MLS Secrets for Wholesalers: Sell Homes FAST!

What's going on, Benson? How you doing, brother?

What's going on, man? How are you?

Good to see you. I'm doing good. What's up, everybody? Today we're going to be talking about wholesaling real estate, and a little bit different than just wholesaling real estate. We're going to be talking about selling homes on the MLS, what that looks like, what's the process. And me and Benson actually have some properties that are currently on the MLS that we're trying to sell. So we're going to kind of dive into what we did to make them sell quick, you know, what that process even looks like. Because Benson, I think a big issue for a lot of people that get into wholesaling, they've never been through the process of selling a home or buying a home, so they don't really know what it looks like, right? Or like the fears or the anxiety that people that put properties on the MLS feel. Even someone's listing on the MLS is like, is it going to sell? I want an offer, right? I don't know if you felt that, but I sure have when I've sold my properties.

Oh, I have. And as soon as you think you've got it all figured out, like, you're going to get uppercutted with some situation that's going to throw you off course. I've been in this for 20 years, and every transaction I do, there's something new. And that goes for both on-market and off-market. But even off— on-market, you'd think it would kind of— they would have figured it out already. But yeah, you don't. And there's always new things. So you really have to have a good agent helping you. Like, that's one of the things that I think is key to selling something on market is working with an agent who knows the business, but also one that knows investing, right? Working with an investor-friendly agent is so important, in my opinion.

I love it. I love it. So let's— before we get diving into these properties, let's kind of introduce ourselves so people know who we are. I'll go first. My name is Nathan Payne. I've been investing not as long as you. I've been investing for 6 years and started— cut my teeth on wholesale wholesaling. Just started knocking doors, tried to get deals just by trying to figure it out. No, no plan, just went brute force, took action, and now I've done millions of dollars in transactions. Having to keep all that, right? That's, that's the thing. Revenue. I think a lot of people too, they're like, wow, you can make so much, and you can, but guys, remember, it's a business, there's expenses. But I've been doing it for a while, and my goal is to teach people how to do it, show people how to do it, and do deals with people. It's fun to do deals in JV and work with people. So that's me. Benson, you want to let people know who you are?

Yeah, Benson Juarez, real estate investor, podcast host, one of the owners of Privy as well. And yeah, I've been in the business for over 20 years, done hundreds of transactions on both sides of investing and in, as in representing people as a real estate agent. I think the most deals— I was thinking about it, Nate— the most deals I ever did in one year is when I was doing both back in like 2007, and it was like 28 deals is the most I've ever done in one year.

Oh wow. Is that listing and flips? Is that like kind of combined?

It was like listings, buyer, you know, representing buyers, doing my own deals, you know, wholesaling, flipping, like those— that many transactions in one year. So it isn't like a ton, but that was the best year I ever had.

Well, this is the thing too, is like I'd rather go for less deals but higher, you know, higher payout, right? I think a lot of people, they chase after how can I do more and more deals. I think that's the wrong question. I think it's the wrong goal. I think you should just always trying to do less but make more, right? I don't know if you're on the same opinion as that, but I, I'm not looking to do 100 deals a month. That's— that'd be a freaking heart attack.

Yeah, I think the goal should be like a revenue number for sure, right? And, and in most cases, especially with residential, it takes just as much work to do a million dollar deal as it does to do a $50,000 deal. And the revenue will be way different on those, likely because of the price points. So once you cross over into more complicated deals, maybe like syndications or commercial or large multifamily, like the complexity increases. So it's not as easy. It's not like a one for one. But yeah, I think in general you're right. You should, you should look for revenue, not the number of transactions closed.

Right, right. Because volume, a volume thing is there's a lot of things that can fall apart, in my opinion, when you try to do a ton, right? I would just get better at one thing and focus. But anyway, awesome, awesome to have you on here, Benson. And it's always a pleasure to collaborate and talk about real estate with you and just hang out, you know. So today, guys, what we're going to be talking about is the MLS, getting properties on the MLS. What does that process look like? Because again, a lot of us haven't— that are doing this probably haven't sold a house before or owned a house. That's okay. You can still be a real estate investor getting into the game without owning, but it's good to know that process. So when you're talking to a seller that's off market, you can relate and you can connect, right? Because if you don't know what you're going through, it's going to be really hard to connect. So today we're going to be talking about some properties that me and you have on the market. Benson, at the beginning of this call, was telling you I'm moving, moving to Canada, and it's exciting. I'm going to be doing deals in another country. Virtually in the United States. And the cool thing about it, Benson, is I'll be doing deals. I'm obviously American, but when that— when the money exchanges to Canada, the dollar is a lot more powerful than the Canadian toonie or whatever they got over there. I think they have a dollar too. That's how much I know about Canada. But anyway, you might want to figure that out before you move.

