Masterminding with Ross Hamilton

Welcome. This is the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group. In this program you'll learn game changing strategies to outperform the market. James will teach you how to source, execute and capitalize on the best real estate opportunities in New York and around the world. Now, here's your host.

Welcome to episode number 171 of the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. This is your host, James Nelson. Thank you as always for joining. And today we have with us Ross Hamilton. And Ross has a really interesting story and more importantly now a mission. We're going to hear about the not for profit that he has started and, and thinking back, we've had a couple shows that have had that not for profit giving back aspect to the business, which I really love. And so I think you're gonna get a lot out of this. But I think also maybe you're, hopefully you're passionate about what Ross is doing, but if not, I think it's so wonderful to have be giving of your time with something that you're passionate about. We actually had Susie Meyer Jackson on our show. She is the executive director of Spark Youth. That's a charity that I've been involved with for probably 20 years. We fund organizations here in New York City that benefit at risk kids. And so it's just an incredible thing about it and just a reminder to you all to for many of you who've had so many things to be grateful for in your life to give back and wherever you're passionate. So with Ross Hamilton, you are going to learn how to surround yourself with excellence and to get started in real estate in this episode. And you're gonna hear about the value of taking action, connecting with others and participating in a network to find investment opportunities. And you're going to learn ways to help others who are struggling to keep their homes. And Ross has a fascinating story and background which includes his passion for BMX freestyling as a young adult. Unfortunately, after an injury caused him to step aside, he began investing in real estate and quickly amassed a portfolio of 50 residential properties. And he used some of the profits to establish Connected Investors, an investment property marketplace and social network for real estate investors. Eventually, Ross's tech company sold a First American. And I thought I had read this somewhere that was for 100 million, but when I mentioned it on the interview and you'll, you'll hear Ross said it wasn't quite that. So again, we'll put a footnote in the show notes on that one. But anyways it it was certainly a decent enough transaction that allowed Ross to have financial free free freedom and to retire at the age of 40 to start savinghomes.org a real estate charity to help those in need. Really interesting concept and structure on how to provide financing for those who are struggling to make ends meet and to hold onto their homes. So as always and Ross throws out his email if you all want to reach him. So you can find that along with the show notes for this and all the other episodes we've done@james nelson.com so we're have a brief word from our sponsor and we'll get right into that discussion with Ross Hamilton. A different approach to putting our clients first Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group sells multifamily office retail development and specialty sales throughout the New York metro area. As experienced thought leaders in their industry, our 35 member group is available to help you make informed investment decisions by advising you on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities in the marketplace. Our one unified team is built on an industry unique platform which promotes unparalleled collaboration and teamwork. We share core values of hard work, integrity and expertise. We put our clients first providing tailor made strategies to achieve superior results. Please Visit us at aytristateinvestmentsales.com and and follow us on Twitter LinkedIn and Instagram amesnelsonnyc to learn more. Welcome everyone. Excited to have with us today Ross Hamilton who is the author of several books and founder of Connected Investors and also Saving Homes, a Not for profit which he founded. So Ross, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today.

James, I'm really excited to be here. I got a lot of interesting things to share and I'm excited to see what direction this conversation takes us.

That's fantastic. So Ross, you have such an incredible story and so part of the challenge for me was to figure out where to start. So I guess I'll start somewhere in the middle with connected Investors because I think that will give our listeners context. So can you tell everyone a little bit about what what connected Investors is and maybe your journey and how you got there?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Connected investors, I just sold it to First American. So Fortune 100 company, $8 billion company that does title probably for if you've ever done a closing, you've probably worked with them. They are essentially a data company and a title company and they're taking that this company I'm about to share with you to whole New levels that I personally wasn't able to. But Connected Investors was founded on a very simple principle I learned at a very young age. I bought my first piece of investment real estate at 19, that the more people I was connected with, the more successful I was. Now back in Gosh, 2005, when I founded Connected Investors, social media wasn't what it was today. Actually a lot. I had a lot of resistance from people. They're like, no one, no one wants to connect with people like that online. Facebook was only in the Ivy League schools. I wasn't smart enough to be in one of those schools. And MySpace was a place for models and kind of party pictures. So I said it'd be great if there was like a Facebook for real estate investments, real estate investing. And that was it. I used the profits I was making from flipping real estate to funds the entire Connected Investors company. It was, James, it was easier for me to make money in real estate than it was for me to do a dog and pony show and try to raise money for a tech company. Real estate is the easiest business to raise money for because there's an asset. Right. Tech company, you're selling potential. So I built it into a network of several hundred thousand real estate investors that were used, excuse me, several million that were using it to connect with each other with investment opportunities that couldn't be found in the MLS and with non bank private lenders. So it was a social network and it was also a marketplace of properties and the people that wanted to give you the money to go buy those non owner occupied properties. Yeah, so that's what we built it into.

That's awesome. And I definitely want to get back to that because I was looking at the platform and I've got. And I'm sure our audience would love to hear about some of that deal sourcing and off market is certainly something that gets a lot of people excited. So we're going to get back to that and hear a little more about it. But I want to talk about. Because you said you bought your first property when you were 19. I also read that you were. I don't know if you were looking to go into BMX biking professionally or what. You know, you said you were training with Dave Mira, who is the Michael Jordan of the sport. So how do you transition from BMX biking where you might not think that the people. People riding around the track or thinking about their next real estate deal. So how did that happen?

