The McDonald’s Worker Who Built an $8M Real Estate Empire | Derek Boone E299

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Welcome to the Welltu podcast, where we talk real estate, business, entrepreneurship, and building a better life. Living life on your own terms is a choice. We're bringing you the blueprint and success stories of those who are doing just that. We hope you enjoy the show.

Derek, officially welcome to the Wealth Juice podcast. Corey and I are stoked to have you on the show today, man. So really appreciate you joining us.

I'm, I'm grateful for being here. I love just getting on podcasts for a couple different reasons. One, and the people, the one reason, the reason that I have are probably not the reason people have. A lot of people want to get on a podcast because they want to talk about themselves, brag about themselves, and just, you know, go all in about themselves. For me, I don't really like talking about myself too much. I like getting on not because I'm, you know, I don't think I do amazing things. I do. But I like getting on podcasts because I understand that years ago it was podcasts that kick started me. I was listening to podcasts every day. I'm talking about for the year 2016. I didn't know what music was going on. I didn't know what basketball games, football games, baseball. I didn't know about celebrity. I knew nothing. All I did was listen to podcasts every single day on my way to work, leaving the work, going to sleep. Podcasts were on and that's what kickstarted me. So when I get on these podcasts, I'm not getting on here just to brag about myself. I'm getting here talking directly to me back in 2016 because I knew what it did for me. So that, that's really why I love doing these. Love it, man.

We, I, I, I can appreciate that, by the way, because I did the same exact thing a few years later. 2017, 2018, 2019. Like it. I felt like 18 months and I had three hours a day where I was just like consuming so much. And that kind of kickstarted for me too. But then there's the next layer, Derek. Like, there's the next level. It's like you can listen to all the stuff you want and sparks some inspiration for people. But what we really want to get into is like how you actually took the action. So for people that don't know, you just tell us a little bit about yourself. We're actually both were, you know, we found out in the last few months that we're both in Philadelphia. I'm not born and raised in Philadelphia. Just outside. You have that Philly accent. So I can tell you're from the city or around the city, but just tell us a little bit about yourself. I think people want to get to know you a little bit. Quick break from the episode to tell you about something we're really excited about. We just launched the Wealth Juice Real Estate Network, a brand new online community hosted on Skool that's S K O o l built to connect aspiring investors, experienced investors and investor friendly agents all in one place. Here's why we created this if you're an aspiring investor, you've probably felt overwhelmed with where to start, who to trust, how to find your first deal. Inside this group. You'll get connected with the right people, see real deals being shared, and build confidence by learning alongside others who have already taken action. If you're a current investor, you know your next deal often comes from your network. This is the place to build relationships with agents, wholesalers, lenders and serious investors so you can expand your deal flow and scale faster. And if you're an agent who works with investors, this is where you'll want to be. Build your brand, showcase your listings, connect directly with people actively looking to buy. You'll stand out and grow your pipeline with the right kind of clients. We built this to give massive value for less than a dollar a day, just $27 a month and it's already packed with action takers from our podcasts, social platforms and personal investing circle. So if you're ready to grow your connection, see more deals and surround yourself with a serious community who are actively doing deals, hit the link in our show notes and join the Wealth Juiced Real Estate Investor Network today. We'll see you inside.

