Note Investor: The Cal Ewing Story

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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 everybody, Scott Carson here. Just want to say thank you again for listening to the podcast. If you've been listening for a while, you're subscribed to the podcast. First of all, thank you. Second of all, hey, you know, if you're you're not one of our coaching students or you haven't signed up for one of our three day workshops, here's an opportunity for you. You want to check out our WCN membership. This is the biggest bang for the buck of the notice street. Besides our one on one coaching, this is our monthly membership for 97amonth that gives you access to all of our online training, our virtual workshops, our note weekends, our special one day master classes that we've taught in the past, anything that we have going in the future, as long as you're a live member, if I can't make you or save you $97 a month, I'm doing something wrong. But save you paying 997 or 99 bucks or 399 here or anything like that. We make it affordable at $97 a month and like I said, it gives you access to all of our past replays, our upcoming classes, our access to our special classes. We also do weekly coaching calls with our WC members and also our WC members also get first crack at tapes and the list of notes that we get in after our one on one coach to take a look at them. But it's a great way for you to go. You can also schedule call with me anytime to go through deals that you're working on marketing things, questions you got going on about a deal. We're here to help you. So how do you get signed up for that? Really easy. Just go to noteumbrella.com that's noteumbrella.com get signed up there for you 97amonth guys. Like I said, biggest bang for the buck of the nursery and we want seeds of the family. So let's get you signed up today. That's knownumbrella.com welcome to the no family everybody and thank you for always for listening. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody. Hey. Welcome this episode of the Note Close Show. As always, Scott Carson jacked up and excited to be here with the day. We've got a very special guest, somebody who's been a long time investor, real estate investors doing a couple things, but it's also been starting to carve a path out in the note investing space. And who am I talking? Well, he's not used your average Joe. He's. He lives north of the border. Eh. But he invests here in the United States. Who am I talking about? Talking about my buddy, Mr. Cal Ewing join us here this morning. What's going on, Cal? How are you doing this morning?

Hey, Scott. I'm doing awesome. Thanks for having me on.

Glad to have you, man. So where do you live? In Canada. So everybody knows. A bit of an idea.

Yeah. So I live in Calgary, which is right on the Rockies above Montana.

Very nice.

Five hours north of Montana, the border there. Yep.

Yeah. So it's a little cold where you're at a lot of times, huh?

A little chilly. That's why I like to invest in the States. It gives me a reason to get some warmth in the winter.

Right.

Yeah.

Now let's, let's. I've never, we've had folks that invested here in the United States. But what attracted you to investing in real estate in say Texas versus Canada or I mean in the United States, not just Texas. I know your LLC is based here in Texas, but what's. What's the difference in the two for those that don't know? Because I mean we do have a big listenership here that is Canadian. We also have a big obviously United States investor list.

Sure. Yeah. So I started looking into real estate when I was going to university here in Calgary to be a geologist. And I ended up, I read Rich Dad, Poor dad, which is how a lot of people get their start. And I think one of his traveling road shows came through town and so I went and attended the free night and then they signed me up for the, the first weekend and then you can buy the whole package. Right, right. So I thought this real estate investing thing was awesome. And so I signed up. We did. I pretty much did all the rich dad stuff and I started implementing some of the strategies they talked about here. And I realized really quickly that a lot of them, you can't do the laws and regulations and things are just way different here in Canada. For a lot of things, it's more highly regulated. There's a lot more rules. And so I thought, well, okay, maybe I should just do this in the States then. And I ended up finding a mentor of mine that he actually Was a Canadian as well. And he had a really nice business he'd set up in the US and so I got some mentorship from him and learned how to do my first deal and it was in Las Vegas. And I had no idea I'd never bought a home in Canada, so I didn't even know how it worked here. So I was completely green. And so buying a house in the States was my first experience buying real estate. And so that became my norm. And now I'm more comfortable with US Real estate than Canadian.

What are some of the biggest differences? I know that it's the mortgage industry is a little bit different up there than it is here in the United States, first off. Correct?

Correct. Yeah. So I actually work as an underwriter for a private lender here. And some of the biggest differences is even just the foreclosure process. Like you talk about avoiding long foreclosure states like New York. All of Canada is like that. Like it takes sometimes two years to foreclose. Yeah. And like even things like eviction laws, like different provinces are easier to work in. But there's a lot more stringent eviction laws, foreclosure laws. Yeah. Like having to use IT lawyers for a lot more things. Even a notary, you got to use a lawyer instead of just go to your bank or FedEx. So it just seems like it's a lot more hassle, a lot more regulation and harder to get things done, harder to be creative. Like you can't do subject twos. There's no 1031 exchange. So just a different environment when you're buying.