Toonie or whatever they got over there. I think they just trade grain. Yeah, just like pounds of grain for property.

Exactly. But it's stronger here, so it's exciting, man. And you can do deals from anywhere in the world, right? It's— that's what I love about this business, you need your laptop. A lot of people are like, hey, how are you going to do your job? You can do it from anywhere. No one knows where I, where I am right now in this building. It doesn't matter. That's the cool thing about this business. So I'll get started, Benson. Do you have anything you want to add before we get into, you know, the process of selling a home, what it looks like?

You have anything you want to get into the process? Are you going to start talking about your property first, or do you want to get into like, okay, what is the steps to getting a property listed?

Yeah, let's, let's talk about the steps really quick, and then I'll kind of go through my property, and then we can show yours. So when me and my wife— so we're moving, right? So we had to think about, okay, how are we going to sell this house? This is the thing that sellers are going through their heads. How are we going to sell? Not a lot of people know about the cash offer route. I would say most people, in order to sell their home, they think they need to list it. So most people, they're like, okay, well, how do I sell my house? You got for sale by owner, right? Let me just do it myself, or let me put it on Facebook Marketplace. Let me contact an agent. And I'd say that's the majority of how people sell their homes. Let's do the real estate agent. They now have these done-for-you brokerages or these websites like BrokerList. They have a place called Homie here where you can do it for like cheap, or you can sell for cash. And then you have like the creative ways that not a lot of people know about either, like rent-to-own. You can do that. You can sell it on subject-to, like different creative financing techniques. But those, I think, Benson, are like what's usually going through people's heads is like, okay, what option am I going to go to? And I, again, 99% of people, I think, go towards the route of the MLS. What do you think?

I think it's probably the case. You know, I think when people don't list stuff on the MLS, it's usually for a reason. They're just too tight on margin. They don't have enough equity there to pay for the real agents. And in most markets, it's, you know, about 2.5% to 3% per side. So it'd be anywhere from like 5% to 6% out of your gross profits going to come out at closing to pay for those agents. And in most markets, I think it's a good investment because you're putting that property in front of the most eyeballs.

Exactly.

It isn't always you paying for the skills or the experience of an agent. You're paying for eyeballs.

Agreed. I agree. I think it's the old— they call it the ultimate buyer's list, right? Like we listed our house yesterday and within about 10 minutes, 200 189 eyeballs saw it like within 10 minutes. So in like a couple saves, that's how they do it here. They save if they like it, which is incredible, right? Like just within 10 minutes. And then we had a showing, 2 showings within, you know, just a day of doing it. So, okay, so that's, that's what goes through the mind. How am I going to sell it? Let's go through the route of the MLS. Let me put it on the MLS. So that's what they do. Now that means I got to reach out to a real estate agent and there's different types of agents out there. There's the ones that will do the flat, like a flat fee. They'll just put it on the market and they won't do that much marketing for you. They're just like going to put it and maybe you can even handle the calls BrokerList does that, or you can pay someone 3%, 2.5%, you negotiate. I think a lot of people go towards that, like a friend. They're like, "Oh, my friend, I've known him for a long time. I'll list it with him." My buddy that I've done a wholesale a lot of deals with, Nate Worthen, he said, "Hey, man, I'll hook you up. I'll just do it for $2,000," which is incredible. We've done a lot of business together, so he's doing that for me. And that's the next step, right? Let's get on MLS. We got to find someone to put it on there. Did I get everything, Benson, on that?

Yeah, I think you're right. You have to really balance the route of going with a family member or somebody you know, and somebody who you think is like really seasoned and has a lot of experience, right? And they're not always the same. If you can find— if you have a friend and family who's done a lot of business and you know they have and they're willing to give you a deal and you can actually, you know, put food in the mouths of their family, like that's the best thing in my opinion. But people are— this is the revolving door the real estate world is, and most agents don't make it. They actually fall out for some reason or another. And so I wouldn't just send business to your family member or your friend because you want to feed their family if you don't know that they can actually execute and get transaction to closing, because the most work for an agent doesn't happen before they— the house goes under contract. It happens after it's under contract. It's all the back and forth with the title company, it's the negotiations, it's the amendments and making sure the paperwork is all in place. The inspection objection process is a freaking nightmare. I'm going through it right now. If you mess that up, like, you could— a deal could completely fall out, or you could lose money. It's so critical you find somebody that knows that process very intimately.

