KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Out of State Investing

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Akaba Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Group. My name is Ni Yi Adewale, and I am excited to be joined by Kwame Bell this evening, who was a former professional football player turned real estate investor that has successfully acquired and flipped properties across multiple states. He's also successfully made the transition from professional athlete to a wholesaler to an investor now earning more than he did during his football days. And so, Kwame, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Nene, thanks for that introduction. And I'm honored to be on your show and have an opportunity to tell my story. Thank you. Come on now. No, there's a lot of individuals. And I'm one of them.

I didn't make it to the professional level, right? I played football in college. And we have a lot of people that listen and are a part of the podcast that played sports throughout their life. And so I really want to start there, man, before you got into real estate. What was life before real estate like? Real estate. It was something that was, that came up a couple times while in professional, it was first to credit, then to become a real estate agent to one of my friends who was a former teammate. He was like, hey, you should look into this. So I actually took the real estate course, but didn't finish it and just focused on my credit. And then soon after that, football was up, I really didn't know what to do. And I started focusing on something, which happened

to be real estate. And then from there, wholesaling, I had bought a course to study wholesaling left on a bookshelf I met my wife, 2019, and then that's when it went full throttle from there, like getting getting the wholesale and process started. Dude, that is incredible. And you say it, you went through that pretty quickly, like it was just like boom, boom, boom. But I know personally, it's just from talking to a couple friends, things that nature, it's hard to make that transition from playing the sport you've played your whole life over to the business world.

What was that transition like for you? Honestly, that transition was pretty difficult because it's something you did. your life to when you think it's in all, be all. And I share it a lot, social media because it's something that needs to, a conversation that needs to be had, because as athletes, we can get really depressed. And even most recently, I'm what, four, three years removed from it. And I'm finally transitioning fully to real estate as I did in football. Hey, this is something I can do. I'm made for this. I can do this. So that transition was pretty tough. How was your transition from football? So I didn't make it to the level you did, right? I just did

the college piece, but I hear you. That first year, especially not playing when you're watching different teammates that you played with kind of on the field and they're like, dude, I can be out there right now. You know, it's like, what's going on? And so that first year is super difficult. To your point, that's been your identity for so long. Coming up, your high school, college, you're always known as the athlete, right? You know, the jock, whatever you want to call it, right? It kind of becomes your identity. And you've really got to reshape yourself and to your point, start to pour yourself into something else. And what I learned, I'd love to get your take on this, is that there's so many transformational skills that you learn by playing a sport all the way up to the college and professional level that are

going to help you in the business world. It's just trying to find that passion and bring it from the field to business. But what are your thoughts in that? Are there any transferable skills that have helped you in this realm? I love that. The word transferable skills. Yeah, when you're done football, you try everything. You try to sell insurance. You try to work for different companies. For sure. And football is very competitive. It's win-lose. You want to be a leader.

You want to, sorry. You want to be a leader in whatever you do. So with that, those skills were easy to transfer to being in real estate. Figuring out the numbers being fixated on whatever the goal is because I was a big film guy. So when it comes to looking up comps, doing numbers, I'm like locked in. And I was like, oh, this is actually transferred from football when it come to film. So that was one thing that I was able to pick up pretty quickly. And then over the course of the last.

three years. I was like, oh, oh, I'm in it. I'm doing it. This is what football felt like, okay, I finally transferred. And it took, like I said, took about three years for me to get to this point and be like, I'm a professional. I'm a professional investor. So that was. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. That's incredible. And now you're truly into it. You've seen a couple of different things across different markets. And so when you talk about the wholesaling piece, you mentioned taking that course, but not fully picking it up until later. What made you jump fully into that wholesaling piece first and kind of how to go. Oh, man, I think it was a young guy from Philly. He was like 14 years old. He was already a millionaire, right? Pretty unique story.

But it sparks some names like, oh, I got to start something. So I started my well estate company after my sister who transitioned some time ago. And I left it there. I was like, I let me get back to it. And like I said, I met my wife. And from near, the wholesale piece really started to come full circle because I was able to see like, oh, this is not as difficult as it seems, especially having someone that's like-minded to push each other, study together, and drive home that vision for starting in real estate. True, true. And you mentioned one other thing that we share in common, right, that background in Philly.

