The SHOCKING Truth About Real Estate Wholesaling That Experts Don't Want You to Know

Any of you who are current wholesalers and need to get rid of deals, please call me. I'd love to talk to you about any deals that you have. We will evaluate them, and either me or somebody on my team will probably buy it from you if it's an actual good deal, which is what Alex is going to introduce us to tonight. Alex is my main wholesaler. I started working with Alex and Lauren, his wife, the brains of the outfit, about four years, five years, four, four right right after COVID. They were in a rock and roll band. They were literally living in a van going from place to place. And obviously, you know what happened after COVID. And we met on a Zoom call because I took this meeting to a Zoom call because I couldn't do it like this. And then I saw this, you know, face on the other side that looked like he was lost or lonely or something. So I said, reach out. And another one of my rules is if you want an hour of my time, you have to buy me coffee. Or preferably lunch, which these 2 gentlemen, thank you for buying me lunch again today. I appreciate it. I'll give you an hour of my time and focus you in the right direction, whatever it is. Wholesaling, we do creative financing. We just started recently, Stephanie and I, doing assumable loans. Yes, you can assume FHA and VA loans. And no, you do not have to be a veteran to assume VA loans. So we just closed on a really big transaction.

2.97%.

2.97%.

Yeah, isn't that awesome? That's the rate.

That's the rate. That's the rate. Yeah. Oh no, sorry, it wasn't the price, but the price wasn't bad either. $114,000?

$168,000. $168,000.

Yeah. Yeah, you're not crying about the $30,000 commission you got, right?

No, not at all.

Okay, um, so yeah, there's a lot of information up here and I would love to freely give it to you. You just need to reach out. If you're at this event, most of the time I text people like, this is who I am, this is my Calendly link if you want to schedule something with me. So if you have that, if not, just let me know at the end of the meeting and I'll, I'll set you up. It's If you'd like to buy me lunch. Okay, I think I have another lunch with you tomorrow. Yes, I have lunch with him, but the rest of the week I don't have anybody. So, you know, and then next week I'm lonely as well. So if anybody wants to—

He always has me. That's a lie.

Um, Alex, let's get back to Alex. Alex and Lauren started them wholesaling. They actually posted a picture on Instagram today or yesterday. It was the first check that I ever paid him for the first deal that he got. It was how much?

$15,000.

$15,000. And then he came up to me later, he goes, that's the most I've made all year. You know, because remember, this is like COVID and they weren't working. Um, and his deal was, Joe, you teach me how to flip properties And I will do all your social media for you because obviously I'm old. I don't do that stuff. So that developed into Facebook, Instagram, and now we have a weekly podcast, which I heard somebody mention. We do that. That is all because of these two folks here.

Yeah.

Again, she's we call her producer. She's behind the camera, but if, if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't look as good as we look, right? We look good, don't we? Yeah, we're good. Um, and so then, uh, Alex and I and Lauren have been partnering up on pretty much everything. We flip mobile homes as well, uh, single-family. We have, um, a mobile home flip that we're doing now where we're actually pulling the mobile home off the pad and replacing it With a brand new manufactured home, which I heard somebody say back here. Yes, we're doing that right now. And Alex, Alex, I call him the shiny object syndrome because he loves to do things that are different. And then I have to check in with Lauren because Lauren is the one that keeps him on the straight and narrow. Because if I don't get Lauren's approval, I mean, Alex agrees to everything, even if it's not going to make any money. And that's not good, is it?

No.

So she keeps them balanced, okay? And I, I go by whatever she says. Um, you're closing on 2 other mobile homes. Um, you're doing a bunch of others. I'll let you come up here. Anyways, so Alex has literally been full-time. He's also doing all my wholesaling stuff. We were buying stuff from him, and also him and I were partnering up on That stuff. And he still does that today with Chad, who is one of his business partners. I love Chad. You should hear the conversations that he has with sellers. Some are good, some are like, whoa, you're gonna be way out there. And if you've ever done wholesaling, you know you get the entire spectrum from wholesaling. You get the good and you get the bad. He likes the bad. You know, he records the conversation and kind of plays it back every once in a while if he needs a good laugh. But anyways, Alex, come on up.

