Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast

Looping your wife in on a new property is one surefire way to avoid buying a dumpster fire. Jay Adkins learned that when he bought a sob story and a rural home from a down-on-her-luck seller for $6500. Investing in small towns can be a solid way to build a portfolio, but there are some pitfalls you’ll want to avoid.When Jay and Annie bought the house, it wasn’t entirely sight unseen. They did have pictures, but they didn’t realize just how old those pictures were. The moment Jay saw the house for the first time, he knew that paying for a $350 inspection would’ve saved him the headache that this house became.Not only was the heat turned off, but it was winter and the pipes had all burst, including the hot water heater. And getting a construction crew out to the property, which was 2 ½ hours away from their home, was more difficult than Jay and Annie anticipated. Sending crews out to the town meant an overnight stay so that they could get in a full day’s work.Included in this saga (which you don’t want to miss)

The mentor of my mentor is Tim Grimmett, a St. Louis area investor since 1999. Earlier this year, TIm purchased a house for $5,000. The kitchen was burned out of the house, but it had good solid bones. He knew it’d only take about $7,000 to get the house into renting condition, and when all was said and done, he could rent the 3 bedroom house for $850.The morning after the closing, Tim woke up and remembered that he needed to purchase home insurance, so he contacted his agent who agreed to back date the coverage to midnight. Then Tim’s assistant called to say that at 7 pm the night before, an enormous tree had fallen on the house.According to real estate law, the moment you sign at the closing, that’s when the sale is consummated. Even if the money hasn’t transferred, everything that happens to the house is your responsibility. Luckily, with Covid shutdowns in place, Tim had nothing else to do but get this house back into shape.Doing good things in your community will come back to you in spades. Again and aga

For six years, Lisa Even has worked specifically with distressed properties in the Phoenix market. Weird clouds on the title or city violations don’t scare her because those usually mean that the seller is having a harder time getting rid of the property.This particular property was vacant and had a number of city violations, which made it a hot lead because it meant that it wasn’t being taken care of at all. At the time, Lisa went and physically knocked on the door of the woman who filed for probate because that’s how she operated at the time. Up until this time, she’d always operated under the assumption that someone who filed probate was an heir to the estate.Except for this property. The long-time tenant had attempted to quit claim a deed from herself to herself, and you cannot actually do that. Well, you can go buy a form from Office Depot and pretend, but the title company isn’t going to go along with your plan.And yet, even though the quit claim deed wasn’t valid, the long-time tenant did have a verbal

Bill Allen has turned house flipping into a 7 figure business with his companies 7 Figure Flip, Flip Hacking Live, and Black Jack Real Estate. He takes pride in the rehab work his company does, so when he was accused of selling a house with rotten siding, he felt like his reputation was at stake.The Boca Raton house was a difficult flip from the beginning. As a larger, nicer home in a vacation area, buyers could afford to be picky about what they wanted because there were plenty of houses to choose from. During the rehab, Bill came across some wood rot because, like many homes on the ocean, the constant exposure to rain and damp ocean air wreaks havoc on the siding. But after three separate inspections, Bill felt confident that he’d done his due diligence to repair the house.Maybe it was the fact that he was a “big, bad flipper”, or maybe it was his high-profile in the real estate world, but when a lawsuit tracked him down two years later, Bill knew that the charges were false. He was determined to make the s

I’ve always said there are 3 keys to success in this business: marketing, automation and delegation. Gavin and I have been working together for 5 plus years now actively doing deals and these three keys are our holy grail. And after all these years in the business and living up to those 3 keys, we’re now known for setting up the marketing, the systems and the people to do the work for us, in spite of us.Gavin and I are doing deals left and right which may sound like we’re both putting in a lot of hours of work. No, we’re not. We’ve got marketing, systems and people in place doing all that for us virtually. This can happen for you and your real estate business too.So, we’re doing a real quick, fast, easy, cut and dry and super simple implementation model where we take our systems, give them to you, set them up for you and help you get started in making money. So if you’re ready to kick start your REI business or need more information, go to:https://REINetwork.com/systems

