Drive for Dollars: Beginner’s Guide to Closing Big Deals 🚗💰

What is going on, guys? How you guys doing today?

Howdy, howdy!

What's up?

What's up?

Yo, what's up everybody? If you're watching today and you're wondering, what am I watching? Why do I need to be watching? What we're going to be going over today is how to drive for dollars and be successful. Now, if you've never done a deal driving for dollars in wholesaling, telling you it's a great strategy that we're going to break down. We got Sean Young, we got Jared Franco, and me. We're gonna break down deals that we've done. Sean's done a lot of research today for you guys to show you guys how to do it the right way. So before we dive in, uh, let's introduce ourselves. My name is Nathan Payne. I've been a wholesaling for about 7 years now, done hundreds of deals, and I like coming to you guys to show you guys how to do deals. That's, that's why I'm here. Jared, how about you go?

Yeah, I started wholesaling in 2019. I'm Jared Frankham, and this business has absolutely changed my life, and I want to pay it forward.

Yeah, I love it. That was beautiful indeed. How do you follow that one? Hey guys, I'm Sean Young. I'm here in Atlanta, Georgia, been in the business now a little over 10 years. I've done hundreds of wholesale transactions, creative deals. I now own and operate a virtual assistant company that helps people do the exact same thing, and mimic my success.

I love it. Well guys, let's dive right in. This topic is, uh, is juicy. It's a good one because I know I've done a lot of driving for dollar deals. I know Sean and Jared has, but how about Jared, how about you take the lead on this one? Tell us a little, tell everybody that's watching us, what is driving for dollars, especially if they don't have any idea?

Yeah, so driving for dollars is where you get in your car or your skateboard— we can talk about that a little bit— but you look for beat-up properties, stuff that needs some love, something that's a little bit different than the average house and you make a list of all these beat-up houses and you start marketing to them. And it's a phenomenal list because we know there's 4 pillars of pre-qualification, right? There's the timeline, there's whatever's the motivating factor why they need to sell, there's condition, and there's price. And the beautiful thing about driving for dollars is one of these 4 pillars of pre-qualification is already confirmed. We know that there's a condition challenge, so there is some reason why. And what I love about driving for dollars is the outside of the property in general, the condition on the outside is a reflection, a delayed reflection of what's going on on the inside. So if you see things like trash, overgrown, falling down gutters, or busted windows or something, that is just an indicator of what's been going on on the inside for much longer because our human activities on the inside of the home much more than is on the exterior. So in many, many cases, not every time of course, but in many cases, we'll see these properties and they're an absolute glowing beacon of this property needs some love. There's a story here, and let's uncover it.

I'd like to write down a little bit what you're saying so people can kind of take notes and stuff. But you said, what are some things to look for? Because you said conditions. So let me write down.

Yes, what to look for. So what do you got? Okay, yeah, so busted windows or boarded-up windows, tall grass, piled-up newspapers, or overflowing mailbox. There could be cars or vehicles or car parts or tires in the yard. Or on the side of the house, aging, or a roof that's missing shingles if you've got a composite roof, or, you know, a dented or beat-up metal roof, or whatever roof it is in your part of the country, right? And I don't— in Texas, this is a tip about Texas, I don't know if it's that way across the country, but there, there's a green slip that they'll hang in the mailbox to show that the property is vacant. And so if you see that as you're driving, you realize, oh, this house is vacant, there's something here, why would a home be vacant? There could be falling down gutters, there can be peeling paint, there can be just homes that look tired, like they were built 50 years ago and never looked after again. They could have the grass mowed, they could be taken care of, but the home just looks exhausted and in need of a makeover. Yes, sir. Where are you, Shawn? You got anything?

Those are all great distress signals, 100%, 100%. You know, when you go out there to look for those signs of distress, Jared made a great point. However, I want to back up one step right before that. Make sure that you guys plan a route, like plan your route, understand where you want to go, and sort of map it out. Even if you don't have any tools, there are tools like DealMachine, PropStream that you can use that'll track your driving route. But if you don't have that, just try to use a map of some sort and plan it so that you're not all over the place not knowing where you've been. That'll definitely help you when you're out there looking for all those signs of distress.

Huge. Huge.