Sometimes you got to rip the mic out of Joe's hand, you know. But thank you so much. This is— yeah, it's honestly crazy to have all of you guys here. I think it— like Joe was saying, it was, you know, about 4 or 5 years ago that I came to my first meetup and to Where I am, even though I'm just starting in my career, it's, it's, it's pretty remarkable. So thank you guys so much for being here and supporting Joe and yourself by, you know, taking the next step if wholesaling is something you want to get into. Um, we're gonna just do an overview first. Um, Joe kind of explained it, but I'm just gonna give, uh, my bio really quick. Um, started out full-time touring musician and producer, and I use this picture. I had my mom send me this one. Because this was the plan. This was always the plan. I was just gonna play music for the rest of my life. That was it. Um, I, I call it, uh, I was going to Willie Nelson off into the sunset. So if you guys know Willie Nelson, he's like 100 years old and he's still playing music. He's still touring. Um, that, that, that didn't go the way that I thought. So 2020 hits, and here's the van that Joe always mentions, but we were basically touring. Full time, the U.S. I've been to like over 40 countries playing music. But 2020 hits, and you know everybody was affected by that. But me in particular, it it changed my life in in an amazing way because I had to find a different income source as live music was completely shut down. So I did like what a lot of people did, and I found Rich Dad Poor Dad. And for whatever reason, that book is magic. And if I go back now, it's not really saying anything that's insane. But for whatever reason, it turned the light bulb on. You know, we got to buy these income-producing assets to have passive income for the future. So that was basically my goal. And then, um, I found Joe. I found a local mentor. So you guys are in the right, um, place. So yeah, like Joe, Joe had already mentioned, um, this was, uh, if I pull up, this is me getting my first check. And all I did was call agents and ask for pocket listings. I had no idea what I was doing. Just took action. Yeah, no idea. Just said, hey, I'm a cash buyer. And about 2 months later, I had a lady say, hey, you're a cash buyer. I have this property. Let's make it happen. And so, I sold that to Joe and his son-in-law, Ryan, made $15,000. Like you mentioned, that was the most amount of money I had seen in a long time. So ever since then, I was completely hooked. And I say all that just to let you guys know, it doesn't really matter what background you come from. If you want to get into real estate, I wholeheartedly believe that wholesaling is an amazing avenue to get started in. And one thing to keep in mind, it's just one exit strategy. It's just one exit strategy. So why should you listen to me? Um, like we mentioned, 2021, wholesale my first deal to Joe, fell in love with real estate. 2022, we discover mobile home flips. Joe and I made about $100K on our first mobile home flip. Um, 2023, uh, we did over a million in profit from flipping, wholesaling nationwide. 2024, Expand the flipping business. 2025, start buying co-living properties. Now we have 9 co-living properties and over 70 cash-flowing rooms. And then, um, in next year we're going to be developing and co-living and all that stuff. But if you look at it on a timeline, it doesn't take that long. So if you guys have a goal in mind, whether that's multifamily, holding properties, It seems so far away, but if you get started today and you work on these skills that wholesaling can show you, you'll get there quicker than you think. Because honestly, it feels like a blink of an eye. So why wholesaling? The profits are quicker versus developing versus flipping. You can make a profit 30, 60 days. Low barrier to entry, meaning you don't have to go and raise capital. You will have to spend some money on lists, but if you don't have a lot of capital, you can get started and you can use that sweat equity to start making deals happen. There's minimal risk because you're not holding the bag for a million-dollar debt if you're flipping or if you're doing any sort of development or any other exit strategy. It's scalable and it's perfect for beginners. And the main thing is you're going to learn all the skills that are necessary to catapult you into any direction that you want. Like I said, wholesaling is just one exit strategy. But as you start to pick up the skills, now all of a sudden when you get a deal across your desk, you can decide, do I want to wholesale this? Do I want to flip it? Do I want to keep it? That's powerful stuff right there. And so, like I mentioned, these, I tried to think of all the skills that you master when you start wholesaling real estate. And if you can take a look, it's pretty small, so I'm sure it's hard to read, but there are a ton of skills: market research, lead generation, deal evaluation, negotiation, contract management, all the rest. But from wholesaling, you get all these skills. And so if you're ready to jump into a different exit strategy, whether that's flipping, multifamily, anything like that, now you have all these skills built up, how much better do you think you're going to be at what your end goal is?

Okay.

