The Science of Flipping - Episode 1 – Secrets to Finding Deals in Today's Market | Real Estate Investing Podcast

Episode Date: August 23, 2013

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Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast, Episode 1. I'm your host, Justin Colby, and guys, if this is your first time to the podcast, please go check us out on our website, thescienceofflipping.com. There we are giving away for free, in my opinion, the best, most educational e-book you can possibly get. We're giving away the 15 most costly mistakes a real estate investor can make. Now guys, I got to be honest. If I had this e-book when I first started, Eddie Rosefield and I would have made more money in less time just adhering to what this e-book says not to do. A lot of times people only focus on what they think they should do, but it is proven that if

you know what not to do, you will go further. So again, go to our website, thescienceofflipping.com and get our free e-book, The 15 Most Costly Mistakes in Real Estate Investing. Our lessons today, guys, will be how and where to find the deals. In today's market, I've spoken to hundreds of real estate investors. I've been a coach for years. And all the way from New York to California, the number one complaint, the number one issue is, where do I find the deals? I can't find any deals.

The auction has no more deals. I can't find a deals. The auction has no more deals. I can't find a deal on the MLS. Wholesalers aren't getting good deals. They're at retail prices. Today, guys, we're going to be focusing on where to find the deals and how to find the deals. The Science of Flipping podcast was created by myself and my business partner eddie rosefield this podcast is focused on investing without putting the time in on the ground you know we are focused on providing the systems for you to create in your business so that you do not have to be on the job swinging the hammer.

We've done very well in our business creating those systems and we're giving back to show you that there's a lot of systems that can be implemented in your flipping business so that you do not have to be on the site or on the job. You see a lot of entrepreneurs focus too much in their business and not enough on their business. And so this podcast really is made to develop a business for you to flip homes while you're on vacation, flip homes while you're in another state, flip homes when you're in another country, or simply flip homes from the comfort of your own couch. That's really what this podcast is made for. We want everyone to have the life that they dreamed of and that's why we have this podcast because real estate investors, quite frankly,

too often spend too much time in their business and they don't quite spend enough time on their business. So that is what we teach here at this podcast. We, from time to time, have great giveaways and we'll teach you how to get those. But for the most part, guys, as you listen to each and every podcast we have here, you're going to realize we're giving you guys the systems for your flip business so that you don't have to work as hard as you currently are. Guys, if you don't know who I am, I'm your host, Justin Colby, and I wanted to spend a little bit of time telling you a little bit about myself and what we've created here at Phoenix Wealth Builders. It wasn't always puppy dogs and rainbows. We started investing here in 2007 and it took almost a full year, almost nine months to get our first deal

done. Now, if you can imagine that, my business partner Eddie and I, we made a commitment to go both feet in, have no other income, and it took us nine months to do our first deal. So trust me when I tell you, we've been through it. We understand what you may be going through right now. Within 16 months, we got two deals done. Whoopee, two deals in 16 months. That's barely livable income. Let's fast forward now. Last year, we did 96 successful flips. This year, we've done close to 50. This year, we've become developers. We are developing an eight-acre piece of land out in Mesa, Arizona. And on that land will be 79 townhomes. And we started going vertical this week.

So we are at a monumental point in our building careers. And we are full steam ahead at that. So that is a little bit about ourselves. What I do, what we do here at Phoenix Wealth Builders and the success that we've had. But today we're going to be really focusing on how to find deals in this market. What tools do you use? What networking tactics do we need to be focusing on? Because quite frankly, guys, there's only two ways to find deals. You either network or you market for them. That's the only two ways you can find deals.

And so today we will be focusing on those two bullet points know, we want to focus on primarily, um, the people who are really doing deals in your market. You know, that's, that's what I want to bring up first with you guys is, um, I want to tell you a little story about when we first kind of got started and when I first moved out here in Arizona, my job was to meet every big investor, real investor that there was here in Phoenix, Arizona. That's all I set out to do. All I wanted to do was figure out who's really doing deals, who's really wholesaling deals, who's really flipping deals, and make sure they knew who we were, who I was. And so what I did is I started asking around town.

