Episode 17 | Land Flipping and Huge Paydays with Bryant Brislin

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the podcast, The New and Experienced Investor Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Barnett. I'm the new guy!

And my name is Joe Homs, and I'm the experienced guy.

Yep!

And we have a special guest, an awesome guest. His name is Bryant Brislin. Welcome!

Thank you guys.

Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I met Bryant through the Sub2 community and reached out to him saying, you know, we want to talk to somebody who is experienced. We want to talk to an investor locally here and have him come and sit in and, you know, share his background and everything. So we're super excited.

Great.

Yeah. So let's just jump right into it. Why don't you give everybody, you know, sort of your intro? What got you into real estate? What were you doing before that? And then we can, you know, take it from there. Yeah.

I was in college getting my degree in English, thought I was going to be an English professor, was president of the Shakespeare Club, all that. There was a woman there who was taking night classes, working on her master's degree. She had a day job. We were in the Shakespeare Club together, and she said, I could really use an assistant like you using all these spreadsheets for our club. I've never really seen that. Took the job. She turned out she was the chief title officer at Fidelity National Title. This is back in 2001, and her— she was working with all the major home builders and a lot of the major commercial real estate companies. And in about a year and a half, it all clicked. I essentially took part of her role. And I became the lead title officer for all the subdivision accounts. So again, you know, KB Home, Lennar, D.R. Horton, all those types. So I was a title officer for 7 years, all throughout my 20s. 2008, world kind of ended. And they wanted to keep me on, but at a fraction of what they were paying before, just because that's how it was for everyone. And I said, let me maybe do something a little more entrepreneurial. Was always kind of a closet deal junkie. You know, when someone would open title, I'd want to go drive it and kick the dirt, which most title officers don't want to do. So 2009, became a commission-only land broker. So it was risky. It was going from a corporate job to, you know, something entrepreneurial. Took a year and a half to close my first land deal. Land is very complicated, but closed my first deal. Since then, I'd say for the first 10 years of out of 14 years of being a land broker, I very much focused on LA. I kind of made that my niche, even though I'm an Orange County guy. So kind of rode the wave of all these small lot subdivisions in LA that were anywhere from 5 lots to 30 lots, etc. Kind of like Silver Lake, Echo Park, the Valley, the West Side, you know, San Pedro up and down. Did well in that, but then 2 or 3 years ago started to transition more to the Inland Empire where there's more dirt and where it's a bit easier to get deals done. Lately, I've been selling larger sites for big multifamily projects, sold one to Trammell Crow and their peers in the last year or 2. So that's been, that's my story, except for 3 years ago, I also started a wholesaling company. Because land deals, you know, every year I get kind of faster and faster at working on them. So I, you know, some of them are kind of on autopilot, and they're multi-year escrows often. The deal I closed yesterday, I've been working on for 7 years through 2 different escrows. So the wholesaling moves a bit faster, and that's something I can train people. And while I'm working on land deals, I can look at my feed on Mojo, which I use, and I can see 4 or 5 different people locally and even in Bangladesh each day working on my wholesaling business. So that's the long and short of it. Yeah.

Okay. Wow. Okay. So 7-year escrow.

Yeah. Okay, well, 2-year— it was 2 different—

Sure.

3-year escrows. Okay, well, yeah, and like a year in between.

7-year deal. Um, yeah, so I mean, I've only kind of, uh, dipped my toe as far as like wholesaling and then flipping and all that stuff. So a longer escrow like that, or, you know, a longer deal, that's, that's typical of land, you would say? Or you said it's usually—

Many times, yeah. I mean, if something closes in 2 years, we we fall off our chair because that's— it's just that to us, that's short.

Wow.

I mean, here and there you have, you have an easy land deal that's just commercial zone land, you know, an acre that you sell to a regular investor. But if you're selling land to a developer or a homebuilder, they usually want the time to entitle it and to get permit ready. And as we know, in California, nothing's easy, right? So that's why they kind of need that time because they're paying a premium usually. So there's kind of a wholesale price and a retail price for land or even a church, let's say. If someone's buying a church, maybe the price is as is $5 million, but if they're going to buy it entitled for 150 units, then maybe they'll pay, you know, an extra, you know, double that price, but they need the map to be approved.

Okay. Wow.

That's the long escrows. Yeah, the seller wants that higher amount.

Gotcha. And so that seems like— I mean, we always say like, you know, find a niche within real estate. That seems like a really, really good niche.

Yeah, it's almost— yeah. It's, it's tough. And it's, it's, it's a decent living. But it is a lot of work for an ROI that's okay. Right. So that's why I started the wholesaling business, because that's a business I can work on and not necessarily in.

Sure.

On the big land deals, I kind of have to always have my sleeves rolled up, literally, and working in there. I can't really delegate much on those. Gotcha.

Yeah, land seems like, I mean, especially within the wholesaling community, it's like this enigma. Like nobody knows what to do with it. Because you just like, you pull up the a picture and it's just like a thing of dirt and you're like, maybe that's a deal. And then, you know, I sent it to like my other guy that like knows land. He's like, no, it's not a deal.

