Building Wealth Through Real Estate: From House Hacking to Multifamily Investing

He said, no, Brandon, it sounds like a good deal. So I did it. I spent, I spent $150,000 that I did not have, not my money, equity from property.

You borrowed your equity.

You borrowed the equity. So fourplex number one, every penny of it, every penny of it bought fourplex number two. And this is the power. And this is, I think, maybe the heart of this whole livestream is that one asset buys another. Buys another, buys another. If you can just will yourself to get the first couple, just will yourself to get the first couple, it will have a domino effect in your, in your assets will continue to buy assets for you. And that builds the legacy that will retire you, that will change your family legacy forever. If you're just willing to do the hard work on the first couple. And literally for me it was just two. The third one was paid for by the equity of the, of the, of the first, of the second one.

Welcome to the She's Got Assets Real Estate Investing Podcast. I'm the host, Shona Leppis. Follow along as we unpack and demystify real estate investment strategies through expert interviews and personal experience. From how to find off-market deals to creative financing to long-term and midterm rentals, we aim to educate and inspire others to gain financial freedom and generational wealth through real estate. And as always, please subscribe so you never miss an episode. We really appreciate reviews. It helps others find us. And it just helps us get found. Okay. We're live. Hey everyone. This is She's Got Assets. I have my like partner in crime on, just he's like my person to gripe to in real estate.

Just, yeah, we haven't started that business yet, but, uh, so yeah, yeah.

The gripe line for landlords. This is actually going to be a podcast and a live stream. So if anyone's tuning in, we really appreciate engagement and feedback because we're kind of like DJs talking to ourselves here. So please chime in. We'll do Q&A. Brandon's awesome. He's like a real hustler. He has a great story, definitely like definition of an entrepreneur, has built, you know, a great portfolio at a pretty young age, very creatively. I had him on once before, Brandon, and we're always talking, and I think you're doing things the right way. You're doing all the strategies, but you're, you know, you're also focusing on buy and hold, which I think is really important. So you want to just do like a quick intro and we'll like dive in and just get going.

Sure. Yeah. So I started purchasing in 2019. I was 25. I'm now 32 years old and I house hacked the single family only because I didn't know any better. I really, at this point, I was such a, such an amateur. I, no offense to anybody here. I used an agent who was not investor friendly. He had, I said, hey, I want cash flow. And he said, well, look at how nice the area is. And look at, he was not the right agent for me and I didn't know any better. Right. I could have gone to BiggerPockets or something or one of these Facebook communities. I just, I wasn't even that far and bought a property on market, full retail, completely honest with you guys, probably was upside down. I had to do so much repairs and stuff. I probably, Shouldn't have even bought that property. But the reason why I bought it is because I was able to rent out every single room and cover my mortgage payment. And that's where it all started. So I started with house hacking. I used, you know, being able to live for free, taking one of my top 3 biggest expenses, taking it to zero, saving up all of my W-2 income, getting into a fourplex with an FHA. So another house hack. Then I used that fourplex to buy the second fourplex and even actually the house that I'm in right now, which I was able to get through subject to. So yeah, so like Shona has said, and obviously we talk all the time, but yeah, I've basically been trying to do everything I can to build up this mini little empire of cash flow so I can make, as Shona would say, work optional.

So that's like a little taste. We're going to unpack that, but that's like, and I want to underscore, I know this, You can't hear this enough, Brandon, like the stars didn't align and magically give you this cash flowing property. Like you probably made lots of mistakes, but what you did is take like extremely massive action and you didn't know everything and you figured it out. And I think we're looking for this like perfect cash flowing property that's just going to fall in our lap with beautiful tenants. Like that doesn't, I don't think it happens. So just kudos because you did that and it was probably scary. I'm sure at some points.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, when I bought the house, I had, I had $20,000 to my name that I saved up vigorously from being frugal and working 7 days a week and doing landscaping and all kinds of crazy stuff. Turning in, I would, I was in a sales job and all the salespeople were drinking energy drinks and at the end of the day I'd come collect their cans and I would take, and people would laugh and people would laugh at me just like that. They'd laugh at me and they're like, oh my God, you're making, yeah, you're making like $5,000 a month plus bonuses and stuff, commission, right? And you're collecting cans. Like, what's wrong with you? And, you know, and anyways, I saved up $20,000, $13,500 of that went to the down payment. So I had, what was that? $6,500 left to do any type of remodels and get it rent ready. And yeah, super scared. I even asked my mom, I said, hey mom, just in case this doesn't work out, you know, can I borrow some money? And she said, absolutely not. So, so I had to make it work and and, and so far I think I have.