No, 100%. And I wanted to get to the next thing is you You said that a lot of agents, maybe there's a lot of people, agents, real estate agents that have licenses, but you're saying a lot of them don't do deals or don't do a lot, right? Like a majority probably, it's like the 80/20 rule.

You nailed it. It's the 80/20 rule. Most agents that are doing the most business are in the smaller group there. And I think there's some numbers out there and don't quote me on this, but I think that the average agent does less than 2 deals per year. So it's like 1 point something deals per year. I just said, you know, 20 years of experience in this business. Every time I do a transaction, there's still something new that comes at me. And without any of that experience, you wouldn't even know to handle the majority of those things. So it's risky to just use the average agent.

Agreed. Yeah. And that brings me to my point of if there are a lot of agents, or let's say they're representing buyers, if they don't do a lot of deals, let's say they do 1 a year and you on our commission, they're changing this right now where you can negotiate it. But we're just saying, hey, we're willing to pay 3% because we want to get as many agents bringing people through our property as possible. I don't know what you did on yours, but 3%. And that's because a lot of agents, if they have 1 listing a year or 1 listing every couple of years, I would assume a lot of them are going to not show a property if if it's 1.5% commission or 2%, if they can just show properties that are 3% and make a higher commission. I think that's a big reason why they probably kind of changed the rules, because they're probably being a little picky. But I don't know.

But, um, yeah, it's hard to say. Like, most agents have a fiduciary responsibility to their client that they're there to represent their best interests. So if they're not showing properties because they'll earn less, that's a huge violation of their fiduciary responsibility, and they could lose their license for it, or at least get sanctioned or fined pretty big, right? So, but proving that would be difficult, right?

I'm assuming happens, right? Especially if you get one, one every 5 years you're trying to make, you know, they're probably thinking about that.

They definitely are. And that's been the part of the discussion when the NAR lawsuit came down, where they were changing the way that the buyer's commission is structured. It isn't automatic in there, you have to negotiate it. That was one of the top things that people talked about is, okay, well, if we have a lower commission for buyers, like, are we going to get the full eyeballs? Which we said was the most valuable piece of those commissions in the first place. It wasn't necessarily the skills or the experience of the agent, but get maximizing the amount of eyeballs. And I do believe that there are some agents out there, whether it's consciously or unconsciously, they would prefer to make 3% on a deal than 1%, right? The next piece after that though is once you find your agent, then you have to have a discussion about the listing, right? What are they going to bring to the table? So they do a listing presentation, they come to the house, they bring a folder, they bring all of their comparables, what they think the house will sell for. They're going to give the seller a range of prices. Here's the low price range, here's the high price range, you know. Is there anything we missed, right? Did you do any improvements that I didn't find in public records, or did you finish the basement, or, you know, did you add a deck to the back? Like, those things can matter. And so then they figure out a price, and then likely that seller is talking to more than one agent. So they're gonna have to figure out, okay, which agent represents me and my family's best interests? Which ones do I click with the most, right? You want a vibe. Yeah, someone that you're just right doing a big transaction with. And then you're going to weigh their experience and then also the referrals, like who's referred them, how'd you find them. So all that goes into that process of trying to figure out who you're going to choose.

Exactly.

And then you pick the agent, and then at that point there's contracts that have to be filled out.

And I will say, I will say that I'm assuming this happens with a lot of real estate agents because I've given a lot of business to real estate agents. I'm not an agent right now, but a lot of the times agents will come in and they'll show comparables of what they believe the house is worth or what the data is showing, but sellers will be like, no, no, I think it's worth more. And sometimes it's a battle. The agent wants to kind of like get the listing and say, look, no, it needs to go here for it to sell. I've seen a lot of agents just like throw their hands in there like, all right, well, try what you want. I don't know if you've seen that, Benson, but I know I've seen It happens. Yeah. And I feel bad for those agents, you know, because if they don't get it, then the seller is like, hey, you're not good. It's like, no, I told you that it wasn't worth that. But they also want the business. So that's the dilemma I think I would have if I was an agent, is trying to give them the real data without them being mad at me, you know, and wanting to work with me.