If you're buying a first time home, there are there different like government programs? I know it's a little bit more. There's a lot less traditional mortgage companies or banks that you lend from in Canada. Correct.

There's well smaller population, but there's quite a few lenders and there's first time homebuyer pack programs just like there are down there. We don't have 30 year mortgages. All the mortgages are on I think like three or five year terms. So your rate can get jacked up after a few years.

So their adjustable rate mortgages. Okay. Okay. Wow.

Yeah. So like I got my mortgage, I think it's like at 3% a few years ago and in a year and a half I got to gear up for a big jump in rate. No way around it. So no 30 year fixed.

So what do you do then? You plan on refinancing or you have to sell or how does that Kind of work?

Yeah, yeah. Probably just see what I can get for the best rates. I have a good friend that's a mortgage broker. So that's the other thing. There's. Mortgage brokering is a huge thing up here and I've noticed that there's not a lot of that down there. And it's a big industry up here.

Well, it is a big industry as an ex mortgage broker. It just varies a lot with. With different things. And when you have like, what's happened. We've had a lot of mortgage brokers leaving the industry recently because rates have gone through the, you know, as they say, through the roof here. Not like it was. I mean, they're actually kind of back where they were at 2008 when I was a mortgage broker. But you have a lot of people that come in the industry, they make a lot of money if rates are low or the real estate. And then, you know, they get a pretty easy referral sources, but when that referral source changes, then they leave the industry, go do something else because they may not know how to market in a lot of cases. So that's awesome. And thanks for sharing the differences out there between here and. I knew some of it, but didn't know all of that. So I can see why you kind of like easy to foreclose, faster to evict. You can get some better terms and stuff there. And when you talked about buying your first house in Las Vegas, this was with your mentors, Mike Wolfe, is that right?

Correct. Yep.

Mike's been on the podcast, been on his show. Yeah, definitely great stuff there. Now would you buy it? To buy it and fix and flip it, or was it a rental or did you wholesale what was kind of the scenario with that first deal?

Yeah, it was like a lipstick remodel. So Mike, who I mentioned was a Calgary, and he built a team for his own investing business to go to the auctions, because this is right when the. The wave of foreclosures had hit Vegas and like everything was in foreclosure. And so he built a team for himself of realtors and everything to go in and bid every day at the auctions. And then he had teams to do the remodels. And so he kept getting people like myself, other Canadians, being like, how do you do this? We want in on this. We see all this action down there. How do you do it? And so he started doing tours and teaching people and plugging people into his team. So I had no idea what I was doing, but I had myself and A couple people put our money together, and we're like, all right, show us what's new. And we just did a quick lipstick remodel and sold it within a few months. And I think we made like, 15 grand, which wasn't huge, but it was enough to be like, okay, this is pretty fun, right? And then we did our next deal in Phoenix, because at that time, Phoenix started crashing. And so we got a deal that we held for a few years. We cleaned it up and fixed it up a bit and then put a tenant in and held on to it for a while and then sold it and made a profit there. And so I was hooked at that point. And then I found Texas and started buying at the tax sales there. That was a pretty fun experience. Started a YouTube channel, you know, kind of documenting my time going into vacant houses in Texas and driving into super sketchy Houston neighborhoods and super nice Houston neighborhoods. And it was pretty amazing because I'd never been down there. And, yeah, bidding at the auctions is really neat and amazing experience there. And then I started wholesaling in Houston. Got my feet wet with that, and then I literally got my feet wet with Hurricane Harvey. So it's just been all kinds of fun. Texas has been great, but few lessons to learn there. So.

So let's. Let's talk about this. Did you fly down here? I mean, you fly down here, live down here for a while, or do you have some VAs or friends down here that you helped you out with your deals? That kind of the logistics of it.