So I just wanna underscore that, right? Like you saved up and you got in and you did everything you could to get that kind of, and it is like, I remember, yeah, my first, I moved from California. I had a basement. I was terrified of that basement. Like I, I was just like, I thought there was boogeyman down there. Right. I loved Home Depot and Cheers. Super just, I mean, like I, you know, and I think house hacking, we both, we both, every investor I've talked to was, I was having a roommate for me. Did you know the term house hacking when you got started? You're like a lot younger. I don't know. Was that a term?

I don't know if I feel like I just— I heard like rent by the room and I, and I don't, I don't know if I heard house hacking or not. I don't remember. I mean, I, I know I was, you know, watching BiggerPockets and all that other stuff that people were doing. I don't know if that was, you know, as cool as it was, you know, now. And now what does Pace Morby say? Co-living or whatever, right? So it's, it's been rebranded and rebranded, but, but essentially the point is, is maximizing the value of a property, right? When people buy houses now, they say, hey, can I build an ADU? Can I, what, what can I do? Like, how can I maximize value? And for me, when I bought that house, the very little knowledge I had, I said, how can I maximize value? And that was rent by the room. And that allowed me to cover my mortgage, which was very high. You know, interest rates were like 4.3% back then. So still very lucky, right? But I mean, back then, you know, I was making $65,000, $70,000, right, on W-2. And my payment was like, with PMI and all that other stuff, right? Because I didn't put 20% down. It was like almost $2,800 that I had to pay for. And I was just like, wow, you know what I mean? That's I don't even know how the mortgage lender did it because I'm pretty sure that's higher than that. What is it? Whatever metric they're supposed to use to play, what is it? 35 or 40% of your income or something. And so yeah, it was really close. I almost didn't qualify, but, but yeah, I immediately did everything I could, made it rent ready. And then of course within the first month, the shower clogged up and it was leaking. So I had to like spend a bunch of money and fix that and, oh yeah. I mean, it just, yeah, it goes on and on. But yeah, I mean, I had a bunch of stuff. I think within the first 72 hours of my tenant have been moved in, I, I asked her for permission. I said, hey, can I come down and fix this thing that you asked me to do? She said yes. I went downstairs cuz I was living upstairs. It was a split-level house and her dog was there and her dog was barking at me all crazy and stuff. And then it got silent, came up to me and I thought it was gonna sniff me. And then it actually bit my leg. Yeah. Within 72 hours of my new tenant being there and me going down there to fix something at their request, I got, I took a picture of everything, but yeah, bit my leg, had a bruise. Luckily, you know, no blood, but that was not, not, that was my first experience of being a landlord is I got bit by their dog. Yeah. It's not fun.

Well, can, okay, so I have to ask, right? Like, How can that didn't scare you off? Because people get, they get scared of the thought of a toilet leaking, right? Like, is revision so big that you're like, these little, these bumps in the road? Because that would freak most people. I mean, we've all been there.

We've got all that story. So I like to tell people when, when people ask me like, hey Brandon, how do you, you know, cold call probates, you know, 8 hours, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? How do you go knock on foreclosures doors, right? How do you have these really tough conversations with people all day, every day? How do you deal with the, you know, the tenants and, and all their drama and stuff? And I, and I've started telling people, and I don't know if this is the right answer, but for me, poverty is a great motivator. I, I came from a single family background living in a trailer park, never wanted to do that ever again. And I said, well, I'm just gonna do whatever, whatever needs to be done to to move forward, right? So single family, uh, you know, with mom, only child, no other, you know, real family. So I was just like, well, I'm gonna do whatever I need to do to make it happen. I don't have anybody that has my back. I am by far the richest person in my family. So I'm very, you know, blessed, grateful, you know, very, very fortunate. But yeah, that was, that was kind of the decision where I was just like, I don't want to be poor. I, I, I I've done it, I don't enjoy it, so I'm gonna do something completely different. But yeah, I mean, that definitely scared me. I was just like, oh man, you know, if, man, this is terrible, right? And, and then that was, that was my first experience. And then I've, I mean, I've had many more terrible experiences, but at the end of the day, it, it really is like I'm building a business. I guess that's kind of what it looks like. Like rental properties is a business. It's not your regular brick and mortar. It's not, you know, it's not like customers buying a sandwich and then leaving, right? You're dealing with people who are, who are renting from you, who, who, that is their home, but this is my business. So it, it's a tough mix and you, and you definitely, you know, luckily I've been in sales for a very long time, so I use that communication skills that I've, I've built and, and try to build good rapport with everybody. Understand that like, hey, we're in this together. We're, we're a team now. You are now on the team. And it's my job to make your life easy and it's your job to make my life easy. And we're going to work together. And if one of those doesn't do what it's supposed to do, the other won't do what it's supposed to do, right? If I'm a terrible landlord, don't fix anything, don't respond to their requests, you know, then they may start— stop paying rent. They may trash the place, whatever. Right. They may not let me know when, you know, hey, you know, your roof's caving in. So I have to be very responsive. Right. And I expect that same thing from them. Right. If I'm being responsive, if I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, being, you know, a good, good landlord and steward of my property and making sure they have a good home, I expect them to pay rent. And I try to have that. I still, unlike Shona, I still meet all of my people because all of my places are long-term. Shona doesn't even want to talk to these people. I meet them in person. I do walkthroughs with them. I look at their applications. I look at their credit scores. I meet the person beforehand. I I look at their car. I do all of the stuff that you can.

