How To Wholesale Real Estate | Real Estate Investor Meetup Highlights

All right, so yeah, my name is Gio Boni. Sounds like most of you guys probably have more experience than me. You did it a few years, sounds like you guys been doing it for a while. You guys are pretty experienced, so, uh, didn't expect that. But a little background on me, I was also healthcare. I started off as an EMT, then I became an occupational therapist, and then Throughout that time, I went to other investment groups and then like tried to get my foot in the door, but then a lot of them were trying to charge me thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars to get started. And I was like, uh, I was getting married at the time. I didn't have money to spend on that and a wedding. So then I decided not to do it.

The wedding?

A wedding, yeah. I was going—

I was getting married.

I was getting married. But then, um, I kept my career, and then finally one day I was coming across Instagram or TikTok, and I saw Carlos. I don't know if you guys know Carlos. He works with his son-in-law Ryan, and I just randomly was like, you know what, I'm gonna message this guy. He was local, Orange County, and I was like, hey, I'm— I want to learn. He messaged me, I met him at some coffee shop, and he gave me a stack of flyers. He goes, pass these out. And I was like, okay, fine, cool, you know, I'll pass these out. Um, pass out a bunch of flyers, and then he— and then After that, he gave me a list of people to call. Had never called anyone ever, ever, ever, ever. So when I would call, I was literally like Carlos said it too. I would call, and if they didn't answer, I was like, okay. Like I was happy. I was like, like you know, like and I felt good because I was getting through the list, but they weren't answering. But still, I was still getting through the list, right? And then when they would answer, I would. Kind of follow a script that I found online. But for me, like, for me personally, following a particular script didn't work for me, right? Because I could tell I sounded like I was following a script, and I'm, I'm just not a script type person. Um, finally then I started just doing what I— I just talked. I just started talking like I would talk to anybody normally. And then I got on Mojo. I don't know if you guys know what Mojo is. It's a calling program, whatever. And that made it a lot easier because I wasn't dialing one by one by one by one. It was just going like 3 at a time, blah blah. I was going like 300 calls. So I would get off work, sometimes I would call at work during my break, and I knew my coworkers saw me, but I was like, whatever, you know, what are they gonna do? As long as I saw my patients, that's all that mattered. But, um, I would get home from work like at 3:30, call till like 6, 6:30. And sometimes I would even go to the Starbucks parking lot so that my wife didn't get mad for me calling, and I used her Wi-Fi. And she'd be like, you still at work? Like, yeah, yeah, I'm still at work. But I was actually making calls, and I started getting deals. Uh, I started getting deals. My first deal was in Torrance-Long Beach border, right? So that was my first deal. I was When that was going through, I was extremely, extremely excited. I thought that was like that was it. Just get it signed and it was it. But the hardest part is not really getting it signed for me. It's like going through escrow. You're like, oh please don't find anything in title. Please don't find anything in title, right? And then they ended up finding something later. But yeah, so I've been getting deals ever since then. And then finally Carlos and Ryan were like. Hey, why don't you come on full time? That's that was scary. You know, I got a decent career. You know, I'm OT, and my wife's like, "Why are you gonna leave?" Like, you know, a nine to five decent career. Like you're making okay money, right? I didn't have to do it. Just had a baby now. She's eight months. So that's another little like wrinkle in there that's kind of scary. But I told her, I was like, "You know the life I have now. I know what it is." I don't know what could be if if I go on and try this new thing. So since I've only been doing it full time for two months now, going on two months, a lot more pressure. But like I was saying earlier about me being on the phone, I found that for me, I don't know about for you guys. I literally talk. I call somebody and I don't I don't act like hello, Mr. and Mrs. Hello. Hey, this is Gio with Trusted Investors. Like I'm like, hey, how's it going? Blah blah, like I'm, I'm just calling a friend. I'm calling like, you know me, like, you know, this and that. And sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it's like a person that wants the businessy person where I make it a little bit more formal, but that's just not my style. Um, so like when you guys call, make sure— I never say last names. I never say last names, even if they give me their last name. Like after, at the end of the call, I'll be like, by the way, you know, what's your first name? I'm a first name type person, you know. I want to get to know you. I don't want to You know, this and that. But yeah, that's pretty much my background. I would actually—I feel like I would learn a lot. I didn't know you did wholesaling too, or you, but I feel like I learned a lot from all you guys. You know? Yeah.