And for anybody online or listening later, if you haven't been to Philly or lived in Philly, it's a different kind of hustle to make it out of them, right? Like, you really got to have a different kind of mindset and hustle. To survive and kind of make it. No, since growing up, I've been pumping gas, selling candy since I was seven and eight. So it was a different type of hustle. You're going to find a way to make the best. And that hustler spirit never leaves.

And I knew I had to start something. And it was a seed that was planted. So when I met my wife, it was able to grow and be nurtured. And that's what we've been able to do over the course of the years with our business. So, I mean, I know you're interviewing me. We really should be interviewing us because it's a team effort. And right now she's with the kids. And this really doesn't happen without her.

So I want to make sure I shot her off. Hey, come on now. Shout out to Mrs. Bell. I like that. We're going to make sure we're sending this clip to you. He knows that she got called out, right? Unsolicited. That's good.

That's good. I like it, man. But to that point, so you started off with the wholesaling, but then you quickly transition into doing your own flips. That's a tough move to make. How did you get comfortable going from, hey, I'm just giving these deals to other investors, to I'm going to go after my first one. Yeah, and just step back real quick.

The whole something piece actually didn't work out as fruitful as we thought. We got like five properties in the contract. We're like, and then one after one, it just didn't work out for every reason. We're going into homes, going to YouTube University, figuring these things out, and it just wasn't happening. So we transitioned to house hacking. And then our first property was a triplex. We lived in one, had our daycare and the other. And then we rented out the third unit.

And then from there, we was like, hey, tax out. Let's go for it. and we were able to buy a home. We put all our chips on the table. So our cars ran our credit up to secure an opportunity to be through studying over the years. We knew that there was an opportunity. So that's how we transitioned from wholesale into house hacking into finally our first flip. Dude, that is incredible.

And I want to dig deeper into that piece. So let's talk about the house hack first. That's how I got started. Literally got a triplex, lived in one unit, rent the others out. What was it like going from, you know, rent? and kind of being comfortable in your own spot to like, hey, I own this triplex. There's tenants all around me. How did you make that transition?

A lot of work. So our triplex has fallen apart, but you don't know that until you're in it, man. And once you get in it, it's like, oh, a lot of things don't work. Let's we get that sweat equity in. And that's what we deal with the course of the years. Can you pose the question again? I'll just slip off. Sure, sure.

With that triplex, right, what it looked like from a purchase standpoint? And I know you were renting probably before then. So what did that do for you in the, real estate route. Yeah. So once we got that cohort cash, the first time we ran it out, it really changed our perspective. I was like, oh, snaps, this is real. Obviously, you should not be collecting cash from your tenants. It should be some type of money order, some type of mailbox, figure it out, but never do cash. But for us, that ignited a deeper understanding, like, yo, we can do this. And from there, we were able to just get the wheels turning and

and slowly dig deeper into how can we make bigger deals. How can we transition into bigger opportunities? And we realized through house hacking, it wasn't necessarily for us, but it was a way for us to get started because a lot of, like I said, the sweat equity piece came in, discontentants. And you live in these places. So you really want to slowly transition out. And that's what we were able to do from house hacking. Nice. Nice. And what were some of the, because I know we're going to get into the flips.

And that's a huge piece, how you're able to do it out of state, things that nature build teams. But before we do, from a house hacking standpoint, what are some tips that you can give to the audience for the. those that are looking to get in with a house hack of how to manage, how to, you mentioned, hey, don't collect cash. You should have some other method. But what are some tips you can give to others? Definitely be in tune with the process for us. We weren't just allowing the relator to just have it all.

We were able to still be in tune with the process and they're like, hey, look, this is for us. And sometimes you can get swayed in that process, but we're like, hey, this is what we trust, this we believe is for us. So the tips I would say is to ensure that you make the best decision that the neighborhood vet the area to make sure you got the best investment long term. And we were able to see that with the growth over the years that we owned the property. We were able to sell it for a profit. Just last February, we were able to sell it because of that understanding the environment of

where our property was at. And also, I mean, make sure your credit is on point and vetting your tenants. Even when you vet your tenant, you're still going to come across situations that you can't control. So property management, but if you're not able to afford it, which we weren't, just continue to keep it hands off as possible. Like, hey, send it through a portal. There's a lot of different websites that allow you to do that seamlessly while owning your property. Absolutely.

