How To GET RICH Flipping Houses With Ryan Mitchell

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast, The New and Experienced Investor Podcast, the number one live podcast in Laguna Hills. Congratulations.

Thank you.

All right on. I'm one of your hosts. I'm Alex Barnett. I'm the new guy.

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

That's right. We're doing a real estate podcast.

Is that what this is?

Yeah.

Oh, real estate investing. I told you to remind me every time we start this.

Real estate.

Why I'm here.

Yes. Real Estate Investing Podcast.

Okay.

But check this out. Everyone always asks, where can I see the show?

Okay.

Like when, you know, I know you guys are live. How do I get there? I solved it. I finally solved it.

About time.

I gotta see this.

3 years, right?

Season 3. Big update, neipodcast.com. So if you go there, it's gonna automatically redirect you right to the live feed when we're live, which is Thursdays, 4 PM Pacific Standard Time.

Took you that long?

Yeah, takes me a while. So I think this is episode 67.

Wow. Yeah, that's nice.

It's pretty good.

Yeah. So when did we get the designation of number one?

Um, well, there's 2 live podcasts in Laguna Hills. The other guy is not getting very many views.

Oh yeah. Okay.

So that makes us number one.

Got it.

I did my research.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, but as usual, we have an amazing guest here today. We're gonna be talking about getting rich. By flipping houses.

Okay.

It's one of my favorite topics.

Should you wanna, uh, do the 2 tips first?

Yeah. Well, I was, I was gearing up to that.

You kidding? Yeah. Oh, okay.

Because I'm gonna present the topic, which is getting rich, flipping houses, balling out. Um, and then that I would say, Joe, do you have any 2 cents you wanna add? 2 cents or 5 cents?

You do one and I do one.

That's fine. So you— maybe you guys let us know. This is live. Let us know in the chat. Do you like this? Would you like this segment to be called Two Cents or Just the Tip?

Okay.

And then each of us provide a tip.

Okay.

On flipping.

Relationships. That's my tip.

Okay.

Build relationships. Escrow, title, contractors, anybody that has anything to do with real estate. Okay, people you buy products with, build relationships. Once you get those relationships going, nurture them, reward them, and be successful.

What do you do if—

You're not allowed to ask me. I'm not being interviewed.

Oh yeah, you're right.

Okay.

That's fine.

That's just a tip.

I'll, I'll save it for our guest.

Okay.

For our guest. Uh, my tip is once you get started and you're looking to scale, you know, go slow. You don't gotta ramp it up to 20 properties right off the bat. You know, get your skills down.

It's a good tip.

You know, cuz it's easy to get caught up in the, I'm not there yet. I need to be there, then all of a sudden you're—

You mean you can't go from 1 flip to 50 flips in 2 months?

It wouldn't be wise. You can, and I think people have done it.

And I'm sorry, that was a question on your tip, and I tried—

No questions on the tip.

Sorry, you can ask me the question now.

No, it's fine.

Okay, that's right, we're moving on.

Yeah, we're fair.

Okay.

Um, before, before we bring our guest in, um, January 27th We have a meetup.

Yes, we do. Well, you made a mistake last week. It is January 27th, Hangar 24, Irvine, California, 6 PM live. I was hoping it was actually January 20th because I was going to be celebrating, you know, the new president and all that sort of stuff. But Ah, 27th is fine.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll still celebrate here. Okay, the week before, and then—

Got it.

We'll rub it in everyone's faces on the 27th.

Oh, that sounds good. Okay.

Yeah, that'll be the plan.

Yeah.

All right, no more screwing around. Um, before we bring the guest in, one last thing. This is live. Drop your questions. This is like one of your only chances to get this sort of like your question to a person of this caliber. You're like, you're not just gonna like call this guy on the phone, okay? You're gonna have to book some time. You're gonna have to pay for a mentorship.

Call him, but he's not gonna answer.

Exactly. That's what I'm saying. So do it here while you're in the chat. So share this with anybody looking to get into flipping, okay? You know, and then drop your questions here, get them answered, then there you go. Okay, so without further—

Wait, wait, full disclosure. Brian is my son-in-law. Brian started with me about 10 years ago now. We literally flipped a property together. And then I'll let you tell them the rest of the story. But I just wanted to make that disclosure that he is my son-in-law.

Joe's obsessed with these disclosures. You know, you just can't stop.

Yeah. Okay, go ahead.

Okay, anyway, yes, so we have with us Mr. Big Time himself, Ryan Mitchell. Ryan, thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

And I know you are Joe's son-in-law, but you've just— you've taken the reins and you've ran with it.

Yep.

That's amazing. So, um, like you mentioned before the podcast, you have been here a couple other times. The first one, everyone can go back, get your origin story all the way from the beginning. The second one, you talked about buy and hold in Alabama. This one, getting rich.

All right.

Flipping houses.

Sounds good.

Okay.

So do, just do like a tiny bio and then let's get to the meat.

So yeah, like Joe said, I started flipping houses with him, uh, 10 years ago. It might be 11 now, but it's been a while. Um, before that, shortly before that, I got my real estate license. Mainly because I wanted to get into flipping. And Joe said, basically, get licensed and, you know, come talk to me. So that was like my initiation, if you would say that. Got licensed and came to him maybe 3 months later and said, I'm ready to go and I want to flip a house. So I didn't get my license necessarily to be a real real estate agent, even though I do that sometimes. I got it to flip houses. But yeah, that first one was just proof of concept. We went on to do Maybe 5 or 6 more in the next 12 months or so. And when we first started, we were doing all of the work. I mean, we were laying the flooring, doing the painting, you name it. We were pretty much doing everything and hiring minimal subs. From there, I said, we did this. I learned a lot. And now I want to scale it. So then we started buying 2 properties at a time and hiring a contractor. And then it was 3 or 4 properties at a time. Fast forward, now I got 22 properties that I'm flipping at one time. So just like you said in the beginning, we kind of ramped up but did it slowly and sustainably and built some systems along the way. It's still not easy, but yeah, we did it sustainably. And you can do it too.

Yeah. I think that's great experience doing the work yourself. Like right now, I like working with Joe. We've pretty much just hired everybody, so I had never learned the hands-on stuff.

You didn't want to.

Well, I didn't want to also, but yeah, but you know, just the knowledge base would be good.

We have to force you.

I didn't necessarily want to either, uh, but it was fun. We had a lot of fun doing it.

Yeah, it was like, you know, I try to have fun with people. And I still have my, you know, main mantra. We went out to lunch every day.

That's right.

Every day we went out to lunch. We were working 8 hours a day, maybe 10.

You would pick me up at 7 AM and usually we wouldn't get back till 6 or 7.

Yeah.

And we did that 6 days a week, not 5. We did Saturdays too.

We took Sundays off. Nice.

Okay.

So we did, we literally did that for a year and a half, 6 days a week.

How can people learn about, you know, just the inner workings of a house without having that experience?

It's tough. I mean, I, I still rely on all of that experience to this day. I mean, I know so much about construction now, I could probably pass my contractor's license test. I mean, I learned more and more from there, but it's, it's, it's hard. The only way you learn is getting, you know, submersed in it. Before I got my real estate license, Joe had a partner who was a contractor, and I actually worked with him for maybe like a year before that, just doing, you know, working for $10 an hour, just learning the construction business that way too. So I already had kind of a head start, but I don't know, without, without going in and really doing it, there's not a really good way to learn construction. I mean, you can Most contractors that pass their test don't know anything about construction either. It's like you just pass a test and most contractors just hire licensed subs and, you know, they just have the license, just like most real estate agents don't know much about real estate until they actually start doing deals.