Old school, Brandon. Do you like look at their old school?

Oh, if their car's all messed up and it's full of trash, that's— I can't deny their application based off of that, but I can take that into consideration when I'm saying their credit score is 675, but minimum credit score is 700. Am I willing to be flexible and maybe allow a cosigner, or am I willing to to look at their partner's credit or am I willing to, you know, say, okay, well they make 3.5x the rent, I'm only requiring 3, you know, and look at all these different metrics. And I was like, hey, you know, after talking with them, walking around, hearing where, why they're moving, you know, do they have 5 ESAs? Do they, you know, what, what, what's their situation? You know, can, can I work with them? And, and vice versa, I tell them like, hey, my place is not the party place. I, you know, like if, if you have friends in and out of this place every other day and I hear about it, like, You know, I, we're gonna follow the lease and, and, and I just, I don't want those type of issues here. And so, I mean, I, I kind of lay out the couple, my, my little pet peeves at the very beginning. I say, hey, if this, if this bothers you, you may not want to live here, you know? And, and I've had people say, yeah, you know, I was kind of looking for a pad for me and my buddies to hang out and, and whatever. And I was like, yeah, this may not be the spot for you. So. You know, mutually just kind of agree right there that it's not a good spot. So communication's super important. But yeah, I don't know if that answered your question. I start to learn, I go off on tangents.

No, I still want to have our landlord on a standup show someday. Invite only.

Yeah. No, no, no. I know. I've seen this literally. Shona, not just a few, like maybe a month or two ago, sent me a picture of her having to label her trash cans and stuff. And then maybe a few weeks ago, maybe it was a month ago, I don't know. Time flies when you're having fun. But literally a month ago, I go by to one of my properties and I see somebody had done a little sticker on there. 'Cause I have two fourplexes. If you didn't see the title, I have two fourplexes. So one of the tenants labeled their trash and I immediately took a picture of that and sent it to Shona. So I like, you know, oh man, the trash wars are on.

Yeah, that's a— trash is always a thing. Okay, so I just want to underscore to what you said about, you know, and I don't like the term landlord. I don't like the term housing provider. I don't know what the modern term is. Right. But I think that having quality properties, treating them with respect, and that's where people get so— and we're kind of veering off. And I think being a landlord, I want to unpack like how you got your assets, but you have to manage them and you can't— they're not hands-off. This is not passive. If anyone tells you this is passive, It's, it's maybe evergreen is a way to frame it. It is not passive, right? You need people. Yeah.

I mean, it's passive. It's passive until you get a phone call.

Right.

It's, it's passive until you get a phone call.

Right.

And then I have, I have tenants that, that text me and, and I tell them not to, but text me at like 9 o'clock at night on a Sunday. And, and they're just like, oh, hey, this is an issue that totally could wait till Monday, but I'm telling you now.

Just to stress you out. Right. Just.

It does a little bit. And then I, and, but what's more stressful is like, I could respond to it, but I know I shouldn't because then it just allows them to reach out to me whenever. And I can't, I can't do that. It's only for emergencies. So, so yeah, no, I've, I've been through that, but I mean, yeah, the whole point of it and, you know, it is an asset class and it, and I think buy and hold real estate is, is one of the best asset classes in my opinion. It's, it's, you know, my net worth is over half a million, which is amazing. Like I said, most, richest person in my family by far. And I've had multiple uncles and people who've owned their own businesses and gone out of business and, and who've worked for other people and, and it just, it's really hard to work for somebody else and, and, and get rich. It really, really is hard. So you have to build your own business. You have to build your own assets. And if you don't feel comfortable being a landlord, then, then buy stocks, right? Like just, but do something, invest in something, invest in yourself, invest in other people's businesses, invest in your own. You know, buy, buy, buy real estate. But I think me and Shona like have proven that like, you know, me and Shona are completely different. She's from California, I'm from Oregon. She has a different model with midterms. I have a different model with long-term rentals. It all works. It all makes money, but it's all work.

