Unleash Your Potential! 🚀 Join Paul Argueta to Level Up Your Lead Game

In this in‑studio interview, real‑estate investor and author Paul Argueta joins host Joe Homs and a panel of contributors to discuss the evolving landscape of real‑estate investing and lead generation. The conversation begins with a nostalgic look at "subject‑to" financing, recalling how it was commonplace 40 years ago and how modern loan‑servicing AI now automates payment verification, reducing the risk of lender acceleration. The group then shifts to lead‑generation tactics, arguing that cold‑calling is outdated and emphasizing a multi‑channel approach—text, email, YouTube, Facebook, and especially voice‑recorded messages that are now transcribed by smartphones. They explore generational communication preferences, contrasting Gen Z/Gen Alpha’s affinity for quick text or voice notes with the "Silver Tsunami" of older investors who still respond to landlines and mailed packages. Practical advice is offered on how to reach each demographic effectively. Paul shares his contact details and promotes his book, It’s Not the Leads, It’s You, available on major platforms except Apple Books. The episode wraps with light‑hearted personal anecdotes, gratitude, and a reminder of the next show. The discussion provides actionable insights for agents, wholesalers, and investors looking to modernize their prospecting, understand borrower behavior, and leverage technology in real‑estate transactions.
Chapters
Oh, you're always about service, Joe. It's like, yeah, you should really be there, do open houses, stuff like that. I said, well, the house is not in great condition. I go, okay, you're gonna sell it as is? Then yeah, then maybe you have a chance. You're basically just putting it on the MLS and waiting for a buyer's agent before next month to come in and, you know, offer you a price.
Yeah, that's true.
Whatever.
He'll figure it out. So we are stoked to have our in-studio guest. He just arrived after sitting in traffic, still made it here.
I am sorry. No, you're good, man.
Dude, he— Paul filled, filled in, uh, a time we had somebody drop off and he, he, he jumped at the opportunity.
Yes. Thank you.
Which is probably why you are so successful as you are. So, um, let's go ahead and jump on into it. Paul, how you doing?
Good, good, good to meet you guys. Good to be here.
Awesome.
Excited to hear what you guys are doing and learn from you guys.
And oh yeah, same here, same here. Well, it's all about you today, so, um, let's go ahead and dive into it. Why don't you, uh, give people like your background, how you got into real estate, what you were doing before, and kind of fill everybody in?
Sure.
So, uh, right after I graduated from high school, my dad threw me into a real estate school. And it was the summer before going to UCLA, and I didn't take it very serious at all, at all. And I ended up failing the real estate salesperson exam the very first time. And then it was time to take the second, the test a second time. And I really, really, really wanted to pass it. Like, I wanted to pass this exam. And so this was back when there were Texas Instrument calculators, the scientific ones. ones, and they still use them, but, um, this is pre-smartphones or smart mobile devices. And, um, I thought I had this, this brilliant idea that I was going to program the calculator.
Yeah.
And this is before they had— we had QWERTY keyboards. This is where I'd have to press a number 1, 2, 3, 4, or 1, 2, 3 times before it turned into the letter that I wanted. And, um, I programmed the heck out of this this Texas Instruments calculator, which in retrospect was a, you know, I mean, you're going in there to try to cheat on the government proctored exam, but I'm 18 years old, right? So, um, I have the calculator completely programmed. I show up to take the exam and, uh, I turn it on and it starts to flicker and the batteries die. So, so anyway, I end up passing the exam on my own. You know, needless to say, all that You know, programming and doing all that stuff. Eventually got my license. So I got my license at 18, and then I worked my way through college, became a broker when I was 30, built up an office to about 150 agents at one point. And then I became an REO broker. I hear you talking about, you know, sales and and being able to sell virtually. I mean, we were selling during the last crash hundreds of homes. every month as REOs. And we were doing all of that virtually.
Wow.
A lot of it virtually. But, um, and then in the last 5 years, I transitioned into really becoming a real estate investor. I, I realized that I'd done such a really good job of helping other people build their portfolios and just a crappy job of building my own. Just crappy. And so that's where I pivoted. And now I've been really focusing a lot of my effort on, uh, becoming a better investor. As opposed to just becoming a really good and proficient salesperson. And that's, that's where I am.
I love that. And I think like sales is one of those skills that I think everybody should learn as, you know, and then you can, you can kind of use it to, to direct where you want to, to go from there. But having that skill, it's like you're already putting yourself ahead. So now you're talking to sellers of properties you want to acquire. Boom, you already know exactly how to get their motivation, how to solve the problem, and then take the property down yourself instead of, I guess, listing it.
Right, right.
That's— I mean, ideally now I'm approaching everybody as an investor first, and this is what I teach even the, the, my current, you know, sales team, is we— if you're licensed, you approach them as an investor first because it's easier to make that transition from investor to, to agent as opposed to Going in there saying, hey, I want to list your home, and then trying to say, oh, and by the way, now I'd like to buy it for $0.60 on the dollar.
Is that okay?
It doesn't work that well. It's not a smooth transition. So yeah, 100%, having that background in sales helps us all.
Nice. And so I guess take us through your sales training. I mean, and then you're, I guess, training your team now. What does that look like? Do you have certain philosophies, or what does that look like?
Okay, so we're talking as, as real estate investors on the wholesale side, or are we talking as real estate agents?
I guess you could go on the investor side first.
Cool.
Yeah.
Okay.
So if we're talking about on the investor side, you know, we talk really— it's all about lead generation. That's a huge component. And I feel like that's probably the most important skill that we can teach them is just learning how to how to hunt, how to go out and get those leads on a daily basis. And it takes discipline, it takes action. And, and you know what it's like where you could spend 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 hours a day and you may have not caught anything. You may have not gotten any really good leads that day. And, and we know that feeling. So sometimes it's challenging for people who are just getting into our business to prepare them for that. where you could work all day and you might not see any, you know, any daylight. You might not see any immediate benefits from what you're doing that day. So the most important part is setting them or helping them understand the right expectations for what it's going to be like, as opposed to what we see. Because on the internet, we see a lot of, hey, this is, this is easy. You just get up, get on the phone, you call a seller, they're going to welcome you in, you're going to make them an offer, a discounted offer, they're going to take it, and you sign a contract, you close on it, you fix and flip Everything sounds easy on the web. And then the minute they get on the phones or the minute they start prospecting, reality kicks in. And that's when they realize it's a lot harder than it really is. So yeah, I mean, a lot of our sales training is lead generation, teaching them the different lead generation components.
Excellent. OK, yeah, maybe we can jump off from there. What are your main lead sources right now?
So I, I love, uh, PPC.
Okay.
I really do like PPC and there are a couple good PPC providers. I don't know if we, you know, wanna give 'em a plug or not, or if you guys even offer PPC.
I don't offer PPC. Just tell me what you're using.
I mean, I like, uh, right now I like, uh, I, um, iSpeed2Lead.
Okay.
Yeah, I, that's a company that I use.
Gotcha.
Um, ZoloLeads is a good, uh, PPC company.
Okay.