Everybody says accent. I don't get it but but so my name is Derek Bowen. I'm a real estate investor here in Philadelphia. All of my real estate is in Philadelphia. I'm actually about to close my first investment property in why I live in New Jersey, but my first investment property is going to be in New Jersey. I close on it either this Friday or like Monday or Tuesday, whatever days we put together. But all my properties are in Philadelphia. When I say in Philadelphia I mean like between two zip codes. I bought all my houses pretty much in the same two zip codes. I have like little other look small little pieces in other zip codes but the bulk of everything. Like I have properties that like a couple in the same block so I believe in proximity so I want to keep everything close by so we can go from one house to the next house or like even When I was just talking to you guys just now, like, I was able to run to one house, come back to here to run this one. I like to keep everything close for contractor reasons, efficiency reasons, time reasons, and also numbers wise. I know the numbers like the back of my hand. I literally have won multiple, multiple, multiple appraisal disputes because you can't tell me, like, I got the house across the street, here's the appraisal from there, here's the numbers from there, here's the proof. So you can't. So it makes it a lot easier for people that are just getting started to try to stick in the one zip code. I mean, in the beginning you're like, hey, look, I gotta do whatever I gotta do, but try to stick in one zip code. Because it makes things a lot easier. Trust me. But I got started real estate in 2016. I was working at a job, working at a retirement home. I was making $10 per hour. Before that, I worked at McDonald's. But the thing that really made me want to go ahead and start was I just kind of was fed up. And I think everybody has that moment where they're just like, fed up. But a lot of people run from the fed up moment or get in a victim mode. I utilize that as power. So my back was against the wall. So now I have nothing to do but use that as leverage to push off of it. So now I literally just consumed podcast information. Just game, game, game. It was to the point. My job shift was 7am to 3pm I had a lunch break from 1 to 2. I used my entire lunch break just reading books, just learning, studying. I actually had this picture that, you know, I still have. My best friend took a picture of me on lunch break, like as a joke. It's like, yo, this guy's always on lunch break. He never talks to none of it. He just in there, just studying in a break room. And I use that in my presentation sometimes. Like, yo, this is, this is the real deal. Like how I got started, I used to put headphones on, not because I was listening to anything. It's because I didn't want anybody to talk to me because it's like, he's busy, Leave him alone. And that's what I really would do. But I love my journey because I've done every aspect of real estate. It makes me well versed and I can teach and I can help people. But then also I've seen every avenue that you guys can think of. So in 2016, I went to this, this class Is this guy in the head. His name was Anthony, and it was how to buy your first duplex class. And I'm just like, you know what? This is the thing. I'm an investor, multifamily. Everybody just. That's this thing. So I went to that class, and surprising enough, I talked to him after class. And this is for everybody listening. You can listen as much information you want, but at some point, you have to execute. So I listened to the class. I said, let me talk to him, and let me actually see how we can connect now. We can build. And surprise enough, he says something to me that kind of messed me up. He said, look, you should get his real estate agent thing a try. I said, bro, no disrespect, but I came here to invest. I'm not trying to help someone else build wealth. I'm trying to go and do that. And he said, no. The way you weren't scared to come and talk to me, you came here with nice clothes on. Like, it just gave. Professional. He said, look, you should give this a shot. And the one thing everybody has to realize is you can't seek information from someone and then don't do it. That's insane. Like, why did you even come there to begin with? So now I said, you know, let me give this a try. Um, literally the next month, that was December 2016. The next month, like, January, I went and did the classes. Real estate class, real estate agent classes. Take two classes, like, three weeks each. So pretty much within two months, I passed the classes. But the problem was I had to take the state in the nationwide exam. I failed them, like, eight or nine times. Half of it was my fault. I would just walk in and walk out. Like, I'm like, this is nothing. I kept losing by one point. So when you lose so close, when you fail so close, you don't feel like you need to study. Like, I'm gonna just. And I kept just saying, I'm. I'm gonna pay. I'm only a point or two or three. And then that's when I finally said, look, let me stop being cocky. Let me actually study. So I actually finally studied. That's when I finally passed on the ninth time. Crazy. But I got licensed March 2017. So when I tell people about real estate, I said, I got started in 2016 because that's one of my light. The light bulb switch. And I started learning and listening everything. But when I actually first started, like, selling houses was April 2017, the first house I ever sold as a real estate agent, I got licensed March 2017. I sold my first house the end of April20. So pretty much within two months I sold my first deal. First deal was like $3,000 or 20 $800 small house. I got a 3% commission, had to give a little piece of that away. And, and it's funny because my, the biggest check I ever made at my job at the retirement was 1500. And I live, I work 7 to 7am to 10pm every single day. That was, I did overtime for two weeks straight. That was my biggest check to now working a frank well, doing what I love and not living in these houses and making 20 little over $2,000. Light bulb moment. This is what I'm doing the rest of my life. That first year from April 2017 to December, I sold like 20 something houses just locked. Boom, boom. 2018 I went ahead and doubled that. 2019 I went and double doubled that. I built the team, had agents under me, started selling houses under me. But the thing that really transitioned. This is part two. I went to this guy, came to my office. I was, I was under Keller Williams. He came to my office and he was meeting someone else. But the way Keller Williams worked on weekends, you had to have a five like to get in and get out. So I walked him down, I said he had basketball shorts on, like a hoodie on. And he just telling me he just closed the deal, made like 17,000. I'm like, I just closed the deal. I got a suit on, I just made seven, eight grand commission. How do you make 17,000? He said, I wholesale. Never knew what the hell that was. It blew my whole mind. I'm like, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Of course, the same thing. I don't seek information, not do it. So I connected with him, we built, me and him ended up partnering together. We started a whole wholesale coming together wholesale, a bunch of houses. And then that's when I had this month. It was like 2020. It was like before the pandemic. 2020, 2021. It was my birthday month, December. And seemed like everything happens in December when I had these, like these shifts.

He.

I had about three or four transactions terminate wholesale deals, about $60,000 worth of deals. And at that moment I was like, I can't keep. Like I don't like the fact that someone can just say, I'm not buying a house no more and they lose a deposit. But it still does not like people think, oh, I still got the $2,000 deposit, but I want the 60,000. I want the. So I said, you know what? I'm going to turn into a buyer, and I'm going to start buying these own houses. I'm the decision maker. I don't like being reliant on someone else that's coming through for me to make money. So then I just want to start buying houses. And that's where we at now we own. At one point a couple months ago, at the top of this year, we had a little over $8 million worth of houses. We're down about a million because I sold one, I sold two, I sold two. I sold two triplexes in a duplex, which is about one, was one, was 400, one was four. So, yeah, about a million dollars worth. And now I'm down to seven, I guess so. And that's where we are right now.

Love it, man. I love the transition. And Ry talks about this all the time where he goes like, okay, something similar to what you said. Like, you. You hear information. It sounds great. You. But writing it down and then going and actually doing it is the. Is the separating factor. Because 99 of people will hear something, oh, that sounds good. Oh, I think I should do this. But the actual action that was taken, I'm curious if there's something that you can point to that allowed you to tap into that. Like, was it just. Is it something explainable? Is it. Is it a way that you were brought up? Like, how did you decide that? Hey, I'm not just going to be one of the outsiders looking in, thinking, you know, 20 years from now, man, I really wish I would have got involved in real estate. Like, what made you actually make the move? Can you pinpoint that?

Two things. So one, I. True, this might be a raw kind of harsh saying this, but if it's not death, I'm not scared. Like, a lot of people are scared to try new things. The way I look at it, like, if I do this, am I gonna die? No. Then let me just give it a shot. I will literally try anything. I'm not. The only thing I won't try is onions. I just don't like if it is not death. I'm like, I don't mind trying. I don't mind spending money. I don't mind investing. I don't mind trying. It's literally times where I will meet somebody at a networking event. They're talking about a whole bunch of great stuff, and I just walk up to them, like, how much it costs. Actually at immersion. The guy was speaking. I went to his website. I Figured out he had a 2,500 consultation link. I could have talked to him at the event. And we end up talking at the event. I just paid the link and I walked up to him and showed him the phone. He said, how the hell you even find that? I said, bro, let's set up a time. The time we do it is irrelevant. I just want to let you know that I'm trying to learn some more stuff. I'm trying to execute. It blew his mind because he was like, how? How did you just do this? Look, listen, I'm trying to lock in. So that's the thing with me. I don't mind trying new things. Like the. The best, the worst thing that happens. Hey, I'm out a couple dollars. But I'm learned something. I'm getting some. And the thing about me is I don't leave you ever. You ever seen that meme where it says denzel says I'm leaving with something? That's me. I'm leaving with something. Like, even from what we're talking about today, I'm going to take a gym out of something. Y' all said from your podcast equipment to even I like your head to something. I'm going to get something out of this because I need to go home.