Yeah. Is this a question? Are you sorry?

No, go ahead.

Go ahead. Okay. So I've never really done that wholesale deal. I get called by wholesalers all the time, and just—I don't want to say it's like a turnoff, so to speak, but. I'm just saying this, I usually when I buy off-market properties, I kind of know what's happening.

Yeah.

The wholesaler calls me, some of them, like one guy called me and, you know, I underwrote the property. They had like $120 grand built in there, right? So when I look at the numbers now, I'm looking for like 20% return, right? I'm looking at the numbers now, the numbers are like skewed. I'm like, why are the numbers so off? And it finally hit me. I asked him, I was like, well, how much money am I buying this from you for? And then Kind of got the numbers. So like, what is— what's that wholesaler trying to make? I mean, how much? What's— what's— I don't want to like diminish it, right? I want everyone to make millions of dollars.

Yeah.

Personally. But sometimes the deals just don't marry the numbers, right? So what's like a— what's average? What's a— what's good? Like, is there a percentage? Is it like, uh, I'm trying to make 1% of the deal? Is it like a fixed number based upon— like, let's say it's a $7 million deal. What's a wholesaler Or, you know, depends on how long you can get the house, right?

Property, right? They usually want like a minimum of like, depending on the person, like some will be like $5,000 or $10,000.

Okay, we can get it for less and get more out of it, but for you to still make a good deal out of it, yeah, then that's what we go.

And are they doubling escrowing it? How, how is the wholesaler— the wholesaler just being transparent with me and Keith? I bought it for $940,000, your cost is $1 million.

relationship you have with the person. If you have a good relationship, then maybe they'll tell you. Okay. A lot of times they won't because they'll be like, oh, this guy's making a whole bunch of money, let me see if I can go around them and take it from them. Yeah, that's why there's a key issue with that too.

But how does the closing work? Is it a double escrow or how does it work?

It just depends on the property.

Okay. But is the wholesaler putting up the earnest money deposit?

No. I thought you can get somebody else for that.

So investor's putting the earnest money deposit in and then the wholesaler— okay.

I'm in a different boat because I'm working with already a cash buyer. So he's my buyer, I don't have to find anybody, you know. So he is, you know, my buyer. I'm in a different situation.

Yeah.

But I do come across wholesalers where I like, I look at the numbers and I'm like, yeah, like, like they'll send me properties, I'm like, that does not even make sense. Like, the numbers are so off. And I did ask one guy one time, like, it just came out of my mouth, I didn't mean to ask him because I knew I should probably shouldn't have, but I was like, what did you get under contract for? And he was like, Um, I'd rather not say. And I was like, okay, never mind. How much do you want to sell it to me for? And then he told me that because he didn't want to tell me how much he got it for. Yeah, but the numbers still didn't make sense. Um, if the numbers don't make sense, then because a lot of the ARVs are way either way overinflated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, uh, it's— yeah, so like I said, as far as wholesaling, I'm in a different boat. where I'm working with my one specific cash buyer. I'm not going out there and like finding buyers. Yeah, you know, I'm just the acquisitions guy for one particular company, uh, which for me it—

Let me interrupt you for a second, okay? Keith, when we, we, we started buying deals from wholesalers, they were at $5,000 and $10,000.

Okay.

Okay, and then the market started blowing up. They got out of control. That's why Gio is with us.

Gotcha.

The rest of the people, because we decided to cut them out of the picture entirely because they were doing exactly what you're talking about. They're wanting $100,000 profit on a deal that basically is shuffling one piece of paper over to somebody else.

Right.

Okay, and I didn't personally think that's fair, but like you said, and I agree with you, if you want to go Shop it over here, and this person wants to pay for it. More power to you. Yeah, that's fine. But I'm not going to buy something like that. You have these big companies, and I won't mention their names. New Western. New Western. Okay. New Western does that, and you're talking about double escrow. If you don't know what that means, it means that they put the property under contract, let's say for five hundred thousand. They close escrow on that, and because they don't want you to know that they're selling it for $600,000 and making $100,000, that's where the double escrow goes. Because if you did a single escrow, you would know what they had it under contract for, and so they're hiding that.