I started cold calling real estate agents and I would spend days at a time setting up meeting after meeting at a local Starbucks just to try to get to get, uh, sit down with them and, and, and talk to them about our business, about what we do. And I'd ask a few simple questions. Do you know anyone that you think we could align ourselves with that possibly would be a good colleague to know in the area? And I'd offer up help to them as well. And we spent day after day cold calling agents and building relationships. From those meetings,

we were introduced to several very real, very large investors here in the Phoenix Valley. I didn't do anything special, guys. It wasn't that I used any ninja tricks by any means. I just simply went out every single day and did grassroots networking. From those meetings, I started hearing about other meetings that were going on in our community, the RIA meetings and otherwise. And so I started going to those meetings. And from there, I would do the same thing. I would simply network and let everyone know who I was and what we did here at Phoenix Wealth Builders. Eventually, they would tell us about other people maybe to know or other meetings or other group events that I'd wanted to go to.

It just really built from there. I really focus a lot of my time, even today, I focus a lot of my time in networking. Today, guys, I wanted to just review with you a couple places to network. I know a couple places that most people don't think about networking at, but have been great resources for myself and my business partner to meet individuals who have made a huge impact in our business. So let's start with one of those areas. And here on the West Coast, and specifically here in Phoenix, every single day are auctions, the trustee auction sale. Every single day, every single morning, there are a group of investors that go down there, including ourselves, that are looking to buy fix and flip deals or possibly wholesale deals. And so one of the things that I learned very quickly is that if we wanted to meet very real investors, we wanted to get our butts down to the auction down in Phoenix. And again,

it happens every day. So no matter what position you are in, whether you have no money, no credit, a lot of money, great credit, getting to know those individuals will really mean a lot. Our intention was never to go down there to buy the homes initially. Our initial intention was to simply shake hands, exchange business cards, and get our name out there. Let them know that we were looking to buy, fix, and flip a couple deals this year. We didn't want to seem too ambitious, so we just wanted them to know that we're looking to buy our next deal and that if they do come across something that we could be a buyer for them if they're looking to unload something relatively quickly.

You know, that to give us a call, put us on their email list, shoot us a text message, and we're going to take a look at that. We've had great success and have built great relationships down at the auction that, to a point, that in 2011, 90% of the homes that we bought were from the auction, working with other investors there as well. But we got so comfortable down at the auction that in 2011, I would say 90% of our deals we bought down at the auction. Now from that, some of the relationships that we've created from the auction are wholesalers. A lot of the people that we met down at the auction typically like to wholesale their deals. Meaning they win the winning bid and they will give us a call right then and there saying, Hey, I got this address, 123 Main Street, for $100,000.

I'll sell it to you right now for $105,000. So we just go run the property and take a look at it and run the numbers to feel out if this is something that we would want. And because we're able to buy their properties, they've now kind of view us as their number one go-to as the fix and flip investor that they can sell deals to. So no longer do we need to be on their buyer's list, but they just shoot us a call right then, right there, right at the time they close, or I should say win the bid, and they

simply say, hey, do you want this deal? We have three or four investors that we've met down there that do the same thing for us each and every day, each and every time that they close the deal, we get their first call. And so that has turned out to be one of the best and biggest ways for our business to continue to move forward. That networking alone, I would say, gives us anywhere from 20% or 40% of the deals that we will buy over a specific year. In 2013, we've really depended on wholesalers to find deals. A good portion of our deals have come from wholesalers in this market, and a good portion of the wholesalers that we know and developed relationships with have come from the auctions. So again, depending upon where you are, auctions are held every day here on the West Coast and

on the East Coast I know is something completely different, but I really recommend showing up to those auctions every day that they are being held primarily to meet other investors, shake their hands, and to get on their radar and for them to get on your radar. That is a great way to network and a great way to find deals. Another way, and I've already previously mentioned this, guys, is it's so funny. When we started, we had no startup capital, none. I mean, we went both feet in.