For sure. And I think just when you're looking at like your asset and how to like what your exit is, like flip it, sell it, hold it. You know, the scale of there's a long-term, there's midterm and short-term, and level of effort is all different. And with midterm, you know, you have a higher caliber guest typically, right? You can really systematize it, but you have more turnover, right? With long-term, your cash flow isn't nothing to write home about, but the more doors you have, right? So you really need to understand the nuance. And if you are going to go with one of those, like work with someone, like, because there's a lot of nuance and you want to learn from someone else because like we've all, I think we've both been, we're self-taught, right? I mean, I've done like strategy, but being a landlord, I literally ran and I I bought the one, How to Be a Landlord book. It was like that California, I forget. Anyway, I was like this really thick book and I'm like, I need to learn.

Oh man. Well, you got one up on me. I, I literally was just, I mean, I was by the seat of my pants. I remember I bought my house and I mean, I just deal with like problems one at a time. I was just like, okay, save up money, improve my credit. Okay, then go find a property. Then go through the process of buying it and fixing it, you know, and buying it and then actually closing. And then at that point I said, okay, now I need a tenant. How do I go about that? So I literally, I think I had a tenant within 2 or 3 weeks and I don't even remember how I did it. I don't know if it was social media or Facebook or I just called some people. It is crazy.

I put ads on Craigslist. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Super random people. I didn't background check. I didn't even know what that was.

Yep. Yep. I, yeah, I know I made all those mistakes. I didn't do background checks. I, I did, luckily I did find somebody who said, hey Brandon, you need to have lease agreements in place. And I said, cool, where do you get those? And you know, I found one, you know, Northwest Multifamily. I, I think I, they, they may have changed their name. I, I can't remember, but, but yeah, they do forms and then there's Tenant Tech or, or whatever. So yeah, I mean, I just downloaded random forms. I didn't even know. I was just like, I look, maybe that one, maybe that one, maybe that one. I just clicked and paid like $100. And there was just a bunch of forms printed off and I just handed it to the tenant and said, sign all that. And, you know, give me a deposit, give me first month's rent. I didn't do a background check. I didn't do a credit check. I just, I made sure they were employed. That was it.

Which is something, right? But I think the key, we've both been successful, is having systems and you have got to screen extremely well with whatever strategy, midterm. I mean, short-term, obviously not because you're going on the platform, but that's, I'd rather be empty than not screened because I've done that. And the one time I did it, they had a really good story and I bought it. And guess what? We got close to like having to go through legal stuff. So yeah, it's just so critical.

Yeah, 100%.

So like, I mean, everyone just has such a fear of that being a landlord. And to me, I think what makes it— I have like a vision. I know that I'm building something right. And I think you have to keep that in mind because this isn't easy. But the sooner you start and start holding an asset, You get appreciation, you get cash flow. You, if you don't start though, you're just, you're always going to be scared of it, right?

Yeah. And that's what I like telling my story because I literally used agents. I bought a property on market. I literally think I got a bad deal. Like I bought a house for $400,000 and it needed work. Like I didn't negotiate any type of deal. This is what my realtor told me, and I don't even remember his name. Even if I did, I don't want to like bash him. Mm-hmm. But he, you know, when, when, when we got the list of the inspections back and, and I said, hey, you know, I want a bunch of credits or I want this or that or whatever. He said, well, let's not scare them away. Let's just ask for like the 3 major things. And I was just like, okay, so you don't think we should ask for any type of like discount or anything? He's like, no, just ask them to fix the, the, the 3 biggest things you're concerned about. Which we, which we did. And of course they used, you know, the 3 things that I did, they fixed super crappy, super crappy jobs. They found like the, the, the people off of Craigslist who did a crap job. And then we came back for the, you know, we came back to inspect that stuff and I was like, what is this? And he was like, well, they fixed it. We didn't tell them how to fix it. And, and, and I was just like, geez, man, this is, you know, this is awful. And. Anyways. Yeah. And basically he, you know, I think he just wanted a commission and, you know, and he got it and you know, yeah. But I, yeah, I was just like, if everybody's concerned about like buying a bad deal to start with, I really think I did. The only metric, the only metric that I used was will the rent cover that? Will the mortgage? I didn't do cash on cash return. I didn't do equity there. I mean, there was no equity. None. None. I think I was probably overpaid for the property.

But you're not buying for equity as an owner-occupied, right? That's not really what you're— you're just looking to— if you can live for free.

Well, now, like, now you should. Now you should.

Yeah. Like, like, like I would tell anyone, if you don't— if you want to be investor, start with owner-occupied house hack. That's how you— and then you do not need equity for that. That is the most—

for sure.

That's how you get in there. That's what every investor like they had the light bulb, their rent was paid. They're like, oh my gosh, why would I do anything else? Right?