Okay. The contractor friend of mine, his name was Mike. He's a very funny guy. He came up to me one day and he goes, Joe, I'm paying Ryan $10 an hour. Are you taking half of it? I go, no, why would I take half of it? He goes, oh, I would. Yeah, it's like, okay, no, I'm not taking half of it. And, and obviously 10 years ago, $10 an hour was okay. It was not great, but it was, it was a good experience and it was a good learning experience for him.

Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I mean, I'm learning just like seeing the guys do the work.

Yeah.

Getting to the inspections, seeing the stuff that needs to get fixed, and then knowing, oh, this is all the stuff that's gonna get called out. So then you can tell 'em to do it right the first time.

Yeah. Yeah. Visiting projects and getting your hands dirty is the only way you're gonna learn really.

Yeah. And that, that kind of brings me to like the scaling process. 'Cause, you know, Lauren and I will look at you like the whole thing is now that you're, you're like, I, I'd never go to a property. I don't have to be there. I got that in my head. I was like, I don't want to go to any of these properties. Doing it all from the phone, but I'm not at that point yet. I need to be showing up and making sure these guys are doing the, the work, you know, until we have a team in place that we can trust. How do you fill that gap? I mean, what does, what does that look like?

I mean, it's, it's pictures, it's FaceTime. I mean, um, you know, it's trust with, with the guys and contractors that I have. But, um, I mean, I'm on the phone all day long. You guys probably know it's like, It's constant. And most— some of those times is FaceTiming my contractors jumping around to jobs, basically doing what I used to do and keeping everyone on track. There's no good way of doing it, but technology makes things a lot easier. We're implementing a new app now too that the guys will take pictures at the end of each day so we can see the progress that they've made each day. So we're actually implementing more systems to make that a little bit easier. But up until now, it's just been FaceTime and pictures from the crews that are at each job. And you know when a job is going smoothly by how quickly it's moving. If it's not moving quickly, then you know the guys are not working diligently and messing around, basically. So you just have to be mindful of the timelines and tracking that stuff. And it just really helps having a team and contractors that you trust. That's really what it comes down to.

When we first started out, I speak fluent Spanish and these contractors are Spanish speaking. And I walk in on some of the projects and stuff and they start whispering, here's the jefe, here's the boss.

Nice.

Here's the boss. You know, not Ryan, that was me. No, not Ryan. They weren't scared of Ryan. They were scared of me more than anything else. Because Ryan, he's just a nice guy. That's all there is to it. He's just a nice guy.

OK. Yeah, how does the nice guy deliver the bad news that you're done on this project?

I'm definitely nice. But when it comes down to business, I can be hard. I mean, I'm very much like a perfectionist in a way. And I like things done a certain way. So yeah, I'm nice all the way up until a certain point. And then once you burn me or do something wrong, you're pretty much cut. I don't really mess around with that. I've cut several people, and I'm about to cut some more. It's just what you have to do. Guys get comfortable, and they— as soon as someone, I feel like they're taking advantage of me in any way, basically, that's where you have to cut them off.

Yeah, I went to a project once and in the bathroom and they had laid the tile surround and it was horrible. It was absolutely terrible. I called Ryan. I said, have you seen this? He says, yeah. He says, I'm having to tear that whole thing out and start all over again. So yeah, it happens on their dime. Absolutely on their dime. Yes.

Yeah, I won't pay for mistakes. It's like either you fix it or you're not getting another job from me. And, and I'm very loyal to, to the people that are good to me. They get every single one of my jobs and they know that and they appreciate it. At least most of them do. As soon as, as soon as they mess up or something like that, almost every single time they fix it. And if they don't, then, you know, they're cut.

Okay.

Good to know. Good to know. Um, what was that app you were talking about?

Uh, it's Houzz. Houzz Pro. Um, it's an app really made for contractors. Um, it's really robust. You know, it's, it's for running a contracting business, basically. You can invoice, uh, you create budgets, and then you have like actuals that you would submit in there. Um, I can, uh, connect it to my Home Depot receipts and all the feeds from Home Depot will go in there. So it— we're working out the kinks and like implementing it as a new thing for this year. Uh, but it's, it's Houzz Pro. It's not cheap. I think it's like 5 or 6 grand a year.

Oh, wow.

Um, but it does a lot. It does way more than I need it to do.

Okay.

So, and I can also build it out to, to like what I need.

Nice. And how are your guys taking the technology implementation, or do they get stuck in their ways? Are they like, ah, another freaking app I gotta learn?

Well, part of the reason why we haven't fully implemented it yet is because of that like hurdle. Um, you know, for most of the guys, they don't get technology, you know, we have to send them an email, they have to download the app, you have to create a user. Like, just getting to that point is a struggle. So I'm getting everyone to come to the office. We're going to take like a day off work and meet somewhere, probably here, um, and get everyone together, get everyone signed up and teach them how to use it, basically.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I've, I've realized after trying to get these people to, um, sign up and use, download the app, that, that's what's going to have to be done.

Mm-hmm.

But yeah, part of it is the clocking in and clocking out. So that's the hardest part with, with a lot of these guys is, is tracking them and making sure they're at the job when they say they are. So this app will basically— it tracks their location. So when they get to the job, they clock in and it'll stamp their location. So we know they can't clock in while they're on the freeway. They can't clock in at home. They have to— when they're at the job, they clock in and that's when their hours start. Because I pay my guys by the day. So say a guy gets paid $200 a day, that's supposed to be for 8 hours of work. But if he works from, you know, if he only works 6 hours, we don't really know that. And we end up paying him for his full day. So we're implementing that to make sure that they're actually putting in their hours each day.

That's why they don't want to sign up.

Yeah, they're like, oh, I can't figure it out.

He knows where I am. He knows what time I got here. Hey, before you do invite them here, make sure that they take a shower. Okay, uh, either that or tell me the day they're coming and I'll just stay at home that day.

Like, most of the guys are clean-cut. There's, there's, there's the demo guys and the landscapers and stuff like that. They're all, they're all on our crew that, you know, they're getting sweaty. Yeah, there's one guy that refuses to put a shirt on. He won't work with a shirt on.

Oh, that's awesome. I like that guy. Okay, he's like up on the roof in the blistering heat.

No shirt.

Just nails and demo flying.

As soon as he starts working, the shirt comes off.

Okay.

What's the age group of your contractors?

Like the crews? All the way from 21 years old to 70.

70, really?

Yeah.

And still working?

Wow. Yeah. Pinto's 70.

Is he like the head guy, the boss?

No, he's an old mason. He just does stucco and block. Does clean out and—

Yeah.

It's just an old guy trying to make some money.

Wow. Okay. So 22 projects going on right now. How do you fund 22 projects?

Well, over the years, obviously, I've built up funds. The way I do it now is I use hard money. Obviously, that's what everyone does. So Kiavi is my lender. They're they're the best in the business, in my opinion. They will lend 90 to even 95 percent of the purchase price and 100 percent of the rehab. So you're the money you need to really do a flip gets minimized when you have a good relationship like that. They will give that leverage to anyone, but the fees and points and stuff will will change. But 95 percent, I'm getting 95 percent leverage on. most of the properties I do now. I mean, only putting 5% down. But, you know, you have to have money to do this business, whether it's yours or you borrow it. So using a combination of my own money and hard money and other private investors to make up that gap, the gap funds, the down payment, and the monthly holding costs, basically to finish the project.