Yeah, well, James, you're right. I definitely wasn't thinking about my next Real estate deal. You know, I was. Anytime I do something, I'm all in. Like, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. So the way I went about BMX is I surrounded myself with the best people I possibly could. Individuals that made the impossible possible, that did things that you would never think someone can do. James. I remember I was riding with Dave Mira, and he's like, I'm going to do a backflip, and I'm going to touch my tire to the ceiling. Now in my head, I'm thinking, that's going to stop your rotation, and you're going to fall straight on your neck. By the end of the day, the ceiling was filled with tire marks, and it just made the bar spin. I was trying to do much easier, right? And I saw him fall a few times, and he got up and he dusted himself off, and he walked away. So, you know, in bmx, in extreme sports, and in sports in general, you learn a lot about business and how you approach challenges and risk. Because in BMX specifically, every jump is a risk, just like with investments. So I got used to managing risk, to working with people who were my friends and also my competition, which is what real estate kind of is. People I would train with. All of a sudden, contest day. Now we're going against each other. But those types of relationships kind of forced me to be better and pushed me to be the best version of myself. So I was riding bmx. I had a BMX clothing company. I had a Volkswagen van. I traveled around the US and sponsored other people my age, and we had a blast doing it. But what happened is I just took a terrible fall, and I kind of. I was out of the sport for over a year, year and a half. Pretty pivotal age. By the time I was healed, everyone left my town. Dave Miro started in Wilmington, North Carolina, but then moved to Greenville. So it was like the ocean dried up for a surfer. Like, the whole. Everything was gone. And I had to make a big decision. Do I move to Greenville and give this BMX thing a push, or do I figure out what's next? And, you know, in. In this story, it's quick, but there was a time period where I was really down on myself. I didn't know what to do. I. All my friends left. You know, all my dreams were kind of gone. And I found real estate just by going to Barnes and Noble. I read a stat that 90% of millionaires make their money through real estate. You can accidentally become a millionaire in real estate. You just got to be in the game. So I said, okay, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm going to play the odds. So I decided to jump into real estate. I went from flipping my bike to flipping houses, but I did it the same way, James. I found my the best people I possibly could. I surrounded myself with them. It was what I thought about when I woke up in the morning. The last thing I thought about when I went to sleep, just like with bmx. And I got to see success very quickly because it was just part of me, like my friends, my network. Everyone that I surrounded myself with was in. Was in real estate. And I did very well, very quickly because I was putting in the hours, but it was fun. It wasn't. It wasn't know it was a grind, but it was exciting.

Russ, that's unbelievable. And you said so many great things. First of all, I love how you said, look, I'm all in. If I'm going to devote myself to something, I'm all in. And surrounding yourself with the best people and that every jump is a risk. So, so many good things you said there. So. And find it also remarkable that you went to Barnes and Nobles and that's how you learned about real estate. So hopefully my book that is there and your books that are there as well are doing the same thing for someone who's browsing the bookshelves right now. But did you know anyone in the real estate space or did you just read the book and you said, okay, I think I can do this. So did you then have the money and you just kind of jumped in and did a house flip? What was that first deal like?

No, it took a while. You know, real estate is the best option for people with limited options. Right. I wasn't going to go to college. Everyone in my family was like, an entrepreneur, but they were all like, trades people. They might install floors or roofs. They didn't really have flourishing businesses, did very well. But I just. Once I started surrounding myself with people in real estate, I just saw the possibility of how, like, at that time, it was only. I only needed one deal to change everything, right? I was completely broke, literally, you know, financially and physically broke. I was having to redefine myself, rewire myself. And I just started going to meetings. I went to RIA meetings and just found people there and started to do anything I could to work with for or around those people. There was a real estate investor that was talking, and I'll never forget the title of the RIA was Secrets of Local Real estate investors. So I went to that meeting and I listened to the individuals that were talking, and I said, that individual seems to be the most knowledgeable, and he's doing the most deals. So, James, I just started showing up at his office after that. I mean, I met him at that event, and I just started showing up and saying, hey, is there anything I can do? Do you need help with anything? And he chased me off a few times. No, we're good, man. Just. And then he said, hey, if you ever find a deal, bring it to me. I'll buy it from you. I'm like, okay. To me, that's. We're working together, right? And then I would just stop by and just ask him questions. And one day he had. He needed some signs put up. So I put up some signs for him, and I started figuring out a way to find deals. And what I did, I think looking back, what I did is I really narrowed in on one skill set in real estate, and it was finding discounted real estate properties that were not on the MLS that could be purchased at below market prices. I said to myself, if I can just get good at that, if I can find the deal, like, everything else kind of solves itself. And that. I didn't come up with that. He didn't know. He was my mentor at the time, but my mentor said, ross, if you find a good deal, money will never be an issue. And I found that that's really true. Money's hard to raise when you have a crappy deal or a normal deal or a retail deal if you got a screaming deal. Like, it's easy to find money in real estate. So I started to really hone in on just finding discounted real estate. And then before I knew it, me and this individual working together because I was showing up every day. I had energy. I was excited. He kept throwing me to go do tasks, and I would come back with something. Yeah. So we started working together, and after I saw him do a few deals, you know, I was like, this actually isn't really all that hard. It's way easier than most things. It takes less time to make a lot of money than anything else. So I just boil it down to such a simple, you know, this is easier than anything else, and it's going to get me to retirement faster than anything else. So I just got really pumped about just getting my first deal. And after I got into real estate, you know, to answer your original question, James, it probably took me maybe a year, ish plus to get my first deal. Before, I was a real. Real estate investor, but before that, I was just bringing deals to people and I was getting little finder fees, not even wholesale fees. They were just. I didn't even know how to get a contract. I just said, hey, this person wants to sell. It's not listed. Let me connect them with this. This individual. Hey, throw me a few bucks if you do this deal. So it's just kind of. I was just learning, but I didn't wait for someone else to say, yes, Ross, I'm going to teach you. I just got out into the field, and that's where ignorance is a really good thing, because I didn't realize everything I didn't know. And it's very easy to get paralysis by analysis in real estate. So I just focused on one thing, finding deals. And then I learned each step along the way. But I got in the game as soon as possible. And that's what I found. People that are like, okay, I'm going to do this. And they start like that day or tomorrow at the latest. They're going to figure it out.