I, I use those 2. I really, uh, for a while, Um, I liked the fact that I considered myself a specialist when it came to like Facebook ads and YouTube ads and all that, all of that stuff, until the algorithms change and then you got to relearn everything all over again. And so at some point I kind of said, okay, do I want to become an advertising agency, right? Or am I just going to focus on becoming the, the real estate investor that I am? And so eventually I just said, I don't want to keep relearning this stuff.
Yeah.
and having to do it over and over again, even if the changes are incremental, because the changes might not be these massive changes, but just having to go back and relearn it again.
Yeah.
It just was a lot of work. So I finally just said, okay, let me pass the baton and let's, let's work with these PPC companies. And that's, that's one of our big lead generating sources right now is the PPC. And then if we're going like the free route, I'm teaching them, a lot of them, how to use Facebook Messenger, okay, and Marketplace, and like reaching out to people that way on a daily basis, doing it every single day. I think a lot of it has to do with time management, especially— I mean, we all know what it's like to go from, from employee mindset to like self-employed mindset. Making that jump or that transition is— it's difficult for a lot of people because they don't have the discipline to sit there and really do the work that we're telling them to do. So if I tell somebody, go hop on Facebook Messenger, as weird as that might sound, and go prospect using Facebook Messenger on all the marketplace listings. Um, you know, eventually what ends up happening, or I've seen it happen, is they start sending out messages, they don't get any responses, and before you know it, they'll go down the black hole of Facebook. And then they're looking at posts, and then they're looking at reels, and then they're looking at videos, and then all of a sudden they're on TikTok. And it's like, that wasn't what I told you to do for the last couple of hours. Um, and so, you know, that's, that's the difficult part, is that discipline.
Yeah.
Um, so we do PPC. I love Marketplace and prospecting that way. And then there's cold calling, man.
Yeah.
You know, it still works. You know, people are going to argue that nobody's picking up the phone, and it's true, people are picking up their phone a lot less because of the, the spam calling and, and all the alerts. But at the end of the day, people are still answering their phones. So you just, you know, you, you learn how to become a master on the phone.
You just gotta dial 'em like 5 times and then they're like, it's gotta be an emergency.
Hold on.
What's up?
Yeah.
Hey, have you thought about wanting to sell?
5 times is crazy. That's pretty cool though. I, I mean, I tell everybody like, you're gonna have to call 'em at least 2 or 3 times.
Yeah.
But you know, I haven't thought about 5, but oh yeah. No, I, I call Hammer.
Yeah.
Yeah. I've, I've told this story before about like, I called a lady 5 times one time because I was supposed to give her an offer. She wasn't getting back to me. And then finally she answers.
She's like, what?
I was like, hey, I was just calling you about— she's like, I'm in a meeting right now. And I had like just stepped out, like I was giving a presentation.
Oh man. So, well, you got her attention.
Yeah.
It wasn't 5 times. And I was like, okay, I'll give you a call later.
So what end— what ended up happening with that deal? Just outta curiosity.
Uh, I got it under contract and then I had to price drop her and then she didn't, she didn't go for it.
Which happens in our business a lot.
Yeah.
That's just part of it. But I mean, that's even, that happens even in traditional real estate.
Right.
Like it's not, not only as, as investors, but I'm glad you said that because I tell everybody you're going to lose more business by not following up or by not being enthusiastic enough about getting a hold of them than you will ever lose it just because you keep trying to get a hold of them.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They honestly don't mind because— and I get it. Like, your life gets in the way, you get busy, you're like, I do want to talk to the guy, but I can't right now. And then finally they pick up and they're usually not pissed. You're just like, hey. And this is after like 100 calls.
It's crazy. And the thing is, people think that we need to put on this like poker face, like if we're courting them, like I'm not that interested in you, you know what I mean? But it's like, did that really work though? Did feigning interest really work when you were courting someone? Or was it the fact that you were like demonstrating real interest in them?
Yeah.
So it's the same logic. And so I tell people all the time, like, you gotta get ahold of them. Like, you just, you call them once, call them twice. I know some people don't like leaving messages. Leave them a message. It doesn't matter. I mean, you're just demonstrating to them that you're interested in finishing what you're starting with them until they tell you drop dead. And, you know, there's still an opportunity.
Absolutely. And then, 'cause if you're not doing it, someone else is.
Oh, 100%.
You know, and 'cause you could be a little bit like, I'm not sure. Like, I'll talk to people, they're like, should I call 'em again? And I like, I just called 'em last week. I was like, yeah, keep doing it. 'Cause someone else is gonna come. Like, Paul's gonna jump on the phone and lock 'em up before you do.
100%.
I tell every— your leads are my leads. My leads are your leads and our leads are their leads and vice versa. We're all sharing the same data.
For sure.
Some might be a little bit more fresh than others or a little bit better, but at the end of the day, we're all talking to the same people.
Yeah.
And it's just you catching them at the right point. And this is another thing I tell everybody, like, there's gonna be some people that just will not do business with me just because I look like somebody that may have broken their daughter's heart in high school, right? Just for that one specific fact. So if you get ahold of that person at the right time, You know, there's a good chance that they'll, they'll give you their business.
Yep.
End of story.
You could be the first caller, you could be the last caller.
Absolutely.
It just depends how, you know, you actually look like my boyfriend in high school.
Yeah.
You know, yeah, so I'm gonna do business with you. Yeah, yeah. That's why for some, it's, it's like you never really don't know.
Yeah, no, you don't know. And that's Yeah, that's like, we go after, uh, like pre-foreclosures and auctions, and that's just like, you could call them at any time and they just pick up randomly and they're like, I choose to work with you. Even though they'll tell you like, I'm talking to like 20 people right now. And I'm like, okay, so this is what you're gonna do. When anybody else calls, you're gonna tell them it's already under control. No, coach them through it.
No, Alex, I'm not interested. You know, call back the next day. No, Alex, I'm not interested. Um, okay, this is your last day. You're getting foreclosed on in 3 days. Okay.
Yeah.
No, Alex, I'm not interested. Alex, let's go knock on his door.
Yeah, pretty much.
You know, go knock on his door, wake him up. He's sleeping on the couch, right? Dude, we were serious. This is your last day. Sign here or you're gonna lose like $250,000 in equity. Yeah, your choice.
Yeah, they go for it. Yeah, but yeah, it's, uh, yeah, door knocking. I mean, have you, have you done any of that, or is it—
So I'm not, I'm not a big door knocker, right? I just run really, really warm. So like the minute I walk outside of my car to the door, I'm already sweating.
Okay, I got you. I'm just—
that's just, uh—
And this is in the winter, right?
Yeah, I just, I run really, really warm, right? And hot is, is probably a better, a better description. So I'm not a huge You know, and I know that there are people like you, you that have— you guys have success doing it and you get a hold of people. I've just always been, um, the phone has always been my weapon of choice.
Totally. Well, and it's scalable, you know, it's like you can definitely reach a lot more people that way even if you, you know, don't get in front of them. Like, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna find something, somebody eventually. But I'm kind of the same way too. Like, I'll run hot. So like, yeah, you show up all sweaty, you're like, hey, how's it going?
They're like, are you okay?
Just sweating bullets.