Yeah.

And so again, I, I don't work with the company I'm not going to mention, but that's the way they do business, so I don't do business with them at all. Unfortunately, you know, and I agree 100%, if you want to make $100,000 and somebody's out there making you— or not making, but giving you the opportunity, they're going to pay that, that's fine. Yeah, you know, I have no problem with that. If you're working with a normal wholesaler, you want to just do a single escrow transaction. What we used to do, you know, we had our own escrow that we worked with. A lot of them, you know, say, okay, you have to use our escrow. The problem with that is I have relationships with my escrow. She's going to charge me $500. Why would I go with your escrow who's going to charge me $2,000?

Yeah.

So it doesn't make sense to me. And then title, the same way. I have relationships with title companies. I want to get a binder at the end of the day so I don't have to pay a big exorbitant title fee when I go to sell it. So I like You know, to have my own title company to do that. So, um, that's why we started the, the wholesale team, the wholesale crew.

And, uh, when I came on with the team, there was like, I think, 12 other guys that came on as well. Um, I'm the only one left because, because no one else really had the, I guess, persistence to stick with it, right? Because it takes a lot of rejection, obviously, to do this, you know. And you have to be okay with that. A lot of getting cussed out and this and that. And again, I'm married, so I have no problem getting cussed out. So, but, but, uh, yeah, so I just stuck with it and I can— and I made deals. And like I said, like, being on the phone and just talking to people, at the end of the day, like, it didn't bother me that people were yelling at me. I'm just, okay, you know, you don't want to sell me your property, cool, no problem, bye. You know what I mean? So, um, and I'm I'm more of a team player. Like, I know some people want to wholesale by themselves. That's not really my deal. I'm, I'm, I'm the type of person that wants to like grow with a team, you know. I want to be a part of a team and I want to grow together because I grew up playing sports. So I'd rather just, you know, grow, grow with somebody rather than try to be the, you know, the guy, you know. I'm— I like Kobe, but I'm not exactly like Kobe. Yeah. Um, do you go after Queen Park foreclosure? Uh, we haven't because pre-foreclosures haven't been like really a thing in this past— since I've been doing it, at least, uh, for a year and a half, almost 2 years. Um, if there— there's been a couple that I come across that I haven't gotten, but I know that they were more of a thing before I got into it. Yeah, but if they were out there, I would for sure.

How about probates?

Probates? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're also difficult to— for me, that, that I've come across, because it takes a process. Yeah, it's a long process to even make an offer, and then at some point they can be like, oh, you know, they want highest and best, and then you get into a bidding war. And I always say I don't want to get into a bidding war. I'm not trying to get into any bidding war. Yeah, I mean, if you guys want to ask questions, go ahead.

Like, let me expand a little bit about what you asked. So, uh, pre-foreclosures, uh, I think they're the best leads to go after, but again, they're the low-hanging fruit. So everybody in this room is probably going after the pre-foreclosures. What I used to do is literally go knock on their doors, and that was before COVID Once COVID hit, nobody wants to see you anymore.

Yeah.

But that's what I would do if you were in— if you're in a particular area. I'd get the pre-foreclosure list and go knock on people's door. You know, it's a simple conversation. My name is Joe, I'm an investor, I'm buying houses in the neighborhood. Are you interested I know through public records that you're having difficulty with your mortgage payment. Maybe I can help you out. You know, it's a simple conversation at the door, and if they want to, you know, keep the conversation going, they do. If not, see you later. You know, go to the next door. When I was doing it, it was the last downturn, and there was literally thousands of them.

Mm-hmm.