But also winning the listing, like you said, right? So one of the main factors that a seller is going to consider is who's going to help me get the highest price, right? So if you got a bunch of people coming through and you got two agents who just want the listing and they'll just blow smoke up the butt of the seller and be like, yeah, you can get this max price, even though they know that the comps that I'm using all have one more bedroom, one more bathroom, they got a finished basement. And then they're just using that as, you know, a false data point. Exactly. And then they can get the highest price. But then once they got the contract, then they can get in there and they can be like, oh, well, it looks like we're not getting the number of showings that we expected. Or, you know, the market is not doing great, interest rates aren't good. So that's why it didn't sell so yet. So we're gonna have to lower the price. And they're gonna, they're gonna lower the price to what the guy who was honest initially said was where the price needed to be. And it's just kind of— that's all— that's a big game.

And that's not a game I would play because it's the same thing when it comes to wholesaling homes, right? Like when you're talking to a seller that's off market, when you're direct-to-seller, sometimes you have those sellers that are pie in the sky, you know, they think their house is worth so much. And you have the people that they go in and they just get under contract and try to renegotiate later and they lose trust and it doesn't work out. I don't think that's the right business model. And then you have the people like me that show the data and we say, hey, look, this is what the market's dictating, saying. And you lose out sometimes to those people go in and just tell the seller what they want to hear. But depends. I would say you got to do business the right and ethical way, and you're going to win some, you're going to lose some. But I mean, at least, uh, you're, you're doing the right thing. But I'm sure there are a lot of agents, a lot of wholesalers that do the other route.

It goes back and forth. It really does. But you know, once that seller chooses their agent, then at that point there's going to be a listing contract, right? And listing contracts are different in every market. It's, it's the state that sets those up. And so that's where they're going to define what the places, you know, how they can market it. Can they just show it in the MLS? Are they allowed to syndicate it to Zillow and Trulia and all these other sites that will get them more eyeballs? You know, if it's a private gated community in Beverly Hills, like, there may be only send it out to other agents. Like, they might not even put it on the MLS publicly, right, because they don't want a bunch of people walking through their house. So there's like some weird kind of listing rules that has to be agreed to before they put it on the MLS. Best guess, which includes the price, the commissions, how long the listing is for. Is it a 3-month, 6-month, year-long listing? How are they going to show it? Is there a lockbox on there? Does the, does the agent have to be there present every time? You only show it from the hours of 6 to 7 o'clock at night, or, you know, can you show it at all times during the day? What if there's a dog who's like a meanie and they have to go and put it down, right? Oh, it's so much coordination. But once it's on paper, it's all fairly easy, and then they just turn the listing on, on the MLS. But one of the most certain things that has to be agreed upon, Nate, is the description. The description, say, that's going to entice, yeah, all those looky-loos on Zillow and the agent to show that property.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's where we're at right now. So let's dive right into the listing that I have for I'm selling my house. I'm going to show you guys the before and after and what— how we made the decision to buy this house. Because when I first bought this house, I was like, man, this house sucks, it's ugly. I didn't see the vision my wife did. And so I'm going to show you guys what it looked like, what we did to it, and, you know, what we added, and what I would add if I was just flipping it and not living in it, and then Benson, we'll go to yours. Okay, cool. So the next thing, like, in the— I think we've done a good job of painting the picture of like what needs to be done in order to get it ready to list. And what we just did is, after we signed the paperwork, after we agreed to everything, we got professional pictures. I personally think the pictures is the most important thing, like really, really good pictures. Benson, we know when people take pictures with their flip camera, flip phones, it looks terrible. I don't know like why people try to just shortcut that, but I think that's the most important thing. So we went out and got professional, like really well done, even Photoshop. Like, they made the lighting look really good. So I'm about to show you guys, but, um, I think that's so important. Pictures are key, right?

Oh, super important. The quality of the pictures too, but the more pictures the better, right? Sometimes an agent will just put up with one picture, like the front of the house, and there's no interior photos, right? And then what that's telling the, the world audience is that there's something wrong with the inside. There's something in there you don't want me to see. But I would rather know if there's like a banged up kitchen, you know, or a hole in the floor, than not know. And so I think it's, it's better to err on the side of just too many photos than it is to skimp on those, because that does make a huge difference. But I'm excited to see the photos on your before and after.

