KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Making $98,625 in commissions from ONE Client in a Year with Stefan Rahimian

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd. Be Uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Safright. Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. I'm your host Chris Craddock. And today, we are going to talk about both the cash machine and the wealth machine. The cash machine is when you do deals and make money from our commissions. And the wealth machine is when we build wealth and have opportunities to buy into properties, buy into projects.

Wealth is when your money works harder than you work. Wealth is when you go on vacation. Your income doesn't go on vacation. You get sick. Your income doesn't get sick. Wealth works when you are not working. So that is what we're going to talk about today. A good friend of mine who's been investing, probably done hundreds of millions of dollars worth

of investments over the last couple decades, puts together some of the most complicated deals that I've seen, but also some of the most straightforward deals that I've seen. And so, yeah, it's going to be a fun conversation here as we joined today and look at how he puts together deals, makes a lot of money. in commission income, but also makes investors a lot of money as well. So with that said, Stefan, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I think I started out flipping houses when I was like 19. I bought my first house. And back then, you could buy a house if you just had a pulse. And I realized that real estate has made more millionaires than any other

industry. And so that's what drew me to that industry. It just seemed like the easy path to get well, And so that's what I've been doing for the last 20 plus years. So today I got, I just took one client that I, when I became an agent that I helped build well for. And I'm just, they're pretty straightforward deals. And I thought I'd break it down today. Awesome. Well, yeah, let's look at some of those deals. Tell me about those deals.

Teach us how, like, you know, one of the things that I've learned in life is when you can understand how people are thinking about things, then you can become what I like to call ideal architect. Ideal architect is somebody that can put stuff together. But if you don't understand how the game is played, it's hard to architect great deal. So yeah, do you mind putting some of those deals in front of us? Yeah. And the thing I love about this and I'm not to talk about is that it's really basic. I do zero marketing. I have super low overhead for my agent business. I'm not having a ton of clients that I got to go out and keep finding new clients Because when I get one good client, like, they're repeat.

I mean, this client I'm going to talk about right now. For first year, we did one, two, three, four, five commissions I got from this one client. So, and it was a referral. That's the other thing about this business is that this, it repeats, it grows. My first year with this client, I made $98,625 in commissions. and so how many of those do you need to get whatever income goal you have? It's not a ton. You would need a lot of clients if you're just doing the normal real estate transactions.

And the reason why that is is because we bought a place and then she used me to sell it. Then she took that money and bought another place and used me to sell it. So you're getting like these double transactions and you're building the relationship with them so that, you know, she's very loyal now because I've built up a lot of, welfare. So the very first deal with a condo and all of these deals were on the market. So we're not talking about some secret sauce where you've got to find stuff off market. You can do that and I've done that with people, but these are really straightforward. We bought a condo for $150,000. And within three months, she had it sold. That's renovated, put on the market, and resold for $300,000. And she made

82,000 profit on that. So what I got is the commission on the buy side. I got the commission on the sales side. We then took that money. We bought a place for her to live. I got another commission of $15,375 on that. Again, all on the MLS. I then sold that property for her. Got another commission of $48,000 on that one. And then we bought another property. This is all within 12 months, where I got a 21,750 commission. So during this time, she's not super wealthy when I met her. She had some money to work with.

I think she had like about a hundred. And she borrowed 50 to buy that first place. So that's not insurmount. She borrowed 50 like borrowed from a family member or borrow like that's not bank money, right? No, she just she borrowed from family. to do that first deal she paid the cash for it but then after that was all the money we needed like we took that and parlayed that into all these other deals and now she's got a four unit building

that i helped her buy for 800 that's worth like 1.3 million she cash flows on that she's got she's upgraded the house she's living in she's got tons of equity now and so the cool thing about this the rewarding thing for me is that it's been great to like i get to pick i'm very particularly particular about who I pick. They need me a lot more than I need them. So I don't just got to go out there. We've all had clients. Wait, wait, wait, wait, before you keep going. All right, that's a, that's something that most people in the real estate industry don't believe and don't understand and think they think they need more clients. I want to hear what you want to say after that, but can you just camp out here for a second? Why do they need you more than you need them? Can you talk