So traits of a successful wholesaler. It's pretty simple. Who succeeds? You just got to be persistent and creative. Who doesn't? If you're inconsistent and if you give up too soon. And we see this all the time. I mean, Joe's, like he said, he's got 50 years of experience. He's been training people all the time, and we see it time and time again. People come in, they're fired up, they give it, you know, the old college try for about 3 weeks, they don't get a deal, and all of a sudden they're like, this stuff doesn't work. But I'm— I would just beg to differ because I've got, um, friends, colleagues who have taken an entire year to get their first deal. And then now they're absolutely killing it, wholesaling nationwide, flipping, holding, the whole thing. But you got to give yourself that time to become that person that is necessary to make it in real estate. So it's pretty simple. Don't overthink it. We have a wholesaling group where we're teaching newbies, and I'll tell you, man, they come up with every single thing in the book to keep them from just pulling the list, or the list is given to them, from just calling the list. They're like, yeah, but if someone answers and then I got the contract, And then like escrow, where do they send the wire? It's like, no, you just got to get in there and call, make the calls, start working on those skills. So don't overthink it. That's going to be my biggest takeaway. All right, wholesaling A to Z. Here we go, y'all. Are you with me?

Yeah.

Okay, perfect. And then I put this thing under here. Partnering is like rocket fuel for your business. Because there's, um, there's quite a few moving parts. There's the acquisitions, there's the dispositions, there's everything in between. So if you can partner with somebody, you know, you can focus on generating the leads and then you partner with somebody who's already got a buyer's list, that's going to be your quickest way to creating a conveyor belt of just deals closing, deals closing, deals closing, rather than, okay, I locked the property up, now let me pull the list, let me go find the buyers. working that side. Now, now that you're working this side, all of your leads over here are going stale. So I would just encourage everybody to partner, especially in the beginning. Don't be afraid to, um, you know, split the profits with somebody. Okay, so first, find your niche and market. Now, I like to say weird is, you know, often profitable. Um, you know, our, our biggest wins have been in mobile homes, and that was because everyone else was ignoring them. You know, sometimes I've been to meetups where they're like, yeah, we get mobile home leads, I just throw those away, I have no idea what we're doing. So don't be that person. But I would just say choose a property type. So if you're looking to get into multifamily Why not wholesale multifamily? Learn the ins and outs, learn how to underwrite correctly. And then once you find a deal, you can sell it to somebody who's a buyer. Now you create a relationship with somebody who's buying multifamily, if that's the path that you choose. But now you're also earning while you're learning, which is absolutely beautiful as well. So try and think about that. Don't, don't do everything at once. Pick a niche, pick a lane, and wholesale within that asset class. Um, research which markets have motivated sellers and active buyers. I'm going to tell you right now, you're in the land of motivated sellers and active buyers. SoCal is an amazing place to wholesale in. The assignments are real nice. Compared to some other states. And, um, you know, your chances of getting some really good deals out here are, are, are amazing. And then also look for underserved or overlooked niches, like I mentioned— mobile homes, co-living, whatever it may be. Look for, look for something where there's less competition so you can just make it easier on yourself. Um, So then, then next you're going to start building your list. So we've had PropStream here before. I know some of you guys have been here. That's a great tool to use to build a list. And then all you're going to do is you're going to market to that list using direct mail, cold calling, um, whatever it may be. Then you're also going to build out your buyers list. And these places, these meetups, is a great place to find buyers. You meet them face to face and you don't have to overthink it. You don't have to get a CRM immediately. My first deal, I just had a straight spreadsheet. Just start putting it into a spreadsheet, building your list that way. Then you can go and, um, You know, get all the bells and whistles with the CRMs and everything. And then also network with agents, contractors, and other wholesalers. You know, your network is— it's, it's going to be a huge asset. Just thinking from when I started not knowing anybody to now where I've done deals with a bunch of you guys in here is, is absolutely amazing, and it truly works. The best part is the longer you go Then you start getting deals sent to you. Other people say, hey, I know you buy houses. I have this property. Someone's looking to sell. Can I send it to you? All of a sudden, you know, you're getting deals sent to you that way. Okay. Now, this is pretty much where you're going to live and die is lead generation. I mean, and it's for any business. You need leads. If you can become good at generating leads, That is going to be very, very profitable wherever you end up, you know, past wholesaling. If you don't want to just be a wholesaler, if you learn how to generate leads, that is going to fuel your business because without it, you basically have no business. So, um, this is something that, I mean, Chad and I have spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on it trying every which way. To get leads. They all work, it just depends on what your budget is. But we can go over some of them. Um, first one's pretty easy— driving for dollars. I'm sure you guys have all heard of that. Basically get in your car, look for distressed properties. I recently came across a company that's now outsourcing that to AI, which is pretty, pretty cool. They're basically taking all of Google Street View. The car, you know, the car has pretty much driven every single street in the US. So they took all that data and then they built some sort of AI algorithm that looks for distressed markers on the properties, and then they cross-reference that with public records to make sure that the property hasn't been sold to a flipper already. And now all of a sudden you're, uh, You're getting replaced by AI. But it's an excellent list to pull because, um, with PropStream and all these other softwares, you're going to notice that a lot of people are getting hit up. Like when you start talking to them and say, oh, you're the 10th person to call me today. Well, driving for dollars, those people might not be on those lists that you can just pull from the computer. So So it could just be a distressed house, but they're not on those motivated sellers lists. So that's a great list to actually build out, and you can do it just by driving through your neighborhood. And