I think it looks good. You've got to tell me the truth, though. Okay, so here's my home. I bought it a couple of years ago. These are the professional pictures they were taking, you know, multiple of the front. This is our kitchen. So when we bought this, I'm going to show you guys a before and after video. But you can see, Benson, like it's got the lighting, you know, maybe even some Photoshop lighting. I don't know how they got it so bright in there, but it looks really brighter. So that's our living room. So as I'm kind of going through this, I'm going to show you guys the video of how we bought this house. It was an old grandma house when we bought it. And you guys see the difference. So let me play this video. Okay. So this is the bathroom that we got it with a blue whatever the heck countertop or Formica. Formica. Terrible. Yes. Old carpet, nasty wallpaper. And our agent was like, this is great location. Just get it right. So she's just telling telling us. A random little, um, vanity right here, like in the, in the closet. And you've probably heard about this, they call them Jack and Jill bathrooms where it's connected. So the, the master didn't have its own bathroom, it was connected to one, so it needed some love. So let's see, old carpet, pink. You see that pink bedroom?

Oh, I love it.

Yeah, this is the stuff that me and you look for, we love.

Is that chair, that rocking chair, ever move on its stone.

You know what, I think it moved a couple times when— during the show when we first bought it. Nah, but I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. So let me see if they got any of that kitchen. The kitchen— the kitchen had pink flower cabinets, the kitchen cabinets. It was— I don't even know where you get that done. So here's the basement. Let's see. So it wasn't finished really. Like, this room, I guess you could say, is finished, but Terrible carpet, no carpet. So we got purple, pink over here walls, and a blue one with paint all over it. And the lighting wasn't done in there. Hmm. So the thing that I was looking at when I bought this house is, does it have good bones? And it had great bones. It's like the properties that were built in this time, like very well done. So this is— I guess this was like their theater room. They got the TV and two chairs.

Theater room.

Room.

There you go.

Yeah, the windows are old. And then you're gonna love this shower, dude. The shower is gross. So old vanity. Oh, look at that, uh, wood grain toilet seat. You gotta love that.

Yeah, splinters on your butt. That's, that's great.

And then you got the mold coming in from the shower because it's leaking. Not, not looking too good. You know, the utility room carpet. Let's see if there's anything else. Backyard was pretty big, so we— that was cool.

Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a good size. You probably got like, what is that, 12,000 square foot lot?

You know what, I only know it by the like 0.3. It's like 0.3 of an acre, so that's, that's how I know. I don't know what that is in square feet. But, uh, yeah, so the reason I'm showing you guys this is because this is what the property looked like when we bought it. Not attractive. Let's see if there's any— yeah, So as you can see, ugly, yellow, nasty. I just didn't think it was a good attractive home. But anyway, so what we did is we went in here and we took out the chimney. We redid the kitchen cabinets. We actually just painted the kitchen cabinets. We sanded off the floral and did new countertops. This is the bedroom, as you remember from the video. The bathroom, what we did is the Jack and Jill. We closed the entrance to the other bathroom and just made a master bathroom. And this is the other bathroom that had the blue countertop for Micah. So we did that. The baby's room. This is the master bathroom. Not like giant. It's not a giant home, but the baby's bedroom, the entrance, my office. Then this is what I really enjoyed, Benson, is we— the basement, as you remember here in the video, that wasn't finished. What we did is we made a separate entrance for it, and then we made it into a mother-in-law apartment because it's just me and my wife, right, at the time. We didn't need, you know, to live in a house up and down. We could just— and we just rented out the basement. So this is— we put a kitchen, a full kitchen in there, and, uh, these are renters. They're renting it out and they pay for more than our mortgages. So we don't technically have a mortgage on the property because, you know, we're renting out the basement. And this is, uh, you know, this is the back and the patio and whatever. So anyway, that's the property. And, uh, what we did, as I was going to tell you guys, is we just updated the whole house. We just updated everything because, uh, it was old, it was nasty, but we got it at a price— was a steal of a deal back then. And now that we're selling, obviously we have quite a bit of equity in it. And, um, now we, we're listing it, right? So I just wanted to take you guys through that process so you knew exactly what it looks like to buy a home, fix it up even while you're living in it, and then as you sell it, you have equity. And, uh, Benson, cross your fingers, hopefully it sells, uh, quickly.

Yeah, yeah. So you've got showings, right? So the next part is like you're just waiting for those offers to come in.

Yeah, that's it.

And then you start negotiating them.

You know what's so funny? So many people talk about Californian buyers. I don't know if that happens in your market, but they're like, oh, these Californians are leaving California. They have a lot of money. Does that happen where you're at? They talk about that all the time here.

