How One Call Can Boost Your Wholesaling Deals 📞

So that's the property MLS. I want to find if they were on market and they were listed within the last year and sold and cash buyers. Yes. Owner type.

Let's see.

It doesn't matter. Purchase amount.

All right. So let's see, this might make it a little easier.

So what this is doing is this is doing a filter to find properties that have sold on the MLS within the last year right here. Maybe I did it wrong. Hold on.

Let's see MLS status active, pending. Oh, let's see. 2022, let's see, on market, sold. Let's see, pending, cash buyers. Yes. Owner type, all. That's why. Let's see. Let's try that. Let's see MLS status. Let's see sold. This should give me a— apply. Oh my gosh. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I do this all the time. Okay.

It's whatever. You can see, you can see ones that are active and not that have been sold. So let's go over here. Let's take a look. This looks like a property that one of my friends flipped.

Oh man, that house is sick.

All right. So, what I'm looking for is I'm looking for agents or buyers that have taken a property and flipped it within the last couple of months. So, this one looks flipped too. Okay. Yeah. So, this is probably a good one. So, I can call the real estate agent that is representing the buyer on this. It's active. And I can say, hey, well, I'll show you exactly what I'm going to do. So, we'll go MLS, Robert Cote.

Let's see.

So, I could call the buyer right now. Like I could skip trace and call the buyer, but I don't want to. I want to call the agent because I like networking with agents because they're good to work with as well, especially if they work with— this is obviously a flipper. So, I'm going to take Robert Cote and what brokerage? Atlanta Communities Real Estate.

Let's see, Robert. This is— see if we can get his number.

So this is another way to do it versus just networking with people on Facebook. You're just going to be calling them and just being like, hey, look, I saw your listing, looks pretty sick. Well, hear my conversation. Let's see, let's see if you guys, uh, what you guys think.

Robert County.

Hey Robert, how you doing? Uh, my name's Nathan, uh, I'm calling about the listing that you have on 3250 Castile.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, I was just calling to ask you some questions about it. I'm actually like a fellow investor, and I was wondering if I could— you seem like an expert in the area. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about it.

Okay.

Okay. Do you have about like 5 or 10 minutes? I don't know if I caught you in the middle of something.

Sure, go ahead.

Okay. So, Robert, my name's Nathan Payne. I'm actually an investor from Salt Lake City, Utah, but I grew up in the Marietta-Roswell area, and I'm looking to actually switch my market. Of where I'm investing over there. Just because I feel like, you know, I want to move where I'm working. And according to this, I found your information on like a platform I use to find investors and flippers and agents that represent flippers. Do you represent a lot of like cash buyers and flippers that flip properties? Or is this just like a one-off?

No, this is— No, I just represent myself.

Oh, okay. Did you flip this one?

Yes. Okay.

Well, I was calling because what I do, I don't know if you know much about wholesaling, but I wholesale and I find properties for investors and, you know, at a discount. Do you work with a lot of wholesalers?

Yeah, we get some of our properties from wholesalers.

Well, I wanted to call. I was calling you because I'm brand new to the Atlanta market for as a wholesaler. I'm literally just starting today. And I was calling to kind of network with some investors and start my marketing and start looking for deals specifically for investors that I work with that want to work with me. Because I have nothing but time and energy and I'm willing to hustle. But the problem is I'm just not buying, right? So, I got to find people with deals if I want to make money. So, are you currently looking for more deals in this area? Are you looking to flip more? Can you tell me a little bit more about what you're doing?

As it happens for us personally, This is our— our plan is that this is our last project. We've been going for about, I don't know, 12, 13 years or so.

Okay.

In this business. And we— well, long story short, in all that time, we never lost money on a project until this past year. Yeah, where we lost like $40K on one previously. You know, we only— there'd been projects where we only made a little bit, right? You know, came close to losing, but we never actually officially came out, you know, on the negative end until this last year. And so based on that and the way things have been going and also my age, um, and just the fact that, you know, we've had a pretty good run. We've just decided that, um, you know, this was going to be our last project, and I was good. It's going to be, um, semi-retired and just deal with my rental properties mostly, because at this point we have no control over our costs, right, between materials and contractors and to buy the properties still, you know, they can talk about that the market is going in, in, you know, negative territory and all that, but it's really not happening that much on the buy end, right? Which may not— when I say the other end of it is we have a lot of uncertainty of what we can sell the properties for, which may not make a lot of sense, you know, going with what I just said, but It kind of does. So anyways, bottom line is we've just decided that for now at least, this is our last project.