It's like, I mean, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. I know everybody who isn't a landlord, you know, if you just have your regular old house and you're not getting any like rents from that, or if you're a tenant, the first is the first of the month. Everybody dreads the first of the month. Me as a landlord, we love it. I love it. Thousands of dollars, right? Yeah. And over, I mean, I'll say over $10,000. Mm-hmm. Every month comes into my pocket from, from other people because, because of rents. So I love the first one.

I hear that, Brandon. I'm like, for the amount of doors you have, that should be double if you were doing a different strategy. I'm just saying.

Oh my God. Yeah, right, right, right. For sure. For sure. Why? I said over $2,000. I didn't say how many.

Right. No, I'm just kidding. No, that's amazing. That's like the best feeling, right? And that's the thing. But you didn't know what you were doing. So for like, okay, anyone, I want to like unravel your story, but like, for anyone that's like does not own property, like you have to start somewhere and there's like the down payment is smaller and you can get conventional financing. All of our properties were on market. I didn't even, I didn't know what investing was. My first house was like stated income. I had no idea what a, how amazing that was. My mortgage guy was like, don't you make a little more? I was so, I was self-employed. It was stated.

You said, wait, what's your, what's your income again? What was that? What'd you say?

$25,000 or something. Just super, just like not even, I probably didn't even really qualify, right? Because I was self-employed. I was a designer in California. Like, I literally made no money. I had clients. It was like dial-up days. I'm like, hey, I'm going to Portland, guys, can I still work for you? And I got him a little webcam. Yeah, like, we didn't— the point is, like, you're never gonna know everything. You just have to dive in, and that's the best way to learn. Like, I think having a coach or a thing, it helps you, but if you don't have— if you don't have a house, like, that's where you start. And I just— that's like my passion is, like, gotta start somewhere, right?

Yep. Yep. It's, and it's weird. And it's weird. Like, I, I, I mean, I've been pushing people and I don't know if Shona's gonna be upset at me saying this. I push people into fourplexes. Oh, totally. Which is terrible. Which is terrible because I want all the fourplexes for myself, but I can't buy them all. So I tell people, I'm like, hey, look, you know, if you don't want it, cuz when I tell people I live in a house with other people, strangers, they just immediately like, I'll never do that. And then I say, hey, I wish I never did it either. It was awful. Go, go buy a duplex, triplex, or fourplex.

Mm-hmm.

Go do that. And I'm like, and, but here's the thing, and here's the thing that blows my mind, you guys, and please, somebody in the show notes or whatever, if you, and I'm not a lender, you can now buy up to 4 units if you owner occupy with 5% down. When I bought my first fourplex, I had to do 10% down and I was dang lucky to get that because I used an FHA. The second time I bought a fourplex, I had to do 20% down and I was dang lucky to do that. And then literally, what was it, maybe 4 months after I closed on that fourplex, changed the rule. So it has never been in the history of buying multifamily properties to house hack. It has never been cheaper to get in.

And they count that income towards that debt-to-income, right? Like, I mean, it's like that is the— we're in this golden opportunity. If anyone has kids, like, Oh my gosh, when my kids go to college, I'm like, guess what, Landlord 101, you're rent to your friends. I'm like, yes, that's, you know, and you know, that's a really good point. Like, I remember being single, me and my cat, I had this random guy, he just played video games, he'd come down to boil water, but I got like the best roommate. And it was, I had very awkward interviews with random, mostly guys, right? And I was, I was just like, oh my God, but I knew and like somewhere that this was smart, right? but I was like, my living room's not shared. I have all these weird rules. I was like, did I did not want to share. I was like looking for a mother-in-law. But you know, you have to, you have to be uncomfortable to get to your like goals. And we both did that, I think kind of intuitively, right? No one was like, here's the roadmap of how to be an investor. I was just like, oh yeah.

Yeah. And, and Shona, you said, you said the perfect word, uncomfortable. If you think you're going to get ahead in life, if you think you're going to buy rental properties, if you think you're going to, to, to do what others, others won't and be comfortable, good luck. Good luck. I mean, yeah, I, I mean, buy, buy stocks, you'll watch them go down. You'll be uncomfortable. Watch, watch, watch, watch tenants. Yeah. Watch tenants trash your property. You'll, you'll, you'll be uncomfortable. Watch your business flounder and you try to make payroll. You'll be uncomfortable. Whatever it is, right? Whatever your thing is. If you buy a laundromat, watch somebody break in and, and trash a couple of your machines, you'll be uncomfortable. So be prepared. Just be prepared. Like if you want what, if you want to be anything above ordinary and, and not have to survive off of Social Security and, and, and, and collect cans, do, I always tell people, Do what others won't to have what others don't. I don't know. I didn't come up with that. I don't remember where I heard from it, but that has been like my, my credo and motto when I was, when I was pulling blackberries in the rain to get my deposit for my first house that I was just, you know, I was just like, I'm doing what others won't to have what others don't, you know? And, and, and I still kind of think that way. I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm doing hard things right now. And since then, I now know how to put in LVP flooring. Me and Sean have talked about that. She's like, I would never put in flooring.