Up.

And when I say up, it doesn't necessarily mean money. I need to go back home. Like, I'm up on information. I'm up one. I'm in more shape. I went to the gym. I'm up on. I connected with a new person. I need to go back home with something. I'm not going in the house. Down. Anything. That's just not happening. So that's just the thing with me. And then the other piece behind it is I worked. I worked at a retirement home. Before that, I worked at McDonald's. And then I went to Penn State avenue tonight at 0.8 GPA, to be honest with you, super transparent. I would just go to the first class and leave. It's not because I couldn't do the work. The crazy thing I just was just, you know, just dumb. Just going to class, leave, not really taking serious. So when you think about it, I didn't really have too many other options. So it's not like I can just. And I'm not downplaying anybody has a degree or had a good job before this, but my resume, I don't really have a resume. Hey, I worked at McDonald's or hey, I don't have a college degree. So the options were kind of limited. So I Had to make this work because it's not like I can go apply for Comcast and get a nice six figure engineer job or something like that.

Yeah, I think that's important to note, man, because they, I forget the saying, but it's like the, the salary is the drug they give you to forget your dreams or whatever. So there's a lot of people that are accomplished and Maybe they're making 150 grand or 200 grand and they're in this comfortable mode. And people have said to me, like, that's the most dangerous place be in because your back's not against the wall. You can survive, you can thrive, you can do things. But like, are you really gonna like ascend to the highest level of like what your potential is? And I, I found that I've talked to a lot of people that had their backs against the wall, like truly backs against the wall. Not like we've had a couple bad months in business, like, hey, like I don't have other options. I can't, like this is, this is, I have to make this work. And those are the people that typically do, man. So I got to commend you. I think that's, that's beautifully said. And it's, it's important to note that I'm curious about what you're focused on now. So you, you built this portfolio, you sold off a couple. Like, where do you, you know, where do you see like opportunity in the market? Are you wholesaling? Are you flipping? Are you just buying rentals? Like, what's the thing that you're working on now as we, you know, roll through halfway through 20, 25 here?

So where I'm at right now is trying to maximize income from buildings that I have. So at one point, all our goals was 1000 units, 2000 units every. At one point, everybody wanted that. But what I'm realizing is from traveling, going to places like Arizona and going all around the world, we have a problem in Philly. I would say that specifically we have this problem that we feel the need that we need to over renovate and just regular rent. We make these units flippable, these apartments flippable, these rental properties flippable. Me and my friend talk about this all the time. Like a couple years ago when we first started, it's like, why were we putting this flip grade houses together and renting them out for 1300amonth, 1400, 1500amonth, 1200amonth? It made no sense. And when I started traveling and meeting with different people, like they're not putting the, like it's all, of, it's nice, it's clean. But they're not putting like for example, my units. I put baseboards there and I put a square edge molding quarter round. Like they're not even putting quarter round in some of these houses. They're not. They're using regular doorknobs. We're using the, the, the handles. We're might put gold handles on. I'm putting shower panels in the bed. Like we're making these things nice. But we're getting the same rents. Where I go out of town and people are making these things. I'm talking about the most basic stuff but clean carp. Like clean but basic. And they're running these 1900, $2,000 a month. And I'm like, yo, the mortgage loan payment is low, but the rents are high. So now I changed my model. You don't need a thousand units at 200 cash, 300 cash flow a month. How can we get less units and try to make a thousand per door, 1500 per door, things like that. So now I have buildings where we're getting. I have some single family houses where I'm making 900, 800 profit for a two bed, one bed for. I got a duplexes where I'm making 1900 cash flow. Like I'm going in. I'm thinking like, okay, how can I get less units but make three for your units. One of mines. One of my buildings I have is a commercial mixed use building. It's three apartments upstairs. We're about to start leasing this. I'm waiting for Pico to turn a power on. We're putting an event space. So one of the things I do, I've been doing since 2019 is event space business. So people run out for parties and stuff like that. I had one on Broad street. But this building specifically, I'm gonna make the whole first floor event space and then the other units apartment. So this building can pump out money versus just trying to do, hey, I'm gonna rent it to somebody for $2,000. And I can't like it's. That's how I'm thinking right now. So that's one piece about it. And I'm actually about to start my first very new build. I'm excited about this. So I'm just trying to get into more of the development space. The good thing about this good thing and bad thing, I taught a lot of people how to wholesale. That's the good thing. The bad thing is they sent all the deals to me. So I. So for the last couple years, I've been buying land all over because they're selling to me 10 grand, 30 grand, 40 grand. I just been buying them and just land banking. So I'm finally. I've been scared. I'm. Be honest, I was scared. I finally took the fear away and now I'm about to start doing my first new build. The permits and plans just came back last week. I just paid for them. So I just sent everything over to the gc. So we're finalizing the numbers and we're gonna go ahead and get started.

So that's, that's, that's awesome. You're, you know, you just, like you said, you're not afraid to do it and you're doing a bunch of different things. I just talked about this in our community about optimization of your existing portfolio. I don't care if you have two units, three units, one unit, 100 units. But for example, like, we're in Philadelphia and that's why we connected. But like, I live a couple miles from Jefferson University, a couple miles from St. Joe's University. You know, it's five miles from. From Villanova, right near LA. I say all this to say I can rent my property out for probably like my primary once I leave for I could probably make 7, $800 a month from a long term rental. But you have all these traveling nurses and construction teams that are coming in and they're doing midterm. And you mentioned midterm. Like, you can turn that $700 a month into $1500 a month. Because Philadelphia is filled with hospitals and education institutions. So I love the optimization and maybe going a different route. I think that that is. Is oftentimes smarter for people rather for them to say like, oh, I have X amount of unit count. So, Rye, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to cut you out of this. Did you have any questions? Did you have any.