Oh yeah. We've got so many Californians in Colorado that come here for the mountains and they come for the non-liberalism, right? And they bring— We get a lot of Texans too, though. We got a lot of Texans that come up. From, from that part of the country too. So yeah, a lot of people love to live in Colorado.

Well, so you're in Utah, I'm in Utah, you're in Colorado. It's interesting because I've always heard that like, oh, they're leaving and they, they can get a home like mine, but it's like $1 million plus for a home like mine in a lot of the areas of California. So when they come and move, they have a bigger budget, right? And that's why everyone's so excited. Oh, Californians, they can pay more. They're raising up all the prices of real estate. Anyway, the reason I'm bringing that up is today our showing was with a family from California and they were like, hey, we're actually leaving we're moving tomorrow, so we need to see your house like now. So it was like a quick showing. But it's just funny because I've always heard that and I was like, yeah, but I guess I think it's true.

They typically come armed with more cash too, so they can sell a house just like yours in, I don't know, like San Bernardino, right? And, and they'll sell it for $800,000.

Exactly.

And then they take that cash and they come to another market and they can buy something for half as much and get more, right? Right. And get a lot more. And they can come with cash. So they created a lot of bidding wars here in Colorado during COVID because they were all moving and, um, people were getting way more. And this is like a thing that was kind of unprecedented, that they would list a property and they would get bid up. Yeah, so list it for $500,000 and they'd sell for $550,000. That can be good for the seller, but not necessarily, because if that house doesn't have comps that say it's worth $550,000, then they either have to renegotiate the price and bring it down to where it'll fit the appraisal, right, so the lender will lend on it, or the seller— I'm sorry, the buyer has to bring cash to the table.

Exactly.

They bring that extra $50 grand hoping that, you know, that the house is going to appreciate and they can recoup some of that out-of-pocket cost. But the game doesn't end when you put on the market, right? So here's what's— what I'm going through right now.

Yeah, okay, because I just listed yesterday. So let's hear your scenario, your situation. And I hope everybody that's watching this, you know, leave us some comments, let us know what you're thinking. But, um, this is important to understand. Again, the reason why we're going through this is it's important to understand this process of listing it. So when you do talk direct to seller and you talk about 'Are you sure you want to list it?' You know what you're talking about. Because I think, again, before I had this process done multiple times, I didn't really know the struggles and issues. I thought once you put on the MLS, you're golden, it's good, you don't have to worry about anything. That's not always the case. So Benson, can I share this screen? Can I share?

Yeah, can you see mine?

Okay, let's see.

All right, here we are. Yeah, I'm sharing right now.

We can see it.

Cool. So this is, this is the house that, um, is under contract. You see right here it says pending in St. Louis.

All right, so let's look at Bill in 1894. That was a while ago.

Yeah, I mean, in this part of— it's called South City. You can see right here on the map. Like, the reason why I chose this area is because there was a lot of fix and flips here.

Of course. Yeah.

And so I wanted— I was thinking of comps, right? Like what we talk about all the time when we're doing our Wholesaling Live is, you know, go to where the comps are located and then you'll have the comps that you need to sell the property.

Perfect.

So, so here is—

that looks like you, you painted the front. That looks good.

Yeah, I did. I went in, we repainted the whole front. And then here's like the access. We did— redid the deck— not the deck, but this has all got repainted. Then here's the interior.

That looks good. Is that the one that you were staying in for a little bit when you're in St. Louis as you're fixing it?

Yeah, 9 months I was in this place. So I did a live and fix as well, and so I was fixing up while I was living there.

How'd you like that process? Was it— would you recommend it for some people? Do you not recommend it?

It's great. I mean, you, you have to I like working with your hands and not minding, you know, living in a construction zone where there's sawdust everywhere and you might step on an occasional nail. You might have, you know, some critters, you know, sneak in the house depending upon what you're fixing, right? But I enjoyed it. So this is where my desk was, right here.

Come in your, your house while you're fixing that thing?

I had some critters. Yeah, it wasn't great. Um, so I sat over here and then like right over here on the left where this chair is, and this whole wall was just all full of like tools and construction And so when I was live, nobody could see any of that.

Yeah.

So it's got that cool wall. We redid the whole bathroom. It's kind of hard to see the bathroom from there, but they had a, like, a home built-in. So we ripped all that out. Obviously all the paint's new, all the trim is painted.