about that for a bit? So I understand that. We've all had clients that we haven't enjoyed working with that were like, oh, it's a commission. I got to do this. And there may be... Too many preach. Yeah. Background. But, you know, I mean, that is part of the industry. It is. But with this model, that doesn't exist for me. That I will fire someone so fast because this model is like, I'm involved in their lives. They become a part of my extended family. I'm thinking about them in between deals. I don't want someone in my headspace who is not going to be someone. I legitimately enjoy talking to these people. And so the reason they need me more than I need them is because this, when you go to call an expired listing, they're getting calls from 10, 20 other

agents, right? And some of those agents are good. And maybe you're the best agent. Maybe you're not. It depends who you are. But you're in a very competitive situation. With this, I'm not selling anything. I'm literally saying, hey, do you want money? Like with this lady, her first year, her first deal with me, she made more money than she did at her job. Working, you know, showing up, putting in 40 plus hours a week, every week. And within three months of meeting me, she made more money than her salary. So when I say that she needs to be more than I need her, she absolutely did. How many people, it's like I'm showing up and saying, hey, do you want free money?

that is a very irresistible proposition. And that's why I say I could only work with so many people. So they need me more than I need them. Like that's that's the model of this business. Yeah. So man. All right. So I want to keep going on this.

But first, where are you finding people that are excited about this as a model, as a lifestyle, as a path forward? Because I mean, this is a big. change in most people's lives. If they're not professional investors, you know, like if I call them civilian, if they're a civilian investor, right, they've got a nine to five, they're doing other

things, but they want to get into investing. Where are you finding somebody like this that's willing to kind of entrust their life and their money to your guidance? You know, that's not very hard because, like I said, who doesn't want to make extra money? The thing I'm looking for, I'm interviewing them as much as they're interviewing me. And what I'm looking for is people that are brave. Because the basic principles of investing in real estate are really simple. It's not some complex thing you need a college degree for. I mean, we're out here in the D.C. area.

And what I realize is that if you were to go back 10, 20, 30, 40 years and buy property, and let's say you pay 10% over, you just did a really terrible job. You didn't have an agent. You just bought a property. You overpaid by 10%. You look like a genius if you held onto that property. It's doubled, tripled, quadrupled. You know, it's a question of how long it takes to double, not if it doubles.

And so with that basic principle, if you help people just buy a property and hold it, like, I remember I had an assistant one time who she was renting. I said, why don't you guys buy? And they bought for like $3.75. and I said, eventually this will become a $1,000 house. And eventually you'll pay off the mortgage. They were not savers. They have no stocks and anything like that.

That house is now worth $900,000. And their mortgage should be almost paid off because they rented the basement and were paying down the mortgage. So that one decision is going to make them a millionaire. So I find people just people that are willing to go on that journey. Like not everybody is. I know that sounds really simple, but some people are too afraid to just do that simple thing. And it could be as simple as buying a house to live in that then becomes a rental. A lot of people I start out with that because they don't have a lot of cash.

Almost everybody can come up with three and a half percent down, five percent down. Like, that's not a hard thing. They don't have. So that person had $150,000 to play with. They did it a cash deal. What is the requirement that you have as far as financial wherewithal when you're going to start investing with, like investing in them to build? their portfolio? When I started, I didn't really have any creditor. I had one client who he had like $10,000, which is crazy. And he was a really, I saw potential in him. So I just worked with him.

He didn't have, I had to get him a seller financing deal. I had to find a contract that would wait to get paid at settlement. And so, you know, now it's like if they have a bunch of cash, that makes it a lot easier. But really, I'm looking for people that will be loyal that I like to work with. Like, can I spend hours with this person and enjoy it. And it's not rocket science. It's like, let's go find something. We all know, my guess is that if anybody listening to this was to go actually spend time every day looking for a below market property, they'd find something. But most people don't look. And you just find one and you have the client ready and you've already set their expectations. Hey, you're going to buy this place and you're going to live in a grandma's house. Not going to be super

pretty, but we'll have you out of here in eight months or a year or whatever. For those that aren't familiar with the term grandma's house, it's a dated house, it's work, it's fine, it's just a dated house. So I know that's one of those terms investors use all the time may not be a normal. All right. So, all right. Now, like a lot of the stuff you're sharing, like, you know, here, oh, man, seller financing, you know, I've got to find these deals.