You guys are on a roll? No, it's good, man.

Okay.

I don't have anything on the top. I'll let you roll.

Yeah. Okay, cool. So I'm curious about, like, the way up here, Derek. Like, it's. This is you. You kind of hit a couple pivot points here. And when did you go from. You went from the agent stuff to wholesaling and then how did you get into the buying and the investing? Like, was there. Is that another, like, seismic shift that you made or just like along the way, some of these wholesale deals, you were like, all right, I actually need to keep this property. How did you learn the art of that? Because it's a little different than wholesaling.

The good thing about wholesaling is wholesalers are the best man positions. Because I have to make the numbers work for me. I have to make work numbers work for the seller and I have to make the numbers work for the buyer. So now it was easy for me to transition because if I'm running the numbers as a wholesale, I'm like, well, what if I just keep it? So that's kind of where that came from. But the main thing, like I said, I just wanted to start creating wealth for myself. And then along the way of doing transactions from wholesaling agent, I got rid of the actual goal. Because remember the first class I went to was how to buy a duplex. Along the way of making money without having a liability, I lost focus. And then I just said, you know what, let me get back to. My original plan was buying. So that's how. That's pretty much how that happened. I started buying properties, but the first property I ever, ever renovated and did a renovation on was a house I already own. So I was making money, making good money, and I moved out of a property that I own. Well, years before I started, I moved out of a property I owned and moved into an apartment complex. It's called Presidential on City Line Avenue. Yeah, that was my first luxury apartment, but I ever lived in. And sidebar with that, anybody that can afford it, I'll put like this. Move from out of wherever you're at and move into something a little better. Everyone looks at this differently. But when I tell you I've made some of the best connections, I don't know if you guys know, you see his bus all the time. Top dog law.

Yeah, yeah, we know. We.

Yeah, we know. Like this. I met him. Me and him lived in the same building. Like when he was starting, I was starting. We literally worked out every single day and we built together and we just will brainstorm ideas in the gym. You're not always going to meet them type of people wherever you're at now, I don't know where anybody's at, but just think of. I know where I was living at. Those type of people weren't my next door neighbor. So I had to go somewhere else. I met, I met him. The list goes on to so many people that was living at that building at that time. And we, we made. So I made more money than the rent I was getting there just from connections. But when I moved there I still had that property. I live, I lived in, in North Philly and a Strawberry mansion be exact. So what I did was I went to a hard money lender and I just said, hey, I have this house. They didn't trust me at all. But what they did trust, and this is some, this is some game for people. A lot of people are like hey look, I'm not a real estate investor. I don't have any experience as far as fixing up and rehabbing houses. And a lot of hard money lenders want to work with people that have experience. This is exactly what I said. I said hey look, I never renovated a property before, but I'm a real estate agent. I work with all those other investors. I'm on the job sites looking at what they're doing. Hey, I wholesale, I'm making sure the numbers work for the investors. I may not win the Home Depot myself, but I know these numbers like the back of my hand because I helped everybody else. That one line is what they honestly said. They said, hey look, we'll give you a shot because you do know some stuff even though you physically haven't done it. You know some stuff. They gave me my first hard money loan. I fixed up the house that I lived because it was just ranking, I was living there, it wasn't like nice fixed up nice. So I fixed it up fully cut, renovated the house and then refinanced it, put, put a tenant in there and I pulled out maybe like 20 or 30 grand. 20, maybe 20 something thousand dollars out of the house. My mortgage payment was 650 on the house once I refinanced it and I put a tenant in there for eleven hundred dollars. And that was my first time like actually doing a project from start to finish. I took that 20, 30 grand cash, I refinanced and then just, just said okay, we got cycle, kept going, just kept going and just kept going, just kept going, added some business credit in to get some bigger buildings and, and just kept going, just kept going from there.

I love it, dude. So you've touched on it a couple times. You talked about being a real estate agent. I'm curious, do you recommend people that want to get in the game, obviously get around people that have done what you're hoping to do, but outside of that, do you think people that are aspiring to be real estate investors become agents first to get access to the market or do you think they just go at it, you know, kind of mom and pop style?

If you don't like people, I should Say don't do it, don't do it. Because we have so much different software now and websites where you got the same information that agents have, if not more information that agents have. So if you're going to be an agent for MLS access, you don't need to shoot. Propstream has the same stuff as the mls. That's one. The second thing is the only way you get paid as an agent is if you help people. People I'm talking about. You might. It's been times where I showed one person 80 houses before they actually picked the house for us to buy. Like if you don't actually like people or want to build with people or don't want to help people, you're going to be pissed off the entire time. So I don't advise that. But if you don't mind helping people, it's a great business you can make, you can make good money showing some houses, getting commission off them or listing house to get a commission off. It is work, but it's. I, I enjoyed it for the, for the time being.

So I guess one of my things was Corey and I thought about pivoting a couple of times. We're getting our licenses just purely for referral reasons at this point. We've sent a lot of business to other people and so to make a little clip off that, that's one of the reasons. But for me the time to close seems long. For you just mentioned, hey, 80 properties for that one client to potentially make a couple grand. You're like, bro, what am I doing at this point? But if you're maybe in like the luxury market or something like that, I didn't know that there was some tact to it. You seem like you doubled every year. So I was curious kind of insight to why you stayed for so long doing that. And I guess it was just that aha moment you mentioned.

Because when you really look at. So one of my lenders told me this a while ago, he said when you're in the midst of. When you miss the things that's like, it's a little rough right now. You don't count just the rough stuff. You put everything together.

Look at the net.