That is huge. I've done this when I was new. I would drive neighborhoods, I'll be like, I think I've been here before, I can't remember.

Indeed, indeed.

Did you guys drive a lot, drive for dollars a lot, like personally, or did you get other people to do it for you?

I did both.

Yeah, I did both. Yeah, I did both. And I think that driving for dollars, it's super encouraging for, for like our listeners out here, especially if you're just getting started or with the low budget. That's the easiest way to take control of your own destiny. Like Jared mentioned on a previous episode, I mean, he got on his skateboard. I mean, if You got to get on a bike. It's just about going out there and putting eyes on distressed properties that other people just aren't able to see, or they might not show up on these fancy lists that, you know, we all pay for.

So you got on a skateboard, bro? I didn't hear that story.

Yeah, so when I started, I had no money. I had negative $200 in my account. Anyway, I had moved back to America from Brazil and totally zeroed everything. Without getting too into detail, I had negative $200 in my account, and that was it., and I had started doing some campus ministry as a, as a job, but I still didn't have any money at the time. Wow. But I, I had my skateboard from college, and I had my car from before. I was so tight on cash, how whatever the gas price was that particular week depend— that, that changed how much I could be able to drive because I had to be that tight on, on funds.

Dang, that's pretty, that's pretty tight, bro.

It was. And so what I did was I put my skateboard in the car, I would drive to the center of a neighborhood, and then skateboard the entire neighborhood and and come back. And then I would move the car, you know, a quarter mile down the road and then get the skateboard out and skateboard again. That's impressive. Anyway, but I, I had heard so many other people saying, yeah, driving for— and this is 2019, right? This is before like wholesaling exploded and is as popular as it is now, right? But I had heard, do this, at least just find some homes. And I thought, well, if I want to get into this real estate game, this, this real estate business, I should probably know what my market looks like. I didn't know about wholesaling, by the way. They had just heard Drive for Dollars, just, yeah, and write letters. And I thought, well, this would be a good opportunity for me to just familiarize myself with what do homes in my market look like. I'm in Lubbock, Texas. What do homes look like? What are the neighborhoods like? If I just go up and down the neighborhoods, I'll get a feel for where good areas are, where bad areas are, where there's more movement, where stuff isn't moving. And so I thought, if I want to get into this, why not go out there and just look at what homes are and while I'm out there, just write down beat up houses. I mean, I had no clue what I was doing other than I had heard to do that before.

You took massive and perfect action, as we all know, is that key.

100%, right?

Right. And you just mentioned another huge point. You said you took notes while you were out there. That's like literally another step in the process. You got to take detailed notes on what you're seeing. Even like Nathan said, that way you'll know, like, have I been to this neighborhood? Or, you know what, I have been to this neighborhood, but it was like, you know, 60 days ago. Things look like they've changed a little bit around here. I'm glad that I came back, you know. So if you've got notes on, on what you're doing, it really helps you, you know, organize your business.

No, that's incredible. And I'd say any neighborhood in the country will have something of distress, unless if there's a particular case like a big fancy HOA or something where they're really on top of it. I was in— a few years ago, I was with Pace Morby in his car and we were driving around. He was just on the phone idly driving while waiting for an appointment, and I was in there with him. We just started going through a neighborhood just while he's phone. I'm in downtown— or not down, somewhere in Phoenix. I don't remember exactly what part of Phoenix, but all these nice homes, and then bam, right after another doom doom doom doom, a bunch of houses that were really in not good shape next to these nice awesome homes. So it doesn't have to be these war zone neighborhoods. It can be— these are probably $300,000, $400,000 homes.

I just—

it blew my mind that even in such a busy big market like that, there's still deals to be had.

Even, you know, it's interesting. I think there's different parts of the United States as well on weather, like how weather affects homes and how bad homes can get, because I know in Florida it gets hit a lot by the elements and Texas as well, where homes can get a lot more, I would say, distressed on the exterior. Like where I live in Utah, it's not that bad. Like, like homes don't get hit by like foundation issues that bad or like the weather's not too crazy. But I know I would say again, Florida, Texas, a lot in the South. I don't know if you guys, if you agree. I know you guys live there, but feel like the weather really can destroy some properties out there.

100%.

100%.

That's cool.