I've got to understand how it all works, all of the other pieces, right? Some people maybe listen to this and being like, oh, yeah, I'm in. I get it. Let's say I am an agent. I work with like a handful of clients every year. Maybe I'm doing like 10 deals, 20 deals a year, something like that. And I'm like, man, Stefan, this sounds like a model that I want to emulate. Like, coach me.

Like, what would you, but maybe I don't know all the investor lingo and jargon and I don't know how to do all of that yet. Like, coach me into what I should. be looking at if I were to start doing that, what you're doing. Find some people that you want to bring into your community, people that you love, that you want to help build wealth with, okay, because that's what this is. And it's not always easy, but the process is not rocket.

Start looking for deals. The thing about the real estate market that I like is it's a very inefficient market. You know, houses can sell for $25,000, even $50,000 swings because they have a better agent or they have a bad agent or a bad seller. I see that all the time. I'm sure you've seen that. So we're looking for that. We're looking for the inefficient and then we're going to be quick.

So when you have that person who could be, I mean, almost anybody can do this. Like with three and a half percent down, you know, our average purchase price is probably 600,000 out here. So that's, they need like 25,000, something like that. Like low 20s because they can get the closing costs, finance. It's like, so you need someone that has like $25,000 and it has an adventure experience willing to like trust and go out there and learn. And what I tell them is this. I say, look, the first couple of deals don't expect to make a lot of money. It's like getting paid to go to college.

So you set their expectations. That way when they do make money, they're thrilled, but they're in it the right minds. So I would start with the local community around you. It's like this is not hard. Like I said, somebody comes in here and puts down $25,000. It's not that hard to double that $25,000. And then they can keep it as a rental or if it's a good enough deal, then they can flip it in like a year. Do they live there?

The difference is they can beat pro investors because pro investors have holding periods. They can live in the house, get permits, do repairs. It's not a joyful way to live, but they can double their money. you've just doubled their money. You beat 98% of the money manager out there. And now you take that 50 and they're going to go do it again. Go double that to 100 and then double that to 200. And now you've made a real impact on someone's life.

And that's how, that's what I did with this particular client. And like I said, so far I've made about 150,000 the commission is working with her, just doing this very basic philosophy. Every deal that we've done has been on the MLS available for everybody to see. So we're not doing some kind of insane market. Is that, and then here's what I would say. There is one piece of marketing I do. Can I grab something and show you a prop? Yeah, please. So you're going to clean off. Oh, I guess this is not completely. I've known Stefan for many years. I'm afraid what he's going to be coming back wearing. Yeah. Yep. Nothing. Surprise. Sorry. So can you see this? I'm going to cover the client name, but you see this check, get one of these checks. This costs like a hundred bucks. It's so fun.

And what I do. Hold on real quick. Let me just. I know a lot of people listen on the podcast after the fact he's, he's holding up one of those massive like publishers clearinghouse checks. Yes. A name, you know, he covered up the name, but like the amount of money on it. So how do you use that big, massive check?

So in that example I gave where you're working with somebody who has $25,000. They buy a place to live in, but we're not buying it because they want. a certain type of property. It's a good deal. A year later, they sell it. You make them an extra $25,000. Now they've got 50 days. When they go to settlement, you bring that check with their name on it and how much they made. They made 25 grand profit. You bring that. You take a picture with them. They hold it up. First of all, it's so fun. It's so fun. And you put that on social media. Your next client comes because they see that. They want that. You're selling money. You're like, who else wants money? That's the product that you're selling. that's that's incredible i love that like i think that's that's that's i'm going to i'm going to call our title company immediately after we get office and tell them they need to buy a big check to leave in the office for any investor we ever work with yeah it's just a dry erase one and that's it i love that man that is that is super cool all right so you're saying you know now one of the things that you said that I don't want anybody to miss. You said you've got to go fast.