What are the good with? I don't like using the word bad. What is the good with the rough? And look at the net. So like you might be in this deal, that's horrible. But if you did five other deals this year, you made 30 grand of each deal. You got this one deal when you only made five grand. Well, look at the net. That's the way you keep yourself from going crazy. So as a real estate agent, I've had clients where I showed them one house and we, we picked that house and we, we closed them. Right? How I had properties where I listed and they went and it got sold the first week on the market. So and then I had some clients where I showed them out of 80 houses. But when you look at the overall things like, dang, do I quit because I had one bad thing, but I had like 10 other good opportunities. And then also too, I'm big on optimization. So what I mean is how can I, and this is some really good information for someone. How can I think of ways to make this streamline and make this easier and look at every single week, honestly, every day, but for sure, every single week, you should look back on what went well this week and what went a little rough this week and why did it go rough? So the person I showed 80 houses to was someone. And I look back at this was, okay, the reason why I showed them 80 house because they were indecisive, because there was some good houses, they just was indecisive. They didn't really know what they wanted. So then I started having heart to heart heart conversations with clients in the beginning where some agents are scared to do that because they don't want to run off their business. And I would have, hey, Ryan, look, before we go and see any house, I need you to go ahead and let's have a meeting with you and every other decision, maybe your wife, your husband, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mom, your uncle, whoever is that decision maker that that plays a factor in your life. All of us need to have a meet before we see any houses. Hey, look, we need to make this clear. Ryan is the one buying this house. He's going to be living in his house. Yes, I understand you have a good opinion. Yes, I know you might come over on holidays, but he's the one that's going to be living. And sometimes you got to set it. And when I started having those hard conversations, one, it's scary as hell because you're like, I'm about to tell my business what to do. They respect you more. They don't waste your time. And when I tell you the time it took to show the cell house is cut in half, if not cut even more than that, because they're like, oh, this guy is serious. We not just going just to go because they think, oh, he's free, we'll just go, look, anything? No, I got, we got Things to do. I got other clients and that's what kind of helped me like really shave off a lot of time. And then another thing was I, this is before courses and stuff came out. I pre recorded a course, a home buying course. And it was mandatory that you had to watch before we showed anything else. And I just talked about the home buying process, the do's and the don'ts and things like that. And you had to watch it before we went and looked at any house.

That's great, dude. You nurtured them before they got in and they knew, I mean half the game right there. And then they're prepped all the questions that they potentially had. You knocked it out. You could do one to many, right? That's brilliant, dude. So just to piggyback off this, because I know we both kind of are in the education space too. What are you doing right now? You mentioned we kind of talked to like optimization. I'm thinking about that. There's a lot of tire kickers out there and we talked about that. Is there ways you've streamlined your business to whittle it down to people that are actually willing to take action? Because we both are in the, in the business of helping people get their first or next rental property in a different way or investment property. And so I'm just curious. There's so many people out there that are teasing the idea of being interested in this and then the ones that actually go do it.

So.

Any thoughts?

So I believe in communication is key. I actually got this way from like two years ago, maybe three years ago almost. I started doing therapy from some personal things that was going on. I started taking therapy and I realized that helped me more than just in that personal situation I was in, helped me overall life. Communication is key, Being clear is key. And just because you have a hard conversation, letting them know what your standards are doesn't mean that we have to have an issue. Sometimes we're scared to set clear expectations, clear standards, because hey, Corey might feel some type of way about this. I don't want any conflict, conflict. So I'm not going to say it. So when I started doing in the education space, when I'm talking to, you know, potential mentees or people that want, hey, this may not be for you and that's fine. I want you to understand that that is fine. When you work with me, our goal is to help you find a property, get a higher credit score and get some funding in this time frame. And this is going to be streamlined and we're going to be on your bed, and you had to hold you. We're going to hold each other accountable. I'm going to help you go from B to Z, but A is on you. I'm. I will drive the car, but I'm not putting you in the car. I would drive the car, but I'm not getting you out the bed. I would drive the car, but I'm not putting your seatbelt on. It all starts with you, and then I'll take it from there. And if you're not willing to go ahead and make that first step, get out of your bed, walk downstairs, walk out their front door, get in the car, close the door, and put the seatbelt on. This is just not the program for you. And. And it's okay.

Yep.

When I started having hard conversations like that one, it made people like, Dan, he's really just not. He. He really doesn't care about my money. It's not because a lot of people like, hey, just sign up. We'll figure it out later. They got more respect. I got more serious people to join in, and I got more results because the quality of individuals are people that's like, yo, he's not playing around me. Like, if I. If I get on a zoom call with him, he's going to ask me, what did I do this week. Change the game. Change the game.

Yo, I love that, because I think it takes somebody serious to. To actually make an impact. And then they. They. You basically set the standard, is what I'm saying. You're setting a standard for yourself. One of the things I want to ask you, you mentioned about this business partner say I'm.

I'm the mean guy. They say, I've done some collab classes with people, and they say, yeah, let him go in. And you. He do the beginning class. I come in after him. Let him be the bad guy, because. But a lot people respect. You might have a couple people like, whoa, that was, like, firm. And then you're gonna have some people, like I told you, Like, a lot of people that are inside of my class are a little older. They respect it. I'm 40, 50. I don't got time to play around. I'm not 16 anymore. Like, talk to me that way, because I need. I need. I'm. This is serious. This is my second half of life, or, you know, whatever time frame they're in. I. I don't got time to play around.

Yeah, I. I respect it, too. I think it's great. One of the things that you mentioned about that hard Money lender. I kind of want to go back to that because I think what happens with people is that they, they don't realize that bank bankers or these loan qualifiers, like, these are people making decisions. Now they may have some restrictions here, but these are, at the end of the day, these are people making decisions and you have to sell yourself in order to get what you want. And I think a lot of people will go to a couple banks. They, you know, they don't, they can't qualify and then they'll quit. I'm curious about your approach with getting that hard money loan and being like, you know, how you went about that mentally to say, like, look, no, I'm, I'm gonna prove to my, I'm gonna prove to you guys that I'm worth this. And because Ryan, I have, you know, we're in the process of getting business funding and it's taking, we're not getting the terms that we want from a couple of lenders. And I'm just going to, I'm going to more, I'm going to like, that's the whole goal. So I'm curious about, you know, your approach to getting funded. But also just like the, hey, next, next up. Like we get this didn't work. Next one up. And you mentioned a little bit about it, but if you could elaborate, I think that'd be great.

