EP 644 - What You Need To Know About Wholesaling And Investing In A New Real Estate Market With Sharon And Juan Restrepo

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This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host, CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson. Hey, folks, I'm Juan Restrepo.

And I'm Sharon Restrepo.

And we're here to talk to you about wholesaling real estate and investing in a new market. I know some of you guys are excited, are thinking about going somewhere else, but we're going to show you how you can get there on this episode of Talking with Scott.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Nook Closure Show. As always, Scott Carson. Excited to be here with the day. I'm really jacked up for this episode. You guys know that I'm always constantly looking for topics that are going to hammer home for you guys. You can put immediate impact into your investing, whether it is in notes or it's in traditional real estate. And I'm really excited to have this amazing couple here on the podcast today. And so I'm honored to have from one of my favorite parts of the country. As you guys know, I joke and call it God's waiting room, but West Palm Beach, Florida, is a gorgeous area. Bought a lot of real estate down there over the years, invested. And I'm really honored to have Juan and Sharon Restaurant join me here today on the podcast. These guys are investors or realtors, and they're just doing amazing stuff, but they're going to share some of their insights today about how they got into where they're at today. The real estate, business, investment side. They're doing a lot of wholesaling in southwest Florida. But also for those of you guys that are scared to invest in your outside markets, these guys are literally, you know, they're focusing on another market outside of Florida. So. Good morning, you guys. How's it going today?

Good morning. Fantastic.

It's actually beautiful today. It looks like your background where we're at for a change.

It's what we call the Chamber of Commerce day. This is what they know. What?

That's the beautiful thing. Yeah. For those that are listening to the podcast, I always like to have the sunny image behind me of where I would rather be. Don't be wrong. I love Austin. It's a gorgeous day here in Austin, Texas. But I miss Florida. I miss the sun, I miss the air. The sea and just the, you know, the beautiful environment up there. So I'm a little peanut butter and jelly this morning of you guys. So, one Sharon, can you talk about kind of how you got to where you're at today? What was your kind of your focus, and how did you get kind of started? Let's start with ladies first. Sharon, let's start with you.

Well, first of all, it's awesome to be on your show. Scott, we're really honored to be here and thank you for the opportunity. And so for myself, since I get to start first, I loved real estate before one, I married a gentleman who really had real estate at his passion. And he really had to talk me into real estate investing because I grew up in a home where my father taught us, you go to school, get all the degrees and go to trade school, and then you work for somebody and that's it. You never take any risks or do anything outside of that.

Right?

This is the comfort zone, and it's really uncomfortable in this really tiny little box. And so that was the mentality I had. And he had to really talk me into this long, safe plan. And so we had purchased a home and we had some equity. We decided we put it on the market for sale, take the equity and buy some fixer up. Just keep doing the slow process. And about two weeks after we put our home on the market, my first husband was killed in an accident. And I decided for me, I literally made the decision, if I'm going to live my life or end it, I'm going to pursue his dream. But I had no idea that his dream was my passion. And I just dove into this business just 24, 7, really. At first it was to keep from being so miserable, and I started buying fixer uppers. I made all kinds of mistakes. I was buying from wholesalers and I was like, wow, they're making just as much money as me. But I'm doing all this work. I really think that I want to learn that side of the business. And then, as fate would have it, my father became terminally ill. And this was over 20 years ago. My family moved in with me because I essentially worked from home. However, I had to create virtual wholesaling before technology. With a telephone and a fax machine, I began wholesaling homes and created this basically a wholesaling system that you would call virtual today. Then that was invented. And then several years later, I got to meet the one and only. Then we met and decided, hey. HE SPEAKS SPANISH that's a whole new market. We could together. And I needed some free labor. And so it worked out really well. So we moved here to Palm beach county and began doing it together. And it's been almost 20 years now.

Yeah.

That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah, Juan, I would say anytime you can say habla espanol, it adds a whole another 100% of clientele to your business, right?

Yeah. Especially down here in South Florida. Yeah. It's funny because I was actually in Jacksonville, you know, when I got out of the service, went to school, went to college, you know, paid my way, took care of myself, doing all that, figured this is what I'm going to do. And then I got into the airline industry. It was my passion, I thought, was aviation. So I got a degree in aviation management. Student loans, all this and that debt. It's like I go out to work for the airlines and my dad says, hey, why don't you? I ended up leaving there. I finally decided, you know, I'm killing myself because I was working so much for this company. And I said, I'm going to start building my own business. I got invited to an entrepreneurial thing and said, oh, hey, I'm doing that. And made the investment. That took a while to take off. And then my father said, hey, why don't you come down here to West Palm and. And get in the mortgage business with us? And I said, okay. So I came down. And then around that time, Sharon and her ex partner were running an association and I was invited to that. And so I started coming that. And it's like, wow. I was helping this one investor close, finance his buyers. But then when he invited me to the meeting, I started seeing the other side of it and I started seeing the closing statement on what this guy was making, like, huh? I mean, I'm doing okay, but he's doing really good real estate business. And so I became a student of hers. Funny. And then a real student then.

Real student.

Right.