You know, Ross, your story reminds me of in Think and Grow Rich. And I don't know if you've read it, but when Barnes shows up to Edison's office and he just shows up and he says, okay, what do you have for me to do? What do you want to do? I'll do anything, you know? So the fact that he said, hey, you need me to set up signs, whatever it is, I think a lot of people, when they think about getting a mentor, they're kind of just waiting for that person to impart knowledge. And you were just there saying, look, I'm willing to bring something to the table. What do you need? I assume you're not asking him to pay an hourly wage. You're literally just willing to do that work on spec. So that's a great lesson.

Now, may I address Think and Grow Rich, please? Yes, please. Because that was the first book I read at Barnes and Noble. Think and Grow Rich led me to the real estate section. But I started to get my mind right first. Because what's between you and everything you want is a bunch of BS in your own head. A bunch of excuses that you have validated a million times at all levels. Even when you know it, it's hard to get rid of them. So sometimes when you know it, it's even worse. But that's the constant, you know, battle. Not battle, but that's just. That's just the growth getting. Getting out of your own Way, like, no one wants to mentor you. Like, don't come to me and say, hey, Ross, I want to. Can you mentor me? No. But if you come to me and you're like, hey, I have this deal. How would you go about doing this? Now I know you're in the game, and I'm. I get excited and I want to tell you something and I give you advice and you use it and you come back to me and say, hey, Ross, I did what you said. It worked. Now I'm pumped. I just got a big, like, dopamine, you know, boost. And if you call me again, I'm going to answer because I know you're an action taker. I learned at an early age that if you think you don't have anything to give someone, just taking their advice, doing it, and then reporting back to them is actually providing them something. So I would do that. And also I would help make connections. I'd be like, hey, John, I just met this guy Paul. You know, I think you guys should meet. And I would start connecting people because I didn't have anything of value other than my hustle. But I met this other guy who, you know, I would start putting pieces together and then people would start owing you things. Right. Social currency is what I. What I tried to build up. But you always give first.

Ross, great advice. And how amazing is it that Think and grow Rich was the first book that you came across and set you on your journey. So that's wonderful. So, Russ, I know that you've authored a couple books, and you told me that one of your favorites was one that you wrote in your 20s. So real estate investing in your 20s. And I just, I love the fact that you were kind of writing this. I'm imagining as you were figuring it out. So maybe talk a little bit about that and then maybe talk about one of your latest books, which was. Yes, professionally published insider's guide to funding real estate. So maybe talk about your experience being an author.

Yeah, yeah. Actually, the book real estate investing in your 20s, which I'll give away. I'll give to everyone that's, you know, that's on the line here for free. You can go to Amazon and buy it if you want. But I'll give. I'll give it to you. Here's the thing about that book. I did the absolute most powerful exercise that you could possibly do as a young entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur at any age. And I didn't realize this until later, so when I decided to invest in real estate, I just 100% knew I was going to be successful like I've tried to be. I've been trying to play the guitar forever. I don't 100% believe I'm going to be successful playing the guitar like that. Maybe that's why I'm not getting progress. But when I found real estate, I'm like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to make a million dollars with this. People are going to want to know how I did it. So I'm going to write it down. So I just, I looked at being 20 as a disadvantage at first. Oh, I'm young. No one's going to take me seriously. But it was my biggest advantage. So great advice, you know, write a book with your big limiting belief. You know, how to go from a truck driver to a multi millionaire in real estate in three years. Like, start writing that book. But what I was doing is I was writing the book as if I was already a multimillionaire in real estate and I hadn't even done my first deal. So the power of that, if you follow things like the think and grow rich or just, just any philosophy on success, I didn't realize how powerful that was. But I was writing that book as if I was already successful and writing almost in a diary format. So the book is written really interesting. I've never seen another book written like that to where it starts with the person's totally broke and it ends to where they're a multi millionaire. And there are some fun stories along the way. I made it to the Playboy Mansion back then, you know, and wrote some stories about that. And it might be a little taboo today, but, you know, that was, that was fun. And yeah, I'll give it to everyone. Yeah, it's a, it's a really fun book. So that book is kind of a real raw. What. How did you actually really do it? I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I did some things that I definitely shouldn't have, but I was, I was going to get it one way or another. And yeah, that's all, that's all in the book. And then I wrote a book on funding real estate at a later. At a later date I have right here in my hand. You know, they paid me up front to write this book in Barnes and Noble, which is huge for me because that's where I got my start. I actually use my real estate checks as my bookmarks. That's what these are. Just to remind myself. But, you know, because you do mobile deposits, what do you do with them. They're great, great bookmarks. So, yeah, no, I've written a few books and you should write a book like everyone on the line should write a book. It took me a long time to self publish that, but it was probably helping along the way.