I think that's good. I was waiting for something like this. So funding is, all funding is, is when you put it, when you put in a different light, all funding is, is you getting capital from somewhere else. The problem is where people hear the word funding, they automatically think Chase Bank, Navy Federal, like always thinking like citizens. They're, they're so stuck on. And that's what branding and marketing does. These places come out more. But all funding is, is money you get from somewhere else. That's all it is. It could be your cousin, it could be the big lenders, the local hard money lenders, the credit unions. It could be anywhere. So that's first and foremost. And the second thing is you have to put yourself in a position of I'm getting funded one way or another. It's all a mindset. So. And then also three is position yourself to where nobody wants to say no to you. That could be credit having good credit. That could be having good documents, tax documents. That could be having good experience or resume. That could be, you know, just projecting yourself in a certain way. Depending on what lender or financial institution you talk to is, you're going to need a different Thing I go to Citizens bank. They don't care how well I present myself. What does your tax returns look like? What do your documents look like? You're not even going to be able to see the person that's the, that's the decision maker. So don't even think you could come in, in basketball shorts or in a suit, it doesn't matter. They want to send all your documents that your tax returns look good. Now if you're talking to a hard money lender, they care about resume, they care about experience. You can go you. They don't really care too much about the tax returns. Hey, do in all financial institutions are saying in multiple different ways, do we trust you?

Yep.

Big bank says, hey, the only way I can qualify trust you is your tax returns. A local bank, hey, the only way I can qualify and trust you is off your credit score. Hard money lender. Only way I can qualify trust you is off your experience. Your, your, your best friend that you're asking to be a private lender. The only way I can trust you if you show me a good opportunity that you got to know who you're talking to to figure out what trust I have to showcase at the time. So when I talk to a hard money lender, for that example, I knew that they wanted experience, but they wanted somebody that they can, they can trust that they. All they care about is do you have experience? So the average person said, I never flipped the deal. So I don't have any experience. No, I'm gonna show you experience in another light. You only want to make sure that I have experience. You're not saying what kind of experience. You just want to see some type of experience. So I positioned it to where it showed that if I go to a, let's say a credit union, they care about credit score. Hey, look, what credit bureau do you guys pull from? Experian. Let me make sure my Experian profile is on point. Inquiries. I got my inquiries removed. I paid down a credit card that won't show my utilization load so I can position myself to go ahead and get approved with them. I'm talking to private money, A cousin, a brother, a friend, a mincy, whoever that has access to, you know, 30, 40, $50,000 in capital to help me with, let's say, a down payment. Hey, look, this is the deal. Here's the spreads, here's the numbers. Here's what the houses in the area are selling for. Here's how long they settle on the market. Here's, here's the, the Scope of work we're going to have, here's what we plan on doing. Here's all the numbers here, all the details. I'm looking for you to invest 20,000 into this project and I'll give you a 20% return. Here's everything. Oh, that makes sense. You know what? Yeah, let's do that. So when it comes to funding, I have, I'm talking about, I have had people I partner with, people that know nothing about real estate, but then they had a hundred thousand dollar credit card and they're like, well, I'm not doing nothing with it. I'll invest into your project. I have worked with hard money lenders. I work with big banks, work with credit unions. And I just realized that I just had to figure out what's the thing that they need to qualify. Trust. And I showcase that at that exact moment.

It's awesome, man. That's great. That's a great answer. It's all about fitting, fitting into the, the, basically the pieces in the puzzle, you know, and it seems like you're pretty good at that. I want to see, I want to know what you're like, not necessarily what you're focused on, but are you seeing any trends in the market or like some shifts like with high interest rates, do you think people are still able to get in their first property using traditional conventional financing? Is it. Maybe you can talk locally to Philadelphia, but just like what you're seeing, what's different now about 20, 25 than maybe 24, 23 or 22 as you start to grow your portfolio, but as you also start to help other people do the same thing?

Yeah, that's a great question. What I see right now is that right now in this market, not just in Philadelphia, but all across is interest rates were high last year. They were, they were sky high. And they're, they're still higher than what they were. Pandemic time, like those crazy rates, crazy low rates, but they're dropped down. So right now is the time that I believe to flip properties, but if you're a newer investor, flip properties that meet that medium number. So for example, in Philadelphia, the medium sales price is between 250 and 270. It fluctuates. So for example, my last couple of properties that I sold was like I put a house in the market for 250. So the house I was telling you I closed on this week, it got, it got a, it got two offers in the first week, literally the first couple days. House I sold before that was like 300. So literally the first couple days, another house I sold was like 230 is sold the same day. So what are success leaves clues. Okay, if I'm a new investor or I'm in this game, not because I want to leave a staple and you know, have a be legendary. I just want to make money. Let me start putting house on the market that fit this number because these are the numbers that people are moving to. And because interest rates drop down low, lower, people are buying now they might not be 3% where everybody's buying anything that comes on the shelf. So let me come halfway, let me go ahead and get in this market to flip, but let me hit, let me play the volume game. Maybe do 250 flips, 300 flips to 75 flips and just play the volume game. The second thing I would say is this is very important. We talked about this is right now what I'm realizing is people want a good quality of living and they want clean. All this Egyptian marvel that we were doing at one time when everybody was selling a house and we had to compete with the world is not the case right now. At one time, 2020, 2021, you had to make these houses look like it had to be speakers in the bathroom. It had to be so nice, TVs in the marble. Now is not the case for that. You can make the house so clean. And if you look at Ryan's homes and in these other developers, they don't even have tile in the bathroom that they have that little plastic thing, shower liner. They're not even doing the craziest stuff. But these houses are selling off the show. People are. People care more about quality of living, the area and they care about clean. Is the house clean? It doesn't have the basic, the heat, the central air is. It is the bathroom. Do we have more than one bathroom? They could be basic bathroom, but do I have more than one? So I think focus more so on lower, lower price point flips, but don't do the most in them and then maybe play the volume game until you get to the point where you like a custom build developer and then you can just do whatever you want to do at that point. And then when it comes to rental properties, I believe in focusing on to each his own, but I believe in focusing on cheaper properties where when you refinance, your mortgage payment is low, rehab is low, is keep the expense low, but you can still rent high. So that's my, that's my opinion.