So it's easier for me to like literally go to a condo complex, let's say 300 condos, and And I'd spend the day there because there was that many foreclosures. So I wouldn't have to go from, you know, one city to another, and the gas obviously wasn't $7 a gallon. Probates, I really don't even deal with probates because, like you said, it's a long process. So let's describe what a probate is, okay? An actual probate is a legal term for a property that the person who owns it Died, okay, and he did not leave— well, he may have left heirs, but he titled the property incorrectly. And so in California, if you have it under your name, it does not automatically pass to your kids. It has to be in what's called a trust, okay. So a lot of people call those things probates when they're in a trust, and they're really not. It's going to get probated, but you don't have to go through the the legal process. So an actual legal process probate means that you died without a trust, you have to go to court, the judge has to say send an appraiser out there, he has to appraise the property for that value. Once that's done, then you give it to a real estate agent to sell and they get offers. Okay, that could be almost a year for that process. What we're doing with him and other wholesalers is we're going directly to the seller before any of that happens. We're concentrating on absentee owners, okay, so people who aren't living there that maybe have some renters who haven't been paying for the last year and a half. Those are the people that he's calling, okay? So we're trying to get the easy ones first. And if if there's a pre-foreclosure that jumps in there, then fine. That jumps in there. You know, I just pulled the list before I came over here of pre-foreclosures in in Hemet where we're investing, and I was surprised to find out. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. It's it's a mobile home community, 55 plus, and there's like ten. I think I said you ten around there. Those are, those are great to go after. You know, there's one, it said the lady was like 97, so I don't— she's probably not around anymore. But those are good, you know, to go after in those type of communities. So foreclosures are good to go after, just make sure that you target the right ones. And the same thing with probates, you just have to figure out whether it's the long process or if it's just a short process.

Um, I contact— because I'm an agent, so I contact the seller, I mean the listing agent, and I would say, um, is this a full PR or a partial PR? Yeah. And then if they say it's a full PR, then they would follow up and say, yeah, we can close within 30 days. So it's a good investment opportunity.

Yeah, but why are you going directly to the Yeah, because I'm, I'm new. Okay.

I'm a new real estate agent, and then I have a wholesaler that I work with and also an investor, so I would help her find those properties. But, um, ideally they should go directly to the listing agent.

Yeah.

You know, but she doesn't know, so I don't want to tell her.

Well, you should tell her, you know, and you as an agent, you should be calling Like him.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got an extra hat on, so you're calling and you're talking to the sellers directly, and you're offering them a price, and you want here, they want here, and you come down like this, but you just can't get there. You can't get the, you know, the meeting of the minds. And so you just put your real estate agent hat on and say, you know what, I can get you that price, but it's going to be a little bit different now. You're going to list the property with me. You're gonna have to pay a commission and you're gonna have to pay closing costs, but I can get that done for you. Isn't that a good conversation to have? Why aren't you calling?

Yeah, I'm calling.

You should be calling. Yes, every agent should be calling. There's no reason agents aren't calling, knocking on doors, any of that stuff. Once it gets on the MLS, it's already too late. I went to look at a property today just down the street here in Lake Forest.

Of course.

It was about $200,000 under market. It was really bad shape, and they're accepting offers till 6 this evening. And when I called, it was, it was $300,000, and the most I could offer was about $310,000 to make what I wanted to make. Maybe if somebody else wanted to buy it and make less, then they could offer more. But she told me she's had like 20 offers already. They're up to $350,000. Well, when it got up to $350,000, it's like I'm making maybe $30,000 or $40,000. It's not enough for me to do a deal like that. So once it gets on the MLS, it's crazy. That's why we had to bypass all that stuff. We were buying from the MLS for a long time, the courthouse steps for a long time. All that dried up and our inventory dried up. That's why we had to Yeah, and there's a lot, and there's a lot, like he said, there's a lot of kids that come by, and I meet a lot of them, and, and they all want to, you know, jump in and get excited and do something. And you give them the opportunity and the chance, and you see them maybe once or twice, and they're gone.

Mm-hmm.

You know, they're gone. I don't feel bad because I've given them the opportunity. If they don't want to take it, that's really on them. Honestly, that's up to them.