One of the reasons that it was great for me to work in Houston is because Calgary and Houston are so closely tied because of oil and gas. So Calgary is the oil and gas hub of Canada, and so tons of people work back and forth for the same company. And there's, you know, flights, direct flights, all that. So it made it really easy. And my first boots on the ground guy was actually a guy that was on my fantasy baseball team of all things. He lived in Houston. We would do some nerdy baseball trades back and forth, and I was going down to look at properties, and he's like, hey, I'll drive you around. I know Houston like the back of my hand. And so he took me around and told me about all the different neighborhoods. And so we started that and we did some projects with him as my boots on the ground. And then ended up. That's what I found is you need a really good, reliable boots on the ground if you're going to be investing out of your own city. You need someone you can trust that's going to be there for you and handle any situation that you can't when you can't be there. And so I would fly down, but it was mostly just relying on, you know, a team in place and on the ground.

Well, somebody could go out and do the legwork. Can walk a property, take some photos for you? Is it in good condition, bad condition? I mean, yeah, if some. I mean, that's the powerful of cell phones these days, is being able to take a quick video of something and so you can see, well, do I want to proceed with this or this beyond what I want? Were you buying really ugly properties or pretty much just kind of light rehab stuff?

I bought a property that had looked like birdshot bullet holes in the siding. I bought another one where there was like needles and diapers and trash all over the yards. These are all properties we wholesaled. And then after Hurricane Harvey, there was some really, really nice properties as you know, like really nice neighborhoods that were never supposed to flood. So we got some, some higher end stuff as well. So I've wholesaled all kinds of different real estate.

That's awesome. Now you also, like, you've also done, and I just get a little trickier down here, Texas, but you've also done some stuff with tax overages. Can you kind of explain your process for what you're doing with that and how that's kind of changed for you?

Yeah. So having the experience of buying at the tax sales, I saw a lot of opportunities really to help people recover the overage money. Because what happens, both mortgage foreclosure and tax foreclosure is if the property gets auctioned off. The starting bid is usually what's owed to the county for taxes or to the bank. Right. The principal, you know, like you say, legal loan balance. Right. And then if it sells for more, if the property is worth more than that and it gets sold, the auction for more, or the owner of that property or their heirs, if they're deceased, they're entitled to that overage. And so I actually started a business doing that, helping people recover that money as well. And so we were doing some of that in Texas and Georgia, a little bit in Ohio and a couple other states.

That's a lot.

Trying to find my niche, really, like trying to figure out what I could do as a Canadian, being so far away, like certain strategies, you can do them, but they're a lot of work and a lot of trust. So I've been trying to figure out, you know, what Fits me living here. What can I do in the states that I can do without pulling my hair out and going gray and losing my mind? So I try a lot of things.

Well, but that's the thing. We all do that. I think when we all figure out there's some things that work for a while, then you get a change, because legislation or the markets change in some cases. And you've had that happen with the whole. The overage market recently in a lot of cases, right?

Yeah. Just. Yeah. Different regulations change, and sometimes things just get really competitive. Like, I found that with wholesaling is like, in some ways, I think the Internet kind of killed some of those opportunities that investors had because it became so popular. And, you know, people would try it, watch a couple videos and then go, you know, offer crazy, crazy cash price and try to wholesale the deal. And then by the time you reach that same seller, they've already, you know, been under contract with three wholesalers that let them down. And, you know, so that's the thing. Strategies kind of can get saturated.

Right.

And it's time to adapt and move and try something different.

Exactly. So what attracted you to notes then?

Good question. So, yeah, one thing left led to another, and I actually started talking to some of the people that have done a lot of owner financing in Texas. And you can probably know more than me about this, but like, rent, Rent owns or lease options, you can't really do in Texas, right?

Like, that's correct.

More than a year or something, so.

More than 180 days, actually, so. And yeah, you could do it longer to an llc, but most people that are doing that, they want it to be their primary.

Yeah. And so I looked a lot into, like, rent to own up here and found out you can't really do it in Texas. But I started talking to people that would do a lot of owner financing. And so I thought, well, that's kind of a cool strategy because then you don't have to worry about, you know, being the landlord and tenants and toilets and all of that. And then I came across some guys that were doing subject to, which you can't do up here in Canada. I don't think I thought that was amazing. And so I actually bought a subject to deal from a wholesaler, so they got it under contract. And I ended up taking over the contract and doing my first subject to that way. And I still. I've still got it. And that was really cool, like just getting the principal and interest payments. And I didn't even have to put much money in because we took over the seller's mortgage and now we got a cash flow coming in from the spread between the two payments. And so I was like, okay, this is neat. Being a bank is pretty awesome. And then I got myself out of a tricky deal where I own or finance the house out and you know, it was kind of a bad purchase but we made it work because we were able to owner finance. So I was like, okay, you can be really creative with creating a note and owner financing. And the tricky part was like putting it all together, like finding a motivated seller that's willing to do a subject to or finding the money for the to buy the property before you own or finance. Like there was just so many parts and what I really wanted was to just be own the note.