Because if you're first starting out, you're not going to get the best rates and terms and all that, I assume. So What is the difference between a newbie and where you're at?

So, Keyabi, I believe the rates and leverage are pretty much the same. What changes the most is the points. I pay 1 point. I think brand new person would pay 2 points. It's not a huge difference. What about interest? I don't think the rate changes.

No?

No.

Yeah, the rate pretty much stays the same.

And what's the rate at now?

My rate at 90% leverage is 8.95%.

Oh, that's—

If I go to 95%, it jumps to 10.95%. And then, and then when I go to the 95% leverage, I pay an extra quarter point. So to qualify for the same rates that I get, you'd only have to do 5 flips in the last 24 months. So once you completed 5, they consider you a pro and you get the same level as, as me, basically. Well, and the threshold's relatively low to qualify for that.

And it depends on like where it is, right?

The 95% is geographical. Yeah. They have their own, right, like algorithm AI thing that basically determines if the property is, uh, in a good area, basically. But I mean, properties in San Bernardino qualify for it. Um, it's, it goes off of like the sell score, you know, how, or, or risk, uh, risk score on, on the market as well. So if properties are selling in that market, And it's a normal suburban area, then I think for the most part it'll qualify for the higher leverage.

Okay.

That's good to know. Um, what are some sacrifices you've had to make to get to this point in your career?

I mean, I think the sacrifices are similar to, to any business. I mean, flipping, flipping is, is running a business and being an entrepreneur. There's, there's sacrifices. I think it's the same. If you want to be successful at doing anything, it's the same sacrifices. It's working when other people aren't. I mean, I work on weekends most of the time. I'm answering my phone on the weekends, on Sundays, late at night, early in the morning. It's not that I have to be here at the office 9 to 5 like a normal job would be. My hours that I'm actually at the office are pretty lax. I think I'm here from 10 to 5, 10 to 6. But sometimes I come on Saturday, sometimes I come on Sunday. I've, I've, um, I guess backed off on, on how much I actually work in the office. I really was working 7 days a week from 9 to 6 or 9 to 7, uh, for a long time. Uh, but the sacrifice is the same. It's just, um, doing what it takes. And that's, that's the sacrifices.

Was there ever a moment when you questioned if it was all worth it?

When things get difficult, I mean, I don't think I ever questioned that. I've known for a long time that this is what I wanted to do and I'm on the right path and all those things. And my journey to wealth or whatever you want to call it is through flipping and what I'm doing. So I never questioned it. When things get hard, sometimes you question yourself. It's like, is this what I really want to do? I mean, I've thought about it a couple of times, but for just a second.

Yeah.

And then I go right back to work.

Yeah.

You're like, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. And then, and then you get through it and you realize you can get through it.

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's, you know, it's like I said, it's running a business and being an entrepreneur is hard. It's not, it's not easy, especially if you want to have a certain level of success. Of course, you can flip a couple of houses. You can flip 3 or 4 houses a year, make $200 grand a year, really, really good living. But what level of success do you want? If you're good with that, I think you can flip 4 houses a year and, you know, it's not that much work. If you want to do 50 houses in a year, 100 houses in a year, so that's a whole nother story.

Yeah.

Is there like a cap that you're looking to get? Or I guess, is there, is there a number you're trying to hit, or is it a revenue-based number?

I mean, my goal changes. That's what I always say about goals is it's like a moving target. It's like every year it's something different. Um, you know, uh, yeah, I, I want to get to 50 houses in, in one year. Uh, that's my like new threshold because the last couple years I've kind of plateaued at like You know, 25 to 35 houses a year. Um, so I want to break through to that 50 or 60, 70. Eventually I want to do 100. Um, you know, every year it— the number changes, so there's no like end goal, right?

Yeah, just keep moving the goalposts.

You're at 22 right now, you're halfway there.

This year I might hit 50. Yeah, we're gonna see.

Love that. Um, what's been your proudest moment across all of these projects that you've done?

In real estate specifically? The ones I like the most, the flips that I enjoy the most are the biggest transformations. The ones, the hoarder houses that, I mean, the one we did, I did, I think I closed it in November or December of last year. I mean, it was a complete hoarder house. There was mold everywhere. Trash 6 feet up, you know, throughout the entire house. And it was in Orange County. It was down the street from our office here. So to turn a house like that into what it turned into is really what's the most rewarding, is just the, the big transformations is what really like excites me.

I'm sure everybody out there is just sitting on the edge of their seats and they want to know how much Is the most money you've made on one flip?

Obviously the money is, is a rewarding part. So usually those properties that have those big transformations, the goal is to make a lot of money on those ones, which, which is true. The, the property I made the most money on, I made almost $400,000 on, on one flip.

Wow.

It's like 380 or 390.

Yours, yours was close though. Yours was what, 3?

Like 3, 320.

Oh yeah, listen to this guy. Yeah, you hit one home run and you think you're Mickey Mantle. Do you remember who Mickey Mantle is?

Yep. Yeah, it's more like Lou Gehrig.

I don't know, does producer know who Mickey Mantle is?

Nope.

Oh, see? Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's funny, for a long time I never did a flip and made over $100K. I mean, I think I had to do like 30 or 40 flips before I even made $100K. Before that, it was always, you know, $30K to $60K. You had a couple like $80 grand profits. And then one year, basically when COVID happened, specifically 2020, 2021, I think 2021 was the year where I had 6 or 7 properties that made over $100,000 just in that year, just because of the timing in the market. Everyone knows what happened post-COVID is the market exploded.

Yeah.

I went in pretty heavily buying properties during COVID 'cause I'm a numbers person and I did all the research and really looked at the market and was like, I don't think it's gonna go down. I think the opposite. And I bought a bunch of properties and it, and it paid off. So 2020 year was kind of my breakthrough year. But yeah, for a long time I didn't make over $100 grand on property. Now it happens all the time, so it's fun.

What can you attribute that to?

Um, usually it's, it's obviously easiest to make $100 grand on a higher-end property. So if you buy a million-dollar house, usually in my, in my formula, a million dollars, I want to make $100 grand like minimum. Um, so the higher-end properties is an easy way to do it. You just get lucky sometimes finding good deals. That year in 2020 or 2021 is also when I, when I ramped up like my off-market acquisition company. And I think in 2021, I think we purchased 30 or 36 properties off-market. So going off-market, you're always going to find the best deals. Now, now I don't get many off-markets actually. I'm getting a lot through other wholesalers and, and MLS. So it's really just relationship-based. And you just get lucky.

There you go. I'd rather be lucky than good, as they say. Mm-hmm. You know, Southern California, it's known for its high-end properties. What's something, since you've been involved in Southern California real estate, what's something that maybe people wouldn't realize about SoCal real estate? Or flipping, I guess, in general?

I mean, in Southern California, there's so many different price points and markets. I mean, up until a couple of years ago, at least, you can buy a property for $200,000. You know, that's below— at the time, it was, you know, well below the national median home price. So a lot of people don't realize that, that if you drive a couple hours out to Desert Hot Springs— Corona. Not even Corona. Back then, I did a lot of flips in Banning. Banning was, at the time, one of the fastest-growing cities. I mean, we were buying properties for $200 grand, to $220,000, selling them for $350,000, $360,000. So there's just so many different price points and markets. Yes, of course, it's known for its super expensive houses. I mean, there's a lot of luxury in Orange County specifically. But you can find cheap houses too. That's probably the biggest misconception about Southern California.