Yeah, yeah, it's probably— and, and, you know, I, I remember there was a time where I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it. So I had all my packages set up with like letters, the pre-printed letters, handwritten letters in there. And, uh, I remember visiting, and, and, you know, I did some crazy things when I was younger. So I, I'd get about 45 of these and I'd just spend the whole day visiting all the properties that were like NODs or NTS. And, and for the people that are listening, we're talking about notice of defaults and notice of trustee sales. And, um, and I just remember how exhausted I was just driving all over town. And I think I only connected probably out of like 30 with just one person.
Yeah.
And it's, you know, and so only for those reasons I, I tend to like the phone.
Oh yeah, no, I'm, I'm all about the phone. Yeah, no, I— we honestly don't really door knock that much. I just know it's— it can be effective.
There's people that have closed some bonkers deals, like really, really good deals, and I've seen them and I'm like, wow.
Yeah.
But, um, you know, we— so we just recently had one that we did where the, the assignment spread was, um, it was like $105,000.
Nice.
Yeah, it was $105,000. And we— I had a— I JV'd it with, um, with somebody on Brent Daniels' team.
Oh, cool.
And so, but so it was split in half, but it was still a monster deal, right?
That's nice.
And I, and I, um, and I remember Uh, when we were sharing it, kind of getting skewered by a few people because they're like, you know, that's $100,000 that could have gone to the seller in equity.
Oh.
And so, yeah, so I— so these days I tend to like more like volume, right, with smaller spreads versus like the 1 or 2 deals that— I mean, look, don't get me wrong, it feels good, right, you know, getting paid, but I tend to like more, uh, more volume.
Okay.
And then doing the smaller spreads, you know. Yeah, $15,000 to $20,000.
Right, right.
So it seems reasonable. Um, but yeah, Yeah, I have seen some people do some amazing deals off of door knocking.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay.
Wow.
People, uh, people were giving you crap for that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Online.
Yeah.
Okay.
100%.
I thought that's what got everybody into wholesaling was like the checks. You're like, first call, man, $100 grand right here.
Not that one. Yeah. And you know, it's funny because agents were also the ones that were, the ones that were, um, you Giving me crap about it. And I'm like, dude, I'm a broker. I know what it's like to be an agent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I also know, uh, that a lot of agents, you know, they, they don't do the service that they're supposed to be doing.
Sure.
Other than just putting the sign up there.
Yeah, no, exactly, exactly.
And we've seen the MLS.
Really?
No, don't say that. No, you're talking about 95% of the agents out there, aren't you?
My gosh. I was looking on the MLS today at opportunities. I've seen— it's funny, the pictures that some of these agents use on their MLS. It's, it's a complete disgrace, and it's an absolute disservice to the, uh, to the sellers.
Yeah.
Like, I, I don't understand how the sellers— I've had sellers call me pissed off when I've hired professional photographers and spent like $1,000 on, on the photographers taking pictures of their property, and I see agents posting pictures with thumbprints on the, on the camera where everything's foggy. Like, yeah, didn't the seller give them a call or say something to them? Like, I, I don't get it.
No, I saw one today. The picture was one. Okay, one, and it was of a rose. I kid you not.
It was like, yeah, at least violation.
Exactly. This is like supposed to be the front of the house. One picture, that's all they're required. To do, but it was a rose. And yes, it was on the market like 2 or 3 days, but still it's in violation, you know. And I'm looking at it going, violate it or don't violate it? I go, you know what, I'm over it. I'm, I'm just moving on here. Yeah, it's like, wow, if, if the sellers actually knew or if they saw—
How do they not know? You know, I just don't get it.
Well, they don't know because they don't, you know, like me, I send My final listing product to the seller to look at and review and tell me, you know, hey, the AI came up with this description of your house. Make sure it's good here.
Okay.
Or if there's anything else I put there or missed, please let me know and I'll correct it. But I don't think a lot of agents do that.
Yeah, I know.
No, they don't. You know, so we're not here to bash agents.
They're trying, guys.
I'm curious about your book.
Yeah, so, um, you know, I always have always wanted to write a book. That was something that I really wanted to do because I wanted to get the knowledge, uh, on paper and, and put it out there. So I wrote a book, uh, it's called, uh, It's Not the Leads, It's You, right? I think that's pretty self-explanatory for anybody that's in sales. And, um, so I started writing it about 6 months ago. I did use AI. Hmm. And I'm not afraid to share that with people because AI is only as good as the prompts or the information that people are putting into it. So it's not like I said, well, you know, just write me a 200-page book, or even let's just break it down a little bit further. It's not like I said, write me a $2,500— $2,500-word chapter on cold calling.
Right?
It, it wouldn't have done, uh, a good enough job. It wouldn't have had the knowledge that was in my head, and it wouldn't have had any real soul, um, in it. So, um, what I did was I did use it to help me. I, I would basically use, um, voice-to-text on like a Google Doc. So I would go out there and I would just, you know, just share all of my thoughts on, uh, on a particular topic, and I'd put it all on Google Doc. And then, you know, that would, that would be anywhere between I don't know, 4,000, 5,000 words. And then I'd put that into AI and I'd say, clean it up for me. And so it's really all my content. It's just cleaned up. It's just, it's the same. It's just like having an editor.
Yeah, right.
So I let AI do the editing for me. But sometimes when I tell people from the jump that, hey, yeah, I did it with AI, they assume that AI wrote it for me.
Right.
And it's not, it's, it's, it was more of a tool to help me clean up all of the thoughts that I had. And all of the experience that I've had over the last 30 years doing what it is that we do.
Oh, heck yeah.
I mean, AI is going to be used in all books.
What are the topics in the book?
So believe it or not, there are a couple of chapters on AI specifically, on how we use it in sales now and how we use it, uh, for a lot of different things. Um, I mean, we use it for the descriptions, we use it for photos, we use it for, um, uh, conversational AI, which I think is huge. Like, have you guys tried Air.ai yet? Uh, yeah, yeah, it gets mixed results, right? And I mean, we could talk a little bit about like my experience, but I, I still like what they do and the product. Um, I hear, you know, mixed emotions from different people that have used it, but I like, uh, um, conversational and, and language model-based AI. I think, I think it's going to work even though they did pass, um, the recent, like, FCC passed something where, like, unless they've enrolled—
Opted in.
Opted in, yeah, then you can't give them a call. But anyway, so, so I talked a little bit about AI. We definitely talked a little bit about cold calling. Since I'm also speaking from the perspective of, like, a team leader, we talked about how, like, you know, listening to your mentors and following what they say versus trying to do it your own way. Learning from, from, from their successes and their failures. We go into building a team and having virtual assistants. I even cover— there's a whole chapter on like virtual assistants, the dos, the don'ts, you know, being careful so that your, um, your accounts don't get hacked if you are using overseas, uh, help, because it's happened to me. And then you're cut off of your own accounts and like, yeah, so, um, a lot, a lot of stuff Uh, really, uh, from— it's not real estate sales per se, but you can tell that a lot of my experience, uh, is, is from real estate just based on reading the book. But it, it applies to really any type of sales position, not only real estate.
Okay. So, um, it's not the leads, it's you, you know, what specifically is it about you that you're talking about?