Right.

And I think I came across your material mainly at first and I was like, okay, so you can actually buy buy paper or buy notes. And I remember some of the training when I was waste getting started like way back and they talked about owning paper but they kind of just were like, well that's an advanced strategy. Like eventually you get to that point where you can own paper but it's too complicated so we're not going to cover it here. And so when I saw your some of your material I was like, well this isn't that hard. Why are they making it sound so advanced? And so long story. But that's how I got into node investing is like I just wanted the paper and started doing it.

Now the house that you own or finance or that you took over something too, did you. Did you put a renter in there or did owner finance it to an end buyer?

Yeah, I should have said so we own or financed it to an end buyer. Yeah. And that's how we created the note.

Yeah. That's awesome. And that's great because now a you don't have to deal with property management. It's on somebody else and if they don't perform, you foreclose and wipe them out. How much of a down payment do they bring to the table? Your owner finance buyer on that deal.

You know, I think it was 20 grand and we put about that much into get it. So the seller was going into foreclosure and so the wholesaler that I bought it from actually negotiate with them and convinced him to do a subject to because he didn't have enough equity to do a cash sale. Like he couldn't do a cash purchase because it didn't make sense for any investor to buy it if he owed the bank too much money. So his only option was on a foreclosure or sell it with the financing in place. And so that's what we did. So we got his back payments caught up and we cleaned up the property. Property and that was about 20 grand. And then the owner financed them. Okay.

Yeah. So basically it was as a little quick mic check there. We have that happen with technology sometimes which is a. Okay, but so I love that. So you bought it, you're getting. You get a little down payment from borrowers to come to your owner financing. What's the average spread you're looking for in subject to deals between the underlying principal interest payment and then what you're financing at. Is it 200, 500? What's kind of the. I mean more. The bigger the better obviously. But is there a kind of a threshold that you look for?

I don't know, I haven't done enough of these subject to deals. Like that was. That was more just getting my feet wet. And I was like okay, I could either keep trying to do more of these or I could just buy the note. Like so it was kind of like a. Just a stepping stone. And I was like it's too hard. I mean lots of people do it but it's. You got to market to motivated sellers. Not everyone's going to be a subject to seller. So then what do you do with those leads? Well now you got to wholesale them and then the ones that are subject to you can do that with. And I was just like no, too much. I just want the note. So yeah, that's good.

I mean I just say because the note business we see a lot of distressed sellers if we don't buy the note the right price and can go from there. But that's okay. Good stuff. So you bought with your note business. On the whether it's great stuff or buying stuff. Do you like non performing or re performing paper or performing stuff? What's kind of been your. Your thing that you like the most about it or maybe dabble in all three cal yeah.

So while performing is easy, it's always nice to just have a note and starts paying you the next month. But as you know it's harder to find the right buying at the right prices to get the nice yields that you want. And so that's why I'm totally open to non performing where we can get them re performing again. I really like that strategy that you call rehabbing the borrower and looking to help people stay in their homes and help with the modification getting them back on track and staying in their homes and then you can usually buy those notes at a discount and that's where the yields really start to make sense. I will look at non performing notes where, you know, the borrowers, you know, vacated the house, maybe they've passed away or something like that. But that's more dependent on where the market is, how much equity there is. Because I'm not really looking to be a house flipper and have to manage a remodel from up here. So I'm more looking for situations where you can foreclose and sell off the house at the auction or work with the borrower and avoid a foreclosure.

Makes a lot of sense. Definitely makes a lot of sense there for you. Now one of the things that you've been working on is marketing and raising capital and you've, you've started doing some things. What do you think has been your best? And the reason I bring this up, let me preface this further because a lot of people like, oh, I can invest, but I can't, I don't have any money. Right. Or I don't live in an area that's my. Those are two things that would stop most people. Right. This doesn't work in my area. I don't, I can't invest across the country. I don't know anybody that neck of the woods. And then I don't have a couple. It's really kind of three things. You think about it, you've overcome those three things and are working across a whole different country using other people's money. And then in finding deals, what's the underlying thing that's helped you achieve success in those three areas?