We had no income coming in. And guys, I said, we're going to do this grassroots. And I spoke to Eddie and I said, I'll focus on meeting real estate agents all day, every day, as long as I need to, until we have five to ten real estate agents ready to work with us. And that's what I did. I simply jumped online. At the time, we had no MLS access. So all we had were the free websites, whether it be Redfin, Craigslist, you name it. We were jumping on it. Realty Track at the time was a website that we were using.

We were simply calling the agents and asking for a coffee meeting. I would book my day from give or take 9 a.m. to late afternoon, 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I'd sit at that coffee shop, and I would just have meeting after meeting. Primarily just offering them help, letting them know that we're here, that we're investors and letting them know what we're looking for, letting them know that we saw one of their listings and we had a certain amount of interest in that listing. But regardless, we would like to work with them to be a buyer for them and for them to utilize us as a buyer to get deals, to get listings. It was very, very successful. Now, I did that for quite some time, and I know not everyone has the time to sit at a coffee shop every day for two or three weeks and just meet realtors.

But from that came three or four great realtors that we started using. They utilized us. They leveraged us to get listings for themselves. We leveraged them to put in offers for us on their listing so that we could be their first offer as well as other listings that they were getting or already had, we would put in offers for that and they would simply kind of make ours a priority. So it went a long ways to buy these real estate agents cups of coffee.

Again, when you're networking, you don't always have to think, you know, we got to take people out to lunch, we got to take people out to dinner. Absolutely not. If you're starting out, save your money. The most I would recommend is taking someone to coffee. And that's the most. A lot of times, if you're sitting at the coffee shop,

you can just have them meet you there and you already have your cup of coffee and so they have to buy their own cup of coffee or if you're generous enough, you can say, hey, let me get you a cup and most times people will say, you know what, I'm showing up. I'll just get my own cup of coffee.

So I remember those days. You know, those days were fun. Going back to the days of just simply networking, meeting people, building relationships. And they became awfully fruitful, especially when you do network with someone. You start to realize that they're really always thinking about what's in it for me. How are you going to make this beneficial for me? And if you always position it in that way and make it beneficial for them, then they're going to want to work with you. They really will. So again, if you don't have enough time to sit down there for hours at a time,

maybe it's one or two a day, maybe it's one or two a week, whatever it can be, I highly suggest you sitting down with real estate agents, grab a cup of coffee and try to develop a relationship with them. As recent as three or four months ago, we sat down with this young real estate agent here in Scottsdale, Arizona. He already had his book of business going and was successful in his own right. But he heard of us and he's seen us buy a couple deals and he wanted to take us to a cup of coffee, so I sat down with him and from there we were able to buy, I think we're buying our third deal from him this next week.

We'll be closing on it. So we've already bought two. We'll be buying our third this upcoming week. So again, I never stop this. It's not something I stop doing. I probably don't do it quite as much as I used to when we were first beginning because we already have a successful business up and running. But remember, networking is, in my opinion, and in the opinion of my mentors, the number one way to get deals in this market, period. So that's our second way of networking. One of the thoughts that I had a long time ago was

leveraging relationships with title companies. Title companies, guys, do nothing but real estate transactions large title companies do thousands of real estate transactions a month so i started building relationships with different title companies fidelity national title is one chicago title is another first american title is another and i would go and simply sit down with whether it's their sales rep or a title agent that I've heard of or know of and start building a relationship. And that relationship came from, you know, we'd like to give you guys a couple deals if we can. You know, what are you looking for? What are kind of your rates for title insurance? And then I would say, I'd describe our business, what we're doing, what we focus on, what we do on a day-to-day.

And then I would simply say, can you think of anyone that would possibly be good for us to meet? Whether it be a lender, contractor, real estate agent, loan broker. and I would just simply ask. And you will be surprised what you get when you ask. People very rarely don't answer the questions or don't give you good answers. They will usually say, I think it would be good for you to meet so-and-so or so-and-so is a top earner and as a real estate agent, I think they would be right up your alley to do business with. I just did a couple of deals. They'll say, I did a couple of deals that there was some private loans on a couple of these deals and I think it'd be good for you to reach out to that lender. So that has always been my ninja secret trick is I start leveraging title companies.