And not just mobile homes?

Not just mobile homes.

Actual stick houses.

I mean, I'm still buying— I'm under contract to buy— So San Bernardino houses now, we usually buy— I mean, I'm buying one right now for $245,000 in San Bernardino. I mean, it's worth $500,000. It's half off. So yeah, you can still find them under $300,000 in SoCal. And San Bernardino is one of my favorite markets, believe it or not.

What's the situation with that one that's half off? Why is it half off?

It was a probate sale. And really, it's condition-based for the most part. There's some— There's some squatters in the property, but they're not like tenant squatters. They're squatter squatters, and we deal with those a little differently. So it's really condition-based on that one. It's not in good shape.

So you call the Sopranos gang to take care of the squatter squatters?

We visited the property and talked to them. And we kind of assess the situation as something that's not going to be a problem for us.

Nice.

And they'll be out.

Take care of it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Go ahead. So I define them differently because if they're a non-paying tenant, they have— I mean, there's squatters' rights, don't get me wrong. But a non-paying tenant has real tenant rights. And you have to evict them or do cash for keys. I mean, these are true squatters, transients that are just looking for a place to sleep. You can buy them a hot meal and give them $100 and put them on their way.

Oh, so that's good to know.

Kind of like what I did when we first met. Gave you $100. I told you to leave, but you never went away. You kept coming back.

Yeah, I was like, wow, thanks, Joe. I got to eat this week.

Wow.

Okay.

Um, okay. Um, along with that, thank you for that. Yeah, it's a little side of SoCal people don't realize. I think people do realize that it's an extremely competitive market.

Yes.

Okay, how are you able to get to these numbers where you're doing like 20 at a time? I'm talking to some people, they can't even find one deal. So what, what, what's your I guess what's your secret formula now, today, in today's market?

So part of it is relationships. So that was your first, your, your tip of the day. Um, it's a lot of it's relationship-based. Um, and, and it's experience. It's knowing how to write a competitive offer. If you're a first-time investor, you're not necessarily gonna be prepared to remove all contingencies after just walking the property for 10 minutes. So the properties that we get under contract, and we are getting a lot on the MLS, we walk them for 5, 10 minutes and we can assess the condition pretty quickly and identify the major red flags. If there's foundation, electrical, roof, plumbing, whatever it is, it doesn't have those issues. Or if it does, we just budget for it. But we write a very competitive offer closing in 10 days or less with no contingencies.

Wow.

And the first time, people aren't going to be able to do that, and they're not going to feel comfortable doing that. So that it's relationship and experience, and then just knowing how to talk, talk the talk to, in this case, other agents, other listing agents, and making them feel comfortable that you are going to close on the property. That's at the end of the day what everyone wants. They want to— they want comfort in knowing that you are going to close with no questions asked. And having a track record, you know, hundreds or hundreds of properties that I've purchased, it, it kind of speaks for itself. And, and, um, that's how we get 'em.

Now you're saying we walk the property. You're not walking the property.

I'm not walk— I say we, I don't walk them.

Okay. That's good to know.

Um, not anymore at least. So everybody—

He used to.

Yeah. No, no, I know he used to, but I'm just making my point that you have to have someone that you trust that's gonna look at all these things? Because I'm trusting these guys are like, no, it's good. And then we go and we find out the roof needs all this and that.

Yes.

So how do you jam it into their heads that I need to know everything that's wrong with it?

Well, I've been working with the same contractor. So when I said we, we started scaling and buying a couple houses at a time, that contractor we hired is still my contractor. Um, so he knows now what I look for, what, what needs to happen. He understands the business himself. He's also been a contractor for 20 plus years and has a ton of experience. And he knows how to do every trade. I mean, he does. He does the plumbing. He doesn't sub it out to a licensed plumber. He does the electrical. He doesn't sub it out. He does roofs. We don't sub out roofs. We do everything ourselves. So he knows how to do every trade, and so he's able to identify if there's an issue or not. He doesn't say, "Oh, we need to have an electrician come look at this." If you get a home inspection on a property. What's the home inspector say? It says you need to hire a professional plumber, electrician, et cetera, to come look at the property and, and evaluate it because they're the professionals. But, um, my crew knows that I would do everything so they can identify the issues. And within walking a property for 10, 15 minutes, we can come up with a budget. We know what's— of course, things, you know, we uncover things that, that need to happen that we don't budget for. Um, but for the most part, we have a really good picture on what it's gonna cost.

That just comes with doing the reps.

Yeah, essentially.

And, and, you know, that also comes with educating the seller as well and the seller's agent. You know, they, they may want $1 million, but, uh, you're only able to offer $700,000, and you have to kind of justify that in their minds that, you know, sorry, but this is not worth $1 million. And If you can get $1 million for somebody else, then move on. You know, have that discipline that, yeah, let's move on to the next one because we're not, we're not going to make any money on this one.

And that brings up something important too. It's like if, as a new person or someone that's only flipped a house or hasn't flipped a house at all, it's like don't try to make a deal out of nothing. I see that so much. It's like they want a deal so bad. I mean, I've made that mistake before too, but they want a deal so bad that they They bend the numbers and think they say the ARV is higher than it is, rehab's lower than it really is going to be, just because they're so hungry for a deal. And then it ends up hurting them in the end. But I've made the same mistake.

Sounds like a wholesaler.

Yeah, it's like a burn property.

Wholesalers don't buy properties. It's the people that fall for the wholesaler's numbers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I know I'm looking at some of these deals. I'm like, how And then you see that it sold. I'm like, I don't know who that person was, but godspeed.

Yeah, I'm pretty— I don't bend my numbers, at least not anymore. I was always really, really strict on my numbers and my formula. And if it didn't make sense, I'm fine turning down a deal.

Yeah.

There's going to be more. So you have to know when to say no.

Yeah, absolutely. It's better no deal than a bad deal.

Absolutely.

You said you get a lot of on-market. You said you did have an off-market operation going. Is there still— are you still doing off-market yourself in-house?

We are. We've just scaled it back a lot.

It's expensive.

Yeah. I feel like the off-market game kind of changed a little bit. It got more difficult for whatever reason. You know, the same marketing channels that we were using when we were successful getting off markets kind of stopped working. Texting, you know, comes and goes, whatever laws are changing. Like, we were texting a lot. And, and once that got difficult, yeah, we just scaled it back. It got very expensive. And I was looking at our acquisition costs per property and I was thinking, is this really worth it?

Yeah.

In a lot of cases it was, I mean, it, it was up until a certain point. And I feel like you have to spend more and more money now to, to get a deal, at least especially in Southern California, that it became like too much work for not enough, not enough return. So even our off-market, our acquisitions company now shifted to, you know, on-market MLS acquisitions. So even the same team that we were using, you know, our, our, our VAs that we trained with, with sales training and stuff, they're still, Great. Now they're calling agents and looking at the MLS, and we're getting deals that way. So we're doing it a different way, and that's way lower cost. I mean, we're not spending anything. You know, we pay for CallRail and a couple small things, and, and that's it.

Can you give people maybe a couple tips on how to go to the MLS? Because everyone essentially has access via Redfin or Zillow or whatever, what do you look for? How do you make that offer?