I sold him that one lifetime coaching program I had.

Still paying for it, 19 years old.

We'll get to that dynamic of working together too in a little bit here. And I think the market has changed so much, especially in South Florida. You look at what happened 12 years ago and it really being an epicenter of the recession. At one point, you know, they said 30% of Florida was vacant at some point. You know, you had all this international money coming in. But it led to a lot of opportunities out there. And you know, I love that area and I think it's due for a great time right now too. Are you guys seeing that a lot?

We are in a crazy seller's market. I think Covid has a lot to do with it. I do, because I believe a lot of people are afraid to show their home so they're holding back on selling. And I think you get asked this question a lot. Probably you do as well. Like what do you think, like post Covid is going to happen? A lot of people think we're going to have this major correction. And personally, I know you didn't ask this, but personally I don't think the banks are going to dump a lot of properties. I think they're too smart, they know better. And I think that what we'll see is all these people that waited till Covid was over, they're going to go, wow, look what my neighbor got. Now let's put our houses on the market. So we're going to see a whole bunch of houses come on the market with a bunch of sellers that think they're going to get what their neighbors got. And then when the supply increases, we're going to have an adjustment. But I don't see personally the market really tanking. I don't think we should hold off from buying. I think that if you're a smart investor, you just, you still do your numbers and purchase smart.

Yeah, that's the thing. I look at everything from my conversations with bankers and different funds out there with all the government loans being basically in default, but they're basically just kicking the can down the road another six months giving people opportunities, get back on track. I do think we are going to see a bigger downturn in the commercial space with defaults and vacancies and stuff like that. That's gonna be more of the epicenter this time around. You're still gonna have investor loans and student housing. Your returns are down quite a bit because obviously if people aren't going to class, they're not living on campus and then the cities that surround those campuses are struggling as well too. But you know, you'll see somebody. I don't. It's not gonna be REO wave 20, 21. It's not gonna be that kind of thing. It's the debt buying side or if you can step into the commercial space and re gentrify a lot of stuff there. But you guys have had such a huge impact the last 12 years in West Palm beach too. A lot of commercial built up. There's always been great West Palm beach, but there's also some shady areas there too that have regentrified over the last 12 years too, right?

Yeah, we're seeing a lot of commercial building. I mean even still now the related group, George Perez, he's putting up a huge office building in downtown. So there's a lot of going on there. A lot of investment has been taking place and they haven't slowed down because I mean you drive by there and like, hey, these guys are still building. It's not like before, during that crash where you started seeing empty skeletons of buildings just sitting there like they've run out of money, this and that. Such is not the case. I think we're still in the middle of, I know the elections happened, but nothing's been defined yet. And so what's going to happen post election, post Covid, depending on which administration comes in and say, hey, we're going to do this and it could affect that. So, you know, there's some sway here, but we've seen the market, it's still strong here in South Florida, yet overcoming the COVID During our summit, one of the guys that we interviewed was talking about how they've coming up, they pivoted and they're providing a service like, hey listen, we will have an open house and we'll come in and clean the house. At the end of the day, you know, it's a kind of deter takeaway. So it's like, hey, that's a smart thing. You know, again, that's an entrepreneur thinking about, hey, I need to pivot and we need to say, all right, what's going on and how can I adjust to the market so we don't slow down. And that's kind of the exciting thing again, South Florida here, I mean we've seen prices steadily growing and again we have this seller's market so we're still seeing competition when you put the house out there and you're probably going to get a little bit more than ask.

Yeah. Sharon, when I were talking beforehand and you guys mentioned about you running an association, you had an investment club of some sort of how did that start off and how has that been an impact to your business?

Well, that was always great. You know, whenever you can bring people together that are like minded and we brought continuing education and workshops and it's a place for people to come together locally and that kind of retired about five years ago. But of course, you know, the people who were active, you're still in communication with. So now we never really took advantage of technology like we're doing so since COVID and it's really been good for us because we're able to connect not just with those folks. I'm sure, you know, you're already online, but with so many more around the country, so we've been able to have a further reach. You know, we do a lot. Not just ourselves, but we duplicate what we do for clients. And so whether people live here or not or have their money here or not, they send it to us and we steward it for them in real estate. And so being able to reach more people and make them aware of what we do has been good for business as well.

Yeah, was good for us for all those years. Because, I mean, it gives you a name. Anytime you take are on a platform that immediately gives you credibility. No matter where you're at or in any industry or anything like that moment you take the platform, bam, you've just been given credibility, and that was gold. So it helped us build the business that we did and do the type of business that we've had over the years. So, yeah, it was definitely a blessing.

Yeah. Anytime you can bring people together, like you said, Sharon, and give. You know what I mean? I think that's one of the big things some people make mistakes on. We've seen in different groups where they're not giving. It's all about, hey, how can the group affect my bottom line versus the other way around? And I think you've got to have that servant mindset in mind when you do putting together a meetup group or a real estate club or some sort of association, bringing people together to really kind of give, give, give, it comes back tenfold if you really have a genuine heart. I know you guys both do on that. Now, what are some of the things that you should say? Using fax machines to wholesale properties. I love that. It's a little antiquated now these days. Right. But what are some of the things that you find that are working for you guys in wholesaling, finding deals or finding buyers and really kind of helping you take that next level.

