Wholesaling Real Estate: Live Training and Live Calls

What is going on, Nathan Payne? How you doing, brother?

I'm doing amazing, my man, amazing. How are you?

Oh dude, to be honest, I'm a little drained today. I— maybe I don't seem like it, but it's been a long work day. I got my, uh, my little planner that I write out. I've been checking stuff off. I've been crushing today, but I'm a little drained. But we are coming to you guys because we like to go live and we like to tell you guys, um, how to do the business and, and our opinions on how to do things. So Uh, if you don't know who I am, my name is Nathan Payne. I've been in business for about 6 years now. I've done, uh, multiple deals— not multiple, hundreds of deals. And, uh, yeah, and the reason why we— yeah, done 1 or 2 deals, some 4 deals, done 4 deals, and I'm here to tell you how to master this business. Now I'm just kidding, I've done hundreds of deals. And, um, basically why we're coming live, why I'm coming live to you guys, is because I like to share what I've learned, because I know that when you— it's you're— it's more blessed to give than to receive. And, you know, it's just a natural law of the universe is if you give, you do receive. And, you know, I know we can do some deals together, so I'm down to share what I've learned so maybe we can work together. Nathan Payne, who are you?

Yeah, what's going on, guys? My name is Nathan Payne. I've been wholesaling for about 5-ish years, and, um, man, I've done a bunch, done a bunch of deals, bunch of different states. I've, uh, man, one of the things I'm known for is locking up over 100 deals in a single year. I also did a 30-day challenge a little while ago to where I chose a totally brand new market, no contacts, no resources, nothing, and did a $20,000 deal in 30 days without spending any money on marketing. That was pretty fun. So yeah, today we're going to be talking about some cool stuff and just hoping to share something with you guys to hopefully make the journey a little bit easier for you.

That's right. What do you say? You say, hey, I know there's a lot of struggling wholesalers. You do it.

I like it. Yeah, man, there's a lot of struggling wholesalers out there and we do not want you to be one of them. Because we went through it. Oh my goodness, did we go through it.

Oh, we went through it, brother.

Yeah, it's hard, guys. If you're watching this and you've been trying to wholesale or get into real estate, man, I get— I know the books, the podcasts, they are exciting, they get us amped up, and it, it sounds simple, but man, it takes hard work, and there's definitely some challenges along the way. So we get it, guys. That's why we do this.

And I think that's why, like, again, this is why we're doing this, is because a lot of people, um you know, they want this to work, but they're not, they don't really know how to do the hard work, or they know what they need to do, but they don't want to. We're here to make it really simple, really painless, so you guys know what you need to do to take those little baby steps, okay? So today we're gonna be talking about how we use Privy, one of the softwares we really enjoy, we use in our business, to pick your market, okay? 'Cause that's really important. A lot of, I was talking to someone the other day, and they had a deal in the middle of nowhere, and they're like, man, I can't really move this. And, um, another person sent me a deal that was in Georgia outside of Atlanta, and it was kind of in the middle of nowhere. So I was like, I don't think we're gonna have any love. I gave it, uh, any love in the sense we're gonna be able to wholesale it. I gave it to someone that has Investor Lift. Everyone's like, oh, Investor Lift is great. He's like, bro, there's no love on this area. So like, if you're not in the right area, all I'm trying to say is you could be wasting your time. I don't want you guys wasting your time. So today we're going to be talking about how to pick your market. That's it.

All right.

So if you're here and you want to learn how to pick the right market, we're about to dive in. Nate, you got it. You— I'm actually going to share my screen, but you, you're going to kind of walk us through it, right?

Yeah. So, so a lot of really good stuff goes into this one. So, guys, couple of things for us to take into consideration. First thing being, there is one thing when we are talking about wholesaling there is one principle that, like, one most important thing above all else when picking a market, and I'm gonna share that with you in one second, but I'm gonna start by telling you guys a story. So there is a gentleman by the name of Dan Kennedy, and he was given a presentation on stage one time, and he— and Dan Kennedy is known as like the godfather of direct response marketing. And he was giving a presentation on stage one time, and he asked the crowd, hey, if you were to open up a hot dog stand and you could have any competitive advantage that you want, what, what would it be? And so people start yelling out answers. They'd say, oh, I want the best recipe for hot dogs, I'd want the nicest hot dog stand, I'd want the best location. And he goes, you're all wrong. He said the only competitive advantage that you need And the only one that matters is having a starving crowd. Same thing is true with wholesaling. For wholesaling, when we're picking a market, the number one most important thing is we want to make sure we are in a market that has a starving crowd, right? And a starving crowd translates to a market to where there's good investor activity., right, to where there's a lot of starving investors that are hungry for what we're going to be bringing to the table, right? Because guys, you know, just like what, what Payne was saying a second ago, you could have the greatest deal in the world, but if it's in the middle of nowhere to where nobody's interested in buying, doesn't really matter if you got it for a dollar, you won't be able to sell it, right?