Yeah, I think it's just not looking at those as excuses. I've talked to tons and tons of Canadians that when I mentioned I invest in the US and they're like, oh, that sounds really risky and scary. I wouldn't want to do that. And then the idea of financing, like again, so many investors, they're like, wow, that'd be so great. But like, I just don't have anything saved up to invest in real estate. And so being a Canadian, I couldn't even qualify for financing on most properties. So that's never been an option for me. It's either been hard money or private money. And, and then yeah, just because location I have, there's nothing in my backyard that makes sense for me for deals as far as I'm concerned, like the deals just aren't here in Canada. So that's never been an Option. So I've wanted this really bad since day one, and it's what I love. And so I've just been like, okay, well, what is the path? Like, where is the way to do this? And so it's been investing remotely and raising capital, and the way I've found that is just sharing what I've been doing and being passionate about it, just with YouTube videos and getting on podcasts and things like this. Teaching people, mentoring. Yeah. Just sharing what I love and the possibilities that are out there. And there's people that are looking for opportunities, and maybe they don't really know how to get started themselves, but they understand real estate, and this is a way for them to get in, just the same way I got in, by leveraging someone else's team and skill and get their feet wet and get through the door. And you can be that person for them by helping them get through their first deal, you know, and maybe they'll be a repeat investor with you and do many deals, or maybe just helping them do that first deal with you as a partner will set them off on their way. But that's been how I found my success.

Well, and I think everybody loves the story, the ups, I mean, and we all have ups and downs. You have good deals, you have bad deals. You get some singles and doubles, and you hit some home runs and some stuff. Definitely. But I like how you approach things in a lot of cases because you're like, well, I maybe could do that, or I could do this. And that's one. One thing that works in your favor, but also sometimes works against you when you're evaluating deals. Right. You know, we've had that guy. You don't want to be rehabbing that property in that area. Do you have a team? You know, I mean, let's try to keep it simple so that you're. Especially. Because you've got. You're married, you've got a couple. A couple of kids. Right. Two girls. Right, right. That are growing up, and you're busy and interactive being a dad. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to balance it all. And for sure, like, I'm definitely guilty of shiny object syndrome because there's a lot of cool ways to make money in real estate. And, you know, you want to try them all and just see which one's going to be the best for you. So I think that's what I've had to learn is, like, the reason I've sort of settled on notes is that when I started, I wanted passive income. When I first Read rich dad, poor dad. That's what he talked about, right? The cash flow game. Get out of the rat race by acquiring streams of passive income. That's the whole point of the board game. And I got away from that with wholesaling and flips and stuff. And I was like, okay, cash flow game, that's it. And that's what notes are for me. It's like every time I buy a note that's performing or reperforming, it's like there's another step closer to getting out of that rat race in the game. And so that's how I view it. Just try to simplify.

How many notes have you bought? The performing or non performing stuff, how many total notes have you bought so far?

I think I'm at seven now.

Seven. And you also. And then how many notes have you created?

Well, that includes the ones I've created.

Cool. Awesome. I mean, that's a great. But that's good is you're, you're buying stuff, you're evaluating stuff, you're not getting any skinny deals. You've got some. And you've raised some private capital as well too. I mean, what. You know, by your marketing and sharing your journey, we all have people come in and go, but you've raised what, about a half a million dollars in private capital from different people? Yeah.

Over the years. Yeah. Yep. Both Canadians and Americans.

So, yeah. What's, what's your biggest challenge with your marketing? You know, what are you really. Is there anything you're struggling with and working to get to take advantage of?

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest challenge is raising capital because I see more good. No deals. Then there's money to take them down to buy. And yeah, it's just getting in front of people, sharing my story and what I can bring for people, it's definitely a challenge, especially when it's a different country. So, you know, going to local meetups is fine, but most people want to invest in their own backyard in a market they know. And so for me, it's more targeting folks in the US And I can't meet a meta, you know, for coffee. So it's more like building those relationships through zoom and just through social media and that kind of thing, which is maybe a little bit harder, takes a little longer.

Sure. But you're not letting that stop you. I mean, you've had some people reach out to you, say, hey, I got a chunk of money, but the deal makes sense, let's do it. Right?