And we've got a couple of questions coming in, which we'll address a little bit later. But I want to move to that flip portion, right? So you went from the house hack and you said, hey, I want to go bigger, right? You've done the wholesale and you've done the house hack. And now you're getting into flips, which is an area that I don't recommend for newer investors, right? Because you could lose your shirt or you can make a lot, right? But it's either or, but what did that look like for you that first?

Yeah. I think I skipped over a part of it. Like during that process, when we first house act, we got married in that place. We literally had a home birth in that place, had our ceremony in that place. So it's bittersweet we had to let it go. But all that was going on when the opportunity arose, hey, we can buy this property. It's about an hour away from a house. And we start looking into like tax, planes, tax,

slip in my mind, but how to get houses, mortgage foreclosure, things like that. And we stumble upon an opportunity and we put all our chips on a board. And we were able to secure property. And it took about seven months to actually to completion from start to finish. And we owed money. It was a lot went on where it would have broke anyway because we were dealing with a newborn house that house hacked us falling apart. And then we got an opportunity to make money on this front. And we understood that. So we pushed all our chips on tips. So it was a really string with time for our family trying to figure it out. Yeah, I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. And I personally have not purchased from, you know, the county courthouse or tax liens to date.

But to that point, I know it's a little bit different with the process. Can you explain? Like, when you say push all your chips on the table, are you getting a loan for this? Or how does it look to actually acquire a property from there? Yeah. So we came across the realization like, hey, we don't, we don't know how to do hard money. We just know that. There's an opportunity from YouTube University looking at the taxes. You can buy them, own them, a wait period. And so we didn't keep it to one area. We looked in Philly.

We looked in Delaware. We looked in Jersey. And we ended up in Delaware looking at the county website. We found something that made sense for us. And it was like $27,000, $29,000. We didn't have the money. I'm telling you right now, dude. We sold my wife car.

We sold my car. I was working maybe 70 hours at the time. We're house hacking. So my wife was running the day. I was working. I probably had like 30,000, well, 25,000 in credit cards, pushed all of them, maxed them all out. I think it cost me like 12,000 just to pick the lights on a place. It was a five-bed, three-bath, 3,800-square-few-froft, right? Grass overgrown. It was hideous. And that's what we understood we had to do. So we pushed all our trips for it. We borrowed $10,000 from our family,

another 5,000 for one of friends, like everything it took to make this happen because we believe, and we understood from the education aspect, what it took. to make something like this happen. So we pushed all our trips forward to make it happen. That is incredible. And you mentioned, and that's a true all in, right? When you started talking about we're selling the cars, we're putting the max another credit cards, things that nature, like this needs to work. And that's a move not many people could make, right? What gave you the courage to really step into that? And also, how did you, after buying that because you put a lot money, how did you even get the work done?

That's a great question. It was the education piece. Like during that course when we started the wholesaling together, a year after we started my LLC, we would drive the work separately listening to podcasts, reading books, upnight reading books, at nighttime reading books. Like, we really dedicated ourselves to the craft, right? Once we went all in from the education standpoint and then the credit standpoint, these are seeds that were planted throughout the years or throughout the process.

Because all this happened in the matter from 2018 to where we are now. We're fairly new. We're still learning, but those seeds were planted through the process. And we were able to just figure it out, not figure out, but like I said, the seeds, they grew. We planted and they grew. And that's where we're able to kind of continue to grow and create an opportunity for ourselves from that. I know we talked about it a little bit before we hit record here. But was this the project where you had to kind of negotiate with a contractor to make sure you can get that work done? Yeah. So I guess that's your second question. I missed the funds. How do we manage the fund? So we had, oh, I forgot, we took out of $20,000 long.

Like I said, I mentioned maybe $30,000, $40,000. Where we get the rest of the start? So I told the contract, like, hey, look, because we, in our mind, we watched too much HGTV. So we was under the impression. This is a 30-day job. We can be done 30 days. That's the education piece, right? And we only going to learn from experience.

So it was like 30 days, we're not out of this. But a lot of the things we thought that can be salvaged, whether it was the carpet, whether it was the flooring. Like, for example, the kitchen. we underestimated the whole kitchen was molded. This is a 34 square foot house. And the carpet goes throughout the house. And it was unsolvenable. So once those things start happening, then you start 10, 15,000.