It sucks.

Yeah. It all depends on the zoning, topography, et cetera.

Okay. Wow. And so you went from LA, which I'm, I'm assuming was decent when you first started and then just too many regulations or something.

That's—

Yeah.

We, we call it death by a thousand cuts.

Okay.

Every year there's more and more regulation. Sure. Um, you know, it's a compelling market. Obviously there's still a lot of people that wanna live there and a lot of people in entertainment. who don't blink at paying $1.3 million for an 1,800-square-foot, 3-story townhouse with no yard.

Right.

But it's just so darn hard to get anything done there. But I do still close things here and there, just not as much as I used to.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we kind of stopped like looking as far as like flips up in LA. Was that sort of the same reason, Joe? Was you— Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Just like—

I like that death by a thousand cuts.

It's very appropriate. Yeah. Between the state and the city and unions and it just gets worse and worse.

Yeah.

So put together for us a typical land deal. Like, let's say I had 100 acres out in Riverside right now. What does that look like? And you talked about entitling the land. And I'm assuming, you know, that's getting permits and all that stuff. Who actually does that process? Do you do that before you present it to a builder? Or do they do that?

Okay, well, let's, let's Pretend the 100 acres is owned by a church, because I do work with churches a lot, and they say, a congregant donated this to us, what do we do? And I would say the as-is price, if you were to sell today to just a normal land buyer, is, let's just say, $5 million. But boy, if you could wait 2 years for a zone change to be done and a map to be approved, it could be worth $15 million. And the way that would work is we would go into escrow, 2-year escrow with a big developer, or sometimes they're lesser-known developers, but they still have horsepower. And they would do the work of getting it done. They would need the landowner to sign the application and whatnot. But they would put in what we call the soft costs of the money to pay for the engineering and planning and application fees and all that. So they would put that money in. And then along the way, we would also have them doing non-refundable, multiple non-refundable deposits, so that it's not just a free option, because the sellers are like, well, So they could cancel, you know, the day before closing. Yeah, but at that point, they're usually pregnant, let's say $500,000 into the deal, plus the soft costs of what they've invested and all that engineering architecture can be handed to the seller. So once it finally gets approved, then we close, and then hopefully they make, you know, a good amount of money that makes the seller happy.

Okay. And what kind of due diligence do these builders do before they even get to that process?

So the initial period is kind of that free option period that everyone has, even when you're buying a house, right? Usually ask for at least 2 weeks where you can get your deposit back. And obviously on these larger deals, sometimes, you know, developers are putting down hundreds of thousands as their initial deposit. So usually they do want like 60 days, 90 days. 45 is kind of short because they've got to do soils, they've got to do environmental, which is a big deal. They have to do various types of analysis and studies to make sure that works and also have conversations with the city. Sometimes that's all the way up to city council members, but obviously planning staff to make sure that what they want to do is even feasible and has a chance of getting approved.

Got it. Got it. Wow.

Where do you see the trend with land going? Um, you said you went out to the IE because there's more dirt out there, there's more, I guess, places to expand. So yeah, more builders are going to be heading out there.

Sure.

Yeah, I've been seeing a ton of warehouses go up, um, out there. So what, what are you seeing?

Um, it's always, you know, They love Menifee, Marietta, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Temecula, Corona. Once we get to Moreno Valley, there it's kind of 50/50 on who wants to start to do deals there. I mean, it's a good market, but it can only absorb so much. Once we get to Beaumont, that's kind of far out for some of them. But then you hopscotch over to the Coachella Valley, and then a lot of them like to do stuff there. So it's, it's got years to go.

Okay.

It's just harder and harder even out there. It's not as bad as LA, but it is getting— there are certain things to take into account as far as trying to get projects approved.

Okay. And what sort of projects, what sort of buyers do you work with? Is it commercial? Is it residential?

I mean, mostly homebuilders, apartment developers, and industrial developers.

Okay.

Yeah. So from the name brands to kind of the middlemen that are a little more or less renowned.

Okay. We went to a seminar one time and with the— they were talking about land out in Lancaster with these solar farms. And he said you could buy a plot of land for this much and a couple years it's going to be worth this much. Is that—

it's very speculative. Okay.

Yeah, that's what we thought.

Yeah, he was collecting money that day.

I was like, and also how many? And then that's even that, after a while the community starts to say, well, we don't want to see these all over the place, are not— yeah, attractive, the solar farms. So, and there's only so many companies doing that. Okay.

Um, so maybe, but Warren Buffett bought a few fields out there.

Okay.

And Lancaster?

Yeah, yeah, apparently that was the thing. And he was like, and if you bought this land 7 years ago and just held on to it, it'd be worth this much.

So yeah, Lancaster and, and then, uh, Palmdale and Victorville, those are very tertiary markets that they tend to fall off a cliff first when things slow down.

Seems like it.

And then they're usually the last markets that people start to look— like, I don't think right now we can get You know, as of May or June 2023, we can get the builders to go back to Victorville just yet.

Right.