Yeah. So you as the person, right? As a, as an organization, especially in a sales organization. We all know this, team leaders, we can— we make it rain, we get the leads, and we spend money on these leads. And then it's our job to either, you know, follow up with the leads ourselves, or we give them to our team, and then the team, uh, goes and follows up with them. And you can give the same list of 20, 30 leads to one person, and they'll say that the leads are crap. And you can give that same leads of 20 or 30 people to another person, and they'll be able to walk out of there with a 4 or 5 deals on it. It's, it, it's not the leads, it's the person that's calling the leads, it's the person that's following up with the leads, it's the person that's nurturing those leads and building those relationships with those leads. And so you is that person that, uh, you know, that claims that all leads are crap— the Glengarry Glen Ross leads, right?
So how do you, how do you train somebody not to be so negative about a particular set of leads, you know, what, what would— if, if, if somebody came back to you and said, yeah, these are all crap leads, and then you gave those same leads, like you said, to somebody else and they got 4 or 5 deals, what is it that you're going to train in this first person that, uh, this second person is actually doing?
Well, I think the very first thing I would, I would teach them is, number one, go in there with the mindset that these leads are worth tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. And because that's potentially what it would have cost us as an organization to get those leads, either by making the phones ring or by making PPC inquiries come in, however it might be. Listen, these leads are valuable. They are worth money. There's monetary value here. So the first thing I want them to understand is, is that, yeah, to you, you might be getting them for free right now, but there's actually an expense behind it that, that was, you know, that we invested in just to get them. That's the first thing. I want them to understand that money was invested getting these leads to you. However they came in, we invested money getting them. So number one, take care of them. That's the very first thing. Then the second thing is, don't give up after the first call, right? Yeah, you call 30 people and none of those 30 people answer. What are you going to do next? So what's the rest of your day going to be like? Are you going to tell me that you're just going to do nothing?
Start over.
You do it again. You call them again. Hey, listen, you find other creative ways to get ahold of this person. Hop on Facebook, Google their names, find them on LinkedIn, look for them on Instagram, look for them on TikTok. Find other ways where you can actually get a hold of that prospect. If they're close enough and it's not that far and you can drive and go visit them on the door, go knock on the door if it's close enough, right? I mean, and we all know what it's like here in Southern California. I mean, it can take— GPS told me that it was going to take— earlier in the morning, it told me it was going to take me about, you know, 50 to 60 minutes to get over here. I leave around 1:45 and I get here around 4:30 or 4:20. So I mean—
Damn.
Like, it shifted. The traffic shifted. Yeah, I, I, I understand when someone says, you know, I, I just like, I argue that like I can't door knock all doors, but if it's close enough, go, go knock on the door. Find other creative ways to get a hold of the prospect as opposed to you just telling me these aren't good leads.
Do, do you think it's the creativity of the agent or just the laziness?
Yeah, 100%, it's the laziness. It's, it's, it's the laziness. It's the work ethic. It's, um, you know, the Some of them, they just haven't hit the wall enough times. So that's another thing that we've discovered, right? And I'm sure you guys have experienced this. If someone comes in and has success too quick, that also concerns me because I'm afraid that they may be in and out just as fast as they had that, that initial success because they didn't know what it was like to really grind. Whereas I've had members of my team that were, you know, 3 months, 4 months, no luck, no success, and then they see the person right next to them close a deal in their first like 2 weeks, you know, it kind of— it messes with your head, your psyche.
Mm-hmm.
And then that person who closed a deal, 3 months later, they're not even in the organization anymore. They've left the profession, they're doing something else. Whereas that person who was there, it took them 6 months to get that deal, you know, they become lifelong friends sometimes because those are the ones that knew what it was like to really pay the price to get it. So I think a lot of it is work ethic. Um, sometimes it's even having success a little too soon sometimes, um, and, uh, and them just not being mentally strong enough. They're just not mentally strong enough, um, and they haven't gotten out of that employee mindset. Yeah, you know, they're used to, I work before 1 hour, I should get paid for that 1 hour. Whereas with us, you know, we could work for 2 weeks and not get paid on something, months on a deal, sometimes 3 or 4 months.
How long did it take you to get your first deal?
Yeah, I think like 3 or 4 months.
Yeah, 3 or 4 months. Which is kind of average, honestly. It's like—
It's not bad.
Yeah, it's, it's, uh, a learning curve.
Yeah.
You know, you have to start, you have to actually be disciplined, you have to call, you have to listen to what these people are saying.
Yep.
You know, come up with, uh, objections, uh, resolutions and stuff like that. So it is work.
100%.
I tell agents, I go like, You know, just because you have your license, you're not going to be a millionaire tomorrow. Yeah, you know, there's this 4-letter word, it's called work. Yeah, you know, you have to work at it because nobody's going to give it to you.
Well, I came from the background of learning guitar where you suck for so long before you can get good.
Yeah, and you kept at it though.
Yeah, I kept at it. I'm like, I don't know how, but It's the same sort of thing. You just suck for so long.
So do you, do you, do you see that in people that, um, you know, did you say you had a wholesaling team?
Yeah.
Okay. So like we do too, and we get young kids that come in here and they go, you know, I want to learn how to do wholesaling. I'm excited. I'm going to make a lot of money. You see them for about a week or two, they're making calls and then they never show up again.
Yeah, that, that happens a lot. Yeah, it's because they're part of the microwave generation, right? They have a little— it's much more difficult for them because they're used to that instant gratification. And so, um, people, I think, uh, 30 and above— and even I'm being generous with 30— but 30 and above, I think they tend to, to understand a little bit, you know, the delayed gratification a little bit more than 30 and under. 30 and under—
I'd say 40.
Yeah, I'm, I'm being generous, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I just didn't want to offend any listeners. Um, but yeah, I agree with you 100%, 100%. Although some of the ones that do have a background, um, as athletes, musicians, the people that had invested years in a craft, whatever that craft may have been, those people I've noticed they, they, um, they're a little bit more resilient.
Yeah.
Than the ones that don't have a background, you know, in that, you know. And I'm not talking about the ones that say, yeah, I played rec league, you know, handball. I'm talking about like real athletes, people have really committed, just like you said, the guitar, piano, pianists, you know. So you would— you wouldn't think people from that creative background would be interested in this, but a lot of them are.
Yeah.
And they understand that.
You had said originally that, um, your dad, um, you know, said take this real estate exam and stuff like that, and you were Very negative on it. What, what was the light bulb moment that said, oh wow, I'm, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna be serious about it?
Yeah, I don't think it happened that summer. I think it was more me just trying to prove, make, prove my dad wrong.
Okay.
It was one of those father-son things where it's like I didn't take it seriously and like, you know, yeah, you don't take anything serious.
But what changed? Um, you know, what, what was the light bulb came on and said, I can do this and I think I can be successful at it?
I think it really wasn't until my second or third year of having my licenses where it finally kicked in, only because I was still in school. So I was working very, very part-time. And if I sold a house, you know, one house a year while I was in college, uh, you know, as a student, you know, that was a lot.
Yeah.
That was a lot of money. So, but by the time I was done and I went in and I started seeing, um, uh, you know, the people that I was working around in that office, and I, and I would see their work ethic and their discipline, I was like, I'm gonna run circles around these guys.
What year was that? Do you remember?
'90s, '99.