And before you know it, our budget, now that we know it, it went all into 130. We thought it was going to be a smooth $20,000 in and out. So the hold of the 40, we end up being on hold for $40,000 with the initial contract. We gave him 20. He was like, hey, look, do this. We'll have the rest. We'll figure it out. And he actually worked on the previous.

project with us. That's what allowed us to kind of had this leeway with the $40,000, which closed my mind that he even held it that long. But yeah, I hope that was able to answer the question. No, that is incredible. And it goes back to the relationships, right? Being able to build a strong relationship with somebody will make them want to work with you on different things. For example, relatively recently, one of the plumbers I work with, I give them a lot of business. He helps us throughout our portfolio and all the ones that we manage around Metro Atlanta. but I needed help with the client where we needed to basically replace plumbing. And that plumbing was expensive.

It was like close to 10K. And it was one of those things where they don't have the funds before we close in the property because we're helping them sell it. And so he was willing to hold that bag for about, call it 30 days, right, and get paid at closing and do that work up front so we can get through that piece because of the relationship that we built over time and kind of take that risk. Now, he's going to get paid either way, but 30 days is a long time to wait. I'm sure that contractor, having worked with you before, kind of knew that you were good for it. Yeah, like I said, the four house hack was falling apart, and we actually met a contractor that wasn't so good for us who actually took our money, and he came in. So I was very skeptical when he came in, and we kind of built a relationship from there,

understanding. He showed up on time, kind of tested him out, see where he was at, and we were able to build from near. To the point where our third project, down in Atlanta, where we're at now, he drove all we down from Pennsylvania to help me out with a personal property and an investment property because that relationship. And yeah, so that was a heck of experience to build with someone. And to that point, we can't leave people on a cliffhanger. What ended up happening with that first property? Were you able to sell this thing? Did you get the money back to pay all this stuff off? Yeah, we did. We made quite a bit of money, quite a bit of money to the point where it was, like I said,

it was a free and clear property. Like I said, five bids, three bath, 30 square feet. We set the market. We reset the market in that area. We put it up, you know, we put it up for maybe 515, end up selling for 565. And this is at the peak of the high people paying over price. This is like the peak of it. And we were able to get in and get out seven months right before the market, did what it did. So everything worked out pretty fun. That is incredible.

We are happy. That's exciting, right? It's exciting when you see like, hey, I did this work to build this property all the way up and it actually pays off in the end. I'm sure that gave you confidence heading into the second, third, fourth deal. So you mentioned that you've been flipping kind of all over the place. This first one was in Delaware. Where was your second in? The second one, we had a property in Ohio.

We just fixed up one of the units, one of the units and just flipped the tenant in there. And then the third one was in down in Atlanta. And that one in Ohio, like I said, we just flipped a unit. It was a three triplex. We just flipped the unit. I'm sorry. We didn't necessarily sell it, but we fixed it. and we just kept it in-house.

And the one we actually have and we flip is down Atlanta right now. Nice. Nice. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. And you mentioned that this contractor's been able to follow you to at least two of the places. What about Ohio? Was it the same contractor or were you able to find somebody else?

No, it was in-house property management. They were like, and that's one of the pieces too when building a team. You meet a contractor. You meet a realtor. You meet mainly a realtor. They had that roller decks where you. You can say, hey, do you have a contractor? Do you have a plumber? Do you have these different people that can assist me as I build? And that's better suited for a building team in a place you don't know because, I mean, if you go out searching, you might find what you're not looking for. And more times and not that happens. I think I talked to like four contractors on one job and all were not able to do the job. Even I'm like, I talked in detail. Hey, this is what I need. They want to go see the property and there's never return my call. Once I ask for like a detailed list of what needs to be repaired. So. And I think I called you and talked to you about it.

I was like, hey, how do I go about this? And it's like, you got a trial in there. You got to figure it out. And that's what we're able to do in that space over there in Ohio. That is incredible. And to that point, right? So you talk about coming to contractors with a specific list. Do you have any other recommendations for how you make sure people kind of stay on track

and that the work's getting done? Oh, yeah, you definitely can go off track, whether it was the big flip we had or even the most recent project. It's like, hey, I have a budget. Oh, I didn't add that in. Well, that doesn't work for me. Maybe I got to find someone actually is attention to detail like I am. So for another project we're looking at, I walk the property with our contractor. I bring my handybook and I'm writing down exactly what they have and what I'm looking for to be done with the property and make sure our notes match up.