But in a few months or a year, once things get a little bit better, then they start to look out there and say, okay, oh, what about Adelanto? Same thing with Palmdale, Lancaster. Then things, when things get to the top, closer to the top of the cycle, then they go, well, what about Rosamond, which is a bit more north of Lancaster and Palmdale?

Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, interesting. And so you're working these longer land deals and you said, hey, I want to get, you know, quicker payouts, so let me jump into wholesaling. Was that something always knew about? Or did you have to— did you have to learn as sort of a beginner? Or was it very easy?

Oh my gosh, when I, when I first saw the email blast for a meetup, it was— it said virtual wholesaling. And me, I come from the world where I'm dealing with like Wall Street level people. And I go, virtual? What the heck is that? Sounds absurd. But a young guy I'd met through networking, he was putting on an event at a pizza place in Huntington Beach. And he has a young guy there doing a presentation. And I was blown away. Especially when he started talking about PropStream and Carrot and text blasting and, you know, all the different tech there is now for that. I was just completely intrigued, especially once you wrap in creative financing, sub-to, pace arbitrage, lease options, wraps. And this is stuff that a lot of guys, I think, you know, in the '80s and '90s who wore Hawaiian shirts and met on the weekends at the local Marriott ballroom, that's what they knew about and that's what they were talking about. And now because of YouTube and obviously everything else, it's kind of being commoditized. Monetized and really kind of put out there to the world. Um, so yeah, I was completely intrigued. That was September 2019, and then by January 2020, I was like, Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, South Texas, I'm gonna start that. You just got to pick somewhere, right? And I realized that that market's a little harder to get things done because of the culture. Just everyone involves their whole family on decisions. So then I move— you gotta, like, when the cheese gets moved, you got to figure out pivot fast, right? So then I moved to West Texas, and we've had some good success in Abilene and Lubbock in those areas. Amazing.

Okay.

Wow.

And you say you've already done, you know, 20-plus deals out there?

Yeah, 25. So it's great. Yeah, a few, a lot in West Texas, a few in East Texas. So like Beaumont and Tyler and then a couple in South McAllen and then about 5 to 6 out in Joshua Tree where I actually grew up, of all places, and Idyllwild.

Okay.

Yeah.

Nice. Can you kind of take us through your system? You said you built out a system so you don't have to work in that every single day and you have kind of people in there that you can just kind of check on. Do you mind just breaking that down?

Yeah, I pull this from PropStream mostly. I think it's really important to use the filters. There's a lot of filters on there. So if you pull a list of high equity, liens, vacant, and there's 1,000, you don't necessarily want 1,000, you might want just, you know, 600. So I use about a dozen filters to make sure I kind of curate the list to the, to the best that I think that we should be calling on, scrub it, skip trace it, I'm sorry, skip trace it, scrub it for DNC, TCPA. If anyone's interested in that, I can let you know all about what those are. Then we upload it to Mojo, which is my dialer. Then I set my callers loose on that. Sometimes we text blast, but most of the time cold calling is what we do. And then they call and they engage with the sellers and hopefully get them under contract and then go through the dispo process of finding a buyer.

So you're dispoing all your own stuff as well?

We sometimes JV.

Okay, cool.

So if we're busy and suddenly we open 3 escrows and there's already a stud in that market, we're stud at— yeah, and they are great. We go, I have a guy in Houston named James who I was texting on the way here. We have 3 condos contiguous owned by the same seller. I'm going on vacation next week. I want to put this under contract and punt it to you and do your thing.

There you go.

New Western, we worked with on something, great experience in Waco. But I like doing dispo and I think I'm good at it. So when I can, I like to capture that other half of the whole selfie.

Right, right. Okay, awesome. So favorite lists right now? What would you say?

High equity, especially non-owner occupied. Okay, there's a lot of people in their 70s that once they get to around that age, they just start to feel, you know, say, I'm ready to get rid of this one, especially in Texas. It's not that— it's not as much overhead for them just to have a vacant house that they sit on forever. And a lot of times when we call them say, oh yeah, I use that for storage. Yeah. So I always think that's hilarious.

Yeah.

So I guess my storage unit, aka my 3-bedroom 2-bath house that a young family would love to buy. I guess I'm ready to sell it. But a lot of times they need a concierge. They need almost like a temporary family member because there's certain obstacles, like maybe it's been red-tagged or they have a problematic tenant. And it's just, you know, agents sometimes will help with those things, but they kind of need that concierge person to just be shoulder to shoulder with them and be like, look, we'll get through this. We'll help you relocate everything. We'll drag that car off the front of your lot that— Has been there forever. I mean, we'll do whatever we can to help you get through this. Or sometimes they go, well, we want our taxes paid. Well, yeah, of course. I mean, that's just— that's not— we pay that through the purchase. Again, they just need to feel like there's someone there for them, kind of helping them through.

Absolutely. And are you doing most of the closing, or how are they setting up— setting it up for you to knock it down? How does that work?

Well, once we dispo it and we assign it to a buyer, we're there through the closing as far as we're making sure the buyer performs. We're making sure that— oh yeah, if that's what you mean.