Yeah, so on Zillow and Redfin are just feeds from the MLS. So you can— the way I find properties on the MLS is how I used to when I first started. Um, it's through keywords. You know, when, when a listing agent has a fixer property and they describe it, they're going to use certain words to describe that property, and it's going to be fixer, needs TLC, you know, makes investment, whatever, whatever those keywords are, you can use Redfin and Zillow to search those same keywords. So essentially, that's all I'm doing on the MLS is searching keywords, finding a distressed property, I'm comping it to come up with the value, and then working backwards with estimating rehab costs and my little formula and putting those offers out there. So anyone has access to the same info I do. It's all, it's all on Zillow and Redfin. Listing agent's phone number is right there. Um, I think people just are lazy.

Yeah.

They don't want to do the— they don't—

They don't want to do the work.

They don't want to do the work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then you just—

they don't know how, but then you can show them how. Yeah.

It's something you can easily teach somebody. It's not, it's not brain surgery.

And we've taught a lot of people. We used to, I mean, you know, we had a free MLS training, and we had 10, 15 people. I showed them exactly how I do it, and 1 or 2 people out of those were able to get a deal, and everyone went away after that. So they did. You can, you can show—

Make sure that they buy me lunch first.

Right.

It's, it's like you can teach 100 people how to do— give them everything you know and exactly what you do, and maybe 1 or 2 of them are actually going to do it and run with it, take it somewhere. So it's just human nature, I guess. But if you want to get a deal, you will get a deal. You just have to put the time in if you really want it.

Yeah.

And I guess that's a mindset thing. And based on mindset, everyone says, find your why. Why am I doing this? Has that changed over the last 10 years? And what is that, and what keeps you going?

That's a good question.

Thank you.

Um, before it was I wanted to make money, you know. I mean, that's, that's a lot of people's first motivation is they want to make money, they want to be successful, they want to have a certain lifestyle. Of course, that still is part of my drive. But during my first flip, I just wanted— I just needed To pay off debt and get out of the hole. And that was it. That was my biggest motivation. I was working every single day, just waiting for that day so that I can like— it's a lot of stress being in debt and struggling. And I did that for a long time. So, that was the first motivation. And now, it's providing. I have a family. That's what drives me now is providing a good life for my family. That's really all it comes down to. Of course, I have my own goals. I still have a certain level of a lifestyle now that I want to maintain and grow. I mean, I like having fun. I want to travel. Fast cars are fun. It's not about being flashy. I actually enjoy it. It's not a flashy thing. Um, it actually makes me happy.

See, Joe, let him be happy.

Let him drive fast. Speaking of fast cars, you're, you're like, what, 2 years into the current car?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of getting old. You have a new car.

You know, he's looking, he's looking up houses, then he's also looking at cars.

You know, every couple years—

Probably got a tab open right now.

It's kind of like his phone. Every year that iPhone comes out, he has to have the new one. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, if you have the option, like, why not?

Yeah. Yeah, the why now is really the family, and that's it, without getting mushy.

Yeah, no, that's a good why.

No mushy.

No mushiness.

No.

What's a piece of advice, you know, you wish someone had given you when you first started that you could give everybody out there? TV land?

I feel like I got a lot of advice and a lot of good advice.

What's the one thing Joe forgot to tell you?

I'm just kidding.

I learned so much. I don't think I was missing anything, honestly.

Thank you.

Good answers.

I'm serious. I learned so much so quickly. That, that, that there was nothing there. I mean, I guess looking back, um, I could have scaled faster. I probably would've brought on more private money sooner, scaled faster, but maybe that wouldn't have been the right thing. You know, maybe I would've grown too fast and not been able to handle it. Um, so going back, I probably wouldn't have changed anything.

Thank you.

Beautiful.

Thank you. I love that. Thank you.

Oh, look at you.

You have lots of questions.

I do.

Wow.

I know.

But the, the one piece of advice, it's like, it's not advice. It's, it's just you have to work. You have to go and do it and, and figure out what your why is. And if it's money motivated, if it's providing for your family, whatever it is, remind yourself of that every single day and make it happen. That's, that's That's it. That's the— that's what everyone's lacking.

I taught him the 4-letter word.

Lunch. That's 5.

Work.

Work.

Work. Work.

And I had, I had a really good work ethic. I, I was never— I was never afraid of work. If I saw an opportunity, whether it was, you know, starting an online business, which I did early on, like, I worked and, and made it happen. I never lacked work ethic. I just lacked the opportunity. So once the right opportunity came, like, I took it and ran with it.

That's it. Now, would you say, you know, there's all different types of personalities, and in flip or just real estate in general, there can be some volatility, there can be some risk-taking involved. You're a pretty even-keeled guy. What kind of keeps you grounded when stuff may be looking like it's not hitting the target?

Yeah, I'm definitely even-keeled on the outside, but there's a lot going on on the inside. Um, you know, I, I worry about things. It's, it's part of it.

Um, but you know, there's certain people when stress hits, they fly off the handle, they shut down, you know. Are they— should they just stay out of the game, or—

They should reconsider. Yeah, they might— should reconsider. Some people aren't made to do this. And the sooner you realize that, the better, probably.

I had a student— and Ryan's laughing because he knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Not yet, actually. Let's see.

We were flipping in Laguna Woods. And it was her first flip. And I'll tell you, I give advice and people sometimes don't listen to me, which is fine. It's their money, you know, at the end of the day. But we finally finished that flip. It was during COVID So yes, it was a lot of problems here and there, especially in a senior community like Laguna Woods. But at the end of that flip, we kind of both came to the same conclusion. I will not teach you how to flip anymore. And she decided to get out of the flipping business. She was literally a stress monkey. It's like, literally on the phone with me 2 and 3 times a day, giving her advice, you know, do this, do that. And she'd do the opposite. You know, it's like, that wasn't good at all.

Yeah, to me, stress, anything that stresses you out can be solved by working. So again, back to the work thing. It's like, if you're stressed about something, you can fix it. You just have to put the time in. I mean, there's some things you can't control. I mean, I've lost money on flips. I, I, I, only thing I could have done to fix that was not buy that property. Um, but it's, it's just part of it. You have to be able to, to handle it and, and work through it.

There you go.

We do everything Joe tells us.

It's pretty simple, actually.

Yeah, we do.

Pretty much.

That's a good start.

Yeah.

No, you don't.

I mean, I don't know if there's been anything that you told me to not do that I did.

Other, other than you need to visit the properties more often.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Which I think I finally— yeah, I got that through.

Oh man.

Yeah, you were trying to be right.

I know, that's what I said.

And you're not there yet.

No, exactly. I told you that. Yeah, I called you on like New Year's and I was like, I had to tell you that.

Yeah, several times.

When I first hired the contractor, I was there every day.

Yeah.

I was literally there every day. And when I had 6 or 7 projects going on at a time, I would drive 3 or 4 of them one day, and then the 3 or 4 the next day, and maybe spend 1 day in the office or 2 days in the office. I didn't have that much to do at that time. There's not a lot to do. And I was out driving the properties. It slowly became less and less to when then I would just spot-check and surprise people. Not tell anyone I'm coming. I really never told anyone I was coming, actually, because I wanted to see what was going on when I showed up.

They could just hear your car coming down the street.

Back then, it was a Tesla.

Even better.

I remember you flipping in a particular area, either Riverside, San Bernardino. It was a very sketchy area.

I do a lot of those.

The crew was there. You pulled up and this young lady A young lady of the night walked out of the house. And it was like, what was she doing there?

Yeah.

Oh no. So, eh.

He didn't ask any questions.

No, I didn't ask. Yeah, there's lots of—

Moving on.

There's lots of stories.

Yeah.