Ross, it's so tremendous that you had the foresight or the desire to do that. I mean, Most, you know, 20 year olds are not thinking about, okay, I need to document this thing. I need to get it in a book to help other people. Okay, so that principle, and another favorite book of mine is Adam Grant's Give and Take. And the whole idea that you're putting, that you're doing good and you're putting things out there, think of paying it forward without expectation of return. Because I'm sure when you were writing that book, you weren't thinking, okay, if I write this book, somehow this is going to help land me my next deal. It was just, hey, this is something that I'm in it right now. Let me document it. And hopefully this is going to be helpful to someone else in the future who, who's in my shoes. So I, I just, I think it's absolutely remarkable that, that you had the foresight to do that at the time.

Yeah, no, it was, it was. It's really fun to read today just because my mindset, but then a lot of the things I was doing then, I'm doing today. The way I'm going about my charity is the same way that I went about, you know, my tech company. When I started that tech company, I couldn't code. I didn't know what venture capital even was. That didn't exist in my world. So I was starting completely from scratch and made some mistakes, but I kept tripping up.

Yeah, I totally agree. And part of the journey is also what makes things interesting. And I'm sure people who are listening to this podcast now, they're looking to expand their mind. So certainly when I set out to write a book, I didn't know how to do it. I didn't understand how the whole industry worked. But guess what? This goes back to one of your earlier points of surrounding yourself with great people. You know, you start asking around and again, pitching the idea. Like you said, not, hey, can you tell me how to write a book? No, I'm thinking of doing this. What do you think of this idea? Okay, you're. He's in the game. He's going to do this. Let me make sure and guide him. So I got a lot of tremendous help along the way. So Ross, so tell me, at one point you, you'd flipped at least 50 homes and was it just residential homes? Were you getting into commercial as well? And at what point did you say, okay, this is, this is interesting, but I really want to go onto the, you know, build this network. Like you said, there was no, at the time, LinkedIn, Facebook, that there wasn't a thing for investment community. So at what point were you thinking, okay, I need to build this network? Was that in parallel with the investing or in your all in mentality, were you saying, okay, I'm going to put the real estate investing on hold, I'm going to dive into building this network, Maybe talk about how that happened?

Yeah, no, that was, that was a great question, the way you structured it there. And you know, people say sometimes you'll look at big entrepreneurs that are like, running a lot of different companies. And I used to look up to those people, like, how do they, how do they do that? And with connected investors, everything I was doing was vertically integrated. So my real estate investment company helped my tech company, my tech company helped my real estate investment company. So I never stopped investing in real estate. But at a certain point in real estate, it gets a lot more passive. I used to knock on doors. I didn't have to knock on doors anymore. I just had deals that would come to me and I would evaluate the deals and I would, I would put them together. But as I was investing in real estate, you know, by 23ish, I had about 50 houses. So I was financially free through real estate in, you know, about four years through, you know, actually, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna step back because I had a lot of properties, but I was still not, I was going all in. It's like, I guess I was going all in, leveraging as much as I could to get more and more. So I was equity rich, but I was cash poor because I was building real estate was my future plan. You know, I might make a hundred thousand dollars on a deal, but then I'm going to buy as many properties as I was addicted to buying properties. So as I started to move into the tech side, some of my profits had to go into the tech company. But then as people started buying our premium subscription, you know, all of a sudden I'm like, oh, wow, this is pretty awesome, you know, to have this other source of income. And that's what I love about real estate. You can use real. Real estate's a stepping stone to the next thing, you know, whatever your passion is. At the end of the day, all I wanted to do was ride my bike all day, every day. Literally. Today I was in the woods all day. I had to rush home, shower before this call. I'm in Asheville, tons of trails out here. So I started passively making money through connected investors and I was selling my properties to the members of connected investors and buying properties from them and so were other people. So it was a flywheel effect that just helped both sides of the, both sides of the equation. So I use my real estate profits to start my tech company. When I sold the tech company, I mean, since I sold, I've bought almost 200 residential properties. There have been some of the best deals I ever did were commercial deals. But the deals that seem to come across my desk are always, are always residential. But I mean, I've made a ton in commercial and I'll never pass down a good deal.

That's great. So, and Ross, I want to add, I want to ask you more about this network and kind of the off market deal sourcing, but I've got to ask at this point. So you've bought 50 homes and then since then it's another 200 many commercial. But meanwhile you're out there riding your bike out on the trails, you know, living the life. It's great. So who's managing, who's running that all? Because I'd have to imagine that along the way that you built out the infrastructure to also manage. And if you're buying reselling, I would assume you went in, you're renovating. So who built that all out?