No skills.

Waste, waste of my time. Well, I didn't have any skills either, right? And since then, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've done some gutter work. I've, I've cleaned gutters. I've put in flooring. I've painted. I, I've done baseboards. I've changed door handles. I've changed electrical light switches and sockets, low voltage stuff. I mean, I've replaced light fixtures, all these things that I never, I mean, when I bought my house, I had no idea what I was doing. No idea. I was like, you know how there's those guys who are just handy and change tires? No, no idea. I still can't even change a tire.

Dude, Brandon, in college, I remember driving to school and some old guy rolled down his window and I was like, what does he want? And he is like, you have a flat tire. So, don't let—

oh no. Yeah, so I'm—

you're right though, you gotta just— you figured it out, right? Or you can hire a handyman, right? Like, I didn't know what HVAC was or any of these things, or like sewer lines, or— oh, I had a buried oil tank in my first house. I mean, what the— what is it? What is that? I mean, it was decommissioned, but finding the paper, and it was just like, oh my— I didn't know that was even a thing. And we Yep. Right. So, yeah.

So, yeah. And that's the thing. And you bought the house without even knowing that, right? So it could have— it could have been terrible. Could have blown up in your face.

We got the agents. So the agents were good, but they were like— they get this, right? They were like, it was $189,000. And I thought that was like— it was like a six— and it felt like a million-dollar house, right? I'm like, oh my God, $189,000. Then it was kind of heating up, right? It was 2006. And my agents, I'm like, I'm gonna offer $210,000. I don't know where I came up with that. I just, again, I think my daughter just brought me food. It's very sweet. And they were like, $210,000, that's too much. I'm like, I'm just, I just had some weird gut feeling about it. And we, yeah, so I, I didn't know what I was doing. Right. And I could have easily been like, oh, I'm, I'm out. Cause I got outbid on something. So my point is like, we both didn't know what we're doing. It's like the stepping stone is buying a property. So you bought your, so how did you go from a single family to like multi? Cause that's like a pretty big leap.

Yeah, for sure. Well, I realized that, I realized at that point the power of house hacking. I, you know, I was like, whoa, I have, you know, plus utilities, right? So $2,700 or $2,800 plus utilities, which was like $400 or $500. I was like, man, I'm on the hook for like $3,200. But with all of these tenants paying me rent, I was basically, I think I was out of pocket maybe $200 or $300. And then, you know, obviously 2020, 2021 happened, right? The rates plummeted. I refi'd, got out of my PMI, got a 2.65% interest rate, which was amazing. And then I was living in that room. Yeah. And then I was living in that room and making like $500 a month. So, so that like I was literally making money to live there on top of my income. And then, and then, you know, the worldwide pandemic thing happened. I lost my job as a sales trainer, got on unemployment. I was super scared. I was worried about my tenants not paying, which I know that was a whole big thing. You know, eventually that thing kind of died out because I thought I was going to be able to buy another property, but then I lost my job. So I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm not getting financing now. But what I did is I ended up getting another job, did a refi. Got a home equity line of credit because you always want to get those before you leave the house.

Your W-2.

Pro tip, pro tip, owner occupied, go access your equity so it's not trapped by getting a home equity line of credit. You, you, you don't pay for it unless you use it. Pro tip, do it before you leave for the love of everything that you believe in. Home equity line of credit before you leave.

Say that again. Just there.

Yeah. Yeah. For, it's for people in the cheap, cheap seats. We both did through your house. To access equity, please get a home equity line of credit. Please. Even if you get the worst HELOC out there, you still have access to your— it is the best move you can do because once you leave, then it's like, then there's all these restrictions. Yeah, it just— please do it before you leave.

And so I think for banks, like when you're in your property, you're more invested and once you're out of it, it's riskier, right? That's just— it doesn't know that. That's like, that is so critical. And it's just like putting a straw in your house. And you don't— if you don't use it, you're fine. Like, I've used HELOCs and then bought houses. They were supposed to be our security. And I'm like, oh, I've got capital. Why? Why wouldn't I just buy a house? And then, you know, but yeah, just— and the W-2 thing, if you're going to go on your own, like, don't just— this is not like a get-rich-quick thing. I think we hear about a lot. Keep your jobs, right? I don't know how else to say that, but it's, it's just— and then the banks love steady income. They do not like—