then we got direct mail. It can get pricey, but it works pretty good. I mean, we've done it with the mobile home community out in Hemet, and We've gotten some decent deals. One of them was a lady who has 16 mobile homes. So we were pretty stoked. Our direct mail hit her inbox. She's like, oh, I got 16 mobile homes. I want to sell them all. Oh yeah, super happy. We were pumped on that. It turns out she's insane. So we bought the first 2 from her. That was like pulling teeth, but Um, Chad's, uh, in constant communication with her and we're gonna get the rest of them. But, um, yeah, direct mail is actually— it's, it's pretty decent. And then you got cold calling and door knocking. These are like tried and true ways to generate leads. Cold calling, it's exactly what you think it is. You're gonna pull a list, you're gonna reach out to them. That's for sure getting replaced by AI pretty soon. Um, it's pretty obvious when you get the robocall, but that's, uh, that's definitely something that's gonna get replaced. And then you have door knocking, and that I'm sure will get replaced by robots soon as well. But, um, both of those are great. I know we got some door knockers here. They're getting deals. They're getting deals. And it's great because you're literally showing up to the person's house where they can duck your calls and And your, uh, and your texts, but you're showing up there and saying like, hey, I know you're kind of in trouble, you're in pre-foreclosure, we're here to help. So it's a great way to generate those leads. Um, you have MLS online listings. I mean, you know, that's been around since the beginning of real estate. You can still buy deals on the MLS, apparently. Joe's son-in-law is doing it. So it still works. Then you got networking. It's the whole reason you guys are here. And then, um, we got online platforms. We got lead generation software, like I mentioned, PropStream. All I would say with the software is, you know, go easy on it because it can really— you can start getting a lot of overhead. And the whole thing with the wholesaling game is you want to give yourself that runway. You want to give yourself that year to get a deal. And if you're spending a bunch of money on, you know, whether it be all of these things or a few of them, it's going to be hard to sustain. And then the last one is Facebook ads, PPC, and PPL. PPL is basically pay-per-lead. So you're paying another company to run Google ads. And then they're selling you those leads. We've probably spent like $100,000 on those leads, no joke. And it, it is profitable and you can get a quick return on it. It's just very, very expensive. So if you're, you know, if you have money from, let's say, a W-2 job that you can use, this could be a good avenue to go down. And then The main thing is to just stay consistent. So when you're first starting out and you're first going to be making these calls, you are like so scared. You're, you're like, if you haven't like done any sort of sales or anything, you are like completely scared to call these people. You don't know what you're gonna say. You don't know, yeah, what, what if they say yes? What if they yell at me? All these thoughts go through your head. But the main thing is it gets easier and easier and easier and easier every time you do it. So stay consistent and you will be successful. And then I like to say, just go for the easy win. If you guys come across any distressed property or motivated seller, send them to Joe and I. We will help you through the whole process. Like he had already spoke about, the first deal That I got, the agent called me and I have no idea what to say to her. So she asked me a question. I'm like, okay, let me ask my partner. I call Joe. I say, she said this, what do I say? You say this, call her back. You know, and honestly, that's exactly how the whole process went. I knew nothing and Joe just held my hand through the whole thing. I was scared to go into an escrow office. I didn't know what I was doing. Um, but, uh, Joe will hold your hand through the whole thing. And then obviously keep educating yourself and calling the leads. So all this stuff, like, we can go into way more in-depth on all these topics, but it's already all on YouTube as well. So there should be— there should be no questions. You can just keep educating yourself Taking the action. And then when a real-world problem comes up, you can just call Joe or I. We'll walk you through the whole process. Okay, so here's a big part, and, um, the deal evaluate— the deal evaluation and analysis. Now this is a part that you're going to be working on for a while, but the sooner you can do it And the better you can get at it, the better you will be as a wholesaler. And the main thing is you need to start thinking like a flipper. You need to start thinking about what's my after-repair value, pulling comps, estimating repairs. So, um, you know, I don't know, some, some of you flippers know, know this, like when you're getting these deals from wholesalers into your inbox, it's like 99% of them are trash because they got the wrong ARV. The, the estimated repairs is way lower than what it actually is. And you're not, you're not going to know that because you haven't flipped the property. But, you know, you can get in touch with the flipper and ask them, what does it cost? Or you can be conservative. And make sure that, you know, you pad it in there because it's expensive to flip right now. Um, what, what I do is I go to pelago.com, and it's a website where you can put the property address in there, and it's got a little calculator. It's got— it pulls up comps for you, gives you an ARV, but you can go right in there and it's going to include the holding costs. It's going to include the finances, the buying costs, the selling costs, all that other stuff that you forget to add in when you're running your numbers. So go to pelago.com, put an address in, and then go down to the calculator. Makes it super simple. So then you'll see, okay, this is the max offer that I can make. And chances are your max offer that you can make is going to be way lower than what the seller wants. At that point, you just move on because that's not a deal anymore. So don't be afraid to just keep moving on, keep moving on. And then the last thing is, for a deal evaluation, don't be greedy. Um, when you're— especially when you're first starting out, if you want— if you make $5K, make $10K. As long as the end buyer is making what they need to make, you're going to start building these relationships with people They're going to trust you that you know what you're doing, how to run your numbers, and you're going to get a lot more repeat business that way rather than trying to make $100K on, you know, one assignment because you saw somebody post that they made $100K on an assignment. It's okay to make the, the base hits, especially in the beginning when you're learning. Then Securing the contract. This is a fun part. This is a fun, fun part of the process. So you're going to use a purchase agreement that has the assignment clause in there. Guess what? The CAR forms have that, right?