That's cool.

My biggest deals, by the way, my biggest— to this day, my biggest wholesale fees were from fire damage. Really? I found— yeah, yeah, fire damage. I found houses that have caught fire, and I don't know why, that maybe the fire department, someone, they took the garage door down and boarded up the whole garage, and that was just a weird thing. And I happened to be driving by a week or two, or I don't remember how long, a month maybe, after the fire had taken place.

And Jared just gave you guys a gem right there, guys. Look, fire damage homes, that's a gem.

Fire damage is awesome. Let me ask you this.

What did you, uh, what'd you make on it?

I'm curious. Yeah, so the first two, I'll talk about my first two fire damage deals. The first one, I'm— I found the deal on Thursday. I had called the owner and gotten in touch with the owner on Friday, and we had agreed over the weekend my title company was able to close it, and I On Monday, I picked up a check for $25,000 on my first day. I mean, that's kind of a not an everyday scenario, but that's totally possible. That was my second deal ever. Yeah, ever.

You're losing your mind at this point.

Yeah, I thought I was God's greatest gift to real estate. Exactly.

That's how we all feel in those first couple. We're like, man, what have I been doing with my whole life? I should have been doing this since birth, since I could walk and talk.

Yeah. And then a month later, a month or two later, I made $47K in a very similar scenario. Seller just was done with it. Hey, here's why. Check this out, is because when homeowners get their insurance checks, they don't have to spend the money to fix the house. They can keep their insurance. Of course, I'm not a lawyer and this and that, verify all this, but they can keep their, their insurance money and just sell what's left, like, like a lot, right? But we were able to fix it and get it, uh, inspected and up to code. And anyway, made $47,000 just reselling a burnt house. Yeah, that's really the best for that one. It blew my freaking mind. I mean And this was in 2019. And to that point, I had never had more than $2,000 to my name ever. I mean, that was it.

I just lost your mind right there.

That is awesome. That's what a lot of people make in a year. And I did it twice. Anyway, it's awesome. This industry is unbelievable.

I got a question for you, Jared. I got a question for you. You said you called the guy. That's super important, I'm sure, for our listeners out here. They're like, okay, now that I've driven around, you know, I've got a bunch of houses and addresses You just mentioned that you did that deal and then the next day you called the gentleman. I'm sure our audience would love to hear how did you actually find that person's phone number and what is the process that we go through after we, you know, go out and drive for dollars and get this data? What do we do next to be able to find these owners?

Okay, it's okay. I'll tell you what I did. Both of these were not typical cases. The first house, I went to the website truepeoplesearch.com. I love it. I couldn't find the owner, by the way. All the phone numbers it had for him were wrong. But I looked at possible relatives and called his— what I figured would be his brother. I got a hold of the brother who then gave me the actual contact to the homeowner.

Nice. That's what you got to do sometimes, man.

Right, man. There is no written rule to our business. You have to be creative. You got to really do what it takes for each situation.

Do what most people won't. So the second one that I made $47,000 on, I had tried True People Search. I had tried looking for relatives. I had tried skip tracing, which is where you, you plug in the— use a service, you plug in the address and their name, and it'll pop out some phone numbers and mailing addresses. No luck. I went on Facebook and found someone with this name that matched and just sent them a message like, hey, I'm totally random, this is wild, I'm not crazy, but would you happen to be related to this property? And They responded and they said, Jared, actually we've had like 13 people come out to look at this house and wanted to sell it, but we were kind of up in the air what we wanted to do, but now we're ready to make a decision. And so since you're here, we'll go ahead and sell it to you. Thankfully, that was one of my earlier deals, but that taught me it doesn't matter how many competitors there are in the marketplace because there had already been 13 people ahead of me, right? But they were ready to make a decision when I was in front of them. So it doesn't matter. Right place, right time. Right place, right time. And so it pays to be in the right place a lot. So you want to have a lot of marketing and a lot of opportunities.

And how do you do that? You take action, right? Like, you can't just sit by and just think it's gonna just happen to you. You did it, man.

I'm proud of you. To call strangers. Yes, I know we all grew up— we all grew up hearing don't talk to strangers, but actually talking to strangers is how you get incredibly wealthy.