I know, I mean, as far as like locking it up, um, are you leaving that to your callers?

Yeah, I mean, my agents are, they're decent, you know, and we don't have any special, uh, sales training. There's a lot of that out there with Steve Trang and all these other guys, and I think at some point we'll, you know, if we're really getting to that level. But for now, we seem to be okay. I mean, there's not a ton to it. Okay.

Yeah, no, exactly. And that's what I tell people. It's, it's, you're not really convincing anybody if they have a problem that you can solve. It's, it's just kind of like—

And Steve Trang has been a mentor of mine And he has said, we're not really in the business of convincing people. We're just looking for the people that are ready to go.

Yeah.

And the business of sifting and sorting.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What sort of advice would you give to somebody just starting out? Maybe they want to get into land, maybe they want to get into wholesaling. What do you tell newbies that approach you and they say, where do I start? What do you say?

Wholesaling is probably a little bit easier to answer that. They should just link up with someone who's already doing it. I do see a lot of young persons that try to do it on their own and they're, you know, 19 years old and they're putting an owner-occupied house in escrow and, you know, and maybe they can't perform. And that's kind of messing with people's lives. So, I mean, even me, if it's owner-occupied or tenant-occupied, I'm very hesitant and we're very transparent and go, look, the first 2 weeks we really need to make sure that this works for us and our partners. So please don't pack. Please understand, you know what I mean? So I'm very careful of that. So they need to make sure, and there's so many things that they're not going to be able to see around corners when it comes to like probate issues, title issues, liens. And when they try to dispo and call local guys and they sound like their voice barely changed 2 years ago and they're already calling guys trying to pitch deals. When I call someone, they take me a little bit more serious just because I sound a little bit more seasoned. So they should just partner with someone that knows what they're doing, just like anything, right? If you wanted to open a restaurant, maybe you'd work at the local Italian restaurant for 2 years before you decide to try to earn more. Open a restaurant, so just link up with someone who knows what they're doing. Land—that's a little bit tougher because it's so nichey. Reach out to me. You know, I don't—it's—it's difficult. Now, wholesaling land—you want to talk about that for a second? Because that's a whole different world than being a land broker. So wholesaling land—the folks that do well doing that—they actually wholesale it, meaning they take it down, they buy it themselves with private money. Either a lender, an investor, or their own if they have it. Because the only way to wholesale land, you mostly, you need to put on the MLS. It's really hard to have a 2-week option period and try to do the normal assignment and then 2 weeks go, who wants to buy a lot in San Bernardino? Like, you're not necessarily going to find them in 2 weeks. And the, the sense of urgency isn't there. It's easier for them to get cold feet because it's just a piece of land and go, never mind. So you really got to take it down. And buy it with someone's, your money or someone else's money, and then put on the MLS and find the buyer that way.

Okay, nice. And are you seeing a lot of, like, land transactions on the MLS? Or do you have like your finger on the pulse for that kind of stuff?

Or are you going off market? So if I, if as a broker, if I list something big, like what we're kind of what we're talking about before, we don't really need to put those on LoopNet, CoStar, the MLS, CREXi, because we know who the players are usually. For smaller pieces of land, and I do sell smaller pieces of land that are an acre, a half acre, or whatever, because they're very straightforward. Those we will put on the MLS and all the listing platforms. And I love those because those buyers have never heard of anything other than a 30-day escrow. So they're— it is what it is. Flat. It's a flat square with commercial zoning. Do you want to buy it or not? It's that they can't really make it too complicated. That's nice. So I like those, especially if they're priced in line with where land trades for in that market.

Okay, wow. And you said you, uh, you grew up in Joshua Tree?

Yeah.

Okay, nice. Yeah, how was that?

Um, it was fun when you're, you know, on your BMX, you know, riding around and see a snake here and there and, and whatnot. It's fun. Once you get to like high school, it starts to get kind of boring, especially because when I was a kid, obviously we didn't have social media and things like that, right? Um, so when I was, uh, in high school, then I moved to Orange County to live with my other parent. So that, that worked out well because there's a bit more to do here in Orange County. Yeah.

Yeah. What do you think of everything that's kind of happened with, um, Coachella vibes heading out there?

Well, kind of the renaissance that Joshua Tree has had. It's amazing. Yeah. When I was a kid, no one cared about Joshua Tree or Yucca Valley. And, and now it's like, you know, if you don't have a picture of you and Joshua Tree on your Instagram or, you know, Tinder, it's like, it's like you— it's a must. And, um, it's It's cool for the most part. And I, I did have 2 Airbnbs out there. Okay. I sold them at the time. It seemed like it made sense. Now I wish I still had them. Gotcha. We all have those stories. I'm sure you have plenty of those stories. Um, so I, I rode that wave a bit and did okay. I mean, I also am active out there as a commercial broker. I've sold a couple large deals out there and just, just closed my first lease out there. It was actually a pretty decent, uh, commission. Cool. So yeah.

Heck yeah. Yeah, Joe had a A cabin up in Big Bear, or Arrowhead, or Big Bear?