Great pics, by the way. This is looking great.

Yeah, here's the kitchen. We didn't do much in the kitchen at all. We just painted and cleaned it up. I had to put a new microwave in, but all the decorations Nice. And then I set it up as an Airbnb, right? So this was earning me money while I wasn't living there. But while I was living there, I was saving on rent, right? So I didn't have to go rent another place out while I was doing this. That saved me, you know, over $2,000 a month for those 9 months. That's almost $20,000 net gain for me because I wasn't renting.

I love it.

So this is the back room. And actually, this back room wasn't— see this closet right here? That wasn't there when I bought it.

Okay.

So I actually hired a contractor to come in and build a whole closet unit out, which now turns it from a 2/2 into a 3/2.

Which would you say that increased the, uh, the comps and what you could sell for by adding that bedroom?

Yeah, so important. So this is the upstairs. This is the master bedroom.

I love that exposed brick. Did you mean to keep that just for like this fix? That's nice.

Yeah, so this is the, um, second bedroom upstairs.

This is sweet.

Yeah, I redid the bathroom and everything, laundry room. That was a work in progress. That was disgusting. And then here's the backyard. I all this, planted these trees. This is all dirt. So we put this pad in with all of this rock and then I put like a sand pit back here. That little tree died, but then I went and got this.

I would say landscaping is pretty, pretty pivotal, like pretty important for getting as much as you can to like if it looks good on the outside too, that's great.

Yeah. And then it has this off-street parking. This gate opens this huge swinging gate so you don't have to park on the street.

What's the square footage of the property?

I think it was 1,900. 100.

It's nice.

$1,666.

Seems bigger than that.

Yeah, it feels bigger than that for sure.

Yeah.

So here's the before. So the before wasn't horrible. So this was what I would call like more of like a lipstick, right, type flip. It didn't require a lot of construction, which is important, right?

Once you start getting in the construction, that's when your budget starts diving and you start a lot.

So here's that back room that didn't have a closet in it. So, you know, I didn't have to put a ton of money into it. So got under contract $220,000. I bought it for $150,000. You know, real basic reno. And also, like I said, about $20,000 worth of net savings on rent as well. I count in there. So it came out pretty good.

That's amazing. It looks like you did a great job. I really, I really like the way it looks. How were the— did you get quite a bit of offers on it or did it move quick? Or did— yeah, tell, tell us about the experience with it.

Yeah, so we're under contract, we're set to close on the 17th. We went back and forth on several inspection items, so we didn't— we had probably 20 showings and, um, 3 offers. So one was an out-of-state buyer from California, another one, and then the other 2 were local. The current buyer looks like they're going to use it for a short-term rental as well, so they're— they understand that, that, that market, right? But we had discussions about, you know, paying for tuckpointing because there's a lot of brick in this, these old homes, so that can get expensive. The sewer, we had to get that scoped and, you know, and make sure that was all handled. And there was a couple other like miscellaneous items, so we ended up, you know, negotiating on, on some sort of like a settlement so we didn't have to— we could just keep them engaged. But that process of going back and forth, like, it's, it's no joke, man. Like, that's really where I think an agent earns their commission, is during the negotiation process, the inspection issue handling of that, and then making sure title company has everything they need to push this thing to closing. And so now we're working with the title company to set up closing and get closing docs set up. And actually, they want to close early, so there's a good chance we'll close next week.

And that's amazing. And it's been vacant, correct? Like, while this has been going on, or until you—

Between the showings and stuff. Before that, it was an Airbnb.

Okay, Airbnb. Okay, awesome. Well, I hope it goes well. And I think it's really important that you tell the, you know, the audience like the truth, and you you did, like, it's not always easy and you need an agent that's experienced. Like, could you imagine if you got someone just grad— like, graduated from— they're getting their license and trying to deal with what you said, the back and forth negotiations? Probably wouldn't have worked out very well.

It wouldn't have. And she knows that market intimately too. So there's stuff they do in St. Louis that they don't do anywhere else. So she's like, did you get your, um, certificate of occupancy yet? I'm like, what the hell is that? And so we don't do that here in Colorado. There's no certificate of occupancy process in the title company. They have a different set of the way they operate in Missouri. So that was a learning experience for me. But I had worked with Nika before. She was an agent who had helped me close several transactions before this, virtually from Colorado, but I found her with Privy, right? So I went in and I searched investor-friendly agents, found her, and she helped me do several wholesale deals and buy this property the first time around. So we have an experience together and we have that trust built. So like, you know, I trust her to help me out when anything, you know, comes up, when whether it's the negotiations, or she can go in and out of the property if she needs to. She referred a lot of my contractors to me and inspectors, and that's huge. All of like the, you know, the people, the supporting cast, if you will, the transaction came through referrals. So that's really helpful, especially when you're out of state.