Well, you know, I mean, we've been doing it for so long now, but the thing that we all know is just the consistency of putting yourself out there and marketing yourself and being in every kind of group there is and. But like you're saying bringing value to the group so people see who you are, connect with you. And so fortunately, we've been doing this for so long in the same backyard that we've been able to grow in credibility. Hey, I need to sell my house fast. Let me call Sharon in one. I need to buy a house, cash. Let me call Sharon in one. So we've really been able to put together a great database of clients and be a good source of people who need to unload something quickly. So it has really helped us spend much less on marketing cult to cold traffic because of it. So, you know when you can pick up the phone and go, and somebody says, sharon, I've got a seller who needs to unload this house. Will you pay X? You know, and I can literally make a deal with no competition. I mean, how do you compare that to anything? I would tell anybody, just consistently, network, network, network. And then when you get an opportunity to look at a property, look at it. If it's not for you, don't just disappear, you know, call back and say, hey, thanks for the opportunity. This one's not for me. But, you know, communication is key. It's golden. And so, you know, that's what I would stress. Just consistently keep your face in the game.

Well, that's the thing too. I love what you said. There is communicate with issues. There are a lot of wholesalers out there. I call them joker brokers because they get a list or a deal and they just slap it out there without doing any due diligence, without viewing the property. Oh, hey, it only needs five grand or ten grand repairs when it's got a lien on it. Not a true lean. You know what I mean?

I love that every deal, it always needs $10,000 worth of work. I'm like, dude, your pictures need $10,000.

Worth of work.$ you know, that's the truth there. But you said something really good is being out there. And I think a lot of people getting in the real estate field, whether it's investors or even new realtors or other people out there, they don't want to put themselves out there. They're scared to market themselves. They're scared to show up consistently because, like, oh, I don't know, I don't have a lot of experience. Well, the only way to get experience is to put yourself out there and stub your toe a few times. Right?

Yeah. I have a great analogy. I always tell my students, you know, everybody wants the needle in the haystack. They want it handed to them. And I always say, if you want to find the needle, you got to play in the haystack. And all of a sudden you're stuck with it. You're like, oh, what's that? Oh, here's the needle. But if you're not in the haystack, you're not going to find the needle.

I love that analogy. Can I use that? I'm going to steal that from you for a few times.

Now.

Obviously, you're getting phone calls from people that are locally. Florida has such a. It's kind of like Texas. We get a lot of people coming into the state there. For you, how are you connecting with new investors or new potential buyers? Or are you just. Is the majority of your stuff local people that you're working with?

I would say the majority is probably local people. And the ones who are not local need our hands and feet, and so they rely on our services. And so I would say that person becomes a client, if you will. And so it's better for us to have a client than just a buyer on a list. But, you know, there's so many people. You could have a list of 5,000 people, but five are really your players. You know, it's always a numbers game. And so what we ended up doing to kind of eliminate the majority of a waste of time is we set up an escrow program, kind of like taking the number at the deli. And so I'm sharing this because anyone can do it. So we have an absolutely refundable escrow agreement. You put $5,000 in escrow with my attorney, fill out this paper showing me what you want, what's your budget, what you're looking for, and when that deal comes on my desk, you get first dibbed at it before I send it out to the 3,000. And so that has been amazing for us.

Yeah, I love that. That's a phenomenal idea. I mean, we've used escrow accounts a lot of times, but you know, somebody serious and you're putting five grand just sitting with an attorney, you know that they're not gonna have to go run around trying to make sure that they have a thousand bucks in their escrow account.

They've already given me proof of funds, so, you know, we've eliminated all of this. I know they're real and it's. I'm going to keep their money. If they find something from someone else, they can apply that five grand to that deal. It's not. It's a win win. But it's great for us because we don't have to waste our time marketing it to the 3,000, which. How many of those are going to try and door knock my seller behind my back? Anyway, so that's been amazing for us, like you said.

Can you talk a little about that? Because we do see that with wholesale, you see people that kind of go behind your back. How frustrating is that? In a lot of ways when you find that.

Not at all. But again, one of the kind of things is if we're dealing with somebody, this is the thing, we've been at this for so long, you know who the players are, right. And when we ran the association, we knew the other association leaders in the area. So if somebody is going to do us wrong, guess what? We talk, we would have regular meetings with the other leaders and hey listen, so oh yeah, that guy, he's no good or that girl, you know, don't deal with her. So and you get that and when you do this, and again it's by playing the game when you're in there, you start to recognize just by the way they say things, the way they come at situations like this guy is fishy. And you get that for us, that gut, that holy spirit feeling like ah, I don't know if that's going to be something we want to go after. But you know, it's just we come to recognize and we also deal with whoever our seller is, we kind of coach them, hey, this is what's going to happen. We tell them this is what's going to happen. This is what you can expect. And at the same time we cloud title. You want to long and short of it, we know how to cloud title. So because we have had it happen. I mean not a lot, but we haven't had it happening. Guess what? We got paid. I said you want to be dirty for us? What The Bible says, you know, be as innocent and dove as smart as a serpent. Hey, we know the tricks, we've been around. We're not dumb, we're not ignorant. We know. And so we just play by the rules. And hey, guess what, we have a rule. We can cloud title and you're going to have to pay us.