No, that— she had broken into the house. And my contractor actually lived one street over from that property. And he showed up to work and she was naked in the house. And he told her to leave. And she said, no, I can do something for you if you let me stay here. And he said, no, you need to leave.

Sorry.

She got dressed and left the house.

All right.

There you go.

Oh my God. That was a missed opportunity, I think.

I don't think you didn't see her. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

She's missing a couple of teeth.

I would say a few.

Yes.

We got anybody in the stories?

Yeah.

Anybody in the chat? Do we need to get some questions answered here?

Yeah. A couple questions from Natalie. First off, if my client asks me what's the ARV for a house, what do I answer? I'm not a contractor. Do I just send the comps?

As an agent, Yes, you should just send comps. You're not a professional. I mean, you can give a, a CMA, basically is what the tool an agent has. But whenever I'm comping a property, I'm trying to find something in the same neighborhood that has been flipped or has been fully renovated. And that basically determines what, what the ARV or after-repair value is of that property. Sometimes there's not the perfect comp, but sometimes there's several. But as an agent and giving advice, you have to be pretty careful. I'm a broker too. So giving a CMA report and showing the comps and giving your opinion of what the value is is the best thing you can do.

Will you buy a property even if there's not perfect comps, or are you doing your math, or how do you approach that?

I'm definitely more cautious on the ARV if there are limited comps or there's not something that's been, you know, fully updated. For the most part, with the data that's out there, you can come up with a, with a pretty good idea of what the ARV is. But there's sometimes I'm stumped too, and I'm like, I have no idea what this property's gonna be worth. And in those cases, I usually come up with like, what's the worst case scenario? What's the lowest?

Okay.

this fixed-up property is going to sell for. And I just run my numbers off that. I'm like, oh, this property— usually I can come up with something on this. It's worth at least this much if I fix it up. It's probably going to be worth a lot more than that, or at least a little bit more than that when I'm done. But I try to come up with the worst-case scenario number if there's a complete lack of comps. Doesn't happen that often, actually. But, um, and I'm just more conservative on those properties. That's all you can do. You're never gonna get in trouble being more conservative.

That's it.

More questions?

Yeah, we have 2. One from Natalie and one from Stephanie. I think they're along the same lines here. Uh, they want you to talk about a flip that went completely bad, or if you have one that did.

Wow.

You know, people, if you're ever at a meetup Or anywhere talking to somebody who says they flip, if they tell you they've never lost money or never had a bad flip, run the other way because they're lying to you.

Maybe they're that good.

I said that for a long time though. I did, because I didn't lose money on anything for a long time. Yeah, but now I have that story.

Tell us.

I mean, again, there's Flips rarely go perfectly. Um, there's no like nightmare story, I guess, but losing a lot of money is a nightmare to me. So with the, the 2 properties— so out of all the properties I've flipped, I've really only lost money on 2. Both of them are in Joshua Tree.

Um, us too.

They're dead to me.

A lot of people lost money in Joshua Tree, so it was, it was a A timing thing at the time. Well, post-COVID, Joshua Tree, and during COVID was a really hot Airbnb market. And when it first got put on the map, I guess, on Airbnb, there was not that many Airbnbs out there. So, people realized it was a hot Airbnb market. The whole short-term rental thing got really, really popular. And everyone was investing in Joshua Tree. They were doing these new constructions. They were doing everything in Joshua Tree. and Yucca Valley. And that went on for a couple of years. And the market got oversaturated, basically. Airbnb properties weren't doing well. They weren't bringing in enough revenue. And basically, that's what ended up crashing that market. I mean, the prices went down 20% to 30% from their peak. And that didn't happen anywhere else. It was kind of localized to that market because of that reason. It was just super overinflated because of the Airbnb Airbnb hype. And I bought 2 properties there towards the end of the hype. They're far out there. They took longer to remodel than I wanted to. They're in the middle of nowhere, basically. And as I was remodeling them, the market started going down. And I listed them, and the market kept going down. So I was essentially chasing the market down. I didn't want to just cut $50K off the asking price and sell it quickly, which looking back, that would've been a smarter decision. 'Cause I think I ended up, I first listed this property for like $525K. I ended up selling it for like $395K. And that happened in the span of maybe like 8 months or so. So it wasn't a nightmare situation. It was just, it was just a bad timing with the market. Lost 6 figures on each one.

Ooh.

It's just a lesson, though. Just a lesson. And what is it?

It's just a tax write-off.

It's just a tax write-off.

It's just a tax write-off.

Exactly. Just a tax write-off. Thankfully, the gift of doing some volume is those weren't my only 2 flips. I had 10 or 15 other ones. And I think I ended up doing 20 or 25 flips that year. I still made yearly a good income. That brought my numbers down a little bit.

And you're competitive, so it really ate at you.

It still hurts. It still sucks. I still think about it.

You've got to let it go.

That was like 2 years ago. But yeah, there's a lot of other nightmare stories. But losing $200,000 is the biggest nightmare to me.

Yeah, you get a pretty good car with that.

A nice car.

A nice car.

Nice car.

It's making my like palms sweat.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Especially Joshua Tree. It's just like, why? Now when I get sent deals in Joshua Tree, I'm just like, no, I just won't even look at them.

No, we're done. I'm just done.

It's like, and even if they're a good deal, like the market's probably bottomed out now. I just I have no desire to go there.

Well, the contractors out there are so difficult too.

We found a good Mexican place out there to eat. Remember that?

It was, yeah. That actually was really good.

Yeah. But that's it.

That's about it.

There's nothing else out there. That's the highlight of a Mexican taco trip.

There is nothing else out there. Yeah. Decent salsa.

Yeah. 3-hour drive later, it's like, yeah, we had good lunch, but not the rest of it.

Yeah.

We could stay close to home for that.

Well, and your Tesla was running low on battery in the middle of nowhere with no cell service.

We had to stop at the casino.

Yeah.

And that was when we were buying it.

Right.

And, uh, who did we run into at the casino? The sellers.

Yeah.

And then you had your camera with you and they said, oh no, you're not allowed to have cameras in the casino.

Oh yeah. And then Joe got in trouble.

We need to kick you out.

You were doing some math on a napkin.

Oh, they thought you were counting cards?

No, they— yeah, they thought he was like doing some sort of map of the casino or something.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

They were like, we don't know what you guys are doing, but we don't like it.

Yeah, yeah, no, they, they weren't very friendly, you know. Yeah, but the charging was free.

Was it like Morongo or something?

No, there was no random one. No, yeah, it was, you know, you go like past Joshua Tree to Pocahontas 2 or something.

I don't know. Yeah, some, something like that, you know. I don't remember what it was, but, uh, it was a nice casino. It was very nice casino. And I didn't fault the security guys coming around, especially talking to him because he's pretty sketch.

Exactly.

But me, you know, it's like, look at, look at all these tattoos on him.

Yeah, this with a camera.

You know, he's got full beard going.

Definitely casing the joint.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, what was that, Ocean's Eleven or whatever? Yeah, they thought we were Ocean's Eleven. Exactly.

I told you it's a compliment.

Whatever. So yeah, no, I agree. Joshua Tree's dead to us too.

Yeah. We'll move on.

Stephanie also asked, have you ever flipped any commercial properties?

No.

And then if not, why?

I don't know anything about commercial.

That's because I told him not to do that.

So commercial?

No commercial either. So there's nothing I can help him with. You know, for commercial.