Most of them expect their first deal to come within like, I don't know, 2 weeks, a month, whatever. It took me 4 months to get my first deal, and that's actually pretty quick when it comes to like, you know, like getting off-market deals. That's pretty fast. Um, there's a guy that went a whole year and still didn't get a deal, but he's still going, still trying, and that's why I keep in contact. He's, you know, having his own thing, but the fact that he keeps trying, uh, you know, I keep contact with him. But yeah, you You have to be in it for the long haul. Like, you're gonna get 4 to 6 months.

How many contacts do you get in a day?

Now? Well, now it's a little different because like I'm calling a list that I'm given. Uh, but when I was doing Mojo, that thing, I was making, let's say, like 150 calls after work, maybe sometimes 300 on a Friday. And I would contact like something like that, something like that. But even though it was a contact, a lot of them were like, you know, not good contacts. Um, you know, it'd be like, I think the stat's like 1,000 calls for like one— I don't know the stat— for like one yes or something. I don't know.

Yes. What he's, what he's doing now is a little bit different because, um, Costa Rica actually as well. And the reason we do them in Costa Rica is because a lot of the lists that we get, they're— the owners are Spanish speakers. So we're pulling those, and they're doing the cold calling, and once they get a yes, that's what he gets. The warm leads. That's what he's getting, and he's following up and he's closing those leads. Okay, so he's not doing the cold, cold call leads. He's doing a little bit more leads right now. Yes, so that you have to kind of set up your team that way, that, okay, here, like, literally we pull a list, you know, every 2 or 3 months, 500,000 people on the list, and we send them overseas. They skip trace them and they start calling, and then the ones that are warm, that say, yeah, you know, I need to talk to somebody, that's who he's talking to. Did you have a question? Yeah, uh, I had a question because the property you were calling, the one you were talking about, what type of property was that? That's the first question. And the second question that comes to my mind is because you said $30,000, $40,000 is not enough for you, so I wonder what is the, uh, the, uh, percentage of profit you're looking for? So, uh, yeah, that's a great question. The property was up, like I said, it was here in Lake Forest. Uh, it was for $300,000. It's a 1-bedroom condo. The after-repair value is about $450,000. Um, by the time I'm finished with that property, maybe I've put in maybe $50,000 into it.

Yes.

Uh, I, I like to make them look really nice, especially in Orange County. So it's about $50,000. So we're at $300,000, and let's say if I bought it at $300,000, $300,000, $350,000, uh, closing costs, commissions, usually about 5%, so another $15,000, $20,000. So we're up at $370,000, um, and then $450,000. So that gives me a profit of $80,000. That's not— that's not if everything is perfect. Like I said, I don't think I could get it for that price. I'd have to pay another $50, which means it brings my profit from $80 down to $30. Okay, so if you do this for a living and you know that that's not enough, anything could happen with that, you know.

Yeah.

You could have some sort of issue come up that, you know, like one that we had today. We're flipping this mobile home. We closed on it Friday. We get possession Sunday. Today we turn the water on, the water company says, well, your property owner was $1,500 behind, which isn't a problem. That's not on us. Okay, that's up to the water company to go after this person. However, the water company said that the water was turned off while she was there recently during our escrow. And she went outside and tried to turn it on, tried to cut the lock off, and she damaged the water meter itself. She said, and then water company says, that's on you. How is that on me? You want the water on? That's on you. So like I said, things come up, you know, what are we going to do, say no? So yeah, we had to pay an extra $500 to get the water meter put back together so we We'd have water, you know. But those are things that— so for me, if I make 10% profit on the deal, I'm happy. Um, and if obviously if I make more, that's great, but I kind of want at least a 10% profit on each deal that I make. Hopefully that answers your question.

Yeah.

Do you speak Spanish?

Yeah.

How many deals have you closed in Spanish?

None. Spanish, for some reason, they're a lot less trusting. They're very, like, guarded when you try to close them or, like, talk to them about their property, because it's even more evident with them that, like, their property really is, you know, like, it's— they're so emotionally attached to that property. Especially since if, if they came from, you know, from Mexico, whatever, Central America, that property is like— that's her— that was her dream, right? To come here and get the house. So when you try to buy that off them and you basically lowball them, they're like, no, why am I gonna— why am I gonna do that? Like, you know, snap. But I mean, they're, they're very nice. They're nicer on the phone. They even say thank you after I lowballed them or something like that. But like, you know, but, but— and so I haven't done any, but, um, Carlos has, uh, but, you know.