So, so Nate, you're telling me if I got a deal in Nebraska, right here in Milburn, it might be a hot deal, but you're telling me there's not going to be much love on it?

Yeah, 100%. Probably not going to be much love at all on that deal. And so this is one of the things I see a lot of people get wrong. A lot of people teaching with traditional wholesaling and oh my gosh, I can go on for days about that. I won't. But traditional wholesaling, people say, oh, And, and this comes back to the biggest lie told in real estate. And I promise you guys watching this video have probably heard this, this saying. It's the biggest lie ever told in real estate, and I get so triggered every time I hear it. And that saying is, oh, if you find a good enough deal, the money or the buyer will find you. Guys, when does anything in life work like that? It doesn't, guys. If you find it, I don't care how good of a deal it is on paper. If it's something that nobody wants in an area that nobody wants to buy, it doesn't really matter, right? So that's why the number one most important thing is finding a starving crowd. Because one of the hardest lessons I had to learn in wholesaling, and it took me a while to learn it, is that— and this is the issue with traditional wholesaling— It does not matter how good of a deal you have under contract. It doesn't matter how good of a deal you find and you have on paper. If you don't have an investor that is ready, able, and willing to buy that from you, you don't make any money. So that's why the very first thing we need to do is look at who are the investors, who are the clients we want to be serving, right? Because it's the cash buyer, the investor. That's the person that's paying, that's paying us. So that's our ideal client. So that's the person we're truly serving. So that's where we need to start. And the number one most important thing is, okay, well, let me look for areas to where there's a lot of investor activity. And just to back this up one final time, you guys ever wonder why all the gurus you see on YouTube and here on podcast, you ever wonder why they're all in like the same 4 or 5 markets? I bet you guys can name where they all are. Come on, you know where they are. Phoenix, Arizona, Dallas, Texas, Florida, Atlanta. You know this, right? And the reason is because these are the markets to where there's tons of investor activity, to where there's enough— there's a large enough of a starving crowd to where you can build a sizable business. Now, I'm not saying you have to be in the same markets as them. I'm I'm not saying that you have to be in the largest, the hottest markets. No. But the number one thing where we want to take into account is we just want to make sure we're not in a bad market, right? I'll pause there for a second.

So let's, let's, let's freaking go, man. You know, let's, let's tell us, tell us how to find a good market.

That's the first— so when I learned this principle, I looked back at my, the, my first wholesaling company and up in, uh, West Michigan and had a lot of— I mean, guys, I was getting some smoking deals on paper, smoking deals on paper, and I could not sell these deals for the life of me. And then once I learned this principle about needing a starving crowd, and then once I understood that, oh well, I need to go to where my ideal clients, my cash buyers, my investors, I need to be in markets that they want to be buying in. And then when I looked using a tool like Privy, I said, oh well, that makes a lot of sense. Not that many people doing deals in West Michigan.

Yeah, bro, look at that.

And yeah, 100%, that's what I was dealing with for, for a hot minute.

Detroit's got a lot of opportunities.

Yeah, Detroit's got stuff going on. Too bad Detroit's not in West Michigan. When I say West Michigan, I mean all up and down Michigan, bro.

I had a deal on this Muskegon that I got, and I barely— like, nobody was trying to get that thing.

Oh bro, you should have hit me up. I knew— well, it depends where in Muskegon it was.

No, you wouldn't be able to move this. This thing was a piece of trash.

So, so this is where picking a market is, is incredibly, incredibly important. And guys, this is why I like to use Privy. It's the simplest tool. It It's so simple, right? You look at the bubbles, the blue bubbles, right? That represents how many fix and flips, um, Privy believes has been done in the last— I believe it's 12 to 18 months. And so it's real simple. When we looked at West Michigan, you know, you see one bubble here, one bubble there. Um, Nate, do me a favor, look on something like a Dallas, Texas.

You got it, brother. It's too much, too much data, right?