So let's talk about that because I think a lot of people don't realize that that's an opportunity to protect themselves. Yeah, you know, so are you slapping a lien on the property to cloud it for a while for you? Whether your wholesaling fee is or percentage or something? What are you guys doing to protect your investment?

We record a memorandum. So we record a two party memorandum and we explain to the seller this is just normal standard business practice for us. In most contracts it says this contract is not recordable. So we give our students forms and clauses to protect themselves. And so they just have to add this clause that supersedes that that just says hey, parties agree that this memorandum is going to be recorded and then it's 10, 11 bucks to record this memorandum. And basically it clouds a title. So now when the seller, whether he intends to or not intend to, or whether the other buyer knows he's going behind your back or not, doesn't matter, you're going to get the phone call that says, hey, we're trying to close this deal and we need you to sign a release. You're like, really? That's interesting. I'm trying to close the same deal. And so we get paid. You know what we were going to make $10,000 assignment fee. We'll sign the release for $10,000. So they might counteroffer, we might negotiate. If they truly knew they did wrong or didn't know, they could say, hey, this deal is dead. I have to deal with them. And I would say at least a half a dozen times in our history, it saved us. You know, we actually, we got paid.

And we got the deal. And that's what happens when you play the game. I mean, you know, it's got, I mean, on your side of the deal, like, hey, and again, you might get hurt once or a couple times, but you know what, you get burned. You learn. It's like when I was in the aviation field, every FAA regulation is written in blood. Somebody died and that's why the regulation was blood. You got burnt. Hey, guess what? We got a new step in our procedures. Watch out for this or do this. You know, so these are the things that you add to your procedures. You're going to learn one of two ways. Obviously, you're going to invest in your education. Like, I know you offer your classes. And so, hey, people have to invest in that to learn how to protect themselves. But again, even all the technical knowledge, you've got to get in the game. You can learn how to bat a ball by reading a book, but until you get in front of that picture, you're not going to know.

Yeah, exactly. You know, want to get in front of live pitching as soon as possible. And that's the thing, like you said, all the education, all the podcasts, all the virtual workshops and stuff like that are great for knowledge base, but it's like, you know, paying to go to become a brain surgeon and never operating on stuff like that. You can't do that. Therefore, I want to bring this up because we used to do the same thing in doing a lot of short sale negotiations. We do a lot of work for both parties to negotiate with the banks to do short sales. Now often you'd seen come to closing table and we'd get a phone call, hey, we need you to remove this for your fees. We're gonna remove what you're supposed to get paid on the deal. Like, whoa, we spent six months working on this deal. We're gonna get paid. I just want to. Are you starting to see maybe a little spike in short sales in your guys area or.

No, I have not, but I can't tell you that I've been looking.

Just an idea. I'm just curious on my side of things. So you guys are doing stuff there in West Palm beach, but then also you're exploring out in the great wilderness in a new market. Let's talk about that. What's made you decide that you're. Hey, we're going to look at someplace, a secondary market to be investing. What's been the mindset behind that, you guys?

Well, we had a second home in this area before and we loved it. It's like, oh my gosh. I said, you know what, I've been in Florida over 45 years. Sharon was born and raised here. And so, you know, it's like, man, there's no seasons here. We'd like to kind of see see some seasons. And so we kind of started seeing this. And you know what, there's opportunities in this market. And then obviously prayer as well. He felt like the Lord said, all right, hey, this is a new market I want you guys to start looking into. And so in doing that, we said, all right, we're not just going to go out there and start throwing money out there. Let's just start researching the market. So we've got some feet on the ground over there. And we said, hey, feed us whatever's going on. And then recently Sharon, I'll let her talk about this, but she started networking in the area. So we've been looking at deals over the years. It's like, okay. And it's like, hey, these are look good. It's like. And then we start looking at how we could do what we do here. And it's like, hey, this might work. And so now it's just a matter of getting out there and start, you.

Know, jumping in the hay.

Yeah, jumping in the hay. That's right. So, Sharon, let's talk a little about that. So some of the things you initially started, I mean, obviously if you've lived there before, have known that Eric had a house, so that's helpful. But what are some of the initial steps that you would maybe recommend to people out there that are looking to invest in a new market that are important that have helped you guys out, right?