Yeah, you know, so that's, there's been a lot of different phases. You know, during my, my first 50 properties, I was very hands on on all of those. Every property I was buying was a problem property. Had to figure out all the different bits and pieces. I was doing the property management. I always had good accountants. That was one thing that I just made sure I paid good money to have good accountants. Once I had a few properties and then I built out a little team to manage my properties. But at this point in my career, my investments are much more passive. Now those 50 some properties I had back then, I think I have like one or two of those left. But I've been buying packages of properties and I do a lot more in bulk with more scale. That kind of comes with a team. So there's, you know, wherever you are, there's so much different, there's so many different ways to buy real estate. It keeps someone with my mindset very Very occupied because there's always something new to learn in the space. So today I have really good partners. I provide a lot of the capital and the resources, but then they're running, they're running the day to day. So today, prior to going out on my bike ride, I had to sit down with my accounting team because we're almost done with the extension time. And I had a few investments, so I had to get some, you know, some K1s from some partners, you know, so there's, you know, a few hours a month of work now to keep it going. It wasn't that way in the beginning, but now that I'm at the point I'm at, it's. It's hard to spend time working on. On real estate right now. Right now I don't want the money back. I'm like, investing the money and I just, I'm investing for legacy now more than, you know, to pay the bills.

Well, appreciate your sharing that. And, and obviously you figured it out so you can spend time on what you really want to accomplish. So. So.

Well, it also just depends on how much you need and how much you want. You know, like, when is enough enough? And when you get there, are you actually going to, like, take a step back? That's, that's the entrepreneurial entrepreneur's dilemma. Because there becomes a point to where enough is never enough, you know, so again, in the early books I read, it's like after you hit a certain point, take a year off, just get your head back. Because the game, the grind, is fun, but it is, it's a grind for a reason. So. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel with real estate. That's why, you know, if you're watching this show, if you don't have any commercial real estate yet, buy a property. Like, figure out a way to get a property one way or another, at least one every 18 to 24 months. Build that portfolio somehow, because that's what's going to take care of you when you get older. You know, it's just a family with real estate versus a family without real estate. I feel really bad for individuals who didn't get any real estate prior to the appreciation. Like, they're so far behind, they don't even realize it. Which is why I transitioned into my charity, because real estate is the number one way to become a millionaire, but it's also the number one way out of poverty. It just, it just 10x is your wealth, no matter where you are. So.

So one last question about Connected investors. And then I want to jump into saving home. So this whole network marketplace. So how are you sourcing these off market opportunities? It seems like it was kind of a. You said you would buy from other members, they would buy from you. So did you basically create an exchange and then be curious to hear about the First American sale? And you said ultimately it became a data company. So curious what ultimately facilitated that sale.

Yeah, well, I mean, right now you can sign up to connected investors for free. The free account allows you to find other investors in your area network like you would expect on a social networking site. And there's a marketplace element where you can post your properties that, that you're trying to sell all investment grade. But the marketplace has worked well through certain markets and has not worked all that great through other markets. So to answer your question, it's a network of wholesalers and just real estate hustlers that are finding deals like I did when I was young and posting them out to a network. We tried to kind of streamline that through like bidding through bidding and all this stuff, but it just, it just didn't quite pan out that, that particular business model. So what we wound up doing is pivoting to going to the number one data provider in America, First American, to buy all the data on every property all the way back to 1890. Every property streaming software, property estimates, software out there is buying data from First American one way or another. And they're, they're using that to do something. So what we did is we built a Airbnb style user interface to, to so you could see every property that would potentially sell at a discount. So what that means is any deal source you've ever heard of, right? Any pre, foreclosure, foreclosure, out of town, owner, tax lien, inherited properties, vacants, shadow inventory, I mean just the list went on and on. Any type of property you've ever heard of, you can look, sort and find them directly in the platform. So as property inventory tightened up, that product got very, very popular and a lot of people used it to be able to find properties at discounts. But you're going direct to the owners at that point. So the cool thing is we pulled together all the property data and then all of the people data. So you could find someone in any city who lived out of town that if you wanted to had three kids in a tax lien, right? Like you can get so granular with how you can zoom in, then you can see their contact information and at one point even their social Profiles. So we started to tie property. We almost made like a family tree of properties, like who the owners were, who the past brokers were with all the supporting data of comps and calculators and all that stuff that you need. So our members were using that to find, you know, discounted properties. And you should definitely check it out. The platform you're seeing to bit today. I mean, I've seen the new designs, the stuff they're doing. I'm so excited to see where they're taking, where they're taking this, this platform.

And what was ultimately the impetus for their acquisition. So you had taken their data and now you've enriched it. So what was the, the driving force of that sale?

Well, they wanted to buy us to get to direct to consumer. They were only selling to other businesses. I would, you know, that's, I'm not in their heads, but that's what we had that they didn't. We had a database of the millions of people. This way they can go direct from data to the end, you know, to the end user. Could have been one of the reasons that they were interested in buying us. And it was really nice to get that phone call. And it was at the top, top of the market as far as I'm concerned with technology. So they made me an offer I couldn't refuse and yeah, we sold.

I would say so. And for a reported $100 million.

So that is not. That is not. Yeah, there's not confirmed. It was, it was a big, big sale. It was, it was not 100 million, but it was. Yeah, there's some nondisclosures there for sure.