Yeah.

So all you agents, you can assign a property. So I don't want to hear it. Um, but we have a little, uh, 2-pager that makes it Um, you know, a little less scary for the seller. And, uh, one of the main clauses in there is that we have the right to assign this property to another person. So, um, we— let's see here. So on securing the contract, you're going to build rapport and negotiate with sellers. Be honest and transparent, just like Chad. Chad's never lied. Chad's never lied to anyone. No, um, no, but it's, uh, it's, it's, it's better to just let people know that, hey, I'm going— I'm not going to be purchasing it necessarily. It's probably going to be one of my partners and one of the end buyers. Just be completely, you know, transparent with them because, um, they're eventually going to find out. So, um, get to know as quick as possible And what do I mean by that? I see a lot of people get hung up on this one deal. They've invested some time into it. They've talked to the seller over and over again. And it's the whole time, then I come and look at it, I'm like, this isn't a deal. But because you've invested this time, you want to shoehorn it and make a deal. But just get to the no as soon as possible. Don't get stuck on non-motivated sellers. And then don't rely on scripts. So when you're talking to these people, it's okay to have, you know, a little bit of a script, but people are only going to do deals with people that they know, like, and trust. So you have to sound like a person and not a robot. So, um, don't rely on the scripts. So this is a kind of a, a little graph that we use to determine if someone is motivated or not. And this is one of the hardest things for people to, to wrap their mind around when they're first starting out, because they want every seller they talk to to be a motivated seller. They want it so bad, including myself. Even if you just call in here and say, hey, have you thought about selling now or in the near future? And they're like, yeah. You think that's a motivated seller? It's really not, because then the next words out of their mouth is, for the right price. And once you hear that, that's just like, we're done. Um, but just to go through it quickly, we want urgency. We want them to say, hey Alex, I need to sell in like 14 days, for whatever that reason is. That's a big determining factor. Can we check that off, yes or no? And then why not? And can we overcome that? Meaning sometimes people, they'll come up with all these crazy ideas of why they can't sell right now. Um, for example, they may have, you know, something like— we had one where the guy had like a car in his, uh, in his garage. He had this old— what was it, a Barracuda? Yeah, he had an old Barracuda in the garage. He's like, I want to fix that up and try and sell it, and then, you know, hopefully I can get some money that way. So I'm gonna need like at least another 60 days, another 90 days. So, um, Chad's like, well, I can just help you sell that, you know. What if I help you sell it? If I can bring you a buyer, will you— will, you know, will you close sooner? He's like, oh yeah, if we can get rid of this thing, I'm ready to— I'm ready to close right away. Um, he ends up just giving the car to Chad, which is kind of cool, but— They're not taking any money, but that's just an example of the urgency. Um, and then next, motivation. So actual motivation, you know, they need— they, they need to sell. That's what we're looking for. Not somebody that wants to sell, somebody that needs to sell. That's what we're trying to uncover, and we're not trying to persuade them at all. They need to sell. So if they don't need to sell We're gonna go straight to price after that because we want to know if they're in even in the ballpark, you know. Um, a lot of them, it's, um, they're, they're going off— it's a sentimental price is what we call it. They're like, oh, I, you know, I raised my kids here, or I grew up here, so I think the price, it's gonna be, it's gonna be pretty high. So if they have no motivation We go right to price. Now, if they do come up with a price that's in the ballpark, now that's, that's something that we can call a lead. You know, if you know by running your numbers that they're already starting out at, let's say, 75% of ARV, we may be able to get them a little bit lower. Um, that, that could be a lead right there. And then the last, if all of these are no, we're gonna check the condition. Because if it's livable, then most likely that's not going to be a lead. If it's not livable, you know they're going to need a cash offer. They're not going to be able to sell that on market necessarily. They're going to need a cash offer. So this is pretty much how we determine if a— if it's a lead, if it's a hot lead or not. So, um, Really let that sink in because like I said in the beginning, you're so excited if somebody says that they want to sell, even if they just— that they want to sell, that you're going to try and force that into being a motivated seller when it's actually not. Um, we get, we get people all the time, it's like, hey, I got this lead, this person's ready to go, it's a hot lead. And then we talk to them and, you know, find out really early on That, uh, no, not a hot lead. But, um, it's all about putting those people into your follow-up because most of the deals are going to come from the follow-up. So, um, so you got a contract signed, way to go. Now it's time to assign it to an end buyer. Now, um, I say present, present the deal to your buyers list, or just send it to Joe and I because we are buyers. We're always buying. You're buying right now?