So guys, when we were looking at West Michigan, right, it was a single one here, single one. It was like a total of 50 properties like in all of West Michigan. Dallas alone, I mean, bro, what is that, like 5,000, 6,000? I don't care, it's ridiculous, right? So, so huge difference as far as where there is a starving crowd. And the reason why the starving crowd's so important is when you have a large number, number of people that are all hungry and fighting for the one thing that you have, you're going to be able to sell your property not only easier, but you're going to be able to sell it for a premium. Whereas in West Michigan, it was the complete opposite. I'd— guys, man, they would beat me up on every single deal, and most of the time they'd just walk away and then try to get the deal after. Um, right, which is, which is not a fun way to go about the business. So number one, investor activity, right? And again, guys, it does not need to be a Dallas, Texas, it does not need to be Florida, but you want to make sure there is at least some activity. I personally don't want to be in a market with— and again, this is, this is as simple as I make it— if there's a blue bubble right over a market, over an area, I want it to be at least at least 100 deals in the last 12 to 18 months.

Yeah. And look, it's okay if you— there's like some towns that are outside within like 30 minutes of the major center, right? Or an hour. You know, sometimes you're going to get people that live a little further out or have properties. But if your main effort, like if your main effort is trying to get deals in Marfa or Fort Davis, you're going to have problems. Okay, now this is obvious, I think, but I think a lot of people also, what happens is they just turn on nationwide, uh, advertisements or ads and they just try to get deals everywhere. You want to stay focused in one area. Okay, I know it's very tempting to see all these bubbles and you're like, well, San Antonio looks good. What about— see it— what about, uh, Fort Bliss in New Mexico? Stick to one place, master that market, because a lot of doing deals is mastering and understanding your market and building relationships.

So yeah, and just to add to that, guys, when picking one market— picking multiple markets, if you, you know, picking like 3, 4 markets, it's like trying to build 3, 4 bridges at the exact same time. So you run to one bridge and you lay down one brick, and then you're running to the second bridge and you lay down another brick, and you run to the third bridge and you lay down one brick. And you're wondering like, oh my gosh, why is it taking me so long to get to the other side? To where it's— if you focused on one market and building just one bridge, you'd be able to lay down brick, brick, brick, brick, brick, brick, brick, and you'd get across that much faster, right? And guys, again, look at some of the largest wholesalers and some of the largest, uh, investment companies, you know, in the country. Even huge, huge, huge companies a lot of times they're only in like 3 or 4 markets, right? I promise you, if you're watching this video, there is plenty in a single market for you. And the, the other reason why that's so important is because every market's different. Buyers are going to be different, the way they analyze deals is going to be different, right? How to understanding the neighborhoods and whatnot, all that's going to be different. And guys, one of the beautiful things with real estate is With stocks, right, if you have insider information, you know something that nobody else does, it's illegal, right? It's called— it's called like insider trading, right? Yep. Real estate, that's just called a competitive advantage, right? And, and better to you, right? And so with real estate, getting to know a market, you get to have an unfair advantage over everybody else. Because you get to know it. That what you get to know, the, the corner, you know what exactly what that type of house would go for in that area. You know about the neighborhoods. Another quick story. So, so you said you got a deal in Muskegon a while ago. So Muskegon did a lot of marketing, picked up a lot of deals in Muskegon area. Um, there was one neighborhood within the city of Muskegon to where I was picking up a lot of contracts. Yeah. And had such a hard time selling them, and I could not understand why because I was picking up these houses for like guys, getting them under contract for like $20,000, $30,000. And they were like 3-bedroom, 1-bath, had a garage. Like, they didn't look that bad. Like, and they weren't in terrible shape.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I could not get anybody to take a look at them or hit me up. And I just did not understand. And so I finally, I get a buyer on the phone and I'm like, hey, man, I'm like, bro, help, help me out. What? What am I missing? This is like the third property I've gotten in Muskegon Heights in this neighborhood, and I can't get any hits on it. Like, what am I missing? And he was funny, man. He was like a classic, you know, old-timer. He's like, son, let me tell you something. He's like, the last fix and flip I did in Muskegon Heights, he was like, it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Beautiful sunny day and 3 guys broke through a window, stabbed me in the arm, and stole my tools. He's like, son, you couldn't give me a house in Mesquite.

Stabbed him in the arm.

God, dude. Yeah, seriously. And well, it was right after this conversation, I looked more into it and like spoke to some more people and come to find out like, oh, that's like one of the crime capitals of our country, like one of the worst places you can go. So I was like, oh, Okay, yeah, yeah. But it took me like 3 or 4 canceled contracts to understand that. So this is where getting to know your market is so important.

And can I add something to that?

Yeah, please.