So I think what confirmed it for us in this particular area of North Carolina we were not familiar with. And we had an employee that worked here for us for a couple of years that relocated there actually. Her husband actually worked on homes here for us, and she ran our property management. So when she got there, she got her real estate license. So that kind of was just very super helpful. And so that was about two years ago. And so she was the one who was saying, you guys have to come invest here. Sharon. There's no one that's doing it. Like procedures, you know, like, you guys just that I can see. And so I said, well, start putting me in all your feeds, you know, let me just watch the market. And so that's what we were doing. That's what we were praying about. So I went up there two years ago, I went up there a year ago, and now I'm leaving tomorrow to actually look at properties to purchase. And so what we've been doing is initially, because we weren't sure, we don't want to waste anybody's time. So we went online and set up Zillow searches, Trulia searches, whatever, for the types of properties we're looking just to start watching. So we have watched over the last two years, the properties go up in value. I'll note something that obviously an investor had to purchase. And then I go back and see what did he sell it for, how are they doing, how many investors are in that market, and et cetera. And then I also said, all right, let me do a search and get on all the wholesalers list. I love buying from wholesalers. And so I've been getting properties from wholesalers now for over a year. And we're just looking at those as well and going through the process of comping them, even though we weren't ready to buy just yet. And then building up the inspectors, the vendors, the people we need, and even looking at those prices because you don't know what you don't know. And so you can't assume anything. I mean, we don't even have basements yet. So now to go buy property that has a basement that was built 100 years ago is very different. And so we're learning all through that. And just to even determine, like, central AC install is three or four times as much money as we would spend here. I don't even know why yet. I don't understand that. And so I leave tomorrow, and then we're going back again in a few weeks together. But I'm already. I'm set up to look at properties on Friday. We post a lot of lives, and we're going to be walking people through our journey, et cetera. So basically, I know what we need to have in place. The vendors, the relationships. And so we've been using this last year or so to gather that, put that together, meet the attorneys that I want to close the deals. You know, just everything that you would need to start on the right foot in another place.

I love that. I mean, that's one of the biggest things that we teach about is go out. There are if you've got vendors in your area that you work with, they're everywhere. The little, small, amazing tool called the Internet allows you to find a lot of things, right, Juan?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's how we met, and that's how we've gotten to know each other. And at the same time, Sharon's also gotten into some groups. That's what they do in that area. And so she's hearing no. She's like, you come in and she gives value. At the same time, she can give some value, but she knows she's gonna learn a lot more hearing what these guys are talking about, going back and forth, hey, I've got this. I got that. Oh, hey, somebody know about this. And so that's kind of the thing is, all right, because of this Internet, we have this ability at the same time, even before you would contact the chamber of commerce, hey, what's going on in your area? Stuff like that. So even that stuff you can still do today online, or pick up the phone and just introduce yourself. I had a friend of mine, he does multifamily, big apartment building. Sometimes he would call chamber of commerce. Cause he knew he was coming into a certain market. And for him, and even for us, the big thing is jobs. You always hear location, location, location. It's jobs, jobs, jobs. That's what you got to look for. It's like when you come in, when you look at it in the market. So he did the same thing, called up, hey, listen, I'm getting ready to do this. Oh, my gosh. They met him at the airport.

Wow.

Drove him around and catered to the guy. He was royalty because they were excited to have him. But he knew what was coming. He saw the telltale signs. Hey, something's getting ready to happen over here. So I'm going into this market. So again, that's kind of like what we're doing is like, what's going on? What are the jobs that are being created. Who's the big guy? Who's the big cheese coming in here? And at the same time, you want to watch out, hey, who could be coming out? So that's kind of like what we look for is jobs.

And he mentioned something good. Like, I went on Facebook yesterday on the groups that are in that area. I'm like, look, I am flying in on Thursday. I have Friday to look at properties. I want deals in these areas. If you, you have anything that's really a deal, like truly, you're leaving me some equity, email the deal to me at this address and I will see it and I will buy it. And at the same time, I don't know what I'm going to need. So I emailed my banker this morning. I said, give me a proof of funds letter for this amount. This amount, this amount. Because I don't like to give more than my purchase price on the contract. So I'm going ready for opportunity. And that was basically what I reported this morning is you can't wait for an opportunity to get ready because everybody else who's ready and there's a lot of will take that deal from you. But you know, I say there's a lot, but there really are few that are ready.

Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of people that play that they're ready. I hate to say it, but really 5 to 10% of people out there are really ready and put a plan in place. And then obviously you guys have done your work, put a business plan or plan together for the market and focused on it and doing your boots on the ground. That's one thing. It's cheap to fly. If you're gonna invest in there, get on a plane, fly around, flying into it, spend a day looking at 20, 30 proper, you learn more about looking that than the market than anything else. Because it's hard to tell what's going on in the school across the street or the neighborhood from Google Maps. You know what I mean?

Yes.

We've got some little towns here that got Richie looking names. But if you went into that neighborhood, it's a war zone and it's not far from the water. But yet you wouldn't pay premium for that property. But you don't know that looking on a map or looking on Google Maps or whatever, you've got to be down there or have somebody down there. And a lot of times it's better that you're down there. That way you get an idea. It's like, okay, because if you don't have an agent. For us, it's been a blessing that we have an agent that we know and trust.

Right.

But you could be falling into the same thing where you have an agent that's, oh, okay. Out for the commission only, you know, looking out for himself only. He's like, okay, he's just going to tell you what you want to hear and next thing you know, you're. And deep.

Yeah, exactly. What comes to mind. I don't know if you're mentioned, I think of Fort Pierce, Florida like that. You know what I mean? Fort Pierce is some great looking property. It's near the water, but it is. In some cases it's pretty rough.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? You got to be careful.