Perfect.

Okay, so just make it super easy. Send it to Joe, or, you know, there's, there's a bunch of flippers here today. Put those, put those, uh, people on your list and send that out to them with your underwriting, with the pictures. And we're gonna get that contract assigned. And all you need to do is send them an assignment agreement. Same thing, could be one page, could be two page, basically saying, you know, I'm— everything that's in the contract that I got signed is now yours. And then, um, just to reiterate, joint venture on the first few. So if you're out there hammering the leads, getting the contract, Team up with somebody that already has a built-out buyers list. You know, um, there's, there's a bunch of people that have insane buyers lists, and they can get an even higher price than what you thought. So I would strongly, strongly urge you to joint venture on at least the first few. I mean, I'm still JVing on most of the deals that I'm doing, so It's definitely an amazing thing. And then your favorite part, the closing and getting paid.

This is it.

So work with a title company or closing agent, depending on what state that you're in, that does assignments. Because if you're just going to a retail escrow or title company that doesn't work with assignments, they can get a little bit freaked out. They're They can end up kind of just making it not as smooth as it should be. So if you guys need anybody, if you're here in SoCal and you need some referrals, let us know. We can get you exactly who we use just to make it really easy. Everybody that we use just— it's a super smooth process at this point because we've done so many. And then just to ensure all your paperwork is correct. and the funds are wired properly. And then the best part, collect your assignment fee. So that's, uh, yeah, that's a fun day right there. You know, you put all in, you put in your hard work, and you finally get that assignment fee. How did that feel? That was unreal. There you go. That was unreal, but it is real. So again, don't overthink it. It's, um, those are basically like, those are, those are the steps. But now you have to go back and kind of chunk that out. Just chunk out each part and just do it step by step and don't stop. Um, okay, let's really quick go over some common pitfalls that we see all the time when we're talking to, uh, to new people or just in our own business. And it's taken us a long time to really hone in on these and come up with, you know, the proper solutions. So the first one is the seller gets cold feet. You get, you get the thing signed, and then all of a sudden the seller's like, you know what, I changed my mind. Or for whatever reason, you're getting closer to the closing day and they want to cancel. And so the solution for that is to always overcommunicate. And one thing that we came up with Was as soon as Chad gets it signed, Lauren gets on the phone as sort of our internal TC and says, hey, um, we're so excited you got— we got this contract signed, we're looking forward to the closing day. These are going to be the steps that come next. Title and escrow are going to reach out to you, you know, and, and basically set the expectations so they know exactly what to expect. Because a lot of these people, they've never bought or sold a house, or maybe once, once or twice, you know, so they don't know the full process like we do. So just set those expectations and make sure you constantly communicate. Because I've, I've talked to people where, or, you know, I've seen it where you get the contract signed and then it's like you just ghost the seller because You're like, all right, we're good, just send it to title and escrow. They never hear from you, so they have no idea what's going on. That causes them to want to back out. Um, uh, another one is title issues. Now that's pretty, that's pretty common for, uh, the seller to leave out that they have, you know, like a divorce lien or, you know, uh, um, just random liens. that you didn't know about. So just run the title search early, try to find out exactly what's going on with the property, and plug that in and make sure that it's still a deal. The next one is losing a buyer. That can happen as well. So your cash buyer backs out last minute, kind of leaving you scrambling. Well, always just have backup buyers ready to go. Build and nurture your buyers list before you get a deal under contract. Now, I got at this point, because I'm in the mobile home space, I have people reaching out to me before they even get under contract and saying, where do I need this at for this to be a deal for you? Now, they know if they can get it locked up at that price, they're going to be able to move that, no problem. We're going to buy it. And then if we don't buy it, you know, we got, we got somebody else as a backup. And then again, just communicate the clear timelines, make sure they know they gotta have their EMD in, in 48 hours, 24 hours, whatever it might be. And if that doesn't happen, we're gonna move on to the next guy. So it's really all about just setting the expectation so each part of the process goes completely smooth. Um, okay, another common pitfall is low quality or inconsistent leads. And for that, I would just say refine your marketing or lead generation strategy. So if something's not working, you can just move to the next thing and try that, and you're gonna find over time that you're gonna hone in on something that really works for you and It may be changing. It may change over time as well. We've had to jump from lead source to lead source just to keep it consistent. And then I would say focus on quality over quantity. Target motivated sellers. That's the main thing. Don't get hung up on the deals that aren't a deal. Then we got unrealistic deal analysis. We kind of talked about that earlier. Overestimating ARV, underestimating repairs, and ignoring closing costs. For whatever reason, every wholesaler does that and continues to do that. So if you can master these things, you're gonna stand out and people are gonna want to come to you for the deals. Because, um, I mean, you guys should do this. You should just get on other wholesalers' lists and see what kind of deals are getting sent out. And for whatever reason, 90% of them are complete trash. And then we got contract and communication issues. Again, just be communicating with everybody and don't overpromise. And then the last thing, persistence pays off. Persistence pays off. That I would say is the main thing to wholesaling. is just being persistent, doing it every single day if you can, and staying consistent. Learn from every setback and adapt your approach. There will be setbacks, and all you're going to do is just refine your process. Remember, wholesaling is a numbers game.