So once you become like— you get really into this business and become a real baller, and I'm still— I wouldn't consider myself a real baller yet because I haven't done this that like efficiently, but like a lot of people know an area so well that they'll understand the zoning, they'll understand how to structure lots, they'll subdivide, they'll, they'll build from like a brand new thing, they'll put ADUs. And I was just talking to one of my neighbors who's been doing this, uh, he's been a subcontractor and he works for a couple hedge funds, and he, he actually does a lot of the repairs for them and the rehabs. And he's like, dude, that's what we do. We, we try to take down everything and look like, what can we do to maximize the value? And sometimes, you know, I got the blinders on, like, let me just wholesale this thing, right? And I don't really look into how I can really maximize it. And that's, that's my fault. You know, I just want to get it, get it done, get it quick, which is fine. But at the same time, you know, if you know a market really well, you could be like, man, there's a lot of new builds going up in this area. A lot of people are really interested in just this land. If you're all over the place, it's going to be hard to know that. It's going to be hard to know if like you're in an area that's really up and coming and you should instead of, you know, wholesale this thing, maybe you should, you know, subdivide or do some extra cool things. But that takes time. I'm not trying to overwhelm you guys, but I'm just saying it's— you do learn more as you stick in a market.

So yeah. And the other thing is, is guys, when you stick in one market, like, you don't even necessarily need to know those strategies, but so long as you understand that that type of buyer can pay more because it's worth more to them, right? And again, this is, this is to where you really get to start to step up your game as a wholesaler. And you really get to be more effective and efficient. And this is where you'll get to do deals to where 90% of other people would take a quick glance at it and pass over it. But because you know the perfect buyer and because you understand what they'd be willing to pay for it, you're able to do deals that nobody else can. So again, guys, stick to one market, right? Pick one market. The most important thing is, are there investors doing deals in that area? And then stick with that market until you have an unfair competitive advantage over everybody else in that market. And then a few other little things I'll just throw out there real quick. I'll rapid-fire at you guys. And again, none of these are absolute, you know, make-or-breaks, but just things you want to take into consideration. One of them being price point, right? If I'm doing deal— you know, another thing with West Michigan, a lot of these these, um, uh, uh, towns and cities I was picking up deals, ARV was like $110,000, $120,000. Again, you can still make money and do deals, but not that much. It's, it's, it's harder to, you know, if I want to be making $20,000, $30,000 on a deal, it's harder to do that when this thing only sells for $110,000 versus if I'm in a market where a home would sell for $400,000 or $500,000, right? So price point's one thing you want to take into consideration. And, uh, another thing is, is it a title state or an attorney state? Lucky me, I'm from, uh, originally upstate New York and I live in Connecticut now. And you know, I'm just so fortunate that they are both attorney states. Again, guys, I know incredibly successful people in attorney states in New York and in Connecticut, incredibly successful businesses. But there are some hurdles you're going to have to jump through, right? Uh, title state, you're going to be able to do deals a lot quicker, less headaches. Attorneys, attorney states you're going to have to deal with. Guess, guess it. You know, attorneys, right? Which one? Attorneys typically aren't cheap, so I can cut a little bit more into the closing costs and what you could be making. Two, attorneys typically, right, not everybody, but typically they're not known for being super fast. So deals, and especially New York, you talk to people with businesses in New York, they'll tell you expect deals to take like 3 to 6 months.

Go title state. That's what I would do. Title state.

Let's wrap up. Last one, disclosure versus nondisclosure, right? So how easy is it going to be for me to look up sold properties, data, comps, things like that? Again, guys, none of these are deal breakers, but just something for you to take into consideration. And for me personally, I like to stack all the chips in my favor, right? As many as I can. And but the other thing is also remember that whatever challenges or obstacles that are inherently attached to something, right? So, you know, Connecticut or New York being an attorney state, yes, that's an additional obstacle, but that's an additional obstacle that a lot of people aren't going to want to deal with or want to overcome. So what can first be an obstacle, that can end up being your competitive advantage once you solve that. So keep all that in mind. I hope this was helpful, guys.

Love it. If you guys are interested in learning more or working with us, we do have a done-for-you wholesaling, uh, apprenticeship where basically if you have a deal and you don't know what to do with it, we'll— we can partner with you and take it the rest of the way and help you with it, or we'll tell you exactly what to do and you do the whole thing yourself. That's how we work with people on the done-for-you approach, and it helps a lot of people that maybe they're stuck get their first or next deal. We were working with this girl who'd been doing it for years, and she was struggling, and then she came and worked with us. I think she did over, over $100,000 in assignment fees and um, less than 6 months' time. Now that's not typical, right, of everybody, but, uh, you know, it can be done. So anyway, check out painlessslipping.com. Do you have anything you want to add, Nathan?

Man, that's it. Yeah, guys, check out painlessslipping.com. Love to talk with you and, um, see if it's something that could be a good fit.

Later, everybody. Peace.

Later, guys.