Oh, I love that. I've heard so many people say like agents are overpaid, that blah blah blah, that like a lot of people that are against that, but I really believe a good agent is worth their in gold because they can help you from making bad decisions. They can take like just help you through the process. Like in Canada, for example, I was like in my mind, I'm like, oh, I can just go buy a property, but that's another country. I don't know the area very well. So I just called an agent and I was telling about the area I wanted. He's like, okay, so this area I didn't know. He's like, you got to be careful in some of these areas that they're— it's, it's well water, right? It's propane. It's not gas. And the sewer, like you— it's what do they call it? It's not— it's not sewer. It's um, it's the one that's like you have to go get it sucked up like by a machine, like a machine. It's, uh, what do they call that?

Do you know what I'm talking about? A sump pump?

No, septic, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's septic out there. So I'm like, bro, I don't know what any of that is.

Oh, right, right, right.

Because, because it's, it's out kind of in the country where we're trying to move. So the guy's like, you have to be careful because some of the well water is bad. It's, it's got some— you have to check and make sure that it's not low flow well water area where you're like, you're going to be running out of water because you're just in a bad spot. So, you know, if you didn't have an agent, if I wasn't talking to someone that knew the area in the market, maybe I potentially make a bad buy. So I think it's agents, people that understand the market and are masters of their area, so, so valuable, especially when you're buying real estate. So don't, don't poo-poo on agents, guys. They're, they're necessary.

I would say they are, um, especially within the investing world. Right now we're talking about whether your primary residence, but this is one of my, you know, rental properties, right? Like, you really want to make sure you're working with the right person and that they can support you and get you what you need. So yeah, they're definitely worth it.

Curious on Privy, can you explain to us how you found an investor-friendly agent using the, the platform? I'm kind of curious because that would be, uh, I think that'd be really useful for people to start networking with people, uh, with the investor.

Oh yeah, well, if anyone's watched any of our content before, you've seen us, you know, log into Privy and then you click that button on the left that says fix and flip, and then that shows you, that shows you all the fix and flips that happened nationwide or in your target market. And then you just look at those houses that were flipped and the agent that represents that second transaction on the flip is an investor-friendly agent. And then you could just call them or you can do a search for absentee owners. And those are landlords. So there's agents that represent fix and flippers, and there's agents that represent people who buy rental properties as well. And they're both good, but it probably is good to get one based off of the exit strategy, the strategy you're you're looking for. If you're wholesaling, you probably want to use an agent who represents flippers, not landlords.

I love it. That advice alone in this whole call that we've been talking— huge. Definitely networking with agents that understand their markets and that are tapped into investing, or with landlords, that you're going to get deals if you can get plugged into that. So awesome, Benson. We went a little longer than I thought we would, man, but I, I had a good time. I think we dived into some really important stuff that a lot of people probably don't think is that important that are like trying to get wholesale, but this is extremely important. I would say you need to understand this stuff in order to really know what you're talking about and seem credible and be credible when talking to sellers.

Oh yeah. Partly because you just want to know the lingo and understand the process. But I think that probably most people who start off in wholesaling, that's not their long-term goal. The long-term goal is to maybe buy their own house one day or to own rental properties or do fix and flips. And so if you can learn this process along the way by doing different transactions and coming to podcasts like this and just kind of paying attention, then you'll start to connect the dots and things will start to make sense and you'll be much more of a force to reckon with down the line when you're doing your own deals that aren't wholesale and really understanding the whole process from beginning to end.

Love it. Well, you guys heard it here first. You guys want to get into the game, just start taking action, but also dive in and listen to the content that's on Benson's YouTube channel, that's on our, uh, my YouTube channel. As we come out with stuff every week, and our goal is to give you guys free training, free information, so you guys can go out and take action. Don't be afraid, we're here to help out. So Benson, I'm good. You got anything else to say?

No, man. No, man. It's good to go. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate everybody being here on all the different platforms. Please like and share this content with people. You know, that really helps us out. And yeah, just keep an eye out for more engaging and interesting content in the future.

Sounds good. Talk to you guys later. Peace. 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 is 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.