No, I appreciate you telling me all that. It looks like I caught you on the tail end of investing, but it is true. The market has shifted and really for me to flip a property in Salt Lake City or for you to flip one, it's got to be a great deal where it makes complete sense, right? I mean, you're not going to take a— you're not going to take a risk. A big risk, right?

That's kind of it. It's the kind of the risk factor, I guess you could just say, has gone up, you know.

No, I completely get that. Do you, do you see this happening with a lot of investors in Atlanta, or do you, do you know any that are like, you know, I'll still buy, I, I believe that the market will continue strong, like it's just, it's just shifting now? Do you know any?

Um, you know, I don't really talk to as many as we used to. Um, we used to go to the We, you know, the real estate investors.

Yeah, the REAs.

We haven't really been going a lot lately, so I don't know. I haven't really talked to a lot lately. It's really all I can say.

I get it. Let me ask you this. So since I am an investor and I am looking to wholesale, do you— but I do buy as well. Do you have— I know you said have a lot of rentals. Do you have any that you're like, you know, you wouldn't— you'd be open to getting rid of if you got it, you sold it at the right price?

No, all the rentals I have right now I'm planning on keeping. And that's, you know, going to be our, you know, retirement income and my, you know, my semi-retirement, you know, job.

Yeah.

So not, no, not any that I plan on getting rid of. Yeah.

I just figured I'd ask, you know, because that's what I'm in the market, you know, to find deals or to bring them to investors like you. But no, I get it and I appreciate your time. Do you have any I am new to the Atlanta market. Do you have any ideas or advice for me as I go in here into this market? Anything to look out for? Anything to do to help me, you know, find good deals?

I'll say this. I don't know if you're familiar with these New Western people and people like them.

Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, they're basically a pain in the ass. And, you know, they want to— they keep They keep bugging people, hey, come, come to my office, we want to wholesale, we want to put you on a list, we want to wholesale. And then it's like, come to my office down in Atlanta, come to my office.

Okay.

And it's basically just, you know, look, man, if you want to send me properties, just email them to me. It's like all the other wholesalers do.

Right.

And if I like it, I'll call you. But, you know, they finally, you know, I said, look, I'm not coming down to your office in Atlanta. One of them finally said, okay, well, tell me where you working. I'll come to your— I'll come to your project house, right? So I said, fine, just come out. Here's the address, come out there. So then, you know, I'm like, all right, fine, send me your paperwork or whatever. I get like a 20-page contract from these clowns.

Oh gosh, what did—

I'm like, I'm not signing this.

What was the contract for?

It's all, you know, lawyer written, and it all protects them and everything. I'm like, I'm not signing this. And, you know, if that's what it takes to work with you, then just you know, don't bother. I have enough other wholesalers that send me 20 properties a day.

Yeah.

So, you know, I don't need yours that badly.

No, I totally get that.

If you're one of those guys, then, you know, don't bother.

Yeah. No, I definitely don't have a 20-page contract.

And email people the properties and you'll get calls.

Yeah. No, I get it. Those guys, same with me in my market, they wanted to do a Zoom call and meet up and do all this stuff. And it was just a complete waste of time. It's just said, hey, send me your deals. But I think they They just try to vet people and that's what they try to do. But anyway, I get what you're saying.

That's fine. And I told them, hey, I don't mind talking to you and telling you my, you know, my business model. And you can look on, you can look on, I assume somebody there is a licensed agent. You can look on the MLS and see all my properties and see what I do.

Right.

So somebody in your office has access to that. You can look up my name and you can see all that. You can see that I'm not a one and done. Yeah. You know?

Yeah.

I can see that.

But I'm just like, that's fine. You want to do your little bit of vetting, that's fine. But I don't know how much vetting you need to do just to send out spam emails, you know?

Yeah, I agree with you on that.

Not that the wholesaler emails are necessarily categorized as spam, but, you know, as a, as a mass email, you know, I don't know what vetting you need for that.