Okay. And this was when you were 40, so at this point, this is when you decided to retire from, I guess the, at least from the, the tech space and now to focus on your charities. So talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, well, you know, when you, when you sell and you're done, like generationally, it's, do you want more money? What are you going to do with it? It's like horsepower for a car. Right after you got 5, 600 horsepower. Like, do you want a thousand horsepower? Some people do. I didn't. I wanted to be able to help people on the other side of real estate, but I wasn't. And we had a lot of people hitting. I had a lot of people hitting me up for charitable donations. And I like charity, but what I don't like about it is I felt like it was a patch. I wasn't like solving a problem. And they got to eat. People have to eat. That's great. I'm glad there are charities that are out there for that. But what I was able to do with saving homes was create almost even like a new type of donation. The donations that come into saving homes, my money included, they live on for multiple generations. Because whether we are saving a home, these are individuals who are losing their house for one reason or another. Our company comes in, saves their home, makes sure they don't get taken advantage of by real estate investors or maybe even agents. We know all those tricks, so we help, we help advise them and make sure they can get every single dollar they can if they have to leave. Or we help them figure out how to stay in their home because the home they're in is probably the most affordable house. 56% of foreclosures have to do with medical bills. The, you know, the 40 some percent is a divorce or a job loss. Like these are situations that happen to, to everyone. These are not people who are mismanaging their money necessarily. It's just daughter got brain cancer. Like this is the type of stuff that we're seeing and they're about to lose their home. So we come in and we help people save the homes that they already have. But what's great is that money gets recorded as a second mortgage or a third mortgage against the property. No payments, no interest, no change in ownership. So for all for the day to day, they don't even know it's there. But then when they sell the house in the future, the money comes back to saving homes. We don't put, we don't tell them they have to sell, but when they sell, the money comes back and then we can help another home. So the reason I love that is because I can push and get this flywheel going, get a hundred million dollars working and then it will just keep turning over and turning over and turning over. And then we help, we even people have been donating us homes and there's really cool ways. If you have extra homes you want to donate, there's some really awesome ways to, to get tax benefits and just help people in so many ways. So we're donating homes and when those homes sell, some of the money comes back into the charity so we can help more people. So you know this, it's like a ripple effect. It's like the Energizer bunny of donations. Your donation keeps giving and giving and giving and giving. So if you're worried, hey, I'm going to give 100 bucks and only $30 is going to get to the cause. That's not the case here. You know, your, your money can give 10, 15 times potentially. So that's, that's why I was motivated to get this going. And there are some really exciting things happening in real estate in the tech side to where we'll be able to help people in even more innovative ways. So if you, if you want to help people for generations to come, you know, throw some money in. Even if it's just five bucks, I swear, it helps so much. There's someone that's losing their house, like this week that we have to raise, we're raising money for. So check out savinghomes.org 100% tax write off. And you know, James, what I'll say here is if you know a family member or a friend that's losing their house, send them to Saving Homes. Because if, if your uncle is going into foreclosure and he needs 10 grand, you don't want to give your uncle 10,000 bucks. What is he going to pay it off is what's going to happen. So you can actually donate to the charity on your uncle's behalf. Then we'll make the payment and you can actually get a tax write off. So you can't get a tax write off if you just give it direct to Uncle Bob, but you can if you give it to Saving Homes. So there's a lot of interesting ways that the charity can help people that need help and banks even want to give to us because the money ultimately comes back there. So we're trying to preserve people's equity because that's a huge thing. If people lose their equity, they lose all their leverage. Their children lose all their leverage. You know, their children can be taking care of them when they're 50 and 60 years old rather than their real estate taking care of them. So just the benefits are of owning real estate are crazy. So someone who has it, we want to keep them in the house. We want to get good people into homes. So I'm really excited about this.

Ross. That absolutely is exciting and what an incredible mission. And I'm happy personally to support and I hope the people listening to this will, will do the same. So, Ross, this is a massive, massive undertaking and issue. I mean, this, this is not. And I don't know if you're just specifically kind of doing this in your region, but I mean, this clearly exists throughout the country. So what is your, are your plans? I mean, how great of a need is there and what's the ultimate goal?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And let Me just say this. If you're a broker or an agent watching this, you know, I know there's give back programs you can do and what better charity to give to than something that's helping keep the values of real estate up. So if there's, if you want to talk visit saving homes, drop a message. I'm personally looking through them right now. So your messages will come directly to me. And yes, you know, with, when you think of the world, you know, I would, I felt overwhelmed for a while because it's like, man, there's so many problems in the world today. We're just more aware of them, right? There's always been tons of problems, but they're just coming at you so fast. So I had to really focus in on, on real estate. It's where my network is. You know, we have fan. Merrill is on the board of advisors for this. He's part of what we call the dream team. So I'm pulling together the biggest people, just like I did in BMX and ntech to come solve this problem. You know, the mission is clearly stated on the website. What we're, what we're doing over the next 12 months. And we're just worried. We're just doing one house at a time and we're going to be saving a lot of houses around Christmas time. That's kind of our big, big kickoff. We're giving away a house or two and then we're going right into saving homes. So there's. The cool thing is because of my background in data, I can pinpoint we're specifically focusing the outbound reach on single parents. I can pinpoint every single father of three who's about to lose his house in two weeks to foreclosure. I can find those people and provide them a solution that they're probably praying for. Back in the day, I knew I was going to be successful in real estate tech. I just, I just knew it was going to work. And I just, I can like hear these people like saying, hey, we need, we need some help. And you know, when you have a big windfall over and over again, you're like, maybe I'm here to do something big. Maybe that this money came into my possession because I'm going to be a good shepherd and I'm going to use this, this stored energy. That's how I look at, at money to help people just save the houses they're in. But again, I'm not going to do anything. It doesn't last forever, you know, that doesn't keep Giving. So that's why I love, you know, the. How it's all tied to real estate because the money keeps coming back and recycling for, for generations to. To come. So connected investors may or may not live on forever, but I'm setting this charity up to, you know, to be able to help people for multiple generations. So we're focusing our outbound efforts in North Carolina for the rest of this year, working through all of our processes, refining everything. Individuals we can help anywhere. If you know someone that's in foreclosure, so little, little at a time, it's, it's exciting.