Yeah, I just, I just don't know it. I mean, I would do multifamily, but multifamily is still considered residential, even if 4+ units is kind of considered commercial. But like industrial buildings, anything like that, I haven't— I have no idea anything about them. So I wouldn't want to start doing that unless I had someone like Joe, but of the commercial space that could teach me.

Do you know of people that do that? Or Have you heard about anything like that?

I don't.

I don't, or I'd probably be talking to them.

There's some guys on Instagram that I follow. They do only industrial, then they'll flip it, but they keep it and then they fill it with tenants and they cash flow like crazy.

That's the thing with real estate. There's so many ways to make money. You just have to pick your lane and that's it. Don't try to Yeah. Change lanes basically.

Yeah.

I stayed in the same lane.

Stay in that lane and keep riding it. Keep riding that lane.

Liz is in the chat. She says, hi everyone.

Hi Liz. We missed you.

And then Lavon asks, I guess this is more direct to seller. How do you build trust with homeowners when you're cold calling them and they don't know you? Any tips for that?

Just building rapport. There's a million different ways.

A little bit.

Yeah, I know.

No, so yeah, you know more about that.

Well, I mean, so building the trust, it's— you're not going to do it on the first call. You're really on the first call just finding out if they are open or willing to sell or have thought about selling now or in the near future. And then from there, you, you can start by just asking about the house, but then the more you talk to them Ask them questions about their actual situation of why they're thinking about selling. Some people will just automatically open up to you and say, oh, I just got divorced, I'm downsizing. Then you go down that road, and when you start talking about emotional stuff, then that's where the bond gets created.

Yeah, yeah, you have to find out what their pain points are. Once you find that out, then you can, you know, make that emotional connection. And I want to caution you about making an emotional connection. So Alex is on the phone with this guy, and an hour later I turn around because he's in the office and talking to him. He's still talking to the same guy, but now they're talking about World War II and what the guy did. And I'm like, hey, uh, I think that's enough. You've got the bond there going. Is he actually going to sell? No, he's not going to sell. Yeah, I go, why are You know, why are you still talking? So be careful how much emotional connection you make with people.

Mm-hmm.

You know, at the end of the day, you want to get them to sign a contract at your price. Um, yes, be compassionate, find out what their pain points are, 'cause that's what they need to solve is what their pain points are. You know, death in the family, divorce, getting foreclosed on. Those are the big ones out there. Those are the ones that you should have a script ready to go. Like, okay, this is my divorce one. Yeah, he's not treating you very well. He hasn't treated you well. Okay, well, I can understand that. You know, it's like, the problem with divorces is they both have to sign.

Yeah.

So, you have to get them both on the same page. It's not just him or her. They have to both be on the same page. So, those are difficult ones to do.

Oh yeah, those ones rarely work out.

And I always tried to educate the seller. It's like, if, if my low cash offer is not gonna be the best option for you, and I know that for sure, um, I'll tell you what you should do. And I always tried to educate the seller as much as possible too, because they, they do appreciate that. Most of them do. I'll say some of them do, actually.

Yeah.

But I always just tried to educate them. That's one way to do it.

Yeah, have options for them. And, you know, if you're a real estate agent, uh, like Lavon is, You know, you take off your real estate— you take off your wholesaling hat and you put your real estate agent hat on.

Exactly.

And you're just like, you know, I, I can get you more, but we have to go to a different plan. And that is listing the property. You know, listing the property is going to be more expensive in one way because now you have to pay closing costs, commissions, and things like that, which I was willing to pay for you. But, you know, doing all the numbers, you're probably going to get a little bit more doing it that way. Uh, when do you want me to come over and take a listing agreement from you?

Yeah, you know, and then I would just add on top of all that, cold calling is literally just a numbers game. So that you just don't overthink it and just get on the phone and just do it as much as possible.

Yeah, and that's the best way to learn. I, you know, you can see all these YouTube videos and stuff without getting on the phone and listening to what people's problems are. And, uh, and having a game plan to solve them, you're not gonna be successful at all. You literally have to make the calls.

Work!

Oh my God, where's that word again? Work.

Work.

Cool.

All right, that brings us to a segment where we call Reactions. We have a few— yes, you got to put the headphones on for this. We have a couple videos we've curated just for you. And we want to get your reactions.

Okay, here we go. First one is flipping mistakes.

See one of my mess-ups? This is it, right? This property in Bellwood is going on the market, and it was bought for $140,000. We spent about $35,000 in terms of fixing it up. I'll show you the inside, but this one is a goof because we're putting it on the market late. Remember, there are 4 properties, right?

Right.

Price you buy for. Number two, the amount of rehab you do. Number three is the amount of time you hold it. And number four is the price you sell for. In this case, we've held this property just way too long, and that's the biggest problem. So am I gonna make money? I'm gonna make about forty-five to forty-nine thousand in this particular property, but it's just not enough. And the amount of time that it took to do it—that is. That's not something that is acceptable for me. See, most people don't want to show me their mistakes. I always like to laugh at my mistakes because guess what? If I make them at this level, right, right, sometimes it's my own goof-up, sometimes it's factors we can't control, but that is the reality of flipping. See one of my mess-ups? This is it, right? This property in Bellwood is going on the market.

He's gonna make $45K, $50K. $140K purchase.

That's pretty good.

I mean, I don't know what timeline he's talking about. If it's a year— I mean, if it's longer than a year, then yeah, maybe it's a messed up, but I wouldn't call that a mess up.

What timeline? I mean, do you have it pretty much perfected now? You know you're gonna get in and get out at 8 weeks, or what's the— what's the—

No, not perfected. Construction is construction, and there's so many variables and things that can happen that are out of Your control, just like he said. Um, but if it's a straightforward remodel, uh, we are completing them in 5 or 6 weeks now. Um, before it was a lot longer. I've, I've tightened up my timelines on, on normal remodels. Uh, but a normal flip from close to close is 4 months. Um, if it's longer than that, then it's usually like a higher-end property that the remodel's longer. Um, you know, you have permitting issues or whatever else.

What are some of the biggest things that cause it to get delayed?

Uh, getting caught without permits is, is the one thing that, uh, can really delay your project, which it happens. Um, again, I've done hundreds of flips. I've probably gotten— and I don't pull permits, by the way, but that's a whole nother topic. Um, I've probably gotten caught by the city now maybe less than 10 times.

Nice.

Uh, so pretty good odds. Uh, but that is always when projects go longer.

God bless them. I just want their money.

This guy said he was getting ready to list it. The floors weren't done.

Yeah.

Had popcorn ceilings.

I, I think out there you can get away with that.

Really? They're like hardwood floors. He's probably gonna like sand them and—

Yeah, but if he's getting ready to put it on the market, he would have to have done all that before. Maybe that's the last thing. And then the floor and the flooring, you know, that's something that you want to do up front because that is— there's a lot of dust that goes around all over the place. If he painted the place and, you know, he finished the kitchen and all that, that's all going to be dusted up. So, Yeah, there's, there's a process to flipping. And, you know, when you do things like that, that should be done up front.

The flooring?

Yeah.

Do it first?

Yeah, if you're going to sand it. If you— oh, sand it. Yeah, if you're going to put, you know, vinyl on top, that's a different story. That can wait. But yeah, you're going to sand it. And then the popcorn ceilings, you want to do those first too.

Yeah, it didn't look like he was going to remove that popcorn.

I don't think so.

They're just going to leave it. Yeah.

Yeah, that's just a different, uh, comp. Different area. Yeah. What do we got next?

Next up we've got Leave the Trees.