We know exactly what you mean.

Yeah. Good, the bad and the ugly are real estate there for you out there.

So we actually have a couple lots there now. They were not lots, they were properties. They're no longer there anymore. Store. Well, we bought them. It was a storm.

It was.

My gosh, we've gone there probably about 14 years now. The storm came and just destroyed the little cottages we had on us. Like, all right, guess we got to demo those. And so they've just been sitting there because, you know, the money.

Because it's four piers.

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. Well, that's the thing is you win some, you lose some, you have some great deals you knock out of the park. It's an average, it's a marathon, not a sprint. For the most part. I love what you're doing because, look, you can wholesale some properties, make some money and I don't want to ask. Well, maybe I will a little bit. When you're looking at wholesaling properties, I know it's different per market, but what would you say you see as your average wholesaling fee that you're making and where you're at? And this varies, obviously on the asset and across the board, but anything that you're really shooting for, for it to be worth your time to spend time.

On, well, we're looking for a minimum of ten grand. In a hot seller's market like this, that's probably a really good average. And when the market's not as hot, we can make a lot more, you know. But like you're saying, it all varies. But I would say we average 10. And so for us, we look at a deal as a wholesale strategy first. Because if we can make 10 without ever owning that thing, it doesn't matter that we'd make 20 after three or four months. It just doesn't work out, even though it sounds like it to people. But when you start putting that into a spreadsheet and time and risk doesn't pay, it's got to be a lot bigger reward on the other side of it for us to own that thing.

Yeah. And everybody gets tied up into roi. Return on investment. And I'm a big fan of rot return on time. Like I said, if you can make 10 grand in a week, that beats a whole lot. Trying to hold out for 20 grand on rehab and then trying to sell it. And if it takes 90 days later from there and go from there. I agree totally on that. There for you.

Yes.

You. Now, with you guys buying stuff, moving to new market, are you gonna be using your own funds or using other people's money, investors funds, to take some stuff down? What's kind of the play on that? To find a little bit of both.

And again, we've been blessed because of, again, with the association. We've created relationships with people over the years, and now we have that again. And I know we talked about this. I know I'm sure you've mentioned this to your students here. When you have IRA money out there, we have investors that we have. We use our IRA money. And when we told them, what we were doing is like, wherever you go, we're going. Because they've been so happy with the return we've given them over the years. I mean, we've had clients that have doubled their money with us. You know, they came in with X amount and it's twice as much. Then it's like, wow, I say, I could never have done that in the market. So they're very, very pleased. And so just like, hey, wherever you go, I'm there. So we even got people that are going to move there with us if we go.

I don't know, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?

Depends on the individual.

Right. Well, but that's the beautiful thing is you put your systems in place. You've got your experience. Look, you've made mistakes. Like, you talked about the Fort Pierce stuff, and that's common. And you've worked through that. You're adding value. You've put your safety measures in place, but then you're also giving. Now, Sharon, you mentioned you guys have some groups or things like that. You're helping people. Talk a little about that for those that are listening out there, learn more about what you guys are doing.

Okay. Awesome. Well, we just launched a Facebook community, a private Facebook community for those Real estate investors or people who want to be kingdom minded, we do a lot of faith based type things, whether we say it out loud or not. And so we started a Facebook group just a couple weeks ago specifically for real estate investors. And so we bring a lot of value into that group. We have put in several master classes and forms and things that real estate investors need to know. And we are going to post the videos and the live of our journey because we feel that you can glean from anyone. And so I actually posted live this morning just what we talked about, what I've already done and put in place so that they can do it themselves wherever they are at. And so when I'm actually looking at these houses on Friday, I'm going to post live or take videos. When Juan goes out to houses even here, he was like, what's the learning opportunity that we can take live to our folks right now? And so we do that kind of all over the Internet and we said, you know, we need one place where everybody can come together. And you would think we would have thought of that before now. But we're really real estate investors first and social media second. So we were a little slow to the game. So we're excited about that. And as small as the group is so far, they're loving it. And so we're excited to, you know, let people follow this journey and learn from it or come on and say, sharon, I want to be one of your clients too.

Awesome. I love that. And I think it's such a powerful thing is embracing that these days because I think everything is going and we hate to say that, but we're all investors or realtors, but we're all in the media space these days more so than anything else to get the word out. And it's gotten so easy with Facebook Live or YouTube Lives or whatever you can do. I mean, you put on a virtual summit recently to Juan with a bunch of speakers from across the country coming in and giving value to your audience, stuff like that. You did a kudos on that. I was honored to be a speaker on that. But one of the things I want to bring in, you mentioned about this a little bit now. Do you guys, as a married couple, both doing it, do you ever feel like all you talk about is real estate sometimes? How's that kind of dynamic fit in a little bit?