Big Bear.

Yeah, tell them about that one.

My dad and I built from the ground up.

Okay.

A real log cabin. Um, the logs came from Idaho, trucked over here. We bought the piece of land up there and just started from the beginning with the plans and all that stuff. And, uh, the utilities, putting all that stuff in was probably the most expensive of all that process. And then him and I literally built the project from the ground up. We convinced our neighbors it would be a good idea to go up there and help us put the logs on.

In those days, yeah.

And 6 or 7 of my neighbors actually went up and helped us. And we literally stacked the logs up and there's metal tubes that go up in the middle that have threads in them. And then every once in a while you put the thread and, you know, push everything down. All the way up to the top. And literally in one weekend, we were able to do that start to finish. I was just— at the time, I was working on something else, but my dad was retired and he was up there 7 days a week. And then I would go up there on the weekends to help him. But it took us a year to finish that project. And then, you know, the kids used to go up there all the time and we'd go up there with them, obviously. But then they got old and, you know, got their own lives. And then, like you said, I sold it and I wish I hadn't sold it now. Yeah, you know, but you know what, that's life.

That's probably 10 o'clock at night laying in bed, you know, why did I sell that one?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. But you know, I'm over it, you know.

It's like, well, I mean, that's the great thing about this business. So when I tell— and I've been interviewing people lately for a position I'm filling out, I've been telling— I mean, you can make it back, you know, and especially once you know creative financing. Right, right. You can— yeah, the next deal is down the road. Yeah, yeah.

We've been having a lot of fun with that. Um, we're doing like some pre-foreclosures auctions. We took one down and took it over sub-2.

Um, and then it's funny, I'll be at dinner with friends who aren't in the business and I'll say, you can still get a 3% mortgage, right? Here's how.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned, you know, everybody getting around, get together in the '80s and stuff. My first condo, which I still own today, bought it in 1977. It was a subject-to deal. But back then, you didn't— the banks didn't even care.

Yeah.

At all. You know?

Yeah.

The lady put it on the market on the Penny Saver, which is a local paper here, you know, take over my payments. And I called and I said, what's going on? And she says, I'm getting divorced. I don't want it.

Yeah.

I go, okay, I'll take over your payments. And I did. And I still own that property today. And that was literally my first one that I ever did. I've done lots more since then. But yeah, I agree with you that now you got the new guys coming in and they're monetizing all this stuff. We used to do that all the time. Not, not a problem. Used to do it all the time.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't read Rich Dad Poor Dad till I was 39. So, and I was a broker, I was in the business, but I just thought this is how the world works. You know, just keep grinding away. And, and now, you know, I didn't know about the depreciation write-off. I mean, that's everything. So yeah.

Yeah.

What, what sort of, uh, spread do you make on these bigger land deals? Like, how does that work? Is it an assignment fee, or how is that built in?

It's a normal commission. Okay. The house takes X percent. I probably shouldn't, you know, just out of respect for them. Yeah. But they take a certain percentage. Okay. And then— and it's, it's healthy. Land brokerages do take kind of a larger percentage. It's not like little 5% that maybe, I don't know, eXp or whatever takes. But there's a lot in exchange for that. And then usually I have at least one partner. Okay, so I might end up with, let's say, a fourth of the— well, a little bit healthier than that. Yeah. And then, yeah, it's decent.

Okay, cool.

And but I just closed a $58 million land deal yesterday.

Hey, now, let's go.

My My cut was about $200,000.

Just a little $200,000.

Yeah, I mean, it was 7 years in the making. Yeah. And I mean, there's so many times we thought it was— and it did implode in the first escrow. Um, but wow, I can't imagine keeping the deal open.

I know.

But to keep it— to put it in perspective, I had one in Idlewild where the seller was ready to go on the first phone call. Easiest deal I ever worked on. $45,000 assignment fee. Yeah, less than 30 days. I didn't have to put in a deposit because my buyer's ready to go. He put in the deposit.

Yep. So, and that's what you put on as far as you, you make that post and you say, I made $45,000 on one wholesale deal.

With the open mouth and all that. That's the thumbnail picture.

Yeah, you have your check up there. Yeah, they're like, I can do that too, mister. And you're like, it only took a second.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of phone calls and paying people to make those calls and buying the list and paying for them to be skip traced.

Yeah, but it can happen.

It can.

Yeah. And that's where the consistency, I think, comes in. And that's where I think—

And the systems.

And the systems.

And the systems.

Yeah, absolutely. And when people are, you know, approaching us about getting into wholesaling, like, you see them come on, I think, with that vigor of like, that's what they're gonna land on their first deal. Yeah. And then they— I don't know, the sparkle leaves their eye. And they're just like, How come it hasn't happened?

My broker at my— he's like, it's a lot of singles and doubles, and then you get a home run every once in a while. That's perfect.

So works for me. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it's fun too, and you got to savor it.

Yeah. For us that work hard, which there's a few of us in this business, your tendency is to the same day— I mean, when I was talking about that deal, that big deal yesterday with my partner that closed, on the same call we're talking about our next ones that we're trying to get into escrow. I mean, we're just always Yeah. Yeah.