So like, and you and I both know that a deal is there for maybe an hour, maybe two hours. Like the people that move fast tend to get deals. Sometimes it lasts for a little bit, but usually they're really quick. So how do you prepare somebody to move fast and not say, hey, let me think about it for the night? I tell them that imagine, I don't know the thing about the inefficiency in the market where houses can sell for 25, 50, than it would if you marketed it better or just various things that cause it to happen. So I said, imagine there's a bag of money sitting outside on the curb, $25,000 in it. And it's free and legal for anybody to come get.

How long is it going to be there for? That's what this is like. That's literally what this is like. You're buying it for less that somebody else is willing to pay for it. So you have to act quickly. So when they have that in their mindset, and we're talking about that right in the beginning, before we look at any houses. And I step by step go through what the process is going to be with them,

prepare their expectations. And then if we run into any resistance when we're doing it, I stop. That deal may be dead, but I'm not moving forward and going to find five more deals until we deal with that. What happened? If there's a deal that I think they should have done and they said no, that may be the end of the relationship for me. Because, again, they need me more than I need them.

So I'm saying, hey, this was a good deal. Why didn't you buy? and there's some fear or something. If they're honest with me, we can get to the root of it and move past, then we'll go again. If not, then I'm looking for another client because they've got to be brave.

So do not miss what he's saying here. So this conversation about the speed and everything else doesn't happen after you find the deal. This conversation is before you find the deal. And then if there's a hiccup, like when it's time to move fast, you're very quickly reminding them about the conversation. you had before. Is that, am I understanding correctly? Yeah. So your prep work is is preparing the client for how that they're going to, when you find a deal, they need to make a decision with an hour.

You go over the contract, especially if they're buying for the first time. You need to go over the contract ahead of time. All that's done so that when you find the deal, they're ready to go. You also need to have a contractor lined up who you're going to work with. You're not going to have the nitty gritty stuff done where like, hey, we have every little thing picked out. But you need to have a ballpark so that you go and say, hey, it's going to cost $25,000 to freshen up. And you're going to do that over the next year while you live there. And then it's just putting it in an Excel sheet. You should have a really simple Excel sheet that shows what your costs are and how much

you expect to resell for. And that's it. It's that simple. I love this. That is, that's incredible. All right. We are at the top of the hour. Stephen, if somebody wants to get in touch with you and I know that there are

number of people that live in the DMV area. So I know you have a construction company that you've now started to service your client, but also you can help other people and even kind of maybe even coached them through this model where you can even help with construction services for them. If somebody wanted to reach out to you or wanted to send you referrals, you know, for somebody that may be in in the market for something like this, how would they find you and how would they reach you? Very easy. My cell phone number is 703, 860, help. 4357. It stills help. And a lot of the work I do is for other agents. I'm helping them because it's a lot to learn all about construction. It's like just go, go find the people. Go find the

deals. That's all you got to do. And then if you're in the DMB area, I can do the construction piece for you. That's awesome. Very cool. All right, man. Well, this has been spectacular. Thanks for joining us. If you were listening and you think, oh my gosh, how great would it be to work with clients that I want to work with? How great would it be to work with clients where you know that instead of just having one client equals one deal, but one client equals three or five deals, this is a great model to consider and look forward to. And I've known Stefan. Stefan's been a good friend of mine for many, many years. And I would just say, you're just a great, great friend to have. So please feel free to reach out to him. I know that's, it's a job.

video and offer. And until next time, figure out how you can win. Remember, winners expect to win. So if you want to win, you need to expect to win. The only way to expect to win is you put in the work. You figure out what your plan is, work on your plan, go make it happen. So if I can serve you, if I can help you, please let me know, reach out. Let us know. But until next time, go crush it. Live uncommon. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Uncommon Real estate. Subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with the latest mastermind conversations from Chris, Jeff, and other uncommon real estate industry leaders. If you love this podcast, please write us a review. And to fast track your real estate career, go to chriscratic.com.