And we're able to have a clear idea of the time frame and the rehab budget. So we can be on the same page. And now that I'm close to my projects and I think that's the best way to go when you're just starting out is to focus on a particular area, get a great understanding of where you're at, and you can be at the job every day. Like the project that took the weeks, we were there every day, almost every day. But I trusted my gosh, I was able to leave, like one or two. Even with that, I want to be at the project every day, walking it through. Hey, maybe bring the guys some coffee one day, but I want to be in tune what's going on.

It's incredible. Now, it may change as more projects come, but right, as I am, I'm right on it. Come on now. you pay attention to tends to grow, right, or tends to do better. It's the reason you use KPI's, it's the reason you have weekly meetings for different things, but you're right. Like, if you end up showing up at a property each day, they start to get in their head like, hey, I may see this guy. I need to make sure I'm actually working and there's some progress as opposed to, hey, I'm not going to see him for a couple weeks. If I want to take a day off, I'll take a day off.

No, we got to get focused on this. I agree. How do you handle that? Have you done projects in Kentucky Louisville, have you done projects over there? And how do you go about managing those properties from afar? Yeah, man, it's a bit of trial and error. I've had similar things happen where you have a contractor

where it's like, oh, this guy's going to be solid. And they're working on the project. And then projects almost done. You're seeing the pictures. You're sending people out there. And it's like, hey, man, you've got to put another like five grand. This is not right.

You know, that type of deal. And that's been heartbreak. But over time, when able to find awesome individuals, and now what I do is I use my investor-friendly the realtor down there to come in and out and be kind of the boots on the ground to make sure it's getting done. And I use a lot of recommendations from her and others. Thankfully, the bigger the projects you do, the more individuals you can afford to kind of handle that piece. And so right now,

I think we've talked about it a couple of times, but we're building the self storage, which is almost done. And then we have the townhomes that are coming next. And with this project, because of the scale of it, we're able to actually pay a full-time project manager. And he's there literally every day. It's an older guy. He's been doing new builds for forever. And he was just like, hey, count me in. I know Monica. I'm down to work on this piece. And so we can call him anytime, you know, and he's actually on site, seeing the cranes move, making sure people are getting things done and directing them. So that's kind of how I do it now. But it's still, it's still, it's a lot of trial and error. To your point, I feel a lot more comfortable in the backyard here

because I've been able to vet a lot of different contractors and different handyman and trades. And so, like, as we speak right now, I'm getting one of the units renovated up in Snellville. The other units already done. It's listed. First guest is coming out this weekend, by the way. I'm going to post this weekend on that. So I'm excited about that. But the next one is going to be done in a week and a half. And these guys just started earlier this month. So it's, you know, we're cranking it out because we vetted. I know the people here. It's still a little bit tough and ruleable, to be honest. Yeah. And to your point, like creating those systems, I think that's the next part where I want to get in the, and I think you have done it already,

and a great job building your team and building your business. And I want to keep on picking your brain and learning. I think that's the next step, was building those systems where I can be here and let things grow over there because the team I trust. So thanks for sharing that. Absolutely. And Kwame, we appreciate you. Your story's been incredible.

It's still ongoing, right? The fact that you've been able to successfully flip in three different states and been able to kind of, you know, build your portfolio and it's only going to grow from here. But I want to open it up to the audience members. I know we've seen a couple of questions come in through here. If you are in the audience and want to join live to ask some questions of Kwame, please feel free. And while you're joining, I'm going to go ahead and ask a couple that have already popped in.

So the first one is from Kareem. What red flags do you want to watch out for from a property point of view, right? You mentioned some of the stuff you saw in that triplex, but what are some red flags when you're walking a property? The rare flags for me would be, obviously, the roof foundation is like the big, big red flag. The roof, water, damage, mold, those things that look at, oh, sorry, I can't, from afar, it was, we weren't taking no deals that they had termites. And that was the big red flag. Like, I wouldn't accept any deal if had termites. Like, I can, obviously, you got a contract that can handle the water, the water issue, but,

far as termites and foundation, even if the roof, I can take that because I can get, that helps me use it as a tool to get money off. But termites and foundation, I wasn't accepting those too. With the termite piece, was there any threshold for it? Or was it, hey, if termites affected the foundation or was it termites, period? More so foundation termites. When those things popped up, I wasn't going for it. Now, if it's isolated termites to like the porch or something like that,

But even with that, it comes up, hey, these termites parked at the front deck, but they probably were at the back of the house somewhere. Like, there's always a mystery where the termites can be. So just to be on the safe side, especially as an out-of-state investor, if they had termites, I wasn't going for it. Fair enough. And Kareem, welcome, man. You got a follow-up question for that? No, that was actually very, very helpful. So you said, termites, mold, water damage, roof and nation.