Ross. Really unbelievable. And I love the fact that you've once again just jumped in and you're all in because I, I've got to imagine also starting a not for profit. This is probably sounds like the first one that you've done. So I'm sure there was a lot of red tape, so to speak, to figure it all out. So again, if you built up a team to help orchestrate that or how do you approach something like this? Because it is such a big undertaking that I'm sure it could also become overwhelming very quickly.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, first things first. Just like in my real estate accounting, you know, had to build the right accounting and legal structure to do this because I want to make sure we are beyond transparent. And then just reaching into my network, you know, at a certain point, you know who your good people are in your network, you're able to bring them on to other things. And yeah, actually, it's fun because actually a lot of my most successful students from connected investors are lining up to work, work for us at saving homes. You're essentially learning how to invest in real estate. You're just. The profits are just not coming in like they do like they did back in the day. It's, it's almost exactly what I did to make my first million in real estate. You know, James, I used to knock on the doors of people that were losing their house, and I'd walk in, there'd be dinner on the stove, and some kid who looked like he was 12 would come in and be like, do you want to, you want help saving or selling your home? And they're like, who are you? But I just saw the ripple effect of negativity of someone who lost their home and got kicked out, and the kids have to move school districts and they lose their best friend and no one wants to rent to them and they have to move to the outskirts of the city or move in with someone. I mean, Back in the day, you can find rentals. Today, you get kicked out. There's nowhere to, there's nowhere to go. So I will say that the timing of this, I think is, is perfect because we've been holding the foreclosure floodgates back for a while and you're not going to see foreclose. My opinion is you're not going to see foreclosures and short sales like you did back in the last crash. All of these properties are being sold before the, the sale date. They're being sold to Wall street or to savvy investors that use my platform. But then those people have to leave. And, you know, even if they walk away with 50 grand, I mean, that, that goes like this first last month, pay some back bills, move in somewhere, you got 20 bucks again, you know, so. Or trying to preserve the equity for future generations.

Well, that is absolutely fantastic. So really wonderful to hear about that. So, Ross, with only a couple minutes left, maybe, and since you obviously did this in your 20s, and maybe the first piece of advice would be to read your book, but what else would you say to the person right now listening who's yet to buy their first property?

Yeah, so there's a. I have a really cool. I put together, like my, my habits, right? Because the way you do anything is the way you do everything. And this comes from Think and Grow Rich. It comes from a lot of stoic principles. It comes from all of an entrepreneur's operating system. It's a personal and financial transformation. I'll give this away as well. It's just, it's just a PDF. But I bring it up because there's a question that I came across that changed everything for me. So it's, it's on page seven of, of this, this PDF you're going to get. And so whatever your big goal is, right, you want to have, I don't know, a million dollars, right. For whatever reason, we can get into the why you want to do that, and it's important. Why do you want a million dollars? Ask yourself that question five times. Figure out what it really is. But after you know exactly what you want to do, here's the question. I will do anything to accomplish my goal. Just don't ask me to. Then you fill in the blank. Now this, I'm not talking about anything illegal, but what are those things that you are not willing to do to reach your goal? There's something there. I go through this exercise at least once a month. And when you look at that written on the Paper. And you're like, that's the thing that's between me and this other thing. Then you know what you have to do? You have to define what the hell it is that's holding you back, you know? And it's usually when you look at it, it usually looks so pathetic that you're like, that's what's holding me back. Right. But once you know what that is, then you know where to go to get help. Right, Man, Like, I want to grow a business. I just don't want to do podcasts. I'll have to interrupt my day. I can't ride my bike all the time. Like, you look at it, and you just listen to yourself. So having that's important. And then an accountability partner, you know, is just. Is just so key, because real estate is. What do I do about real estate? What do I do about. A bit? It's the same thing. It's just you have a limiting belief that's. That's keeping you away from your. Keeping you away from the next version of yourself. So anyway, what wouldn't you do to have $10 million in the bank? Write that down and then figure it out.

So, Ross, one of the specific things that I think holds a lot of people back is just the fear. And many people listening right now might say, okay, this sounds great. Ross obviously figured out how to do this, and I get it. He started with nothing, and he built up his, you know, portfolio. But it's scary, right? Especially if you talk about buying your first property if you're putting, you know, your money on the line. So what would you say to that person who says, you know, Russ, I'm scared of losing my investment, which. Which can be a legitimate concern.

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say, the fir. With the first house I bought, I remember I read the mortgage, and it said to have and to hold in the mortgage. And I'm like, to have and to hold. I was like, oh, you know, I'm 19. I'm not ready to get. Get married today. And I was definitely scared. To me, it was riskier to not have real estate than to have real estate. So scare yourself on staying where you are. Right? I was. Because if I didn't have real estate, I would have never been able to leverage anything. Never been able to start a tech company, never been able to, you know, So I think in today's world, it's riskier to not have real estate than it is to have real estate. If your money's in the stock market, you're probably going to lose it anyway.