He's been doing it longer. The experience I've had with Spanish speakers, and this is with any language, if you're— if you speak their language, they're more apt to work with you. So, but for me, what I found out, you know, 12 years ago when I was door knocking, because I was every weekend, I was getting, you know, 4 or 5 listings literally door knocking on the weekend. And I was knocking in San Juan Capistrano, which is where I had been investing for now 40 years. So it was my neighborhood. I'm a fluent Spanish speaker, but they look at me at the door and they go, hey, white guy, where did you learn how to speak Spanish? You know, so I literally hired a Spanish speaker that looked— he was Mexican, and he was my partner, and he would go up to the door. I taught him exactly what to say, everything, and then I took over from there, handled all the paperwork, shuffled it back and forth to him. He would take it out, get it signed and everything. And that's how I ended up getting those listings. And I credit him for doing all that stuff. So yes, it's, it's good that you speak. And I'm surprised to hear you say that. Well, because the closed one—

because my Spanish is more like, when they hear me, they know I was born here. Like, my Spanish is not like, you know, somebody who speaks it. Every single day.

That's exactly what I ran across. I, I, and then I'm worse because, you know, white guy, where'd you learn that?

I just found out he spoke Spanish the other day. I was in the office and I'm hearing, I'm hearing a lady speak Spanish. So I'm like, who's she talking to? Is this Joe here? Like, like what she's— and I go over there and I was like, Joe, you speak Spanish? He's like, yeah. He goes, I'm Puerto Rican. And I was like, what? You're Puerto Rican? He's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, I haven't done any. Um, I think I will eventually, right? It's just a matter of the numbers. Like, like this whole, this whole, this whole thing of real estate, it's all just about the numbers. So eventually I will. Now I'll come across somebody who, you know, whatever, they'll call me pocho or whatever, and then, and then they'll move on and sell me their house. Pocho basically means like whitewashed brown guy. Anyone else? Anything else? No.

When you make a call, is it, uh, you present yourself as a company, or is it just—

you never say— If they ask, no, I don't say the company, right? I say, hey, um, so-and-so. Hey, John, how's it going? It's Giovanni. And then they're like, okay. I'm like, hey, I was giving you a call real quick because, you know, well, when I get inbound leads, you know, I see that you filled out a form, you know, that you're considering selling your house. And I always say considering. I don't say interested because considering is a lot less like attacking for me. Like you know, oh, you're considering it. You're not really. You're not interested so much. You're just nothing. You know, you're shooting around.

Inbound calls, if they ask you if you're part of the company, is it easy to tell?

Yeah. Yeah. I tell them. You know. Yeah. This is my company. So and so blah blah. Because when they're inbound, they they went on the website. Right. But if it's not an inbound call, I don't say the company. Unless they ask me, just because I don't want to. Again, I'm not trying to sound too businessy, you know, like I'm trying to sound just, I'm just calling if you want to sell your house, this and that. Um, and what I always do too when it was little old ladies, I'm sure you guys know, little old ladies, I, I bring my voice up an octave like, hey, you know, like, like a little more nicer and like disarming instead of like, so like, hey, how's it going, blah blah blah blah, you know. I kind of just— I'm sure you guys have looked at it, like the whole— what's it called? The, um, mirroring, voice mirroring, whatever. Like, you know, on the phone with them, you try to talk like them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I always, um, I use Jordan Belfort's line system to, to where, you know, you stay out, you talk about the property, and then they say— then you hear the dog in the background. Oh, you got a dog? And then you talk about the dog for a little bit and you come back. I mean, you know, whatever it may be, I'll talk about whatever it is. I'll always throw in my— if they're parents, all the time I say, oh, I'm a parent too, because, you know, parents like parents, parents, dog people, dog people. Like, I talk about everything else, then I go back to the property eventually, you know.

But have you asked why to those Spanish people, why they don't want to do business with you?