Deal chasing, deal junkie, like you said.

Yeah.

Deal junkie.

Wow. Okay. So this all stemmed from you being in a class and someone saw that you did spreadsheets.

Yeah. And not even like sophisticated, not even formulas.

Crazy.

But this is 2001. So Excel wasn't, you know, as well known.

Right.

And she was just like, man, I could use an assistant like you. And it's funny how things fall into place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then another thing you mentioned, you said 2008, The world ended.

Yeah, it felt like it. Yeah, I mean, it was bad.

Okay, it was bad. I mean, not for me because I went on a buying spree.

Okay, right, right. Well, now I know, knowing what I know. Yes. Yeah, unfortunately I haven't had a 2008 since I learned, because once I became a land broker, I started working with all these developers. Now I have an MBA in how this stuff works. Yeah, an MBA that's way more valuable than I could have got at USC or wherever. Yeah, so, but I have— we haven't had the luxury of a 2008 because, uh, of this.

Yeah, I'm obviously older than you, so I had been to 2 of those before that one hit, and I knew what was gonna happen when it got down to a certain point. And I was doing a lot of short sales and my investors were calling me left and right, you know, hey, put me into this deal. And I was double-ending a lot of those deals. At the same time, I was buying them as well because I knew if they were coming in at this price, they wasn't gonna go any lower than that because they were picking them up at this price. I knew we had hit bottom at that point. And so then I just started going in and buying as much as I could. And again, I was, for me, 'cause I'm very conservative, I was really aggressive. I ended up buying, I think probably about 15 properties then. And I look back on that now and I go, shoot, I should have bought 100 of them.

Yeah. You know, March of 2020, all, you know, so many of the high net worth individuals and families that I know called me forks and knives out. We are ready. It's starting. And then of course, yeah, it didn't start. No. Yeah. So because of the stimulus and all that. But yeah, they were so ready for it to be 2008. But, uh, yeah.

Yeah, I hear that too. I mean, I hear people with their crystal ball out saying, you know, get ready, you're ready, it's coming, it's coming. And I keep a really close eye on all that stuff, and the foreclosures, they're not there, you know.

I'd like to say it's the best of both worlds. A bit where there's— it's a downturn, yet it's not a total bloodbath. And for those of us that are doing the mining and calling the folks that are overleveraged that have the 3%, but they, you know, they're not in foreclosure, but they're just— it's tight as tight can get. And, um, we call them with the solution and they're upside down, no equity. Um, they're out there. Yeah. Um, but it's, it's too bad that there aren't, you know, a lot of commercial centers and other things that you can buy, like how you could have in I thought about buying one, you know, but then I don't do commercial.

But this guy was literally just, he wanted to get out from under it. You know, he said, here, you can have it. You know, I'm thinking, do I really want a commercial? It was in Santa Ana. Do I really want a commercial building in Santa Ana? And it was one of those that you owned, you know, the space.

Right.

And it was in a big, you know, like 30 or 40, you know, unit complex, but you actually own the building. So that was really attractive. But again, you know, I wasn't really much into commercial stuff. I still, I still am not into commercial stuff, but that would have been a good buy.

And then, you know, seller financing, creative financing for businesses, I think is really interesting. And hopefully in the next few years, that's something I could look into. Buying old plumber businesses or laundromats or whatever it is and taking them into the next century with marketing and whatnot.

Absolutely. Yeah. And then just having that as cash flow.

Yeah.

Nice. And are you— it sounds like you're pretty good at building your systems out, hiring people. You're doing a lot of hiring. What do you look for when you're hiring someone? What are the main traits? I'm not good at hiring.

Okay. I would like to make that announcement right now. Please come take advantage of me, candidates. Please tell me your sob stories. Please tell me your dog is sick every week. I am— I'm getting better.

Okay.

So, uh, I just made an offer today to a guy I had a lunch interview with who I believe in. Um, it's, it's really hard. Everyone wants to make money in real estate.

Yeah.

But, you know, come in at 8:04 and leave at 4:57.

Yeah.

And, um, man, I mean, you got to put in your dues. But these days you could probably put in a year's worth of dues and then maybe slow down a little bit and maybe we'll start to work remote and poolside with Wi-Fi and whatnot. But, um, man, can you at least put in that first year? I mean, all of my 20s were 80-hour weeks, and I'm not saying I should have done that, but that's just kind of how it was back then.

Yeah.

So, um, you just got to go with your gut. And actually, I was talking to Ryan Pineda on a Zoom the other day, he's one of my mentors, and he said, well, look at it this way, think of whoever you hire next as a 90-day period or probationary period. You're not looking at them as, okay, this is the guy that hopefully is going to work side by side with me for the next 50 years. I mean, hopefully, but look at them more like, okay, this is who I'm hiring for the next 90 days and we'll see how it works out. And every 30 days I'll make that assessment.

Yeah, I think that's— no, I agree. Yeah, absolutely.

It's really tough.