love it. Yeah. No, they hate— yeah. Everybody who wants to be an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, and then get into real estate, You're making a massive mistake. Massive. Please, when, if you go to the bank and you say, hey, I'm self-employed, I'm a, I'm a big bad business owner, I, I, I cut the checks, the bank's gonna tell you to get outta there. They'll say, we'll see you in 2 years, Mr. Big Bad Businessman. We'll see you in 2 years. Mm-hmm. Or you can go get a W-2 job, work for somebody else, and you can come back to them with one pay stub, one pay stub. That's, that's literally what I needed to do to do my refi. I got, I had my job for 30 days and I brought them a pay stub and they said, we'll start the refi. And then as soon as the refi was finished, I brought, I brought them, I brought the, I brought, I, and then at that point the, the refi took about a month. Then I, uh, I brought my 2 pay stubs to the bank to do the HELOC process. So I was only at that job for 60 days and then I did a HELOC. And then once that finished, which took about another month, I had 3 pay stubs and then I got pre-approved to buy the fourplex.

So you just like you were 30 days, 30 days, like you were that you had. Did you get a job just to get that refi? Was that your end goal?

Yeah.

Like anyone listening, like W-2, I would say. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Interest rates for sub-3. If I could have bought 1,000 properties, I would have. But I'm poor, so I only got what I could get, which was 2 properties. So I got one, I refinanced 2.6%, 2.65%, and then I used all of the money I saved from being on unemployment, not being super frugal, getting money from my tenants that I was, and I had already saved, maybe I had like $15,000 or something like that. And I was ready to go buy another property. Then the pandemic happened, lost my job, and I was like, well, okay, I guess I'll just, I'll buckle down and see what happens. But you know, unbeknown, unbeknown to everybody, prices skyrocket. Interest rates came down. That's insane.

Yeah.

Prices skyrocketed. It was unbelievable. Right. And, and I was like, whoa, okay, this is crazy. So I was sitting back watching the market, everything that was going on. I knew I wanted to continue house hacking, but I knew that I, I didn't want another single family. I didn't want to do that again. So I started looking at duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes. And then I just, for some stupid reason, I said, well, I talked to my lender and I said, is there any difference between owner occupied on a duplex or a fourplex? And she said, no, she's just like, I mean, the loan's the same. The FHA is the same. The down payment's still going to be— well, there's one difference when you're using FHA. There's the sustainability rule. So with duplexes, there was no sustainability rule, which means if you could afford it, you're good to go. But with triplexes and fourplexes, basically they— it's weird. It's almost like commercial where they looked at the property. Could it sustain itself if you stopped, if you weren't there? So anyways, very difficult to do, but I was able to get a fourplex with an FHA loan. And trust me, everybody was just blown away. All the agents I knew, all the investors, all the lenders.

And that's normally a— that's normally a single-family loan, right? Is that the— or depends?

But I mean, typically I think people use FHAs for— FHAs are for people with not that great credit and it gives them a low down payment. But my credit was fine. It just, it gave me a low down payment and I was, and it was the option to owner occupy a 4-unit so that I just talked to my lender and that's like, what's the, what's the cheapest way to get me the, the big, the biggest asset? And she said, well, you'd FHA and you'd need to move into it. And I said, move outta my room into an apartment? Yes. Yes, I would love that. Oh my God. Yes. Right. So, um, I, I, I did not, I, I did not. I, I said, hey, I said, hey, it's been real. It's been fun. Wasn't real fun. I'm gonna go get an apartment. So yeah, huge step up for me. I was, I was so grateful to, to not be living with strangers anymore. So it was great. And, and, and at the end, I was sharing a bathroom too. I was sharing a bathroom. Because I was living in the main or the primary and I was like, huh, I could rent this one out for more. So then I switched spots with somebody. So somebody got the main room for like $800 at the time. And then I, in the room I was in was only for $700, but I had to share a bathroom. And I was like, huh, an extra $100 a month, but I share a bathroom. Okay, let's, I'll take the extra $100. Right. I mean, literally I was just doing everything. $100, right? And I had to share a bathroom. Yeah.

I mean, that, those like sacrifices, right? Paid off big time.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so I would, that allowed me to just save up a bunch of money. Then I used that money and it's crazy. It still seems like a lot of money to me, but somehow, actually, I know I said originally like $15,000 or something, but I, I was way off. I think I was working for like another year and I was living for free. So my entire paycheck I was just saving. Basically everything. So I ended up with like $70,000 or $80,000 after a year. 'Cause like I made, like, again, I was making, right, like $30 an hour is making $5,000, $5,500 a month. I did that for an entire year. I was saving everything, every penny. So I, I had like $60,000, $70,000 saved. And then when I was ready to buy, the 10% down was like $70,000. So I watched my bank account had $70,000 and then it dropped to like $5,000 because I still needed reserves. And that was rough, but that's what I needed to get into the, to the fourplex.

And the first fourplex that you bought, right?

The first one. Yeah.

Okay.

$70,000.