No, um, I haven't tried that. I've— that would be a really— yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've seen somebody, they use that tactic when like somebody goes, oh, let me think about it. They use a tactic, they ask them legit, they go, is it me? Did I say something? Or something like that. I haven't tried that style yet, but like, why? Yeah, from a place of curiosity, like, why? Why are you saying that?

Like, are you afraid? And then you can overcome objections.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

What are the most common seller objections, like 2 of them that you come across, and how do you handle those?

Um, most common, most common, most common one is easily by far is how much. Like right away, like they don't even want to talk, like how much. And, and what I tell them, I was like, well, I always say, well, you know, right now I'm just trying to see if you're actually truly interested in selling your property. Or, you know, because I don't want to just give you a number and, and just, you know, shoot information out there that's not factual. So I do want to give you an offer, but, you know, give me a second to, to do my homework and give you a thoughtful offer, okay? I don't want to just give you a number just for the sake of a number. And then they're like, okay, and then they'll tell me information about their property.

Kind of like a more emotional—

Yeah, yeah, because like If they go, how much? And I just blurt out a number, they're gonna— then they're gonna say, where'd you get that number from? Uh, I don't know, you told me to give you numbers, so I just give you numbers. So like, you know, yeah, yeah.

How can you detect when somebody's not— you know, because sometimes you're calling, they're like, oh yeah, well, how much— how much are you going to give me? Like, how do you know kind of when to catch when they're not serious? Um, and how, like, what's the next question you ask so you understand that they're not serious so you can move on to the next caller?

So one line that I always use is, because yeah, everybody wants to know how much, how much, how much their property is, I say, you know, um, other than money, because I understand we all like money, you know, and I know that's, that's what you're after, but other than that, what else is your motivating factor to, to consider selling your property? Right? Because right away you're saying like, other than money. So you're taking money out of the equation because we know you want money. You're answering their question. Yeah, I'm answering the question. Like, other than that, like, what else are you— why are you considering? And then they'll tell you why they're considering. But if they say— but if they say it's just the money, then in my head I'm like, you're not interested. You just want either to inflate your ego of like how much your property is worth. You want me to give you like that number so you're like, oh yeah, my property is worth that much. And people feel good about that when they hear how much their property's worth. Or they want market value, which obviously we can't offer market value. So— Okay.

And you tell them the truth.

Yeah.

I mean, you— I've heard you. You'll say, you know, that's market value. And he'll go into why he can't pay market value. You know, he'll tell him, you know, we're calling you because we need to make a profit, and I hope you understand that. So it really kind of depends on the condition and again what your motivation is.

I mean, I've even said like, you know, we got to make a profit. I have to feed my family too. I'm like, legit, it's the truth, right? I have to feed my family too. I understand you want the best possible offer, which I want to give you, but you know, we have to walk away from this table happy, both of us, you know, which is true. What has worked the most for you? The most for me, what's worked is Literally, like I said, just like calling as me and not calling as anybody else. Like calling is like being my personality. Like, because at the end of the day, like, and that's so cliché, right? Nobody could be you other than you, right? So I can only talk to somebody the way I can talk to them. If I talk to them like you, then it's not going to come across genuine. Joe made fun of me the other day when I was on the phone with somebody. I was following up on somebody who might have wanted to sell, and I kept using the line, you know, You were considering selling a while back. Are you still on that train or have you hopped off? It was funny, and it was it was just coming out naturally that day. For some reason, that line was in my head, so I kept saying it. And I went to the bathroom, and I hear, and I come back, and he goes, "Did he hop on his train and leave?" And I was like, and I was like, "Yeah, bro, hopped on my train. I took off." I thought that was good.

You know, he's just trying to build a rapport with somebody, and you know that's. The appraising thing.

Yeah, and I've had people come back to me that, um, or refer other sellers to me because, you know, like I just kept in touch or I was just really nice to them on the phone or I was pretty genuine. I'm talking to a guy right now who ended up selling a property to a different investor that, that we lost over earnest money. That's what, you know, which still irks me. But he came back to me the other day like, hey, my mom wants to sell 2 properties. Even though he didn't go with us the first time, he called us first this time because yeah, you know when I talked to him on the phone, I talked, I talked to him for like fifteen minutes about the Super Bowl. His name's Ramsey. The Rams were playing. I was like, oh, you must be a Rams fan. Yeah, blah blah blah blah. You know, so yeah.