Yep. Yeah. Just reaching out. Well, like the other Day. So I've been. So Scott's been mentoring me to. Through this whole note buying process. And we've talked a lot about marketing. And I sent out a text blast to IRA investors and you're like, call the people that click on the link because you can monitor it when you send text blasts. And I keep putting it aside and being too busy or being too scared or whatever my excuse might be. Sure enough, last week I called one of the guys out of the blue. I was like, hey, I sent you a text message about this deal. He's like, oh, yeah, I remember that. And by the end of the call, the guy had a fund that he. They do deals all over the US and he told me that his minimum deal was like $200,000. He's open to looking at deals. So, you know, you just got to take the actions and do the things, even if they're scary to, to get what you want. And.

Well, but that's the thing. That's not, that's not comfortable. That's not anyone's any normal comfort zone. It's very nervous a lot, but a lot of times it's. It's 10 times worse in our head than it is. What's the worst thing they're gonna do? Hang unsubscribe, you know. You know, they're not going to shoot you, stab you or anything. It's just a matter of, you know, follow up because they. Because if they opted in or clicked on something, they showed some interest at some point, you know?

Exactly. Yeah, you just gotta. Yeah, just do it. Don't think about it. Just like, you know when you're dating and you're trying, you got to ask someone out and it's like terrifying because you could get rejected and they could tell you no. It's like if you trick yourself and just do it before you think too much, you're going to get a good result a lot of the time.

There you go. That sounds like how you met what happened with your wife.

Yeah, exactly. I just sent her a lot of text blasts and finally she said, okay.

Okay, I'll quit bothering me. I'll go out with you.

She actually helped me fund this deal that I'm sitting in right now, this property. So there you go. She's my 5050 partner.

There you go. Good stuff. Now I was going to ask you that. What does she do? Is she active in the real estate investment with you and interested in that or is more of a passive aspect?

Not at all. She's a teacher.

Okay.

And yeah, she lets me do it. She gives me free rein to do what I want in this business but she has not really any interest in it, so. Well, which is good. It's fine. We can.

Yeah, yeah. That's a good thing there for you. Well, I know that you're very active in your kid's life and you know, there. And you, you time blocked your schedule to work around in your full time job there as a mortgage broker and doing that stuff keeps you busy, stuff like that. But you're. How many hours a week do you think you've. I mean you've put more in four. But on average in your real estate investing, how many hours a week are you putting towards your side hustle?

I would say about five hours a week. Yeah. Probably including like videos and things like that. Yeah, five or six.

Now. What's, what's been some. I mean you've got, I love the fact of the marketing. You got a really great brand. What's the name of your company again for Everybody out there?

49Th Parallel Properties Ltd.

There you go. Now that's a Texas based LLC, right?

It is, yes.

How did, is there any. I mean I know the answer to this already, but there's. For those who are listening, are there any penalties or extra taxes you pay for being here in the investing here in the United States versus being in Canada?

Yeah. So it seems like to me when you're an American and you're investing in real estate, the LLC is the answer. Yeah, from what I've gathered. But for Canadians that's not the answer. Canada does not look at an LLC the same way. And so you need to talk to a cross border accountant that knows both sides of the border and the tax laws on each end. So for me I pay the IRS and then I have to pay Canada, the cra, Canada Revenue Agency. The difference because Canada's tax rate is higher. So I get a credit for what I've paid the US but I still got to pay Canada tax to Canada. And if you have your entities structured wrong, some of the write offs don't count here in Canada that you're allowed to write off in the States and you could even potentially get double taxed or pay a higher rate than you should. So definitely if you're Canadian, talk to a cross border accountant.

Awesome. Or give call or give Cal a call and he can put you in touch with somebody, right?

Yeah, exactly. You bet.

Now you are. What's your ultimate goal? You talk about cash flow game and I know you and I've Talked about this, but ultimately, what's your goal? Either cash flow wise or deal wise that you're looking to drive into with the numbers that you've set out for yourself.

Yeah, so my ultimate goal is to have enough passive income from notes or other investments so that I could take enough time, any, any amount of time I want off, I can. So whether that's traveling for a year or a month or two years, whatever. I do want to travel more, but I also think that it's a good target. But I love actually just being an entrepreneur. So if I had all the cash flow in the world and I could just sit back and watch Netflix, I would hate it. I would still keep building businesses. But that is my goal is to, you know, to get enough money to pay all my virtual assistants, cover all my marketing costs and then all of my daily bills and have all of that passively coming in from Node Investing and then be able to give my girls part of that portfolio. I don't want to spoil them. Like, I don't want them to walk into just like, hey, there's just money coming in everywhere. I don't have to do anything. That's something I struggle with. Is like, how do you teach your kids? You want them to struggle, but you also don't want them to have to work their whole lives in some shitty job they hate. So I want to be able to pass something on to them so that they can pursue what they love as well.