In 2010, when the real estate market was still a little wild from the crash, Justin Lee found a great deal from another wholesaler. After a 45-minutes drive to see the property, he felt pretty confident purchasing it outright with cash. The property closed with no hint of trouble, until he went to sell the property and Deutsche Bank stepped in to say that he didn’t even own it.Scammed out of the cash, Justin had one thing in his corner: he’d purchased title insurance. For a year and a half, the lawyer’s fees piled up as Justin battled with the bank over who actually owned this house. And the title company picked up the bill.Justin is a huge, huge fan of using title companies to protect his transactions. After nearly losing the entire $270,000 he’d borrowed from a hard money lender, Justin talks about why you should always buy a lender’s and an owner’s policy. Not only does it protect your money, it also relieves you of the months and months of stress, plus the time you might have spent talking to the FBI and

With every sibling seemingly in agreement, Ester Telles from Ester Buys Houses held a Zoom meeting to agree on a purchase price for the family home. But one reluctant sibling decided to throw a wrench in the plans.With 7 siblings, there are bound to be family dynamics going on behind the scenes. One of the siblings was going through a bankruptcy in secret, and her bankruptcy was going to complicate her part of the deal. But she didn’t want anyone else in the family to know. If you’re sneaky about a special deal, karma is going to get you, says Ester.Ester’s had more than a few lessons that she’s learned over the years. She shares about the first and only rehab deal that she did with a couple of partners. That whole saying of too many cooks in the kitchen also applies to rehab jobs. Too many bosses giving orders caused tremendous scope creep and confusion. And in the end, how many wholesale deals could she have done in the 4 months it took her to get the rehab job done?Getting sidetracked by deals that were dr

When he went looking for a way to free himself from cubicle-hell, David Ounanian settled on the BRRRR method: buy a house, rehab it, rent it out, then refinance it and repeat it all over again. With each house estimated to cash flow at $200-300, David knew he just needed a small portfolio to replace his W-2 job.But of course, this is the Deals Gone Bad series, and you know that simply picking a strategy and finding a house is going to be the easiest part of the deal. After months and months of analysis paralysis, David’s wife insisted he pull the trigger, so he bought a $45,000 house in a class C neighborhood. The wholesaler he purchased the house from told him it would take $20,000 to make the house liveable, so David gave himself a conservative budget of $25,000 to get the job done.How much would you estimate for foundation damage? Or new clay sewer pipes? Or repairing a chimney? Or pouring a new driveway to comply with a brand-new city ordinance? As the costs began to mount up, David thought he was going t

Even though Harry King wasn’t a newbie to real estate investing, he realized that having a coach would help him break through some barriers. Harry had been buying short sales, and he didn’t have a marketing plan in place to provide a steady amount of leads for his company. Combining our marketing plan with his massive action-taking-self has really exploded his growth.Calling up cold leads, nurturing them to warm leads, and keeping track of hot leads all take time. And Harry often finds himself juggling 60+ leads trying to keep them fresh. He and Gavin talk about how he manages his time to maximize the work he needs to put into his leads.Listen to some of Harry’s biggest takeaways from working with us, including:—Improved accountability—Contracts and support—Implementing a marketing plan—Better time managementYou can literally hear Harry’s phone voice keep the conversation that he and Gavin are having on an even keel. Harry credits that smooth voice for helping him control conversations with sellers. As he exp

The deal’s numbers seemed solid to Rick Ginn from Flip with Rick from the start. The house’s PITI was $960, and the rents in the area were between $1400-$1500. It had great cash flow and the seller didn’t want to make another mortgage payment. Because she didn’t have enough equity, Rick did a subject-to on the house.Rick does not love being a landlord. He has a hard time saying no to tenants, and he’s inclined to believe their stories. So he turned to someone else to help him get his new property rented out. And when a buyer offered to pay a year’s rent upfront, Rick was just thrilled.The first inkling he had that something was going down at the house was when he saw his company’s name and a picture of the house on the front page of his town’s newspaper. The next clue was when the FBI called him up to talk about his role in their newest drug bust.It’s hard to decide which was more stressful for Rick: the potential damage to his reputation or the real damage he had to repair on the property. With six HVAC syst