It is kind of funny. It's funny. We went out on the date and I forgot to kind of put in roles as, you know, let's not talk about business. Right. But yeah, sometimes it is. But we love what we do. You know, when you share that, it's fun and you get to talk about it. I know we've gone through some struggles and some challenges. Like, oh, man, it's funny. As a couple, we've been able to help each other get through some challenges. One day I'll be down and she'll pick me up. One day she'll be down, I'll pick her up. And so that's kind of what we do. But I mean, again, we have two awesome boys that they take a bar time, and we've homeschooled them for a couple of years now, and so they've been part of the business since they were young, and so they hear. And we've even helped them purchase some properties. It's funny, we've got some pictures. They were like five or six years old.

That.

The title agent was great about it. She said, all right, you guys have to bring your money. So they brought their money, gave it to her, and they signed some paperwork. And so we got.

They had to bring ID and they used their library cards.

Ah, that's awesome.

We had the closing agent, like, make a little mock closing up for them, and that was their first.

So, yeah, it's a family thing, but we don't impose it on the boys. And we don't, like. We don't impose college either. I mean, they're great students. They're almost, gosh, A's and B's at the same time. I was like, hey, I want you guys to have the real world experience. I want you to understand it. Yeah, it's great that you have this technical knowledge. And so as a couple, you know, they've seen. It's what we talk about. It's what's talked about at the dinner table. So they hear, they understand what a foreclosure is. They understand what rent is, they understand what a tenant is, they understand what repairs are and stuff like that. So 10 and 12 years old, you know, most kids, they don't. Ah, what's all that about? But we've made it fun. We've gone to houses, so it's been fun. And even for us as a couple, it's actually, we're gonna go back to this where we recorded, because a lot of times we go out, have a cup of coffee, enjoy it. Just talking. Hey, let's just shoot this live and share with people that this can be fun. There's the hard work. Yeah. There's the paperwork, the drudgery, all that stuff. That has to happen. But at the same time, we can make it fun. And so we'll go out together, we'll go to a property together. And then, hey, afterwards, let's go grab a cup of coffee, hang out and talk about the deal or, hey, whatever. And so it's been a blessing. So, yeah, I mean, we're going to celebrate our 19th year of wedding bliss. Nice. And real estate has been a part of our life the whole time. So it just kind of like worked together. But I tell you what, whether or not you work with your spouse and is it advice I would give when we had the association, a lot of people would have like, listen, make sure your spouse is on board. If they're not, this will not work. I mean, and I would coach some people with that is like, get them on board somehow. Let them see that this is going to be worthwhile. And again, sometimes it's the delivery people have to learn how to deliver this to the spouse. But for us, this is what we do. And it's like, okay, it's fun sexual when you lose, but you celebrate the good times. And we've made some great friends out of this and so we have fun.

I love that. And that's the thing is if your spouse is significant other can be on board, it makes a whole lot easier and you find success a lot faster versus the opposite way. People have done enough entrepreneurial things selling soap or vitamins that they may have burned that bridge at home a little bit. Oh, this is another thing you're going to do for 90 days. But anytime you can get your spouse involved or they're there, I think you're rowing the boat in the same direction versus going opposite directions. And then if you do have a spouse, we always like to say, hey, give them a shut up check. Get something a shut up check. Where it's like 500 bucks or 1000 or something to give to them to say, here, honey, go do whatever you want with this. Then that's a whole different mindset kind of change and shut up checks across America.

That's funny, I've never heard that before. I want some of those anyway.

You can use that. I'll use your needle in a haystack thing. It's like your wife needs to shut up. A spa check or a like there. Well, obviously you guys been doing this for 19 years together and beforehand and other things that are put for you and you guys, faith plays a big role into anything that's happened the last 19 years that you had to really rely on your faith to kind of get you through some things.

That really tested us. Yeah, that really tested our faith. And just like, man, what's going on? And the funny thing is, just because we had been out there already with the association, we didn't have a huge Internet presence, but we had a presence out there. We kept it up there, and we just kept saying, you know, things are going to work out all right. Yeah, we lost a lot of properties. It sucked. And big mistakes. And that's one of the things, I think, as our faith, it says you have to forgive. Because part of that wasn't our fault. Part of that was some ex partners that put us into a situation that like, dude, what do you guys.

Holy crap.

And the next thing you know, the whole world's imploding. We're right in the midst of this. So it kind of sucked. So we had to learn to forgive, because if we held onto that grudge and that bitterness, it's just the cancer. And then you're focused on that instead of focusing on, hey, you know what, let's pivot, let's find the opportunities. And it was that faith that we stuck together. We prayed through it, and next thing you know, we ended up Sharon one night get a call from this. You know how you get those phone numbers? It's like, who's this right now? And she thought it was like some spam call, so she answered anyway. Ended up being some guy from Israel. And he found this on the Internet and was ready to buy because he saw America was for sale at that time, recently said, right about what's going on now. And bam, he started buying properties. And then we started managing for next. We know this was our payday. It's like, all right, this is what's feeding us right now. And because of him, he brought us some more clients. And next, you know, we started building up, building up, like, wow. And we got through it.

Our entire business turned to international clients and just completely grew out of nowhere. I mean, it was totally, totally a God thing. But, you know, we actually shared then. I mean, it wasn't all online at the time. You know, you're still meeting people in person. But we shared. Hey, guys, we're losing properties. You know, you're not the only one.