Oh wow, that was—
that was '99.
That was very early. Yeah, you've gone through a couple of downturns.
Oh yeah, yeah. And that's, you know, that was when the cycle— 2000s, everything was accelerating. Yes. And so I just thought, well, if I can just outwork everybody around me, that, that was enough. So I had a corner White Pages, um, and the Haynes Directory. You guys remember the— hey, you know what that is?
Yeah, what is it?
It's called the Haynes Directory. It was like a huge white page. I mean, I— White Pages, but when I say big, it's like we're talking probably larger than a legal, uh, size page.
Yeah.
And you could go through this and you just make it a map book.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's like what you have in your Tesla in front of you right now.
Yeah, I know.
It was like this big and on paper.
Yeah, with numbers, names and numbers.
And, and they gave me a phone and they just said get to work.
And I was like, let's do it.
Wow.
Let's do it.
That's awesome.
It was a little boiler room-ish.
Yeah.
A little.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fun at that time. He's ringing the bell. You're like, wow. Okay. And then you got into the, to the REO stuff.
Yeah.
I, I started seeing how the market was changing, kind of like what we're seeing right now. Um, and I thought, okay, um, you know, this something's up. And, um, somebody said to me, you should go to this foreclosure seminar where they're teaching people, uh, or agents how to get into REO. And so I remember going and, and, um, and just listening to what they were saying, and I thought, okay, uh, I need to network with all these professionals and all these people and all these asset managers back then. So, and that's what I started doing, and I just got really good at making, uh, Connections with them. Now, it was much easier then than it is now, because I know that a lot of people talk about like foreclosures and REOs and getting these REO accounts, and you know working with asset managers. But a lot of the people that I used to work with aren't even in you know asset management for these banks anymore. It's all new people, number one, and the system is just completely different than it was before. Before, I could get an email address and I could reach out to an asset manager and say, "Give me a shot. Give me a shot. Give me a shot." The same way. we do now as, as investors. Uh, but it's a lot harder now. It's a lot harder.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I tried doing the same thing, obviously not as successful as you. Uh, I went to all those same courses and stuff. I ended up getting one REO out of all my efforts. And there was a lot of effort involved.
Oh, it is.
At the end of the day, I found out, I'm, you know, and, and I think it's a truthful statement that Because I had some other agents around me that were doing REO contracts and stuff. They had personal relationships with the asset managers.
100%.
You know, how, how did you end up getting that REO? Oh, my husband works for the bank and he doles them out. Oh, really? So he just decided to pick you? Not a conflict of interest. I'm not saying that. But, you know, that's kind of what I found out at the end of the day was that—
It is. And joining trade groups.
Yeah.
Um, a really popular one is the NRBA. That's one that, that I was part of for a long time. Um, and, and they would hold events and conferences and invite these banks. And, um, and I, I remember there's a time where we would do road tours and we would go visit all these banks. And there was a group of probably about 15 to 20 of us agents that would just travel together, and we would put on lunches and breakfasts, and, and we would meet and we would walk through like all the Cuban Bibles, shaking hands, handing out cards. I mean, this was, this was a, a real concerted effort by a group of us. Like, we were like, okay, we're gonna dominate this, this part. And, and we really did. And there were some that were doing even, even better than I was. I mean, I— one month, I think it was like we did 30, 30 transactions just in one month. Um, and, and you are floating a lot of money though. Yeah, as REO brokers, because it's your responsibility to handle like evictions, repairs, cash for keys. So I mean, at one point I think we had like $250,000 out in, um, just in expenses that we were hoping to get reimbursed for, which we eventually did, but it just— it happens in waves and in trickles.
Yeah.
So yet you had mentioned, uh, back then and now looking similar. So I want you to get your crystal ball out and tell me What is or isn't similar from 2008?
A lot of sellers have equity. They have equity, which poses a really good opportunity for investors, right, to be able to go out there and talk to them, for agents to be able to talk to them and put their properties on the market. So that's one of the biggest differences, that they have equity. Second thing is, is that these lenders these days are really working hard to keep people in their homes. They don't, they don't want to foreclose on people.
No.
So, you know, there's people that are still able to, to take advantage of the COVID forbearance plan. I mean, I thought we were out of COVID already, but like, people are still— I talked to sellers and they're like, yeah, no, I just got approved for like COVID forbearance. And which is crazy. I, you know, I thought that had ended already. So they're still using that. And then there's people who are taking advantage of forbearance programs where they're putting their loans on the back end. Uh, as a second. Um, I am right now in, in a transaction where we are the investor, we're the buyer on a deal where a seller had a $70,000, $68,000 forbearance as a second. And then there's an organization in this state, in California, that is paying that forbearance off for them.
Nice.
Which made the deal even more attractive to us as a, as a, uh, as an investor, because now we don't have to take care of. We don't have to worry about that forbearance. Gave us a little bit more equity. But yeah, I mean, I can even, uh, let me find that email. Oh, it's on my— I left the phone over there. But I can give the email address to— or not the email, the website to— okay, to the forbearance program. It's, it's a nonprofit that is paying people's seconds off.
Wow.
Yeah, I didn't even know that was a possibility.
Yeah, that's kind of crazy. Yeah, the, the, you know, 2008 was totally crazy for everybody. And, uh, the banks, I mean, if they were, they were doing firsts and seconds because they were doing 100% financing. So they did it 80% first, 20% second. And then when, you know, the world blew apart, you know, you'd call Chase, they had the first and the second. And then, you know, you go, okay, well, you know, we're okay with, you know, the first and, uh, do the, the, you know, paperwork on that. But what about the second? You know, we can't pay that. And they go, oh, don't worry about it. Just pay us $5,000, you know, of what we owe. You know, it's like you owed them $200,000, you— then they negotiate down to $5,000. You know, it's like, wow, okay, that's, that's good, that works for me.
You know, these days you really have to completely just put your head in the sand and just completely avoid them for them to foreclose on you.
Yeah.
If you pick up the phone as, as a homeowner and just give them a call They want to work with you. That's, that's what we're discovering.
Yeah. No, they don't. They don't want the property back. That just doesn't make sense for them to have the property back, you know? But then there's a point in time where they say, you know, like, sorry.
Yeah. I mean, if you're just non-responsive, you're not, you're not, you're not showing any effort in trying to resolve what's going on. Yeah.
So, so back in 2008, we had the lenders that were being crazy with their, their loans. Okay, we had obviously unemployment, which was I think the biggest problem. Do you see any of that happening today? I'm trying to figure out if— what's the correlation, you know, because I feel the same thing. I feel like we're kind of bubbling at the top here, you know. Is it going to be a big implosion or—
I think a lot of people talk about this soft landing I think that's, that's what we're gonna see. I don't see them allowing— they, they would much rather work with these people, uh, on their mortgages, number one. And then number two, the unemployment rate I don't think is as bad as it was back then, right? But the inflation rate is still pretty bad. And so even though the unemployment rate might not be as bad, your— their dollar still goes way less.
Yeah.
So I, you know, it's It's a different time, but, but it's definitely a similar feeling, like something's happening. Um, and, and if these, these homeowners who are, you know, experiencing, um, hardships aren't, aren't working with their banks, they're going to be in trouble. Yeah, they're going to be in trouble.