A two-for-one package deal seemed like a dream come true for Jazmine Gittens. There’s already some difficulty finding properties in Newark, New Jersey, so Jazmine was thrilled when the landlord assured her that both properties, which were located near each other, were also in similar condition.In fact, Jazmine was so confident about the houses that she scheduled both open houses within thirty minutes of each without ever having stepped foot in the second house. But the minute she walked into the second house, the smell just knocked everyone back and her buyers turned around and walked out.Even though she was a newer real estate wholesaler, Jazmine had some amazing protections in place. She used every tool at her disposal, and you’re going to learn why you should:—Do your own due diligence.—Collect earnest money deposits.—Continue marketing in case deals fall through.—Assume that every house needs a full gut rehab.Deals can go bad, but when you put in some guardrails like Jazmine did, deals can also be redeeme

How do you sell a property when you know someone died there? Even better, how can you even conceal it when the real estate investors are on the property when the body is discovered?Any deal can be rescued when there’s enough meat on the bone to account for extenuating circumstances. That’s what Nick Perry says about the $75,000 spread he was expecting from a motivated seller in Louisiana, but that turned into something else entirely when someone disappeared on the wooded property.There’s always some risk when you’re wholesaling in your own city, but virtual wholesaling can get even more exciting when you don’t know the history of an area or a house. Nick talks about the lessons he and his team learned when they had to manage a rocky deal long distance.Going forward, he’s put in some additional steps to protect himself for the next time a body might turn up on one of his properties. I hope you’re loving all of these stories because the advice coming out of them is absolutely golden. For a copy of all of the De

When a Realtor contacted Todd Toback about a deal that was falling through to see if he wanted it, he couldn’t see any downsides. The California house was built next to a landfill, sure, but it was worth $550,000 and they were selling it for $180,000. Even if he just rented it out forever, he’d always be in cash flow heaven.But when it came time to rent out the home, Todd didn’t want to pay a property management company the first month’s rent. So he listed it himself on Craigslist. Todd wants you to know one of the biggest lessons that he learned is that landlords should never be dealing with tenants. From the beginning, his tenants had his personal phone number and access to information that put him on a path to a crazy lawsuit.When you’re a one man show, then you’re in a sea of information and you can’t figure out where you’re at. You have to be good at marketing, at rehabbing, at being a landlord, at contracts, and everything else. Instead, Todd says you should figure out which of the four areas of real es

Coming out of Louisville, Kentucky, Beau Hollis has not one, but three bad deals for you to feast on today. There are so many lessons you can learn from Beau’s generous sharing of some of his biggest mistakes, so I hope you’re taking down notes so that you can avoid the litigation nightmare he’s been through.One of my favorite sayings is “A lack of humility leads to humiliation.” Beau’s very good at finding deeply discounted properties, getting them under contract, and having a proven exit strategy. Rather than wholesaling or even wholetaling a hoarder’s home in a great neighborhood, he decided to rehab the entire property. But he didn’t get the scope of the work to be done in writing beforehand, and every mistake led to a more costly mistake.If you need private money to refinance and get out of a project, you need those relationships already in place before a refinance becomes your only choice. That’s why networking and talking with people on the phone should be one of your biggest priorities. When Beau real

To protect himself against a worst case scenario, Shane Garza from Shane the House Buyer had built in a $10,000 contingency plan to replace an aging septic system. But replacing the septic system in a 1962 house is actually not the worst scenario you can find yourself in when you skip the due diligence. Imagine having no septic at all, including no tanks, no way to hook up to a city sewer, and soil tests that prohibit you from putting in a septic system.After concluding that the only way to fix the problem was to purchase the house next door for $200,000, Shane received a little mercy from another investor. Shane talks about the lessons learned from this septic debacle, including why local networks and local hard money lenders can help you avoid these pitfalls.He recommends that newer investors get in the back seat and go along for the ride until they feel comfortable. Use those local relationships to find mentors who will steer you away from expensive mistakes. And whatever you do, don’t skip the seller’s di