Yeah, I think I agree with you. So let me ask you this. I'm looking at this property on Castile Road. Last question I have for you is, as I'm searching for properties to wholesale and in this area. Is there like a better part of Marietta and Roswell, or is it pretty much anything you get in this area at a good price, it's pretty much a deal if it makes sense on the numbers? Are there places to avoid?

Well, so I can tell you this as far as our business model. I live in— did you say you were from this area?

I grew up in Roswell, Marietta, like on Shallowford Road, but I moved when I was like 21, so I haven't really been back, but I'm starting brand new to start wholesaling here. Okay.

But you know the area?

Yeah, I know the area.

Okay. So I grew up— or not grew up, but we used to live right behind Lassiter High School.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I went to Pope High School.

We moved up to Woodstock.

Okay.

So we've been in, you know, the whole time I've lived in Georgia, I've lived in like, you know, northwest Cobb County, Woodstock area.

Gotcha.

And as far as our business, we've just never really had any interest in going to, you know, Atlanta, Stone Mountain, DeKalb County, any of those areas. We've stuck with Cobb County and Cherokee County.

Okay.

So, you know, the areas— so I don't, you know, I don't really know just because, you know, I haven't really had the desire to go down Atlanta. I don't know the areas enough. You know, I don't know the neighborhoods, but so, you know, we've stuck with, um, Lassiter, Pope, Walton, you know, districts in Cobb County, Sprayberry. We've, um, we drifted over into Kennesaw a little bit.

Okay.

Um, but we really, you know, don't go into West Cobb very much, or, um, not that we wouldn't have gone into like, uh, Wheeler District down there, but I guess things just were always too expensive down there.

Gotcha.

Um, and so you know all these areas I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, I went to Pope High School, so I know exactly what you mean. So it sounds like Walton, Lassiter, Pope districts, like those, if you can get properties in those areas, they're pretty popular because the school districts are good. And is that kind of what you've noticed?

Yeah. And then, you know, of course Roswell is good, but we haven't really gone over there a lot, um, just again because I think things have always been too expensive. But then we also mostly deal with Cherokee County. Okay. Anything up to, um, like Canton, you know, so Woodstock, Acworth, Canton, Holly Springs, you know, so those areas are good. Um, I don't know how long you've been gone, but, um, Woodstock is really growing.

Yeah, it wasn't that big of a deal when I was there.

Yeah, and Cherokee, um, Etowah, Uh, not Cherokee High School so much, but, um, Etowah, Woodstock, River Ridge, and Sequoia High School areas are all good.

Wow, okay.

So yeah, and of course Canton is growing a lot, you know.

So, so you've— through your experience, you've avoided like the downtown Atlanta and you just stayed around, uh, you know, East Cobb, Cobb area?

Yeah, gotcha.

Just like I said, it's just the areas we know, and I don't really want to drive down there every day. And, you know, because I am at my properties, if not every day, almost every day. Oh, wow. Got it. And, you know, and at the same time, you know, I've just always said, you know, when we get a property, you know, one of the first things we do, you know, get the HVAC running. And I know from talking to investors in some of those areas, Atlanta, some of the rougher neighborhoods, you know, that's the last thing they do.

Yeah, I hear you.

Um, you know, because, you know, I've heard all the stories about getting the HVAC system stolen and the pipes, you know, stolen and all that kind of stuff. The copper, I don't know if it's as big of an issue as it was a few years back, but you know what I'm saying though.

No, I get that. Uh, look, so, so let me ask you this. If I were to find a deal in this area, I know you say you're stepping back, but if I found you a screaming deal that, you know, I didn't want to take down, would you, would you say no to that or would you, would you be willing to look at it?

No, I still get emails from wholesalers and I'm looking at it going, oh yeah, that might be good. But either way, I think we're at least going to take a break, you know, and see how it goes.

No, I get you. I get you.

I get you where you're coming from.

Well, I'm not going to— I wouldn't say no.

Well, do you mind if I grab your email real quick? I don't have it. I just have your number from— I got online.

Sure.

Okay. What is it?

It's Robert Cote. Okay. Cote@comcast.net.

Right. You probably had that one for a while. I remember my old Comcast email.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I hate having their name in my email. I hate those people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you.