A lot of people don't think to leverage them, but quite frankly, if you're able to do a deal or two, they will give you as many people as you could probably ask for. As far as if they think someone would be of value to you, they are happy to introduce you to whoever it may be. Again, I still do this, guys. Eddie and I went to a meeting.

I think it was not last week, but the week before we went to a lunch meeting. And we sat down with two title reps. One was the sales rep for the title company. The other actually was the sales rep for the title company. The other actually was the title rep. And because we're developers now, the meeting revolved around land acquisition and deals that we can get done. And the title rep said, hey, I have a builder who has several pieces of land that they're contemplating selling. Here's their information. Why don't you reach out to them? Let them know that you got their information from me and see if something comes from that. That was great.

I reached out to the builder. They gave me three pieces of property that we're currently looking at. Land acquisition obviously is not quite as simple and as quick as your typical residential fix and flip purchase, but they potentially are deals we will acquire. I would say for the most part, there is one deal specifically that we are looking very closely at buying in the next 30 to 45 days. So we're finishing up some due diligence and we may be on our second development project. Now guys, I'm telling you, it's as simple as asking. It's as simple as networking. It's as simple as going to these people, to these companies and simply asking them, is there anyone that you can think of that you think I should be introduced to. Title companies specifically

hold meetings every single week. A lot of their meetings are educational, but guess who's in those meetings? Other realtors, other investors, other loan brokers, and it's a great way to network at these meetings. Getting on the title company's mailing list will help you network at those meetings. I haven't even got to the REIA meeting. Most states, most cities have your typical REIA meetings, Real Estate Investor Association meetings. They are typically held once a month. You've got to go to those meetings. Now, a lot of times there's people there that are kind of getting started and are there to learn more

but that's okay. You can take that relationship and either bring them onto your team and build your team with them because they're willing to get their hands dirty or they might be a buyer for one of your wholesale flips or one of your traditional flips or they're worth building a relationship with. So, REIA meetings, though they don't happen as often, are a great source to network. They can be put on your buyer's list.

So, when you buy a home at auction, when you buy a home off the MLS, when you buy a home from the wholesalers, you send it out to your buyer's list, right? And flip the deal and get your quick nickel. So those are three or four great avenues for you guys to start networking at. I've been using them. I started using them very early on back in 2007 and I still utilize those networking avenues today. They're very, very important.

So, you know, I'll leave networking kind of there. I can go on and on about networking and have stories about real estate investors that, you know, simply told me about a deal that they're working on. They told me the other side of that deal, the person that sold it to them. And I just simply asked them, do you mind introducing me to that wholesaler? If it's a wholesaler, I didn't know. And from there, I got to be honest. Well, you know what?

I'll tell you that story. I gave a call to an investor that I knew and I said, let's meet for coffee. And he started telling me about a deal. And I was excited for him, and I said, that sounds like a pretty great deal, and he kept referencing who he bought it from. And I said, hey, who are they?

Do you mind introducing me to this group? And he said, hey, not a problem. He gave me their email and phone number and said, why don't you just reach out and let them know that I referred you to them. And to this day, it is a wholesaling group that I still buy deals from. I've bought so many deals from them over the years that they're one of the groups that text message me

before they even blast it out on their email. They give me the text message and say, hey, do you want this? Here's your first look. Right then and there, I'm able to analyze it if I'm at my office or Eddie's able to analyze it if he's at his office. And we make a decision right then and there. And why we've been able to kind of gain that priority primarily is because we act quickly, but also because we actually buy their deals. We're not tire kickers, right? So if you do want to create great relationships while networking, you really want to focus on helping the other person,

right? You want to help them as much as you want to get what you want because ultimately, if you help them, you're going to end up getting what you want no matter what, right? So when you are networking, always approach those individuals and always try to focus on how can you be helpful to them rather than how they can be helpful to you. You can call that karma. You can call it putting it out in the universe. It is what it is. It always gets you to your goal. So let's shift gears a little bit, guys, and let's maybe start jumping into marketing. Now, this is a very broad and large