One of the reasons that Gavin is able to travel around the US is because he’s set himself up as a virtual wholesaler. His team is all over the world supporting his business and sending him warm leads that are ready for offers. He interviews two of his VAs today to talk about their training and strategies for having natural conversations with sellers.Gavin really believes that the money is in the follow up, which is why he invests so much time and training in touching base with sellers who aren’t quite ready, but might be soon. Tools like my CRM REI Simple and Podio help his VAs keep good notes to refer to when they call a seller back. It’s going to be rare that a seller is ready to commit to an offer on your first contact, so if you don’t have a system to track your conversations with them, it’ll be harder to build that rapport that you need.LJ and Ralph give their best tips for nurturing conversations with sellers, and working with a virtual team. Gavin’s going to try an experiment where he goes back to a CR

Don’t overcomplicate finding the ARV. In fact, don’t over complicate or over think anything about real estate. In the last episode of my Virtual Profits Workshop, Gavin Timms and I are going to teach you the most uncomplicated strategies you need to get started and scale up in real estate.At this point in my real estate career, I can just glance at pictures of a house and know exactly the kind of repairs it will need to be put back on the market. You don’t need to waste your time by driving out to a property and inspecting it. I’m going to teach you my super simple equation for estimating the after repair value that will put you within 5-10% of the actual price.There are three ways to make cash offers. And since I want you to make a minimum of five offers a day, you should get really comfortable with these three methods because they’ll make your life a lot easier:—Use the MAO formula.—Calculate the average of the lowest 4 solds times 80%.—Ask your local investors what they’d pay for it and then subtract ten g

Our students Gigi and Steve are both proof that there is no certain mold you have to fit to be a real estate investor. As new wholesalers, Gigi and Steve both came from very different backgrounds. An ER doctor, Gigi picked wholesaling because it was a completely new field that challenged her. And Steve had to learn to embrace technology, or at least find some ways to work around his technophobia.Both Gigi and Steve have built teams that play off their specific strengths. Steve loves talking to sellers, so we’ve created a team for him that just feeds him homeowners ready to sell. A master at building relationships and rapport, listen to how Steve is able to find a new buyer in only a half hour, and still manages to close a property on time.Gigi is willing to try anything once, and that’s how she found herself with her first double close that let her make $24,000 without bringing a dime of her own funds to the table. We built a team around her that helps her improve her follow up system and stay on top of the o

Our criteria for a deal always starts with: Can we find a buyer for it? By focusing on what your buyers want and shopping for that target, you’ll always be able to sell your lease options. In part 4 of our Virtual Profits Workshop, we’re going to cover how to find buyers, and how to talk to sellers.There are two main reasons that you can’t sell a deal. Most commonly, it’s just straight up overpriced. If the house is on the market for a couple of months, you’re going to have to come down in price to get it to move. The second reason is that you’re not marketing it in front of the right people.So let’s talk about how to get more eyeballs on your property. Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Buy/Sell/Trade groups, bandit signs in front of the house, and the classics Craisglist and Zillow are still great places to advertise a house. Property managers and Realtors are also great resources for helping you build a buyer’s list.Gavin is a master at helping sellers talk about their motivations for selling. Before you pick

When a tenant stops paying the rent, a landlord has to get the eviction process started by filing papers with the court. When one of Scott Meyers’s customers stops paying for their storage unit, Scott just puts a padlock on their unit, and then he can sell everything and recoup his costs if they can’t come up with the rent. Self-storage is a whole different ball game in real estate, and that’s why Scott’s been all-in for nearly thirty years.Forget the picture of tin boxes on the edge of suburbia. Today’s self-storage units are bright and shiny, climate-controlled units in the middle of town next to churches and shopping malls. One in ten households rents a storage unit, and they’ve become so essential that they’re now considered a part of a city’s master plan. When the economy’s booming, self-storage units are in demand to handle all of the extra stuff people are buying. When the economy’s down, they’re still in demand as folks downsize apartments or move home briefly to make it through a rough patch.For both