Yeah.

Then from there, Yep, that's, that's kind of what we were working on this last year. Once we had all of our systems, we started scaling, going into other states, and it's basically the same process, just copy and paste. Um, but you don't need to worry about that right now. So, um, I just want to go over a couple deals where the wholesalers saved the day because for whatever reason Wholesalers are in, in the landscape of real estate investors are on the bottom, even though they're doing one of the hardest jobs, which is sourcing the deals. For whatever reason, wholesalers, you know, they just, they, they can't catch a break in the real estate investing world. They just get, you know, people talk trash on them and, um, disrespect them. But I would like to just show how The wholesalers can save the day. So we had Linda in Florida, had her house on the market. She could not sell this thing. She couldn't have showings because, um, she was taking care of her disabled— uh, she had a disabled kid, and then she was also taking care of a disabled cousin. Then she tells us that her ex-husband, he recently became disabled. And he had nowhere to go, so he came back to her and she's like, all right, yeah, I'll come and take care of you. You know, so she's, she's basically like Mother Teresa. When she told me that, I'm like, what are you— you're taking your ex-husband in with you? So that caused her to, to want to sell the property. She actually needed to upsize. She was in sort of a rural area outside of Jacksonville and she needed to get into a 4-bedroom, 2-bath With all the ADA stuff and the ramps and all that. So it— everyone was telling her it wouldn't work. You're going to sell this property that's not worth as much, and you're going to try and get into a more expensive property. How are you going to do that? Well, Chad and I came up with a sort of a creative deal. And so what we did is we figured out a cash price that worked for us, that worked for the flipper out there. And so We started calling on all these properties in the area that she wanted to live. That was 4/2, 1,800 square feet, hit all of the markers. And so what we did was we offered, hey, this lady's about to sell her property for, let's say, $150K. We're going to use that as a down payment on your property, and then all you need to do is take out a note for the difference. And so, you know, we obviously, we pitched this to probably 10 people, got 10 nos. Then all of a sudden, we came across a house. They said, you know what? I think that might work. This property's been sitting on the market for a while. It's an investment property. I think the seller is going to go for it. So we ended up getting her the exact house that she needed. And, uh, we, we struck up a creative deal between these 2 parties. She was over the moon. She couldn't believe it. She thought she was going to be stuck in the property that she was in currently forever. And so, um, we were able to make that happen for her when everyone else basically said, hey, it's not going to happen. So, um, and then we also have Debbie, um, that was out here in California. She was going in foreclosure, and that's, um, I mean, if you guys ever worked the foreclosure leads, that's one of the Sadder ones to, uh, kind of get your head around because these people are about to lose everything. She had her property listed, but because of how much work that needed to get done, it wasn't like— she wasn't getting anything. She just— she's like, okay, I'm gonna lose the house. So what we did first was we postponed the foreclosure, um, and then we sold it at as a novation, meaning the property was going to stay in her name until the end buyer, the flipper, came in, made all the improvements, and then resold the property. And then once they resold the property, she got $70K off of that when she was gonna get basically zero. So these were, uh, 2 times where wholesalers saved the day. So let's give the wholesalers some credit, you know?