Yeah, it is. It is. Nobody wants to work.

They'll tell you whatever you want to hear just to get that job. And then the problem is, is the base. So I am giving a base, but I feel like once you get to about $4,000 a month, they start to get really comfortable. Because that's just enough to kind of COVID rent and car. And, and, um, so we'll see.

Okay.

Yeah, I am not the best at that.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, you're being extremely generous. Yeah, because, you know, we get people calling us all the time and it's about, okay, you want to come in, you want to learn about what we're doing? Yeah, we don't pay at all.

You know, they don't seem to get that value.

You, uh, you don't get paid until you put a deal in front of us that's going to work and then we'll pay you for that deal. But I think that's for us, at least, that's a good way to weed out those people that just don't want to work.

The hybrid that I'm doing is $2,000 for sure. And then the other $2,000 is a draw.

Yeah.

And I'll chip away at your commissions to pay back that draw. But they got to feel like there's some type of clawback and that they're at some point they're just borrowing from themselves.

Right.

So otherwise, yeah, there's too many people that get very comfortable with that.

Yeah, then they'll just look busy.

And yeah, but at the same time, I don't want them losing sleep that they're— I mean, because they're not going to be the most efficient employee.

Sure, sure.

I don't know, I have not figured that out yet.

Yeah, it's another level of being a business owner, you know, like, um, being the leader and keeping people motivated and all that stuff. And I think even the, the greatest minds in business have all had that.

I take complete ownership though. Um, I, I need— I keep thinking that I'll go, I'm gonna hire someone and they're gonna be just like how I was in my 20s. Yeah, that's not it. I have to be— I have to stay on them. I always think, okay, you'll be on autopilot, you'll be fine, I'm, I'm here for any question. That's not really how it works, so I have to stay on top of them.

Yeah, yeah, no, I know, I know.

I don't want to be a slave master, but I need to— KPIs. Yeah, I had never heard of KPIs until my early 40s, right? So you have to You know, track everything and look at numbers.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, then that, that's kind of the best indicator for, you know, otherwise people, like you said, could just tell, you know, yeah, I made all these calls this week and you'd have no idea. And you're just like, why are we not closing a deal?

And even if, even if it shows they're making 100 dials a day, if they're not getting anyone, then something's wrong. And we wish them the best.

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, that's what, you know, if you work with virtual assistants, you know, overseas, it's the same thing with them. You know, you have to figure out if they're experienced enough. And we've gotten to the point where we just have them call. We— all we want is a yes, you're— we're interested in selling. And then just that lead, that— yeah, that lead comes back. So it's not that it's difficult for them to, you know, do. It's, it's either yes or no. Are you interested or not?

You know, I mean, my best rep right now, he's, he's kind of soft-spoken and whatnot. He's not car salesman-y. But people, yeah, they respond to him, right? So, um, you just got to find the one, the person that has the touch. And honestly, as, as new agey and kind of woo as it sounds, I feel like you have to set the intention that you want to talk to people. I think even myself, or me myself, when I've cold called, in some ways you don't want them to pick up, right?

You're like, oh God, I don't, you know, like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna say? Yeah, boy.

Or you're like, cut it, do I really feel like being told off. Although, you know, that doesn't happen that much in the parts of Texas we call. Everyone's pretty nice. But, um, yeah, so I think that you, you have to have the intention that this is what you want to do, you like it, and you want to talk to people, and you can. That even if you get turned down, you're this much closer to a yes.

Like, see, now Alex is a really, really good caller. His business partner Chad is also a really, really good caller. The only thing, and I've told Alex this, is he's such a good caller He'll be on the phone with somebody for an hour, and I'm like in the background going like this, like cut it off. It's like I've heard the same thing three times. They go over it, you know. Oh my God! Here's a violin. She's still in there.

You know what I tell my reps is once you get to the once you get to the twenty-minute mark, tell them that you have to take your grandma to a medical appointment. There you go.

And that'll usually the that'll be like oh okay bless your heart. Yeah see there's a good one.

That is a good one. I do. I just, I feel bad because I, I do like, I hit it off with older people and I'll like listen to them and because I know they haven't talked to someone in like, you know, 3 weeks and they just want to like let it all out.

But ironically, how many of those have not sold to you?

Yeah.

We had one like that and then, and I even went over there and gave her a hug, made sure she had everything for Thanksgiving.

And she's like, I can't right now.

Yeah. And then the next, within a few days, she sold to the guy who offered just a smidge more than us. But then she was still texting my rep saying good morning, good night to my— because I guess that was her new boyfriend. So she was still texting my rep wanting to hang out after she had already went with someone else. I'm like, so ironically, they don't—

they don't—

they just— they just want to talk. They do. They don't— they won't necessarily go with you just because you know all the names of their cats.

No, exactly. And there, there's that— there's— yeah, rapport doesn't get you the deal, you know.

Sometimes it helps, but you just got to set the boundary.

Exactly. Yeah, for sure. And it's like, are we gonna do this or not?