Yeah. But do you think there's going to be hundreds of thousands?
I was promised a tsunami.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think so. I think we're seeing more. I think we're going to see more of these. Silver tsunami than we are an REO tsunami.
See, now he's picking on me.
Yeah, I'm not that far behind you, and I use Just For Men, so I knew it.
I knew that was coming.
Silver tsunami.
I, I think we're in for it more for that than we are an REO tsunami, personally.
Okay.
I, I mean, I could be wrong, but I, I just think that, you know, um, and, and even then, that may not necessarily happen because a The, you know, the boomers are leaving a lot of their property to their kids because their kids can't afford it.
So annoying.
They can't, they can't afford it.
I'm just like, what about me, man?
I, I had an agent I was recruiting call me today and she goes, hey Joe, um, how much longer are you going to be working there? And I said, well, hopefully a period of time. Why? She goes, well, the only reason I'm coming over is because of you. Like, if you were going to leave like in 2 or 3 months, why would I come over? I go, okay, yeah, kind of push me out the door here, you know?
Forced retirement. Turn in your badge, sir. You're done.
We won't allow it.
No.
Unless it's what you want, but you always say you don't want to retire.
No.
Why?
What's the point of retiring? Yeah, you could do this as a hobby or whatever. I don't know. It's fun.
If I start repeating myself, you know?
Yeah.
I'm going to pretend like I only heard you one time.
Yeah. Kind of looking like Looking off. We cured Medicare. That wasn't the question. Then hopefully somebody's gonna tell me, right?
Yeah.
We'll just take you to lunch.
Yeah. Like time to go to lunch, Joe.
Time to go to lunch. I'm good with that. Time to go to lunch. So what kind of hairy deals are you working with right now?
Um, you know, I like, uh, I love sub two.
Okay.
Yeah, I like sub-to deals. It's amazing how many real estate agents lack knowledge of subject-to transactions. And, you know, they'll, they'll tell you how it's illegal, it can't be done. And I'm like, I remember in the '80s when my parents had the Carlton Sheets, uh, DVDs.
See, now I still have it.
You still have it?
Yes, I still have it.
I need to get those.
Yeah, I still have it. He's still alive too.
I thought he passed.
Did he?
I think he passed.
Yeah.
Oh man, just depressed me more.
Yeah, I think he passed. Um, no, I, I loved Carlton Sheets. I loved those infomercials. I would watch him at like 1 in the morning. Yeah, you know, he's— he has these people there talking about their deals and their checks. And, uh, and so he, he was, as far as I'm concerned, the original, uh, sub-to, um, yes, you know, teacher back in the '80s and the '90s.
Yes.
And so I had— and members of my own family had purchased their own homes that way. And I remember seeing it. So I love subject-to transactions. They do get a little difficult when you're dealing with real estate agents that don't have any real knowledge on how they work. And so those are, those are great investment opportunities, especially when you get those ones with the really good rates, the interest rates.
I checked with my broker and he says, that's illegal. I can't do that. Oh my God, now I got to train you and your broker.
You know, come on.
You know, do you want your commission or not?
Okay, isn't it—
I'm not gonna go around you. We're still gonna pay you a commission.
That's what we tell them. Yeah, you're gonna get paid.
You know, it's like, isn't that your goal, to get paid?
And then, you know, it's, it's interesting because we also—
we—
I'm sure you guys do too, but we use disclosures, the sub-to disclosures.
Yeah.
And they clearly state, hey, look, the loan is still in your name. You're still responsible if something happens.
Yeah.
You know, it's all disclosure. But agents will be like, well, you know, those disclosures really show that it's not— it's all in your favor. And, and we'll have these conversations where like, well, is it? It's not. It's just that I'm, I'm being, um, completely transparent with them about the process, just like we as agents have to be completely transparent about all our disclosures when we're putting our disclosure. It's the same principle. Um, but yeah, they, they have a very difficult time.
Like—
No, they do. Yeah, it's, it's a It's a teaching effort, you know? Yeah. That's what you have to do.
Just—
Well, and I've, I've worked—
Take a deep breath. Yeah.
Okay.
I've worked somewhere you go back and it's like you'd see that listing's removed, house never got sold.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah. Yeah.
I gave you a way out. Yeah. I don't, I, that is amazing. I see that all the time.
Like you'd rather not get paid than—
okay. Yeah.
That's fine.
I do the same thing. So in our CRM, I'm constantly going back.
I bet.
Yeah.
And I'm looking and I label 'em as like Lost opportunity. So I'm like, oh, lost opportunity. Then I go back and I'll check the history on it and I'll see like it didn't go anywhere anyway. I'm just like, why?
Why?
Like, we were, we were right there.
For sure.
Yeah. Um, you know, the fix and flips, those, those are always fun.
And I—
and then, uh, when, when you have deals where, uh, you, you have some where you go in and you think the numbers are all right, you've comped it right, You've got the repairs down right, you've sent contractors over there and everything looks right. You have a nice little margin there where you can make an assignment fee on it if that's what you want to do. And then you start going out to investors, and then all of a sudden none of the investors want to touch it. And then you, you have to go back and renegotiate a little bit on the price, and sometimes they, they bend and then sometimes they don't.
Mm-hmm.
You know, these are all the, uh, The challenges that we go through when we're dealing with some of these deals, you know, especially I feel like that happens more on the fix and flip than it does the sub to deals.
Yeah, because you only get so much information as far as especially when you're talking to them on the phone and they're like, yeah, it's no, it's good, it's good, everything's good. And then you go out there, AC doesn't work, roof needs to get repaired.
It's been red tagged.
Yeah.
All yeah.
You're like, oh yeah, I didn't think that was a big. Yeah.
That's good.
Somebody came by and just put this red thing on there the other day. I thought, you know, I'm good to go. You know?
Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, are you, are you mostly in California or?
So, um, I, I love California just 'cause it's our home state, but, uh, we're in Arizona, California, Texas, Nevada.
Nice.
Oh, cool.
Um, Florida. I love Florida. Yep.
Yep.
Man, their inventory is, is becoming insane.
Mm-hmm.
Insane. I mean, there are a lot of properties on the market.
in Florida right now.
A lot, a lot. Um, and then, uh, I like Georgia too. I haven't really hit the Northeast. I, I haven't gotten my foot into the Northeast, but I hear that—
touched it.
I hear like Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh is like a hot market right now too, but I haven't really stepped into it too much.
Yeah, there's like all— there's so much. It's like we, we were kind of like in the same, same markets, like Nevada, um, Texas, Florida, and then big time is in, uh, Alabama now. So we're out, we're doing some stuff in Alabama. So yeah, he's like buying portfolios out there. So we're doing some lead generation out there. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty sweet how you can just do it from here and, you know, it's like the same process anywhere, really the exact same thing.
REO was like that too. And so I think it was easy for me to grab it, to make that leap where I was like, oh, okay, all right, it's not a big deal because there were plenty of properties in REOs as REO brokers where we never saw them. We didn't, we didn't see them at all. So, um, sorry about that. That's my phone.
Oh, okay. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't me.
I was like, can you hit it?
It's on the table in the back.