I love that. I love that. Now, you mentioned something on there with your VAs, your virtual assistants. Are these people that you hired a firm or you hired your own VA and trained them? Can you talk a little bit about that, Cal?

Yeah, it's kind of a mix. So I hired one VA from the company you recommended me, Scott, and they've been amazing. And then I've acquired, yeah, just some from Upwork, that's a VA platform that's really popular and from another company. So I've got like five VAs right now. A lot of them are from the Philippines and they do just an amazing job. Something to do with like the culture in the Philippines. Like, that's, that's an industry that people there really gravitate to for whatever reason. And it's. I've never had a bad VA from there. And it's just, yeah, they do so much. Like, if you were to ask me without my VAs, how many hours I spent on my business, I'd probably say like, you know, 30, 40 hours a week. But I'm able To get most of that outsourced to just bas doing the work for, for me. So.

So do you have one VA handling your market, another one doing like due diligence? How do, how's that kind of broken down over those five?

Yeah. So I like we were talking about my excess proceeds business so they do a lot of that work for me, the research and stuff. But for note buying one does all my marketing, video editing, posting some of the due diligence and LinkedIn, like networking on LinkedIn and stuff for me. They do all my emails, email blasts and that kind of stuff. And then the rest is like skip tracing and property research and that kind of thing.

I love it. And you've got. Are they all working like 40 hours a week for you? Some like 10, some are 5, some.

Are halftime, some are half and some are full yet.

Good stuff, good stuff there. But that's the great thing I love if you, you've identified opportunities and upwork is great. We've hired people off of upwork as well who do a good job like a gig and when they do a really good job with the gig, then we add them in 10 hours a week or something like that to make it, make it happen. But yeah, it's great because they're English speaking from the Philippines. They understand they have strong work ethics. They literally want to like become part of your business organization because they take a lot of pride in what they're doing and being able to add value too.

Yeah. High quality work. And the companies that have like there's VA companies and they take their job really seriously as far as training the VAs and monitoring their progress and stuff.

So yeah, it's good stuff there. I wanted to ask you this because your marketing has been so good. You bet a few folks reach out, hey, can you do our marketing or how'd you do all this stuff?

Right. Yeah, that's true. I had a couple people reach out were like hey, would you, would you do my marketing for me? That'd be fun. But got a lot, a lot of irons in the fire as it is. Yeah.

Well, you're doing good. Getting deals for you. You don't need to be getting necessarily deals for other people.

Yeah, but I do. I. I'm on the phone at least once a week with people that are wanting to learn how to be note or real estate investors and I tell them like create content. Yeah, people want. Especially now when there's so much AI and automation and stuff. People want real people. And I used to freak out a lot about like having everything perfect and professional. And I realized that people don't want that. People just want to know that they're talking to another human who's being themselves and not lying to them or being fake. And so you know, if you can find a way to get your own story and your message out there, wherever you're at, how, you know, however, how many deals, if it's your first deal, your 100th deal, your story is unique and there's going to be people that relate to you and your message and your, the way you talk and you know, and so just put yourself out there and people will start reaching out and want to take part. If you can make it a positive awesome thing, you know, share your passion, they're going to want to be a part of it if they can. So you just got to do that.

Amen. I think somebody's told you that a few times if I remember.

Pretty sure you know how to do that. I, every time I open my phone, I see your face, which is a good thing. Another Scott Carson video that's on my Instagram or whatever.

Well, but, but here's the thing is that we love, I mean you've been a great year. You're one of the, you're one of our one on one coaching students and we love the success of our students. That's one of the biggest things is, you know, we spend a lot of time on the phones. I mean we, you know, at least, I don't know, probably an hour a week, at least. And then you came down and spent a couple of days in here in Austin. We've really helped you find some deals and make some connections and help you, you know, fine tune your marketing, help you with your raising capital to make things happen. Would you recommend it to somebody who's serious about being a note investor to check out our coaching just for the food. So we gotta say. So Cal comes into town, he's like, I'm interested in Mexican food and barbecue. Barbecue, Yep, barbecue. And we took him to this Mexican restaurant here in town and he's like, like I literally, he was getting ready to head out one afternoon, I said we can take another barbecue joke. He's like, dude, I've had too much, I can't eat. I've eaten too much barbecue and Mexican food while you.