If you're going to turn a piece of property and turn it quick, in other words, you're going to flip it, you're going to sell it, you don't want to make the mistake of cutting down all the trees. I'm telling you, people love trees. Most People like the trees, and you'll pay somebody to come in and rip all the trees out. And I can promise you, the vast majority of people would rather have the trees. So when in doubt, don't cut down the trees. Leave the trees. Make room for the house and leave the trees. They want the trees cut down, they can cut them down themselves. But having trees on a property is not going to make or break the person making the decision to buy the house. Leave the trees. If you're going to turn a piece of property and turn it quick, you're going to sell it.

You don't want to make the mistake of cutting down all the trees.

I mean, I kind of agree. Trees are expensive to remove. Um, so we usually leave the trees. We usually leave them. We just trim them up and make sure they're not problem trees. So problem trees are trees that are planted or growing too close to the house. And then eventually, or if they already are, I've seen it many times, they're lifting, cracking foundation, or any of those issues. Or if they're planted in the front yard and you have an old drain, most of the time those roots are going to be in the drain and that's going to come up. So that tree has to go. And then sometimes you have to replace the drain line or recoat it or whatever. But for the most part, we leave the trees.

So I remember back there was a tree story. About you removing a tree and then either the neighbors or both, the city got upset.

Oh, there's 2 tree stories then. I thought you were talking about— I'm talking about the one the city got upset.

Yeah, that one.

Yeah, I removed— it was a huge tree. It was a really ugly tree. And it was right in the middle of the house. I mean, it was huge. It blocked the whole you know, you couldn't see the house pretty much. Um, so we removed it. And in this particular city, the trees are protected.

Um, California.

San Juan Capistrano.

So there's certain cities that— and this was like some, you know, special species. I had no idea, you know. So we removed the tree and they were very upset. They were very upset. So you're supposed to relocate these trees or you know, plant a new one to replace it. Uh, but the city, the city was, was pretty nice about it. And, um, we worked through it. That was one of the situations. That was actually the house that I made the most money on.

Mm-hmm.

That was that house. Uh, but I did get red tagged on that house. I had to pull permits. Uh, I got in trouble for taking out the tree. I think they fined me or something. I forgot exactly what, what the repercussions were of that. Uh, but Oh, made $400K.

Worth it. How do you relocate a tree? Like, very carefully. I picture it's kind of like, you know, Free Willy where they bring the trailer and you have to like keep the water on it. You're like going, he's driving down, we're like, take the tree away. It's kind of like that. Yeah, right.

It's kind of like that. Yeah.

The curb appeal is so much better. That's one thing that, that leaving the trees could get you in trouble. Like curb appeal is huge when selling your house. So if the tree takes away from the curb appeal, which in And this case, it completely was.

It's gotta go.

It's gotta go.

Understood. Yeah, you know, it's better— how's the saying go? Ask permission?

No, it's better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.

Yeah, there you go.

You're like, I didn't know.

That's it.

Yeah, if I would have asked them to take that tree out, they would have been like, no, you're not touching that tree.

No, the tree would still be there.

Historical Tree Society all over that.

Yeah.

All right, we got one more. Um, this one is buying— hold on, let me get my mouse here. Where did it go? Got it. Buying sight unseen.

Oh, we're gonna change a lot and see what we buy. The intent of this one is actually to pick it up and flip it and put it back on the market and hopefully sell it for a profit. In this case, can you tell we bought these ones for probably 70 cents and a dollar? There should be a lot of, you know, room there for margin, making a nice profit. But given what my person told me, this could be pretty bad.

So we'll see when we get there.

We'll see when we get there. Wow, wow! So this is the outside. Oh my God! I can't wait to see what the inside's gonna look like. We're gonna change the locks and see what we bought. Is that a wrap of this one? Is actually to fix it up.

I buy a good amount of properties on the market. We used to do a lot more when we were buying foreclosures, but a lot of times, a lot of times we did get to see the inside. But that was the name of the game when buying foreclosures is like. You don't get to see the inside. So the biggest risk in buying sight unseen are all the big-ticket items that you cannot see from the outside. Foundation, probably the biggest one. But yeah, I still buy property sight unseen. I don't love doing it, but I do sometimes. But yeah, it's just the big-ticket stuff that can get you in trouble. If you have a great margin on it, and in my opinion, 70% on the dollar is not a great margin, but— If you have a good margin on it, then buying sight unseen, there's— you kind of have room for all the stuff. And if nothing's wrong with it on the inside, then you make a great profit. And if there is, then you do okay still.

Seems simple enough.

Of course. Out of all these properties, you put— I'm going to guess you put a substantial amount of money to rehab them, and that's kind of normal for you. I want to know, and our audience wants to know, what's the easy button one that you've had and what did that entail?

The easiest one, I've had a couple of them. The one that comes to mind is this one in Beaumont that I flipped. The guy had gotten divorced and it was an off-market sale. He basically told us, You know, his wife and kids left him and he didn't want to be reminded of that anymore. So he didn't want to list the house. A real estate agent came in and this is where like wearing multiple hats can definitely benefit you. But his real estate agent came in and said, you need to paint the house and you need to stage it and I'll list it for you. And he said, I don't want to do that. So he sold it to us for— I forgot the exact numbers, but—

$1.5 million.

I ended up making like $90,000 on it. All I did was paint it and stage it. I did exactly what his agent told him to do. The house is in extremely good shape. It was a newer construction house, so it didn't need anything. Literally paint and stage and made $80,000 or $90,000 on it.

Nice. Easy button. That's the easy button.

I've had other properties where I bought a fixer and sold it as a fixer and did nothing to it. Literally nothing. Um, and still made, you know, $30,000, $40,000. That— I think that was the highest profit property that I didn't do that much to.

That's nice. Okay, there you go. That's some inspiration for you guys right there. Um, how can people get a hold of you? I don't know, are you, are you looking for anything? Are you looking for any like private money, or what do you need? Leads?

Looking for deals. And for private money right now, basically, yes. Those 2 things. Instagram is probably the easiest way to find me and to reach out. I do respond to everyone on there as long as it doesn't go into like the junk folder on there. It's just my name. It's just Ryan G. Mitchell is my handle. And shoot me a message on there.

Wow.

There you go. That's easy.

G's the middle name.

G, because he is a G. All right, you guys, um, yeah, reach out to Ryan, send him some deals. He is buying, you know that for a fact. Um, and, uh, I hope you guys, if you're thinking about flipping, I hope that inspired you to just get started because your 10 years from now has to start sometime.

Yeah, and you can have fun along the way.

It is fun.

It is fun. Yes.

I don't know what everyone's crying about.

We're thinking about going to Hawaii. Just, yeah, just the guys, you know. Guys trip to Hawaii. We have, we have a flip project out there that we need to do, so I figured let's just get the, the guys to go out there.

A couple guys, a couple of hammers.

Yeah, that's it.

Go right ahead. I'll be right down the street.

I don't know.

She'll be at the spa, won't she?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll be at the beach every day surfing while you guys are working.

Man, I'm not leaving her.

Okay.

I would go and work. You don't want me to be around, so I'll have to do my own thing.

You know, I think you'd probably work harder than this guy over here.

Yeah, I'll do a lot of coffee runs when I'm doing the work.

Okay.

A lot of them. Okay. All right. Thank you guys so much for being here. Appreciate you jumping in the chat and please share this video far and wide. We'll be back here next Thursday. We have our meetup on the 27th. See you guys next week.

See you next week. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.