topic. In future podcasts, you're going to hear more in-depth styles of marketing, how to market, where to market, but let's just cover marketing as a whole right now because I am a huge advocate of marketing for deals. Now, some people would say using the MLS and writing offers on the MLS is a great form of marketing because you're getting your name out there. Listing agents are starting to see the same buyer over and over and over again. And quite frankly, I agree. I think if you're specifically going after a handful of agents that can see your name over and over again, they're going to start recognizing who you are. In general, they're going to realize you're a buyer who wants a deal. Now, if you want to focus on those agents,

probably giving them a call, letting them know you are making offers, you are looking to buy their listings so they know you're a real person, that you're really here to buy their listings. That is always helpful. But that is a style of marketing that is used because real estate agents will call you. They will start finding you to say, hey, I'm about to get a listing. But primarily, guys, there's so many different ways to market. A lot of my mentors have started with bandit signs as a great way of marketing. In fact, I use bandit signs today in Phoenix, and they still work. They still work.

It's like one of the oldest ways of marketing that you hear about, and they still work. They still work. It's like one of the oldest ways of marketing that you hear about, and they still work. Now, in today's age, obviously, you kind of have the authorities, and if you guys obviously can't see me, but I'm making the rabbit ears, the authorities will call and make you take them down, or they'll take them down yourself, and it kind of starts to become a little bit of a pain that you got to keep putting them back up and can be costly at times. But the fact of the matter is if you have proper placement, if you're in the right areas and you're visible

and people are taking a look, it absolutely works. Now, as far as bandit signs, I'm of the idea you've got to be creative. So many times, you'll see the typical bandit signs, you know, we buy ugly houses or whatever the typical ones are, buy houses for cash, and that's fine. But a lot of times, you want to be a little bit more creative. You know, I remember there was a time where I was actually physically walking by a bandit sign, and the bandit sign was written upside down. And so what did I do? I walked past it, realized it was written upside down,

turned around, went back to read it. Well, it caught my attention. I actually stopped, turned around to read it again. That is being creative. You really want to pop, so a lot of times giving a color will make you more noticeable. But guys, no matter what marketing you're doing, you want to try to be as creative as possible. Gain as much attention as possible. So bandit signs are obviously a very good way of marketing. Another great way that I still use today,

and in my opinion is our strongest suit, direct mail marketing. There are so many different type of sellers out there to mail to. And you can be very specific, and you can go by zip code, and you can really whittle down a list to mail directly to these sellers. And so what we do here at Phoenix Wealth Builders is we focus on non-listed properties. Properties that don't have a real estate agent attached to them and we send those sellers direct mail. Now, those sellers could be probate sellers. They could be going through a divorce.

They could be losing their home to foreclosure. They could be inheritance sellers. They could just be high equity sellers. They could be absentee sellers where they don't live in the home. So there's so many lists that you can buy nowadays that you can mail to. We happen to use a database that is all online that scrapes the county records every two weeks to update that to their database. We use that database to send our mailers to provide the list of motivated sellers. That's what we use. In fact, it works so well that last month we sent out just 200 mailers, which is a small amount of mailers to a very specific area. A certain zip code, very specific. We did not do a blast mailer. And from 200 mailers, we got two deals. That is a very good rate of return on your investment, guys. That's what you need to be tracking.

We still use direct mail. We focus on direct mail and we get very specific with who we are marketing to. Again, I listed a handful of people who we market to and then we continue to do it. So marketing, again, in future podcasts, I really go in-depth into direct mail and direct mail marketing. But one of the main rules of marketing and direct mail specifically is you've got to be consistent. So if you send out one mailer of 200, the example I just gave you, you can't just send them out once. You need to send it out to the same people at a minimum of three times. Once you send it out at a minimum of three times and you get no return, that's good enough for you to move on and move on from that group. So we'll be sending out, I think this

upcoming week, we're going to be sending out another 200 mailers to that very specific, very small group to see if we can get some more deals out of it. So you have to be very consistent and repetitive in your mailing. Online marketing is huge right now. There are so many people that believe in online marketing, myself included. There's so many different avenues of online marketing that a lot of times it gets a little overwhelming. So if you're sitting out there thinking, yeah, online marketing is great, but I don't understand it. I don't know where to start. I don't know what avenue works best. Do I do Craigslist? Do I do Redfin? Do I do Facebook ads? Do I do LinkedIn ads? What am I doing? How do I use Facebook? How do I use LinkedIn to find deals? I'm understanding of that. You know, I'm not the most techie person in the world, quite frankly. I tend to leave that to other people in our business to control the tech side, the internet side.