But yeah, yeah, you maxed me out on that three day coaching, that's for sure. We actually did some, some note investing training as well. The food was great, it was fun. But yeah, that I highly recommend that like Your training. But everything I've done as a real estate investor, I had some kind of mentor, whether it was someone I paid or just someone I followed closely. And that's how I, you know, I basically found someone that was doing what I wanted to do, like yourself, and asked what the action steps were and this implemented them. And if you've got a good mentor, you should be getting results when you do those actions and take those steps. And that's what I've found with you is like, you have a really great way of laying out what needs to be done. And you also have a great way of kicking people's ass a little bit if you don't do it, which is good. Like if I'm scared and hesitant to make a call or whatever, you're okay to say that and that's good. You need a mentor that's willing to push you a little bit to do those scary things and stop making excuses. And so, yeah, it's, it's been a map that I could follow to get it done.

Well, I don't ask you to do anything that I wouldn't do or don't do myself. I think that's, that's the biggest thing is. And I, you know, do it because I know what you're capable of and I know that you're avoiding things and I know where you're wanting to go. And sometimes we've got to get outside that comfort zone to find the success we want. I know that you're doing it. I mean, we've all been snake bitten by things in the past and sometimes that's the hardest aspect is to overcome that and get back out there no matter what it is. But you're doing a great job. You're, you're, you know, it's, you know, this is not a get rich overnight business by any means, right?

No, I've been filthy rich 13 years ago. If that hadn't been the case.

So it's a build wealth time. You're building wealth over time and it's.

To build knowledge over time. That's the thing. I was talking to another previous mentor of mine just this last week, and he said to me, he's like, if the world went to hell next week and which kind of could, maybe. But he says the thing about you is because you've been devoting all your career to real estate investing and entrepreneurship, talking about me, but you too, Scott, like, if we were to have all of that taken away from us, we could probably start something new and find an opportunity because of the skills we've acquired in our real estate investing careers. We could start something new or find some other niche that we could start up again and be okay. Right. Even if our businesses were taken away from us. And I thought that was a good point, is like, as a real estate investor and as an entrepreneur, you're constantly learning and growing and those skills can be put into other environments to give you success. No matter what you do.

Exactly. No matter what you do or where you live or where you got in the bank. I mean.

And that's how cold it is.

How cool. Yeah, yeah. You're a little colder up there. What's the, what's the temperature up there right now?

Well, I'd have to convert it to Fahrenheit. I can't do that.

No. What is it called? Celsius wise. How cold is it right now?

Oh, it's, it's above freezing. It's actually warm today.

Very nice.

Snow is melting a little bit today.

Yeah, very good. Like 33, 30 in the 30s there. It's 57 here in Austin, Texas. Stuff like that. Yeah, you know, the good stuff there. But Cal, man, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your journey. You guys can check them out. Check them out. Best place for folks to follow up with you, Cal.

Cal, Ewing.com is my website and you can schedule a call with with me if you want to talk real estate or notes or cross border investing@talkwithcallyewing.com.

I love it. I love it that you're using those.

Sounds a lot like your talk about carson.com but it's easy to remember. Yeah, no, that website was taken. I tried talk with Scott Carson. It was taken. So I put my own name in. It wasn't. Sounds good.

There you go. Good stuff, everybody. Well, hey, we look forward to your continued success and your journey and keep, keep kicking ass and taking names and share and thanks for sharing the journey along the way. For folks out there, I think that's one of the most important things People can see that, hey, you are who you are. You're just a normal guy, you know, one day at a time knocking things out and sharing a journey. And that, that's doing that little bit extra goes a long way out there. So keep up the good work, Cal. We're very proud of you.

Thank you. Thanks for all your help along the way and thanks for having me on the show. This is awesome.

Yeah, no problem, buddy. All right, guys and gals, there's some opportunity out there. Take what takes, Cal. Shared with you. I can book a call with him going to Cal ewing.com or talk with Cal ewing.com. great stuff. Check out him on LinkedIn and social stuff like that. He's done a really bang up job with his branding. But the most important thing is don't let the initial fears or unknown stop you from saying yes. As you heard Cal, he had multiple things other folks like no, you can't do that. No, you can't do that. No, you can't do that. Well, yes you can. Yes you can. Yes you can. Sounds like Thomas the Tank Engine train. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. Well, after a while you know you can and go out there and do that. So go out there, take some action and we'll see at the top. Ladies and gentlemen. Bye. Sam sat.