Would you would you be just like honest with them and tell them like honestly, obviously I cannot pay you market value because you know. Make a profit out of it. But, uh, I can guarantee you that if we set up the price, I can disclose faster and you get your money way faster than if you go through a real estate agent.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, of course, yeah, yeah. So I tell them like, you know, we need to make a profit. I understand you want to make money. Um, you know, the— not to like say anything— when I, when I compare it to real estate agents, I'll be like, you know, yeah, I know you don't want to pay somebody just to sign a paper. I know, I know that's not what you do, but I'm just have to have— I have to try to like deter them away from the agent, right? Right. So like, you don't want to pay somebody to sign a paper. I could pay you the money and you can do it much faster, and you don't have to do open houses and snap. But I do have to make a profit, right? So that's why I can't pay you what Zillow's telling you, you know, because Zillow's obviously not going in your neighborhood and like looking around the neighborhood, you know. At this property, that property. But yeah, I tell them right away, like, I need to make a profit too, you know. I don't do this for fun. Yeah.

So you have a warm lead, you have a seller, um, they're like, oh yeah, maybe.

What's your follow-up, um, strategy if they say maybe? Yeah, uh, I call them back. I'm like the opposite. I don't know the opposite of some people, but like I'm kind of a pest. Like I'll call you every damn day. Like I've called people every day for like for a long time. I've been talking to people for like a year. This is one guy who I called the other day. Whatever. He told me to call his sister for him, and I was like, "What's my sister?" But um, I call him back and I go, "Hey, so did you speak to your wife or did you think about it?" What did you feel about my offer? Not what did you think? What did you feel about my offer? You know, because we're ready to move forward, you know, and we're serious about buying your property. And if you're serious about selling, then you know, let me know so we can write up this this offer sheet or purchase agreement. I never say contract, you know, but I'm not going to send it over unless I know you're ready. But you know, but if you're not ready, it's fine. I totally understand you. At the end of the day, you just want information. You, you want to get some information, which you're totally like have the right to, you know. But I'm trying to buy properties this month, and if you're not ready now, it's okay, you know. We have a bunch of opportunities coming in, but when you are ready, hopefully we are still interested.

Do you have other follow-up strategies besides, um, calling them, mailers?

I, I— so no, that, that would be a Carlos and Ryan question, the guys that brought me on. Um, I text, you know.

Text.

Yeah. One thing I do recommend is like, especially your warm leads, like for this 4th of July, text— you're not even your warm, even your cold ones, I guess. If, if you build some rapport but they're cold, text them happy 4th of July. Like literally just text them happy 4th of July. Not that they're gonna sell to you, but they're gonna think like, oh, it's that guy trying to— or that girl trying to buy my property off me. But you're going to be in their head, right? They're going to remember you or whatever. Um, but yeah, I just called and bugged the hell out of them.

And we don't do any postcards, mailers, anything. It's a waste of money. It's a waste of money, waste of time. You have to text, you have to cold call or knock on their door. That's the most successful ways to be successful.

Answer. How many times do you stop trying?

Um, I don't know. There's been a lot of people who's not answered, but it was like a deal. So like, you know, like I'll give it a few months and I'll still try. You know, like like I said, there's this guy in Palm Springs that I've been talking to for like a year, for like a year, and he gives me the runaround about his properties and that. But I don't know. I feel like I'm just super persistent. I'm not. I'm you know. I'm like obnoxiously persistent, but like I feel like eventually it's gonna be a deal because he has to. He's got health problems. He's, he's basically going blind. He's in the house by himself. Um, I shot him an offer, but he didn't like it. But I feel like eventually it'll happen. And, and I look at it as like, if I don't bug him, someone else is going to get that deal. And it'll, it, it'll irk me if somebody else does that. I don't know, if an agent gets it, doesn't make me so mad. Because I'm like, okay, fine. I couldn't pay you that.

I like New Delhi. Where do they live?

They live in Calabasas.

Oh, that's too far. Exactly. No, it's not that far. No? Yeah, it's far.