That's right, that's right. Well, Sean, I know you did a lot of research before this call that so we could give as much value as possible. We appreciate you. Anything else that we haven't gone over so far, guys?

I'm going to give you guys 10 steps, um, on how you guys can go out here and be successful with Driving for Dollars. Okay, number 1, plan your route. All right, number 2 is look for signs of distress. Number 3 is use a mobile app like Deal Machine or maybe PropStream to help track your progress if you can afford it. Take detailed notes. Number 5, excuse me, number 4. Number 5, consistency is key, guys. You got it. You guys got to do it more than just once. Yeah, got to do it more than once. Engage with the locals. Jarrett just mentioned it. He said you got to talk to people. You can't be afraid to talk to people. By him asking questions and sending a message on Facebook, he made $20,000 plus. Incredible. So once you do get that information, guys, skip trace that information, reach out to those homeowners. Send direct mail. These people are very niche lists. They're very small. So sending direct mail makes sense in those, in those cases. We don't want to send direct mail to, you know, tens of thousands of people. But if we go out and drive for dollars and find a list of, you know, 200 people, that's more affordable. All right. Next is follow up relentlessly because like Jared said, there was 13 other people that contacted that person. But it's a numbers game and you have to be willing to take action so that you can be at the right place at the right time. Some people call that luck, but us guys know that— that is preparation. It's preparation meeting opportunity. Jared was prepared, it was an opportunity, and they came together. And last but not least, guys, we got two more: track your results and stay safe while you're out there doing it. Guys, be aware of your surroundings. You know, if you're in bad neighborhoods, be aware of that. You know, maybe put on a little vest or something if you're going to walk around. Just be very careful when you're out there, especially you ladies out there. Be very careful when you're out there driving for dollars.

Seat belts, everybody. Guys, I know with driving you got to pay attention because you know, after a couple turns, your neck starts hurting. You know, it isn't easy. Okay, I've done it and it is exhausting. But yeah, so stay safe out there. Jared, you got anything you want to say?

Yeah. And I'll say this is even for beyond beginners. This is for someone— beginners and people who've been in the business a while. I think in any industry, with any career, with any job, you tend to get some burnout and think, is this the best? You just have some thoughts of wanting to be more efficient. Is this the best? Is this what I'm doing? Do I want to do something else other than wholesale? I'll tell you this. Every time I've ever gone out to drive and just spent a few hours and I see so many beat up homes or stuff that needs love, it reignites the why within my, within my being of why I'm doing this. There is so much opportunity. It is not saturated and tapped out. And there's not, you know, there's, there's no more opportunity. No, it's flooded every time. Every single time I've ever gone out and I've driven for dollars here in Texas and in Phoenix and in North Carolina and Charlotte, just personally, that's, that's where I've lived before. And every single time it just reignites the fire within me to really get out there and be active. And then there's deals.

Yeah, man, it's, it's honestly interesting to see how many distressed homes that are out there. It's expensive to upkeep stuff. That's just how it is in the weather elements. That's just That's what happens. Well, guys, I think we've done pretty good at answering the question, how to drive for dollars and be successful. You guys have— I've been inspired by you, Jared and Shaun. You guys have helped me and want to get out there and get in my car right now.

Let's go, man.

Let's go.

And one more tip, guys, if you're asking yourself, well, how many houses should I look at? Try to get at least 200. It's easy. You said 200? Trust me, guys, in a few hours, you're going to see so many properties. So, so challenge yourself to get at least 200 before you expect results. You'll definitely get results before that. Yeah, I won't say you'll definitely get anything, but you'll definitely have the opportunity with each, with each one that you pick up.

Well, guys, this has been fun. And I guess for if you guys have watched this live, please like, subscribe and hit the bell icon. And if you're watching this later, do the same. We love to give you guys this information and we'll see you guys next week.

See you. See you next week.

Hey, everybody, what's up? It's Nathan Payne. And for the first time ever, we just released this insane training bundle that has literally everything that I've learned from doing a combined 4,000 deals in real estate, all from starting with absolutely no previous business background experience or any real estate experience. Plus, there's over $19,000 worth of free gifts that we're throwing in, all for an insanely low, low price. If you want to get your hands on this, be sure to click the first link on the description below right now.