These are the main, I'm assuming, like, big jobs that you want to stay away from in the beginning. HVAC and Furnace were never big ticket items, even on this last job we did in Atlanta. I think it cost me like one guy quoted me for $5,500 for replacing HVAC. I was able to find somebody for $4,600. And that worked out. But that's a big ticket item. As far as if, I was going to say as far as a fix. I was going to move actually to something else, but like finish your point.

And I'll have another question for you. Yeah, as far as like the project that may cost $20,000 or something like that, you expect to have all these issues because the value, the equity is in it. So you'll take that chance opposed to something you expect to be more suitable for a rent or turnover quickly. So when you go into a project of that size, what type of contingencies do you have? When I say contingency, I mean like backup cash. Is there like a percentage point that you set aside for? unknowns, like unforeseeable issues?

Or how do you, how do you tackle that? That's a great question. So what I do is I typically do a five to 10,000 buffer. But typically what had been said, if I go walk the property my contractor and I have a clear understanding of what can come up, like I'll take the last project, it may an extra $10,000 came up, whether it was making the house more modern or fixing cracks in the the driveway. That 10,000 was, hey, we want to make it a certain way, make it a certain look to meet a certain audience and sell a selling point. So that 10,000 was there. The buffer was the five,

and then I took an extra five to make sure we can get to where we wanted to be. So, but I typically keep it five or ten, but when you have that walk through with your contractor, you have a clear idea where the big ticket items in and you can say, hey, my budget is $70,000, $5,000 if a water league comes up. This one costs me like $1,000, $2,000. So that's typically how I look at the projects. But when you're making the decision whether to go in or to, you know, basically kill it, you usually budget, you said five to ten? Yeah, typically. Yeah. Anything you want to give us about like neighborhoods, the street, like what red flags, what do you stay away from? Like aside from, you know, the obvious, like the crime rates and stuff

like that, anything, you know, you want to share a deal with the group. Funny enough, I'm a lot of I'm looking for Starbucks, a Chick-fil-A, right, the chase. I'm looking for the indicators that tell me that people are coming, right? Growth is coming. Schools, if it's away from hot, if it's away from the major roads, that's really a big indicator for me. Even if it's like, hey, this is not the most savory neighborhood. Is it close to a highway?

No one wants to live on the highway. And most of the people that's buying are going to be families. So that aspect helps me to clear out really quickly if I'm going to buy this property or not. And then I'll walk across street and neighbor. Hey, what do you think about this neighborhood? What do you think about this block? So just grassroots walking around asking people, hey, that's the best information.

How long this house has been sitting here? Anything going on? Like one of the houses I'm looking at, I want to cross through. Hey, hey, Gary, how's it going? He has his cars in front of the house. He's like, I'll move it. He's pretty cool guy. He's like, yeah, some people, they may still lumber or stuff if you leave it out here.

If you leave it unattended, if you leave the project too long, it's a rough neighborhood. But they can rent. It's a quiet neighborhood. People might still, if you leave it too long. So I can work with that. So that's typical where I'm just what I'll typically do. To that point, I think that's an awesome tip. Definitely don't let that go over your head, guys.

Walking around and talking to neighbors, right? People that have lived there, they literally been there five, 10 years, whatever. If you talk to enough neighbors, you'll find out a heck of a lot about your neighborhood. That's one. And then two, I like the tip on the Starbucks and Chick-fil-A. That four-flex of this spot, you literally see a Chick-fil-A from one of the windows. So I've stopped in there a couple times, got it. I like Chick-fil-A.

But it gives you some comfort knowing that, hey, this is pretty cool, good area that's up and coming. And Robbie, what is up, man? Welcome. What's going on, guys? How you doing? I got one more point to that. And now when looking at those companies that come into that in that space, they already vetted it out for you. So that's kind of like another level of comfort.

Chase is not going to be next to a dollar tree if they don't believe it's going to grow. They already did their 10, 15-year analysis of the area. So it gives me comfort on that. Agreed. And Robbie, you got any questions for Kwame? Yeah, I do. Kwame, what's going on, man? How are you?