Yeah, I got it. You guys keep going.
All right.
Okay. So anyway, yeah, you know, to be able to do it virtually is, is, is probably one of the, if not the best part about what we do.
Totally. Yeah.
I mean, we can Wake up, roll out of bed.
Yep.
And just get to work.
Yeah.
Do it on the beach.
On the beach. On the beach.
As long as you got Wi-Fi, you're good.
Yeah.
I get better cell service on the beach than in our house right now.
So we have to go to the beach and do it.
Well, with Wi-Fi it's fine, but like if the Wi-Fi goes out, I have to go down there.
Wow.
Nice. Um, cool. So we got some videos. I want to get your thoughts on it.
Cool.
We're going to play them right here and then So let it rip.
All right, so hopefully I can— hopefully the sound works this time. Let's try it. Oh, okay.
Hello? Hi, James, this is Ryan from— how you doing this morning? Don't call me again. Don't call this number. Go home to whoever you live with and stay there, but don't call me no more. Hey, James, are you still in real estate? I was just checking out your social media sites. I didn't see any activity. I don't need you checking on me. If I need somebody to check on me, I'd call. I don't need somebody to babysit me. You understand that, boy? Hey, I understand that, boy. All right, well then hang up the phone and don't call me no more. No, don't call me no more. Uh, James, I just want to make sure you— Hang up the phone. Don't call me no more. What are you doing to stay in— Hang up the phone. Don't call me no more. Hang up the phone. Don't call me no more. Hey, James, hang up the phone. Don't call me no more. Hang up the phone. Don't call me no more. Are you familiar with— don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more! Hey man, you're crazy. Don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more! So what I'm seeing— don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more! You having fun, James? Don't call me no more, don't call me no more, don't call me no more! Uh, James, when should I call you back? You ain't taking up mine. Don't call me no more. Don't call me no more, dude. That's fine. Don't call me no more. Don't call me no more. Don't call me no more. Don't call me no more. Don't call me no more.
Don't call me no more.
They'll call you tomorrow. Don't call this number no more.
Don't call this number no more.
I'm gonna tell you why. I have got all of this recorded with and without your permission, and you are aware of it. Yeah, so you're about ready to face the law, sir. You understand that? Nah, James, I don't. Don't call me no more. Don't call me no more. All right, you have a good one. Hang up the phone and don't call this number no more. You understand that, boy? I understand that, boy. You understand that, boy? All right, boy. You understand that, boy?
Oh my God.
All right, brother. You understand that, boy?
You understand that, boy?
Oh my God.
I'm subscribed. Yeah, I love those guys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I feel like that's what people picture when, uh, they're about to start dialing.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it happens. It's just part of what we do, you know. I tell everybody, if— and we've gone through those conversations, but when I'm like, look, one of us is going to have a bad day. It's either going to be you or— and it— but it's not going to be me. So if I'm on the phone with you, yeah, having a good time. Yeah, that's, that's all you can do.
Yeah, for sure. And, and I've honestly like I have a partner of mine that he does most of the acquisition stuff now, but it's like we rarely come across people who are super pissed off. Most of the people are normal, it seems like.
Yeah, I would say 90%.
Yeah. And maybe they just don't want to sell right now or they have an inflated price or something. But yeah, every once in a while you'll come across somebody who's just like—
Don't call me no more.
Don't call me no more. Oh yeah. And what's funny is we're doing a lot of the inbound as well, so they'll fill their information out. And then you call them and they're like, what?
What is this about?
And you're like, you literally just filled this out. And they're like, no, I didn't. And you're like, yeah, you did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You just gotta get used to it.
What's that move Chad uses when they say like the cybersecurity team?
Oh yeah. Yeah. When they're like, no, no, we didn't fill that out. Um, you know, it wasn't me. Then we're like, okay, we're gonna need to get our cybersecurity team because this is like identity theft. So we're gonna have someone from law enforcement reach out to you. And if it wasn't you, if it was you, that's fine. But I just wanna make sure. that like you were the person that filled it out. So that's what we do sometimes.
Tell me if you close a deal.
No, it's literally like it's gone at that point, but we just need to mess with them to have fun.
Yeah.
Wow. I'm sure it freaks them out.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And another one we would do occasionally if they're ghosting us is like, we're gonna send like a wellness check over to you.
Oh, that's a good one.
Because like, I'll be like, I'm scared. I haven't heard from you in a while. I'm just getting really worried.
That was one circumstance, and the guy was under contract, and so that was to get him to respond.
Yeah, and then I we said that, and he was like, "No, I'm fine.
It's okay.
I'm just trying to ignore you." Yeah, it's like I just need you to tell me that, and then I'll go away.
Ah, that's a good one. I'm gonna try that one. Yeah, yeah, the wellness check. Yeah, I'm stealing that.
All right. All right. Um, Mr. Wonderful coming up next. All right.
Start small, pay down the mortgage, sell it, buy something a little bigger as your salary goes up. But my rule, very simple, not more than 30% of your after-tax income. Otherwise, you could really screw yourself.
Start small.
This is if you're buying a home for the first time.
Isn't that the standard though?
I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, that's like— yeah, that's normal.
Like, that's Mr. Wonderful. You better attribute that to Mr.
Wonderful.
What do you think?
No, it's been around.
Do you agree?
Yeah, that's typical.
Oh, okay.
That's what almost any lender will tell their, uh, oh yeah.
I honestly, I like the good old days where I was literally putting 5% down. That's it. The banks are fine. Yeah. 95% loan. You're an investor. Yeah. Okay.
As an investor.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I'm older than you.
Yeah.
I've never seen that.
Yeah. I've never seen that. I know.
It's like they make it, are they making it harder and harder?
The Carlton And Sheets' days that, you know, he was teaching people how to do subject-to. But my first property I bought over 40 years ago was basically subject-to. It was FHA, and they allowed it back then. It, you know, it's no, no problem with, you know, the built-in acceleration clause that happens nowadays, but really doesn't happen. Have you ever had one or do you know of anybody?
No.
No, either. I've never had one either. You know, they kind of scare you. They go, oh gosh, you can't do this because they're going to call the loan. They've never called the loan. And, you know, 45 years that I've been doing real estate, they've never called the loan. You know, I gotta tell people, just make the payment.
Right.
Okay. Especially nowadays, they got a little checkbox there. The AI says, oh, we got the payment. They don't care who they got it from. They say, check, let's go to the next month. That's it. Yeah. You know, there's nobody going, oh, wait a second. It says Joe owns this property, but we got a check from Alex.
Oh, they'll cash it.
What's happening there? Should we call Alex and find out? Should we like not accept this money? Right.
Yeah, well, that was back then. You could like, if, if you wanted to, let's say you got a plane ticket, you wanted to just give it to Paul, you'd be like, here, there's my plane ticket, go ahead and go on.
Yeah, why not? I know, you know, that's how it should be.
But now it's all like, you gotta fill these things out, you gotta swipe your face.
You know, I remember that, the airlines, being able to do that with the airlines. You could just give somebody a ticket and then it was okay.
That's how it was with loans back then.
Yeah. Your wife was coming back in town and you had to get your girlfriend out of there real quick. So here's a ticket, babe. You know, see you later. See you next time.
