagine 18 months ago, two years ago, now you are advanced and a wiser entrepreneur and investor yourself. Yes. Yes.

I wish I would have learned virtual before. virtual was a thing. Right, right. But yeah, it's almost could be an, yeah, almost a necessity right now, but learning it as a necessity, I think, is it can really serve us and you as we come out of this pandemic and virtually not being the necessity, but it'd be certainly nice to be able to operate that whenever you want to like that. Much easier to scale, one, and two, much easier to allow yourself to build kind of that lifestyle business that you that you want. I mean, if I wasn't operating a virtual wholesaling business or a virtual flipping business, then I, you know, we wouldn't have been able to go to Colorado, like you said, for a year

and a half and just, you know, kind of hung out over there. I mean, it's lived. We just moved to Athens, Georgia, kind of a more rural spot where I grew up actually before I went off to school. and we just love this area, but I don't work here. It was like, oh, you stopped flipping in Atlanta? No, still? You flipping in Athens now?

No? I don't want to flip here. I just still running the same thing. It doesn't matter. You know, I've got boots on the ground in both places and, you know, running phone appointments and selling them. And it's just, I mean, it's a lot of everybody's kind of transitioning to work from home. So that's kind of cool.

everybody's getting a taste of that kind of life. Some really don't like it and some love it. But that model of business allows you to be wherever you want. Perfect, perfect. You know, you said since quarantine, haven't done any traveling, where's the place that you're dying to go to once we are released into society?

Whether it's over or not, I'm going to be doing some snow ski in this winter. That's for sure. I want to go to, I've got already planning something to Whitefish, Montana. I'd like to get back out to Colorado again, maybe somewhere in the southern mountains like purgatory or Wolf Creek or something like that. And then we're planning something for next spring, I think of Punta Kana. So I'm daydreaming.

Right. Yeah. No, we're getting a little bit of cabin fever over here as well. We're going to the Keys here at the end of the month. So nice about that. We got a babysitter for the boy and just me and the misses and for all week. Be nice. Perfect.

Cool. Well, thanks, bud. I will see you next Wednesday. And if you would like to join us, you can as well. Go to wholesalingvirtually.com. And we'll go ahead and talk about virtual wholesaling and what it takes to thrive today. That's September 16th next Wednesday. Totally free.

Wholesalingvirtually.com. All right, Parker. Be good. Say hey to Casey. and I'll see you soon. We'll do Matt. See you. You bet.

Take care. 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 who 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.