Nice.

Just twice. The rest of the time they're, they're, uh, no, I'm just kidding. Okay, so here's your call to action. Don't wait for perfect. There's no such thing. If you guys are serious about getting into real estate, this is one of the best ways to do it because you're going to learn so much and at the same time make some cash. So I, I mean, I, I can't stress that enough. Um, and then Number two, find a mentor. You guys know who I'm pointing to here. But here's the main thing I would say: if you're going to find a mentor, is provide value to that person. I mean, it doesn't have to be Joe. Joe's pretty cheap. It's like lunch, you know. But beyond that, come up with some way that you can provide value, and don't just go up to them and say, "Hey, how can I provide value?" Because now it's like. Well, now I got to come up with a job for you to do. So no, no, think of something, whether that's a deal like, hey, I've got a deal that I want to work with you, or whatever that may be. Try and figure out a way that how you can provide value, um, to that mentor. Um, and then don't be afraid to share in the profits when you're working with someone. You can find somebody to JV I know a lot of people that are— they just think they find a deal and they cling on to that and they're not sharing with anybody, you know. And it's like it takes them so long to get through these 1 or 2 deals when you could just be creating that conveyor belt of closings. And then keep investing in yourself. So you guys are here. I'm proud of you guys for making it out. You're learning. But keep investing in yourself and, um, you know, it's gonna go far. So connect with me if you would please. Um, so yeah, at this point I'm doing wholesaling, flipping, creative finance, co-living, uh, mobile homes, and raising capital for all that stuff. And, uh, if you guys text me— so take that number, save it in your phone— text me a takeaway. And I'll give you a free list of motivated sellers, a gold mine list. Yep, yep. So, uh, yeah, that's, uh, that's pretty good. And then we have a little club that we started called wholesalingstartupclub.com. If you guys are serious about wholesaling, get in there, and we're gonna start ramping up, uh, A lot of the content and videos, and Joe's going to start doing Zooms all the time in there. So pretty excited about it. But, uh, thank you guys, that was fun. If you guys have any questions, fire them off. Um, and I would just, uh, just encourage you guys to get started as soon as possible. I know there was some people that wanted to come learn about wholesaling I would just say start taking action immediately. Any questions? If not, let's network.

Co-living?

Co-living? Yeah. So, the co-living model is basically rent by the room. So, you take like a 4-bedroom, 3-bath house and then you section off the living room or dining room into some more rooms. So, then you have an 8-bedroom. And then you rent out each room. So yeah, just way better cash flow. Anybody up?

Yes, right.

Um, so she's asking about mobile homes, and some of the parks are age-restricted, 55+. It just depends on the actual HOA. Some of them you have to be 55+ to own, some you don't. Some you can be under 55, but the person living there has to be 55+. So we flip in, in a few 55+ parks. Yeah, you can still buy them. Yeah, you just have to check in with the HOA.

Yep.

That way?

Yes.

Oh, First Mobile. Uh, what was our ROI? What was— let's see, I think we were all in at like $120,000.

$110,000.

Yeah, the First Mobile, and sold it for $220,000. So 50%. That was on owned land. So there was just a small HOA and no lease? Yeah, a lot of them are leased land. We go for the owned land. We just focus on only owned land. Yeah, cool. Thank you guys so much. Um, yeah, let's, let's definitely network. I want to meet you guys. Appreciate the time. Thank you.

Uh, 2— just 2 things I want to say before we break up and network. One, a lot of people ask about mobile homes, um, and this really kind of goes for any home in— I'm going to say California, but pretty much the U.S.

Okay.

It doesn't matter if it's in a senior community or not, you can buy that property At 18, you just can't live there. So the, the only properties you can't buy in 55 communities is if it's a co-op. So that's totally different. That's just a different way of owning property. And in a co-op, you have to be 55 to buy it. And I'm talking about Laguna Woods, if anybody's