I don't know what you're talking about.
You better not. All right. Should we do one more?
Yeah.
Okay, I'm gonna do this. Stop calling your leads. Stop calling your leads. Or it's not gonna work.
That's not how life works anymore. Stop calling your leads. If you get this part of it right, if you understand that all you have to do is get them helpful educational content On a consistent basis. Now, that can be via email, it could be via YouTube, it could be via Facebook, it could be via text message. It can be anything except voice. I'm telling you, and you've heard me say this before, my youngest son is 20. He's 20 years old. He'll be 21 soon. If I called him right now, I wish I had my phone with me. I could call him right now and I guarantee you he won't answer the phone. He will immediately text me back and it'll say, What's up? It's my son. And if I call him, he won't answer the phone. He will immediately text me. Maybe while it's still ringing, he'll text me and say, what's up? Because that's how they prefer to communicate. That's not how life works anymore.
Interesting.
I think it just depends on the demographic.
Of course.
I agree.
Yeah.
Yeah. If you're reaching out to 20-year-olds.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, One, what, you know, first thing, why are you calling a 20-year-old about an investment? You know, it's like they don't have any money. You should be calling the silver people, you know, like Silver Tsunami. Silver Tsunami, call them. They're the ones with all the money. They're the ones that are going to pass it down to the next generation. They still got landlines.
They do. Some do.
Yeah, yeah, they love landlines.
They love getting the package.
Letters too.
Yep.
Yeah, you know, they actually open their mail. They do. This generation, they're, they're too lazy to do anything. Sorry.
Yeah, just being emoji.
Like, well, I'm not sure how many, uh, Gen Z, Gen Alpha own homes currently.
Yeah, I know. It's— I, I get his point because we used to like to do texting, and with the calls, it's like, it's easy to block. But I mean, you got to do it all. It's like you call and then you text, and then you call and then you text. they call it. But, you know, and then whichever they prefer to do.
Well, maybe they respond more through text because it's less personal, you know, and they can say, don't call me anymore, don't call me anymore, don't call me anymore. Yeah, you know, instead of actually calling you and telling you that.
Well, you know what's one of the trends that I've heard that a lot of them are doing now, and, and I'm— I've been experiencing it, is, uh, they'll actually use the voice recording. And so they'll use that feature as opposed to You know, they don't want to type anything out, so they just record a message and they're sending that.
Yeah.
So that's becoming much more popular, right, among them. But I mean, I'm seeing even, even other people my age do the same thing.
Yeah.
They'll respond to me that way and they'll just leave, uh, voice recorded messages, right? Messenger, texting, WhatsApp, whatever. They'll send them to me that way.
Interesting.
Yeah, I got a few friends that do that.
I'm like, I'm not— Because you don't want to— that means I have to hear the whole thing.
Yeah.
And if you're leaving me a message, it's like I'm A minute and a half? Yeah, it's like I could have scanned your text a lot quicker than hearing that whole minute and a half message. Luckily, they—
it transcribes it now. Um, oh, it does? Yeah, it'll transcribe it on the iPhone.
Not like on social media.
Not like— oh yeah, yeah, not on Instagram and not on Facebook.
Yeah, you just see the, the, uh, the audio like image, and I'm like, now I gotta listen to it, right? Because otherwise I don't know how to respond.
Exactly. That's good. Don't do that.
No, maybe.
But, uh, awesome. Well, um, how can people get a hold of you?
Um, so if, uh, if you're interested in, in learning more, you know, from, from a real estate agent perspective, you can get a hold of me, uh, and you can call me at 626-600-2734, and you can email me at paul@josephhoms.com. At, and then it's very simple, it's talktopaul, everything spelled out, no numbers, talktopaul, T-A-L-K-T-O-P-A-U-L dot com. If you're interested in learning more about like our wholesaling team and our investor side, um, you know what, just use the same number and email, it's fine.
Okay.
Yeah, as opposed to me giving out 2.
Oh, that's okay. Yeah, well, you can send those to me, we'll put it in the description, and then yeah, when people watch it, they can Check it out.
But do we have any questions?
No questions, but we have Liz in the chat. She says hi.
Hi, Liz.
And then going back to earlier, Chad says we can stick with 30 and over.
Oh, 30 and over.
Yeah, pretty much about work ethic.
For sure.
Heck yeah.
We'll be a little bit nice.
Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Very cool. Well, uh, dude, I appreciate you making the trek down here.
I'm sorry for running late. Thank you for having me.
No, it's all good.
And wearing the Aloha shirt, that's freaking awesome.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love, I love wearing, uh, Hawaiian shirts. I, you know, if you feel more comfortable doing it in the summer than you do in the winter, but you know, because we're not in like Palm Springs or, or some of the other harder—
What happened to your shirt today?
I, I didn't have any that were clean, so I wore my linen.
Producer, does he clean? Does he do his wash or do you?
Um, probably like 50/50.
Yeah, yeah, that's how it is in our house.
My, my wife taught all my kids how to do laundry.
He knows how to do laundry.
I bought my first house and I used to take my laundry over for my mom to do it.
Oh my God.
Yeah, because she wanted to. She did?
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I know how it is.
She did. And then, uh, I bought my first house, 20, and then I met my wife a little bit after that. Called it my bachelor pad. And then I used to, you know, kind of cook macaroni and cheese and stuff at home and stuff, but I'd never do the dishes. I'd wait for her to come over.
Joe!
And she would do the dishes for me.
No!
That's why I married her.
Wow.
Yeah. Wow.
There you go.
Such a nice person. Yeah.
Yeah. See, saying stuff like that, that's where the 30 and under, they'll crucify you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
That was— you can't— that was a '50s mother.
Yeah.
You know? Yeah.
They did everything.
Simpler times back then.
Yeah.
They did everything.
Yeah.
That's cool.
We have the whoever cooks. The other person does the dishes rule.
Now, you know, fast forward to today, like, what time you getting home for dinner? Oh cool, she asked about dinner. Yeah, cuz like I'm hungry. I go, what, you didn't cook? Nope, there's no cooking on Fridays.
There you go.
That turned into Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Way to go, Lorraine.
That's my move too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And then he offers to grab something on the way home. I'm just like, no.
No, that's no fun.
No, yeah, she wants to go out.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I got you. Let's go out.
Yeah.
Thank you for showing up.
Thanks, Paul.
Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Yep.
And then everybody grab a copy of your book.
Yeah. You know, okay. So the book is, uh, It's Not the Leads, It's You. It's on all the major platforms except for Apple Books. So you can find it Uh, on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, on Audible, right? You can also find it on Google Books and on Barnes Noble. So yeah, it would be so cool. I'd love to hear your feedback.
Awesome. Very cool. Yeah, give us the feedback. Let Paul know. Follow him on all of his socials and reach out to him if you want to learn how to be an agent or to get into wholesaling or investing. We will be back next Thursday and, uh, we'll see you guys then.
We'll see you then. Take care.
Bye.
If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.
More from Joe

Practical Tax Planning Strategies For Real Estate Investors with Jason Malabute, CPA

Did you know you can buy a home in Orange County with a 2-3% mortgage rate right now? Here's how — A