But marketing on Craigslist is a huge advantage. We have pulled sellers off of Craigslist, Letting people know that you buy homes. Or you are looking, you know, a lot of times you can kind of do a role reversal, right? Or you do reverse, you reverse the mythology of what you're doing, right? So you say you're looking to sell a home. You say you're looking to sell a home. You say you're looking

to sell a home, so buyers will then call you. Well, then when you reach buyers, you actually want to get added to their buyers list, right? Because when they get a home, you could be on their buyers list. So that's always an opportunity for you to get onto a buyer's list. Use Craig's list. Facebook, LinkedIn, social media works like a charm. Again, we'll be doing a podcast solely focused on social media. So I'm not going to go too far into that today, but start utilizing Facebook. Start utilizing LinkedIn. Start utilizing Twitter because deals come from them. If nothing else, it's a great place to network, right? Back to networking.

So the whole social media online marketing is huge right now. And I really recommend if you don't have a huge understanding of it, start looking into it. I know the times have changed, and a lot of you out there started investing years ago before Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and all these social media sites were even thought of. And it's something that you're gonna have to learn

because, quite frankly, that's where the real estate industry is going. We are moving towards social media as you see every single day. So a couple of the marketing strategies that I'm referring to here is you really want to be focusing on bandit signs. They do work. The biggest problem with bandit signs is they get taken down. But you do want to utilize them. Be creative when you utilize them. Direct mail marketing. Again, there are a lot of lists that you can use for your direct mail marketing. Probate is one of them. Inheritance is one of them. 30, 60, 90 day lates is one of them. Now,

that one specifically, guys, that's really up to you. I'm not a huge believer in that list. And the reason why is you're also competing with real estate agents. It's a very heavily mailed list. It's easily accessible. So I tend to go after maybe less, I guess, impacted avenues. So again, inheritance, probate, high equity. I would go after high equity, mail to high equity. I would mail to absentee homeowners. I would mail to divorce situation people going through a divorce. I would mail to trusts that are holding a property that was left in a will. So there's a difference between inheritance and probate. So, you need

to look after those. Now, who do you get those lists from? Well, there's companies online that you can go to. But you also have title companies have a lot of those lists. So, there's list providers that you can pay for. I think title companies you pay for. I use a database that we use to scrape those lists, scrape the county records to provide us those lists. And that's how you get those lists. And then lastly, as far as marketing is concerned, you have online social media type of marketing.

You have the Craigslist. You have Yahoo Real Estate. You have Redfin. You have sites that used to be around like RealtyTrack. But even more so, you have Facebook. You have LinkedIn. You have Twitter. And you can utilize them to find deals. Find deals, build relationships with realtors, with other investors that are also using those sites.

Oftentimes, I'll jump on Craigslist and I'll see a realtor put an ad on Craigslist before they're listing that listing on the MLS. So I'll jump on Craigslist and say, oh, okay, well, you know, they're giving us, quote unquote, a pocket listing. So I'll contact them about that listing specifically, but also about future listings, letting them know here, I'm right here in Scottsdale, Arizona. I'm real. I fund fast. I close quick. We've done almost 50 deals this year. Send me those deals, those listings before you list it on the MLS. And you will be able to network through online websites as well as social media to get those listings, to get wholesalers to send you deals. Utilize online marketing as much as you can, as much as you can. And then lastly, guys, I wanted to focus on a subject about finding deals that is close to my heart. A lot of people will take a look