Yeah, it's great. I think you're Playing in this, in this field where there's like significantly more opportunity for buyers. Right. So if you, if you're in Philadelphia and you're in the 7 to $800,000 range, you know, you may be able to get higher profits, but it might take you a lot longer to get there. So you're playing in the volume game. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Especially right now. But it's, I think staying ahead of these trends is really key to, like, to continuing to be successful. One of the last questions for me, just knowing where you like your background, working at McDonald's and working at the retirement home and like the transition the last 10 years for you, man, it seems like it's been just crazy. Like the growth has been crazy. So I'm wondering if you had to go back. You said, you said you're in your early 30s. Ryan, I are as well. If you had to go back to your 18 year old self and give 18 year old Derek some advice, knowing what you know now about the world, about business, about real estate, about life, about connections, you name it. What are you telling him?

If I can go back to my 18 year old self, I would say two things. Don't go to college. This is just for me. I'm. This is just for me. I'm not telling this for everybody. College is great for me, it just is. I'm talking about. I still haven't seen any benefit from it, to be honest with you. I sold some houses to some people that I went to college with, but the price point wasn't nothing to word of like, wow, this was totally worth it. So for me, don't go to college. And two, what you're doing there and what you've been doing is big business. It just hasn't happened yet. I have had a landscape economy where I'm cutting grass, shoveling snow regularly. I, I have done, I'm talking about, I don't even say the thing because it's so cliche selling candy. I'm talking about when I tell you anything you can think of, had a clothing, anything you could think of, I have done it. And in the dumbest thing I did, I'm gonna tell you guys the honest truth. The dumbest thing I did was I stopped all those entrepreneurial things I were doing to go work at McDonald's because in my mind I'm like, I want to go get it. I want to work at a job and get a paycheck. Like getting 20 over here, 40 over here, 50 over here, 20 over here. And my mom used to tell me. I'm telling you. It's not what you thinking. No, I want to get a paycheck because I'm grown. I want, like, we just think this as kids. We think the, the things that makes us grown are the best things for us. I literally have people on my block when it snowed, they already knew that he's the guy that's doing the things or whatever the case may be is. I stop, I shut all that stuff down. Clothing, landscaping, selling food and camp, anything I could think of to go work at McDonald's. When I tell you it was way more work, way less pay. Just to say, like, I, hey, I'm on, I'm on payroll. Just to say that the craziest thing. So I would say back to me, what you're doing is big business. It just, you had to stick it, stay with it long enough to where it can turn into a full blown landscaping company. Before this company, this. And I think a lot of us do that. Michael Rubin, he had a small ski shop in his basement, fixing skis or something like that. He was smart enough to know, like, this is going to turn into something big. Big. And a lot of us are doing things in the basement of our house, but we're just like, hey, I just want a little extra couple dollars to, to buy some stuff. And we switch that mindset. No, this is we, we actually onto something college or some other things that we, we end up doing might not even be an option at that point because we realize we have something we're sitting on.

I want to jump in here. So I think there are, I think you nailed it. There are a lot of people that are doing that, and then also people that are managing their jobs, maybe they do have a job, and then they're building something in the basement, if you will. How long do you. You mentioned stick it out. So I'm not looking for. I might not have the perfect question here for you, but I'm just thinking out loud. I want to talk through this with you is like, how long do you wait that out? How do you know when to pivot or continue going down that lane? You know, the ski shop turned into a couple different things for Reuben.

Right.

And so maybe just speak to the people that are doing this while kind of attacking their paycheck. Still making some money to fund that business. You know, how do you approach it?

I personally believe that anything is scalable as long if you have, if you look at, if you have one person tune into this podcast, it's opportunity for more than that, you have one person buy your product is opportunity. For more than that, you have one person sign up for your service, there's opportunity for more than we just had to stop and really think about what made them buy. We have to start giving our customers, our clients holes. What is making you buy? What did you like, what did you enjoy? So we can double down the things that's working and not just try to figure out, not worry about the things that we're not getting. So I believe everything can be worked out and everything can be even in relationships, everything can be worked out. It's just do we want to stick it out long enough for that, that thing to finally turn over? So it's no real answer how long to stick it out. But more so is if you have something and people are coming into your ecosystem to buy or support support, you have something you just had to really. Some things are as simple as, hey, we just need to change the color of this water bottle of this. And that changed everything. And some things we had to really do some Albert Einstein formula. Everybody has a different business. We got to think a little more deeper. Like for you guys it may be changing the podcast equipment. For me it may be like I gotta really bring in a developer and reprogram. Everybody's stuff is different. But as long as you have some customers come in, you have something, you just got to figure out a really double, triple that.

So last question. Thank you for that by the way. So last thing I have for you is I want to talk about social media. Corey and I were able to, you know, we tell, we tell the story often but we were able to kind of like bull, bull rush our way through from 1 to 8 units and then going from 9 to 80 was through social media and put get. Building a brand and getting, making a digital presence and becoming like an authoritative, authoritative voice in the space, right? And making connections. All the above. Can you talk to me about. You have a big social media platform, personal brand. Can you talk to me about how that impacted your career and kind of your growth and why maybe someone that is aspiring to be a real estate investor, why it would be worthwhile.