Right.

Like if you have a boss, if you have a job like AI. So I don't have anything, any specific thing to tell someone to. How to get over fear and hit that jump. You know, surrounding yourself with people that are doing it is how I got over the fear. Because I'm like, oh, I've seen it done 10 times. That worked out. So scare yourself to stay complacent.

I like that answer.

Yeah. You know what happens in 10 years? You keep doing what you're doing. You know, everything's kind of going down. What does 10 years from now look like?

And then, Russ, the name of the show is the insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. So what does the insider's edge mean to you? And what if you had to say, would be your insider's edge to success?

That word inside. Okay. The reason that that's, that's really critical in real estate is because insider information in the stock market, no good. Insider information in real estate, very, very good. You know, and that was my job when I first started to find information that other people didn't have in the real estate, in the real estate world. So, you know, insiders, to me, what that means is the fewer, better people that are action takers that are doing it and surrounding yourself with those. With those individuals. Yeah, I mean, you have to be. Being an insider is. Is. Is really important. It insulates you against potential failures. If you're like, I'm going to do real estate, cool. James and Ross said I should do it. And you've, you know, I put a year in before I did my first deal surrounding myself with other individuals, and they protected me. You know, they looked at deals, they shot deals down and investment brokers and, you know, other people in the niche can do that for you. So the insiders, you know, help. It's almost like the word mastermind, which if you read think and grow rich, there's only one promise that Point Hill gave that I personally remember. Maybe there's more. He said, a proper mastermind will safeguard against failure. Or he said, ensure success. Something that was like, very direct. And I always surrounded my. I always had masterminds surrounding myself with creating my own masterminds. And James, honestly, like, I about lost connected investors a few times, and my insiders helped me through those tough times. And I would get into tough spots in real estate and my insiders helped me through those tough times. So insiders network, you know, that was really important for. For me. So that's definitely, you know, step one.

Well, I love the fact that before we had a chance to connect that we both have a book with, with similar titles and we both keyed into this insider's edge because it is what, what I so love about real estate investing and why you can gain that inside edge to outperform the market. Right? Because you can be a master of your own destiny. You can get better information than what's just available to everywhere. So it's, it's really evident that, Ross, over your career, you've figured out how to dig in and do the work. And there's no substitute for doing the work to figure out what's not widely known, right? And that's what you've been able to, to trade on. And I, I have no doubt that certainly with what you're doing with saving homes, you'll take that same approach to really get under the hood, figure out where the issue is and figure out a better way to combat.

So I'm gonna do it with, I'm gonna do it with a lot of other smart people, though, because I cannot do it myself. I, I know that for a fact. And one thing I wanted to add, James, is, you know, right now you can get into real estate and you're like, oh, should I do it? When should I do it? I 100% believe that in the future real estate is going to be much different. The day of the mom and pop real estate investor is limited as things get streamlined as Wall street steps in. Like, you'll be able to buy bits and pieces of properties, but, you know, the stuff that we're talking about, I don't believe my kids will be able to do. Things are being very, very streamlined. I get to see behind under the curtain of some really exciting tech companies that are, you know, turning every house into a stock. You know, it's the stuff that's around the corner is, is awesome. So I believe right now is like the, one of the last times to really get into real estate. Like, you know, real estate. But it's the last big piece of the economy that hasn't been completely and totally transformed by, by tech. But it's, it's getting really close. And when it happens, it's going to be like, it's going to be fast. And then there you go, you know.

Well, Ross, you've given us such incredible food for thought. You've got an incredibly inspiring story and I love how the fact that you're now giving back and everything you're doing with your new organization. So I really hope that people will check out your site. And then you also made some very generous offers to give away your book, your PDF. I love that abundance mindset. So, Russ, where can our listeners go to find out more about you and. And to pick up copies of the information that you're offering here?

Yeah, and this transformation guide, have this be the first thing. So when I sold my company, I'm not allowed to sell information anymore, but I can give it away. So actually you can just shoot me an email. Is it okay if I give. I know that's not.

Yeah, go for it. We'll put it in the show notes like a company.

It's just Ross@success cap.com Ross@successcap.com Shoot me an email. Say, hey, I heard you and James, you know, you can send me a message if you want, if you want to talk about charity, if you want to tell me something you liked about the podcast. Sure. Like I read all of these. So shoot it over to me between hitting big jumps out here in Asheville and hopefully landing on two wheels. You know, at night after I tuck my daughter in, I pull my computer up and look at the people that are making a difference to saving homes, because that's what I really care about. So come work for saving homes. You know, just show up and start working one day. Maybe it works for you as well. Right. But yeah, I'll just, I'll, I'll email you this stuff. Start with this though, right here. Okay. But I'll give you real estate courses and books and access to the connect investor software that I talked about. It's not free, but you can use it for a little while for free. It's not my company anymore. I'd love to give it to you, but. Yeah, James, yeah, just Rossuccesscap.com don't be a stranger.

Ross, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate you're giving your time and also all these resources. So. And wish you nothing but the best for your newest initiative.

It's great being here. Thanks, James.

And thank you all for joining. As always, this is your host, James Nelson. And I so greatly appreciate if you enjoyed this episode. Please give it a rating. Please share it with a friend. That's how we spread the word and we help you gain the insider's edge to real estate investing so you can gain the advantage and outperform the market. So until next week, thank you again for joining.

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