at deals and they find deals and then they make the argument that they're not deals. Well, it all depends on how you are looking at that property. First and foremost, guys, never let anyone else tell you the value of that home ever. Never let someone do that. Always do your own research. But what I specifically think more investors need to do and what I feel will take your business to the next level is re-addressing how you're looking at the home. Adjust the goggles you're looking at that specific home with. I'll give you a very good example. We bought a home, I think, three or four weeks ago that was a 3-1. Now, typically, we stay away from 3-1s, but this 3-1 happened to be in a very good area. So, I would say, typically, we would have just looked at the fact that it was a 3-1

and not looked any further. We would have just stopped and said, we don't want it. But we looked at the area and we said, okay, well, that's a great area. The area is Arcadia, which is a very affluent area here in Phoenix, Arizona. And we said, how can we make this a deal? And we looked at it about adding on a bathroom because that's how you make this a deal. Now, what we have to do then is, you know, figure out dollar per square foot to build and then the actual rehab budget and then to figure out if there's any room to do that, to add on the extra square footage. But then the focal point about what I want to talk about is it changes how you run your comps,

how you're analyzing the deal. Because no longer are you simply looking for comps of 3-1, you're now looking for comps of 3-2s. Or another deal, we actually added a bedroom and a bathroom. So now it's a four two is another deal that we recently did. And so it's changing how we're looking at specific deals, right? And I think right now that's got to be everyone's focus. This is really how you're finding deals in today's market. Again, I've coached hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of students across the nation. In between Eddie

and myself, we've definitely coached thousands of students. And everyone gives the same argument, we can't find deals. Well, change the glasses that you're looking at those deals with. Instead of just saying there's no comps to support it, start looking at those deals possibly with added square footage. Put on a bedroom, put on a bathroom, add a pool add to the home so that the comps no longer are a 3-1 comp or even a 3-2 comp add a bedroom and you have 4-2 comps now sometimes that makes that deal a home run sometimes it doesn't sometimes it doesn't matter what you do. It is just not a deal and that's okay. But I really want everyone out there. In my opinion, guys, this is exactly how you take your business to the next level. I know I have listeners that are rookie investors

that have never done a deal or maybe have done one deal. I know I have investors that have been investing over the last 20 years or I have investors that have been investing over the last 20 years or I have listeners that have been investing over the last 20 years and they've done hundreds of deals. This is how you take your business from doing two deals a year to six deals a year or how you take your business from doing 10 deals a year to 20 deals a year or in our business here in Phoenix, Arizona, we took our business from 2011, we did 46 deals. In 2012, we did 96 deals. That's how we did it. We started readjusting

on how we were looking at these properties that were being sent to us from wholesalers, that were looking at the auction steps that are on the MLS, and we're saying, we need to figure out how to make these deals. It's now a seller's market, right? We can all agree on that. So we got to figure out, how do we make these deals deals? So I strongly urge you guys, start adjusting how you're looking at these listings, how you're looking at the homes down at auction,

how you're looking at the homes that are auction, how you're looking at the homes that are being sent to you from wholesalers. And adjust what you would do to those homes. One of the things that, you know, a very successful investor here in Phoenix, all he focuses on are homes he can tear down and rebuild.

Completely rebuild. Not just rehab, but rebuild. And that is another way to look at a specific deal. So if you think, oh, the home is too old, I don't buy homes in that age range. Well, maybe again, adjust how you're looking at that. Maybe you're not necessarily buying that home for rehab, but you're buying that home to tear down to build a brand new home. Now that brings you in a little different category. You got to figure out what it's going to cost you per square foot to build. But again, I hear over and over, there's no deals out there. I can't find a deal. In my opinion, adjust how you're looking at it. Put on a different set of glasses and adjust how you're looking at it, guys. All right, well, that's about enough for today, guys. This has been

the Science of Flipping podcast. I've been your host, Justin Colby. I truly appreciate all of you that are on this podcast, listening to this podcast. Again, go to our website, thescienceofflipping.com. Download what I would consider the most important e-book you can download. The 15 Most Costly Mistakes Real Estate Investors Make. Get over there, download that today, and we'll see you at the next podcast. Bye, guys.