Hey, how you doing? Good, good. Hey, I was just wondering about, you know, scaling and what kind of, you know, keys that you looked for to kind of figure out that you were ready to scale and, you know, what that kind of timing looked like for you. And then I guess also, which is related, you know, I don't know how long in this process you had your a full-time job as well. I'm assuming you had one when you kind of started and then I'm not sure how that process

worked for you, but I was just wondering about that as well. Some great questions, man. I'm glad you asked about the job because it was very extreme. Having a job, like I said, I was working 70 hours and then I was in college. It was for my master's degree trying to like figure it out. So during that course, I got overwhelmed and I was like, hey, we got a pivot. Like, real estate is it? Let's pivot.

And I use real estate. Well, I use my job to kind of fund. the education, fund the money I'm using for a down payment, like for our first house act. And that's why I was it. Even with that been said, you need that to secure that house hack, right? You need those two years of tax returns. You need those things. And then once we went full in on, hey, we don't have this security blinking anymore.

We got to, like, we got to get on our, like you said, scale. We got to get to that point where we can scale. And even to answer your question about scaling, I'm still bugging name about it because I'm like, I'm still trying to put the pieces together to figure out what the scaling looks like. because closing on one or two properties a month. And then the paperwork aspect is really becoming daunting to me because it's like, oh, I got to do this, but oh, I got to go to the project and I got to do this. So figuring those pieces out where I may need to hire VA.

But the first thing I did to help me organize was a bookkeeper, reach out to a CPA, to even give me another layer of protection. I started a trust so I can protect myself and my family and just kind of make sure I don't have to worry about that. Anything other happens to me or the businesses, I've already protected another layer. So those are things I've done so far to insulate myself. And then next I'm looking to, like I said, hire a VA or hire a virtual assistant and then maybe hire the team out and actually scale this thing to where we can pass

it down to the kids, to them to trust. I got to just a quick follow-up question. That's all right. So you mentioned kind of the debt part of it that you went into in order to kind to get started. As far as that relates to scaling, because, you know, I'm doing. and got same, you know, debt stuff that I'm getting through, like, with the property purchase and renovations, but also just, you know, regular student loans and stuff like that.

Did that aspect of it affect, you know, your thoughts on scaling at all? Like, did you feel like I need to get out of debt from this house first? Or did it, like, how did you think about that? It definitely came up where we couldn't even do a refinance because of our credit, right? And there was a couple situations, even that's why it took seven months. I had to get money, pay off the debt, then wait a month for my credit to get right. And it'd be like, hey, you're just short 20 months. And then I'm finding the right person that can do it.

And then you're going to hear a lot of things like, hey, I can do it. Someone can do it. But you really just need to focus on the credit piece. And as far as the debt piece, pay down the ones that you can and then work your way to pan them all off. And now, as far as a school debt, I wasn't really worried about that. It's more so the mortgage and the major credit cards. Once I was able to eliminate those. And even now, like, you're still going to get situations where you have that debt looming over.

you got to find ways to leverage it and have that cash flow that comes in to kind of help you get ahead of it and then ultimately get it down, whereas you can have more money, or opportunities to get more money to kind of leverage that and continue to grow your portfolio. And now you have the cash and the equity within those that debt that you leverage. So hope that was help help. Yeah, appreciate it. And we have a couple questions in the chat. So the first one is from France.

Hearing your story, it sounds like your wife had a huge impact on your success. Shout out to Mrs. Bell. Can you speak a bit more to that and the importance of having a good support system around you? Yeah, Deanna is my wife. She's awesome. Like I said, it was sitting on a shelf for a year. Right. And when I met her, she was like, oh, I'm looking into wholesale.

I was like, I actually got it. And then from there, it was still a point where I was still playing football. And I was like, hey, this, I can't think of it. It was like an event. I was like, you need to go to this event. I got a game next week, but you need to go. I paid like $1,000 for it. She went to the event, got a lot of information about opportunity zones, grants.