Yeah, you can't. Then you got to change it and it's a big hassle. So I get that. Well, I got you down. I understand that you're kind of stepping back, but if I do find something in the Cobb area and it's looking decent, I might just shoot you an email. I don't— my— what I do is I don't really have like a giant buyers list. I don't— that's not how I operate. I like to get relationships with like maybe 5 or 10 buyers and just send them properties that they can say yes or no to. Because the whole email blast thing, I just feel like that's not really personal and it's kind of harder to sell deals that way, in my opinion. I like to just, hey, does this work for you, Robert, or whoever, whatever buyer I'm working with, and just send it to them and they give me a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Yep, I get that. But it is also the best way for me to see the most properties.

Oh, of course. Yeah, I get, I get your side as a buyer. Do you— last thing, do you as a, as a buyer, have most of your deals come from email blasts or have you done any marketing on your own?

We get— we bought properties from wholesalers, you know, from emails. We, we get— I'm also an agent, so, you know, we get deals off the listings sometimes.

Okay.

We get properties. We've gotten a surprising number of properties from, you know, word of mouth.

Yep. Yep.

We've done a surprising number of multiple projects on one street from getting to know neighbors.

Gotcha.

Where they call us a year later and say, hey, I want you to buy my house. So a year later, we're back on that street again.

Yeah. It's amazing.

Um, we, um, get, um, you know, we've got some referral, you know, projects. Um, very— we, we get them various ways.

Gotcha.

Well, the reason I asked you is because I, like I said, for 30 days at least, I'm coming in here and I'm just gonna work and grind and hit the phones and knock doors and do whatever I can. So I just didn't know if you by chance had any lists that you've purchased or any leads that you like, you know, I don't want to call these, but if I had someone that could call them, you know, I do partner with brokers sometimes or agents, and if they give me people that they potentially might be interested, I call them and try to negotiate a deal. Do you have anything like that or not really?

Oh, you know, I probably should have built something like that over the years, but I just haven't just because, you know, I'm kind of hands-on over at the houses. So.

Gotcha.

Yeah, probably not as organized or as it should have been over the years, but do you think—

yeah, do you think since you're kind of stepping aside from the flipping game, you'll get people that will still bring you deals like referrals that you won't be interested in, but maybe we could work together and if you bring them to me, I can either buy them or wholesale them and so those don't go to waste, or do you have like people that you would give those leads to?

No, I don't really have anybody in my, you know, that I would automatically go to, no.

Could we potentially work together where if you get a referral and you don't want to, you know, put in the work to flip it or you don't even want to make any, you know, worry about who you'd sell it to, you could give it to me and I'll do the legwork and either find a buyer or buy it?

Sure, that's possible.

Okay. Well, let's do this. I will text you my name and my email and you can save my info if you can. And I would love to check in on you maybe every so often just to see how you're doing and be a way that we could potentially do some deals together since you're stepping aside. But I believe you'll still get— you've been in the business for a while, you'll probably still get people that will reach out and I'd love to work with you.

Yeah. And we get agents, I get other agents that call me all the time and say, "Oh, look at this property." And 8 out of 10 times they don't really understand the game. You're not understanding. First of all, sometimes they'll sell you They'll try to sell you a perfectly good house and you're like, what am I supposed to do with that?

Yeah, there's no margin. I mean, you got to, you got to do something.

You got to update the market, but there's not a, there's not a profit margin.

Yeah, for sure.

I'm like, just go sell it. It's not, it's not something I can use. I need it. I need the pieces of crap. Yeah, I want this perfectly good house. Agreed. And that's, that's how I make money off of that.

Exactly. And I'm the same way. Like, you know, a lot of the people that are new will send you deals and they'll think they're discounted because they're $50K off when they need to be at $200,000 lower, right?

So, yeah, depending on— yeah.

Do the agents usually send you deals through your email or do they call you or text you and that's how you get them?

All three.

Okay. Well, I'll send you my email. So if anyone forwards you something and you're like, that's not even worth my time to look at, but maybe Nathan Payne will be interested in anything you send me, if, you know, we can do a revenue split because essentially, like, I'm not having to pay 20% for marketing spend. If you can send me a lead and then I'll pay you the like 20, 30% just for sending me a lead that I can negotiate, take to the end. I'll do everything, but you just had to give me a lead and, you know, you can make money that way if that works for you.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'll text you. And do you have any questions for me before I let you go? Robert, my name is Nathan Payne. N-A-T-H-A-N P-A-Y-N-E. Nathan Payne.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I'll text you so you have my information. But yeah, again, I know I understand the power of networking and I'm about to come into this market. And work with a bunch of newer wholesalers who don't really know what they're doing. I'm going to teach them how to get deals. So, I think, you know, if we work together, I could definitely help you out whether you get referrals and, you know, you don't want to work them. I can do all the legwork for you. That's what I do.