Yeah.

And so we were honest about our situation, and we felt that that would help more people because, you know the statistics. If you were in real estate, you were going through some tough times, and so many people were taking their own lives over this stuff. So people were very appreciative that we were honest and forthright and sharing. And I think it really helped a lot of people to, all right, I've got somebody to keep my eyes on. If they can try and keep their head above water, let's do this.

Well, that's an important thing. It's not all good. And I think you learn more about yourself. You learn more about yourself as an entrepreneur, as a professional, in your faith in going through bad times and struggling, things like that. You know, I'm always big in front of God. Doesn't give us anything that we can't handle. Even though sometimes like, why am I going through this? What did I do wrong? It's not indeed anything wrong. I think it's, we've got to grow. You've got to grow from that. If you're making 100 grand, you got to grow into that million dollar mindset first. But you've got to have some thicker skin and enough people do, they fold tents, they close business and do something else. And I've seen a lot of that this time around. People calling me up, oh, I tried to do this 10 years ago and I gave up on it. And I'm like, are you going to give up on it this time? Because it's not the same thing. You got to put the work in, put the time. There is no get rich quick scheme in real estate. Can we agree with that?

Yeah. And all of your goals are outside of your comfort zone. So if you're comfortable, then you're not going to get what you want where you're at.

Exactly. Big goals for 20, 21 for this next year coming up there for you guys. I know you, when you said that, you probably talk about goals and plans, knowing you guys there a little bit there. What's your big goal for the next year?

Well, obviously the new market, replicating that and just taking back, taking the land, I guess for us is like, all right, let's see what we can do. Obviously looking at as well, no buying. That's always been in the back of my mind. And then hearing you this year, like, all right, you know what, I have to put that as part of my repertoire because that is a great opportunity and it's a great side business. I mean, for us. And obviously it's your main business for us. It's a good side. It's like, okay, this is kind of cool. So that increasing our online presence, we've got a great educational platform that we're building on and making it even better and just helping more people come along and so by us documenting the journey, they get to see, hey, this is possible. It's not impossible. There is some work. And so we'll get to see what it is that we're doing and how we do it. So they learn, they take away from this, like, okay, this is something I can do here. So that's kind of like the big thing for us is like, let's show again. That's always been our motto. Like, let's give more than what we get, but let's give even more. Let's show more about how we do. And I think that's. We'll see the growth from that, both on the real estate side and also on our educational side.

I love it. I love it. We need more people like you guys that are putting in the work and sharing the journey. It's not all Lamborghinis and high energy. It is a lot of work, foot in the ground. Even though you guys aren't the Lambo aspect of things, you're really providing a lot of content out there. What's the best way for our listeners and people watching this to connect with you guys or to follow your journey? Is it the Facebook or website? What's the best way for people to reach out to you guys?

It would be probably the easiest way to follow us, learn more and come in would be through the Facebook community. It's taking the land investors on Facebook.

And then yeah, through the website, through sharonwithsherpo.com, we're constantly rebuilding that right now. And so it's a work in progress, but it's there. Kind of our value ladder is there for them. So we're able to help people at every different phase of the business. Again, having our experience and running the association has always been a blessing to people. It's like, hey, we can help you whether you're coming in or whether you're at this point and you're trying to make a seven turn, six figures and seven figures. So we've got all that that we can help them with.

Cool. We'll make sure to put those links in the video description and the full blog on our website@wealthclosenotes.com out there. I'm excited for you guys and I've loved the Tar Heel State. I think it's a great place, place to invest in no matter where you're at for the most part. And I look forward to seeing you guys journey grow out there. Then also, hey, referring you guys some business and stuff like that back and forth. This stuff comes across good stuff there for you. Well, thanks, guys so much, Sharon. Have a safe trip. Is there something besides real estate? Going to take in some of the fine North Carolina cuisine while you're up there?

Oh, for sure, for sure. I'm actually going because I'm speaking at an event, but I'm making the most of it if I look at real estate and enjoying the fine cuisine.

Yeah.

Cool. That's a great way to kill two birds with one stone. If there's an event or something going on. Hey, there you go. Congratulations. What are you speaking on?

Real estate, of course. But it's called christians in the marketplace, the business, and it's mostly real estate people that are there.

Very nice. Good stuff there. Well, guys, keep up the good work. Congratulations on all your success and we look forward in the next year. Continued growth for you guys. Even more success not only for you guys, but your students as well. Thanks. All right, guys and gals, that's going to wrap it up for this episode of the no closure show. A lot of great nuggets from Sharon Wan there. Hopefully you take those into mind. If you're in an area that you're not wanting to invest in and you're looking for other areas out there, hey, take what they're teaching, take what they're sharing and apply it. Start learning that market. Start putting the puzzle pieces in place to help you build a complete team and complete knowledge of an area. Not everybody knows everything about everything. That's why you got to rely on people and vendors and experts in an area to understand what's going on to help you find those opportunities and avoid those pitfalls. So go out, take some action, buddy, and we'll see you all at the top, everybody. Bye.