Social media is very powerful. Social media is nothing but what's those infomercials? Social media is just one big, one big infomercial that runs 247 and once the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can utilize it to your, to your benefit. I made a lot of money through social media, through obvious, through you know, having, you know, programs, stuff like that. But Realistically, when I've, when, when I first got on social media was because I needed clients for my real estate agent business. I would literally just post pictures of nice kitchens and people would reach, reach out to me, yo, where's that kitchen? I'm looking at my house. Oh yeah, great, let's get on the call. I would just do that every single day. Three times a day. Three times a day, three times a day. And I would dial in. I realized the client. This is so funny, but the clients that I will close the most as a real estate agent were women. Well, sorry for any woman that listening to this, but a lot of women like kitchens and bathrooms and stuff like that. So I would just showcase more kitchens and bathrooms. Funny enough, my DMs were filled with women saying, oh I love that kitchen. What neighborhood is that in? You know, can I go and see it? Yeah, but we got a couple steps before you can go see it, but. And next thing I know, every clothes in my head was a woman. And then when it comes to wholesaling, I would literally just no lie, I would make a post like literally a black screen and just type in the words, hey, looking to buy another buying, looking to buy two or three properties this month. No matter the condition, if you know anybody or you have something, reach out. It's funny enough, listen to this. Funny enough, I would get DMS from people that don't have a profile picture, look like a spam page. Somebody's grandma that has that made a little Instagram account saw my post and they're like, hey, hey, I saw your post. I have a house I'm looking to sell. No lie. My grandma has an Instagram, she has no profile pic. Like we think this is spam. These are like older individuals that's like just saw your page and they just want to sell your house. So I would sell, I will wholesale a lot of houses through that way through social media. People just reach out to me and say I saw your post, hey, can I be one of the houses that you buy so you can really, really leverage your social media in a real estate space. You just had to be specific. You can't just go up there and just stand in front of a house, take a picture and think everybody knows what you're doing. No, hey, I'm looking to help someone buy their first home as a first time home buyer. Hey, I'm looking to help someone list their property and sell it for top dollar. This is a house I just listed. We got 10,000 or over asking hopefully hopefully we could do the same for you. Hey, I'm looking to buy a property within the next two weeks, cash. If you are somebody that is looking to sell the house, give me a call.

Beautiful, man. That's great advice and it's really tangible. And I, Ryan, I teach people how to grow their personal brands through our community. And it's like we've had people that immediately after they posted, they got a deal from like you said, that couple degrees of separation, someone's grandmother, someone's father, the, the, you know, somebody that they knew from the gym, whatever. So we love social. It can be a time suck, but if you're using it for content purposes, it's. I mean it's, it's the thing that helped our business explode. I respect your time, man. I, I really appreciate you coming on. This has been awesome to get to know you. I think hopefully just the beginning of our relationship being that we're so close. If people want to learn more about you, they, they resonate with your story, they want to learn from you. And maybe in forms of mentorship or just get to know you network. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Just go to my Instagram is DS B O O N E. My Instagram thing is at the bottom here too. I have free classes all the time. It's the link in my bio. Just click the link and find out for the next available date. But we're always having them and you can ask me if you guys want to learn. It's a one hour. You can get on, learn as much as you can. You can log off, it's no harm. No 5, you log in for 10 minutes, you're like, hey, this is not a good fit over me. Or you log in for an hour and you learn amazing things. And people join these classes and they buy a house. They do a lot of great things. But. And also I drop, you know, 60 second videos on Instagram all the time. And then we also have a YouTube channel as well. So just type my name, Derek Bone, and you'll see the YouTube come up. But my goal is just give out as much free value, much free game. And eventually if you got enough value, you'll find your way to me and talk about, you know, mentorship. But as I mentioned before, I'm not casting line out for, for, for mentees or mentorship. I want people that come to me that are serious. So there's no link in the bar for mentorship. There's no Manny chat, There's none of that stuff. Like it's only way of we having a conversation in the DMS and you're super duper serious and then we'll lead into that.

Awesome, dude, thank you for taking the time today. We appreciate it. I. I think people gotta. I know people listening got a lot of value out of this, so we appreciate you coming on.

One thing before we close, I just want to give you guys your flowers. I think what you guys are doing is amazing. And you gotta think about this, right? These conversations that we had are conversations that we have all the time. You guys have all the time. So for allowing someone. For allowing someone to. You allowing yourself to be recording, someone to listen to, this is powerful because this is stuff that we have every day. This is just normal. But for someone that's me back in 2016, like I would literally pay any amount of money to sit in this kind of room just to be a fly on the wall. So you guys are doing this is touching. Maybe like Corey, like you said, you back in 2018, I think you said, where you would literally die to hear some of these convos. So you're doing a suit, a huge service for those individuals. And someone's going to be watching this. Not just someone, multiple people going to be watching this. And then there might start a podcast. They might buy their first property. They might do all these amazing things. And it was because you allow somebody to listen to your conversation.

Derek, that means a lot, man. Because, you know, Ryan, I do this twice a week. We've been putting out podcasts for five years, so sometimes it gets to the point where, first of all, I love it. It's one of my favorite things to do, but I have conversations like this all the time. So to. I haven't had somebody come on the show and remind me about why we're doing this. And you're absolutely right. And I think it's. I just needed to hear that. So thank you. I appreciate you saying that. So if you're enjoying the show, one things that would go a long way for us would be sharing this podcast episode or the podcast in general with a friend, family member or someone else who you think might benefit from it. It's pretty hard to grow a podcast and we're bringing out these episodes every single week and we want to continue to do so in order for us to grow a couple things you can do is one, leave us a five star review that would go a long way and then just share this with someone else that you think could benefit. That would be amazing. And we appreciate it, and we're looking forward to bringing out more episodes for you.