And that was the information allowed us to kind of shift gears and say, let's do this, let's do that. Let's focus on these opportunities on where they bring the Starbucks and bring the chase. And they understand opportunities. I understand the text breaks that come with that. And we're able to shift our strategy. And her just being selfless and even now, like being with the kids, right? and understanding our roles, I'm not more so roles, but understanding what it takes to make the, to us, for us to scale up in our business, which is family business. So yeah, she's a major part,

a major key. And I'm grateful and thankful that I have a partner that's, to understand as the plan. That's awesome. That's awesome. And we have another question. This one kind of digs back into what you talked about with that initial contractor, right? That kind of ran off with some of the money, right? So what's the story behind that contractor and what are some lessons learned from that first one that didn't work out? Great question. We bought the house hack and it's like, hey, the scope of working costs $10,000. And you need this to get a, you know, using that occupancy for some counties. And some counties are stricken and over and you want to make sure that's another point when looking at a property.

You want to make sure you look at the county and some counties are money hungry and they'll price you for everything. So that's one point you guys don't look at. So for us, we were able to, oh, man, can you pose the question again? Come on now. I got you. Yeah. So that first contract that you had, right? You mentioned that he didn't work out and he ended up kind of running off.

What were some lessons learned from that? Yeah. So the scope of work was $10,000. He comes in. We pay him $5,000. Too much to begin, right? You got to show work to get work. So he didn't do it.

And then he came and he would come back like a week. or kept on having excuses. And we confronted him about it. And he still kept on doing the same thing. You got to believe we had our kid. We're trying to figure this thing out. And I'm leaving work to make this work. And ultimately, we let him go.

And he just never showed up. And then coming back to it, he never had a license at we begin with. So we didn't do our due diligence. And even taking ownership of that, we were able to say, hey, it was actually on us because we didn't bet that guy thoroughly enough. But ultimately, he didn't have his license. He didn't finish the work. And we were out of $6.000.

man so you just mentioned show work to get work i think that's that's that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a verb right there man we got to use that that should be tatted i like that and so what did you do with the next contractor how were you structuring kind of your contracts to make sure that people are able to eat but they're not getting you know full before the work's done i think it's like a percentage you give to the contractor before he starts but it was more so it was like a handyman so i i didn't necessarily get a contractor for this particular job to finish it, to bring it home. And this is the same guy I worked with was a handyman.

So I took this handyman on the road. It necessarily was licensed, but I took this handyman on the road, and he was able to get the job done. Now, as far as working with a contractor, I like to put in the head of you, or everybody to get this done in a certain amount of time that I require is a bonus, not with taking money away. And that works out for both because they understand. And you ask all the tough questions up front, especially about money. And another question, something else that came up to me is sub-leasing.

So you might hire a contractor and they'll sub-lease it to like someone else. So you're not really doing the work. So it's good to make sure you vet them for that. And that's something that came up recently too. And I'm not really a fan of that too. Because if you're going to do it, I need to know that you and your six guys are going to do it. I'll hire Jack and Joe to do something. And it's not your work.

I don't appreciate that. So that's something to look out for too when hiring a contractor. Can you really do the work? True. True. And one other piece, I don't see any additional questions here in the chat. If you have any, please drop it. I didn't cover it earlier, but I believe you just released an e-book, right? We will be releasing the e-book, just telling our story on how to get started in real estate. I think it's something that people can learn from and grow from because it's our experience. And I hope you guys find it useful and can use it as well. Absolutely. And do you have a date for the release yet? we're thinking for the end of the year we're going to let it let it drop.

Perfect. Perfect. Once you have that piece and we have a link and really we're going to link to your overall website, I'm sure there will be something on there as well, but we'll definitely push it out with this. But any last questions for Kwame? Kwame, again, we truly appreciate you joining us tonight. I think you're a wealth of knowledge and we appreciate the fact that you've been contributing

here as well. And we can't wait to continue to see this journey and definitely got to be. to get you back on when you start exploring your fifth and six markets and really start to ramp up the operation down here because I know it's newer down here, but you're already moving quickly. So I'm excited to see kind of what you do over the next year or so. Yes, sir. I appreciate that. And I want to leave your audience with some of those.

Okay. Please. Yeah. So one of the major things we understood early was to better ourselves, like whether it was the contractor or things not going away with the flip is always better on yourself. and trust yourself and have an abundant mindset. And that's really what allowed us to move forward in this real estate. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Abundance mindset is huge. There's more than enough out here. You don't need to put everything and try to, you know, force your way with just one deal. It's going to happen over time. And I love that, man. That's good. Thank you.

I thank you for the opportunity, email. And thank you guys for the question. Definitely. Kwame, be safe. Everybody else will catch you. next week and thank you for joining.