But especially, especially with older people, you just have to set that boundary. You know, because I, I do flips and we were doing flips in Laguna Woods, which is a senior community, 55+. And my son-in-law and I were in there and we were looking at a property that was being rehabbed. And there was 2 old ladies outside and they had this like bird feeder thing. And, and you could tell they had a hammer, they had a nail, and the other one was holding up the bird feeder thing. And they're looking like, how are we going to get up there to do this? Yeah. My son-in-law is six seven, okay? And I said, "I hate to do this to you, but go over and offer to put that stupid bird feeder up there." And then they start into the conversation. And I've I get on my phone. Yeah, I get on my phone. I go, "Hey, we gotta go. We gotta you know do this or whatever." But yeah, you know, Woods is a mess right now.

I know that's off topic.

Oh, it is.

And I would not want to be an owner there with those insurance issues they have. Yeah, I know. I know someone there has been struggling to solve.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we, we stopped, we stopped flipping in there, um, COVID 2020, because they shut every— I mean, those are the people that were dying.

You have 100% cash reserves to match, you know, the price.

$125,000 in reserves, cash. Well, yeah, on top of, on top of whatever the purchase price is.

Yeah, on top of the purchase, on top of the purchase price.

Exclusive. Yeah, I mean, to me, I think it's Like discriminatory, don't you think? It's like, well, are they trying to keep out poor people? Yes, that's what I think.

CC&Rs in the '60s or whatever, that was just how it was.

Yeah, no, exactly.

You could discriminate in the '60s.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And they, and they kept going all along like that, you know. It's like, why— when, and when Alex is 55, why can't you live there?

Yeah, I will live there.

And you also have to have a certain income coming in every, uh, month as well. You have to qualify income-wise, you know, even though if you pay cash for the property, yep, still have to have $125,000 in the bank and still have to have income coming in.

Well, we wish them the best because they have that insurance issue they have right now.

I think everybody's having that issue, not just—

The big builders have been saying that's an issue. Yeah, especially, you know, out Rancho Mission Viejo and way out there, and they're just— when you're near oak trees and, yeah, scrub We have fire seasons every year now.

Yeah, you know, like State Farm says, State Farm, we're always there. They're not there anymore. They left. State Farm's not there. Yeah. And I think they're just going to be the first domino that falls, and there's going to be other big ones that they're saying same thing. It's like, we can't afford to insure people in here. You know, you want to pay, you know, triple, quadruple what you're paying Okay, but nobody's gonna stand for that.

Yeah, it's scary. It is very scary. Death by a thousand cuts, right? Yes, yes.

Then it's gonna be California. Yeah, it'll be like, uh, on Hawaii on the Big Island, you know, because it's an active volcano. Yeah, there's some areas that are in a certain zone that you just like— they're just like, we're not gonna insure it, so it's on you. Yeah, and there'll be like million-dollar houses. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the most—

some of the most successful people I know, they I have friends that live in other states, but they commute here during the week to work. So maybe that's what you can do.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I talked to my wife this morning and I said, I think we should move to Florida, you know. And then we're watching the TV and all of a sudden the weather channel comes on and says, there's a storm developing, you know, right outside Florida. And she goes, I ain't moving to Florida. You're crazy. Earthquakes every, you know, once in a while, that's fine. But no, no. And then we're going through this terrible weather here in California, you know. It's like, this is like really crazy weather. So I hope it changes. We'll see.

We'll see what happens. Well, Bryant, thank you so much, man. It's been a pleasure. Um, if people want to work with you, work under you, how can they get in touch?

LinkedIn for sure. I'm very active on there. Um, and then Instagram is The Land Broker, the_land_broker.

Nice. Yeah, we'll, we'll put that in the description and we'll put it on the screen and everything. Great. Yeah. Um, awesome. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Make sure to, um, share this with your new and experienced investor friends. Subscribe to the podcast. You can find us wherever podcasts are. Joe, do you have anything to add?

Uh, my meetup is at the last Monday of this month, and, uh, my son-in-law actually is going to be speaking, fixing and flipping. He's got about 20 projects that he's doing right now. I think we had about 50 last year, but obviously the market's slowing down and everybody's holding onto their property. They just don't want to put it back on. And he actually sent me some information. They were thinking about passing some legislation.

Oh, perfect.

So that you can not pay taxes on the current $500,000 in capital gains. They're thinking about upping that to $1 million.

Okay.

Actually, that kind of fits me perfect because—

That's great.

I bought my house in, you know, 1980 and I paid $160,000 for it and it's worth $1.4 million now. So that would be like really good for me. Yeah. You know, it's not have to pay taxes because that's the reason I stay, you know, because I mean, all the kids are gone and, you know, it's just—

You would sell it?

I would sell it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, why not? If I didn't have to pay taxes on it. Yeah. Heck yeah.

Where would you move to?

So that's a great question. Florida's out of the picture here.

There's no way you're leaving.

Arizona for me.

Okay, nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's close enough too if you need to come back and forth, you know. Yeah, okay, nice. All right, well, um, we appreciate you guys watching and we will see you on the next one.

Thanks. Yeah, take care. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.