Okay.

Cool. All right, Robert. Well, anything else for me? Any other questions?

Nope, that's it.

Okay. Well, I look forward. I hope we can do some business together. You've been my first call that I've made to an investor in Atlanta. So, it went well. Thank you.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. I appreciate it.

All right. All right. Thanks. See you, Robert.

Bye. Bam. Let's go, my man. Look what I was able to do. My man isn't investing. He's retired. He's like, I'm good. But I'm like, hey, let's freaking work together, Robert. I know you get leads. I know you've been in the business for several years. Send me whoever the bump you got. I put, I'm putting his information in here. I can check on him. He's actually an agent and a buyer, so we're going to put him under both. I know where he buys. I'm going to put property flipped. I'm going to put the property that he's working.

Where is that thing?

Marietta, baby.

All right.

So, we're going to take this property and we're going to put it in here so I can reference and remember my boy Robert. Cobb County, his own. Let's see. I don't know his mailing address. Notes. I'm going to put some notes in here, uh, so I can remember to follow up. Follow up and see if he has any referrals. And see if he has any referrals for me. Guys, it only takes like 1 to 10 solid relationships to, to really get going. Now look, because of that one call that took 20 minutes and me following up with him in my CRM or here, That's— that could be a couple deals. He could say, hey, Nate, I keep on getting this crap from these wholesalers. I, uh, or I got this from an agent. I, I'm not flipping anymore. Wholesale it. Let's, let's give me the revenue split. Great, right? So what I do is I take his— take him in here. If he was in my CRM, I would just do in my CRM, but, uh, I'm just going to create a contact. Robert Cote. Buyer in, uh, Georgia, and I'm gonna text them. And you already know, everybody that's watching it already knows that I'm gonna text them and I'm gonna give them my email, the new email, right? So I can start building up, you know, my relationships.

All right, so let's go here.

All right.

Okay, hold on.

My iPhone's wanting me to do some stuff. Forget that, it's taking too long. All right, again, so we're gonna text him. We're gonna just say, hey Robert, appreciate the call, appreciate the conversation. Again, my name is Nathan Payne. And my email— and my email is NathanPayneInvesting.com. No, sorry, NathanPayneInvesting@gmail.com. I look forward to working with you if we can. I look forward to working with you And hopefully I can provide some value to you by me willing to call, call or wholesale any deals you don't want to buy anymore that you come across. Okay, so I'm texting them exactly what we talked about. In our conversation, and I'm also going to email him as well. Okay, uh, it doesn't hurt to email them exactly what I just said.

So here they go.

Robert, same thing, right? I'm gonna just text them, call them. Great, uh, nice to meet you.

And then, uh, let's see if it got sent here.

Other I just, I just wrote it out. I just don't want to type it again. I hate, I hate when it does this. Okay, so I gotta copy. I'm gonna have to text this to myself so I can come through.

Stupid. So let's see, 404-304-4202.

All right, now I can just grab it so I don't have to write it all out again. All right, so this is what I texted them, and I'm going to email them the same thing. Hey Robert, I appreciate conversation. Again, my name is Nathan Payne and my email is blank. I look forward to working together.

I don't want any more.

Okay, that's it. All right, so that took— we've been on this live for a while now, but that was just one from calling batch leads, buyers that are legit. That's how you can kind of get around the whole Facebook thing. Facebook, you don't really know who's legit, right? But if you go to Batch Leads, you can see who's legit because you can call the agent. Luckily, he's the agent, the buyer, same thing. Not always happen. That doesn't always happen, but you can go in here and you can do this with any, any of them. So I can go here to details. I can do this again. Now I only need 10. Now I don't need 1,000 or 1 million buyers. I just need 10 that are legit, will tell me, He gave me so much information, right? And the questions that I asked are just ones that I know to ask, but not everyone knows how to ask those. So I think I need to go through these and write those down when you're doing these networking calls, okay?