Just to recap. So you, you house hacked, you were uncomfortable, you shared a bathroom, you collected cans.

Love your cans. Blackberry. Limping in the rain. Yeah. There's this whole hillside. This, this, this old guy just said, hey, there's this whole hillside that we never look at ever, but it's, it's full of blackberries. I'll give you $100. What did he say? He said $20 an hour for 5 hours. So it was $100 Saturday and Sunday. So I, I, I made, yeah, $200 a weekend. And I just—

Oh, it was like an ongoing kind of gig. You were pulling blackberries.

Yeah, he had me do that. And then I was helping another, a friend of his. And, and so yeah, I did some different things, but yeah, it was a bunch of odd jobs, but yeah. So, so that, and that's how I got the first house. And then by, and, and again, this is really important. This was the whole, I, if this, if this hadn't happened, I don't think anything else would've happened. Right. By living for free, by living for free, I was able to save up like $70,000. And I know that sounds crazy to people, but if you think your rent payment, take your rent payment out of your, out of your thing, right? If you're not paying $1,500. $1,200, if you're not paying $2,000, if you're not paying $2,500, if you're not paying that rent payment anymore and you're putting that in your bank account, how fast will that grow in 12 months? Right? So that's how that turned into like $60,000. 'Cause I wasn't paying to live at my house anymore. And that's how I got into the first fourplex. And then I just did what you're supposed to do, right? I raised the rents. I, as units became vacant, I remodeled them, got them to market rents. And, and then that took me about a year. I got— oh, and by the way, this is the awesome, the awesome part and why that sustainability rule worked for me was it was a 3% loan. So I have a 3% FHA, which is assumable because it's a government-backed loan. It's assumable. So if I ever— and don't even ask me, don't even ask me, I'm Yeah, I have a 3% loan on a fourplex in Clackamas County, so not Multnomah County, in Clackamas where the rules are slightly better for landlords. And, and I mean, I've, I've, I've told people it'd have to be over $1 million and even then I don't think I would, I don't even think I would sell. I mean, right now that property alone is, is giving me $2,500 a month. Just that one property.

That's just, that's one midterm. Just saying. I always have to get that in.

Yeah, I know, I know why, but, but, and this is where I got to tell Shona, my vacancy is much lower. It's much more passive. I don't have to, I didn't have to furnish any of those properties. I don't have to, when it's wintertime, I don't have 3 vacancies at the worst time ever. It's, it's consistent and it's steady. And, and I may change my strategy at some point, but you know, like I said earlier, like I, there's nobody for me to fall back on. Right. So I just want, a very solid foundation. I want a solid foundation of cash flow and then I might feel comfortable. Like I'm very, I'm 32 and I'm super conservative, you guys. I do everything very conservative. I run my numbers conservative. I run my cash flow conservative. I don't want, I don't ever want to be unpleasantly surprised by something I do. So, so yeah, doing the long-term just feels way more comfortable to me. At some point I may switch one of those up to like a midterm or short-term just to see what happens, but So I think my point in saying that, and I told—

I, I am like very conservative. Like, the idea of being a PML or something freaks me out because I want to hold things right. Like, I will take on risk, like other risk. Like, I've been an entrepreneur pretty much my whole life. But what I— my point was, I guess, is like, if you get into a fourplex, you house hack, and then you go midterm, like, you could just skyrocket your kind of, you know, retirement strategy, whatever your goals are. There's so many ways to kind of like stack strategy, right? So just understanding all of that stuff and like the fact that you have 4 or 4, I mean, if you were, you know, in some, in some version of that, right? If you were to do different, you could kind of be like, I'm done. I'm like, work is like optional, right? There's just so many ways and understanding those creative things. But that, no, that's amazing. I'm not trying to downsize myself.

Yeah. Yeah. Go for it. And you know what? And knowing that makes me feel better too, cuz like at some point I could take half of that building. And turn it into short-term and double my income like that.

Right. And then you add in— you're adding to the value of the building. That's the crazy thing about multi. It's just you raise the rents, I go, and it's just— then you pull that equity out. It's just—

yeah, really. And then— and I guess my favorite thing, and I'll probably like— as much as I love my origin story, the thing that probably blows my mind the most and still to this day will continue to do so is by renovating that property, raising the rents, improving the general condition of the property. I was living in that fourplex, right? So what did I do? Home equity line of credit again. And I found a lender, which there's very few that will lend on a four-unit.

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Building, I promise you, because I had a bunch of people, they said 4-unit building, that's commercial. They said that's, that's an invest. That's, and I said, no, but I live here. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. So I eventually found a home equity line of credit that will do 100% loan to value. What? Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I, and I know, I hope I told you this before, but every time I tell that to people, I think like your eyes should be like this, like 100% loan to value is insane.

Yeah.

Unheard of. Unheard of, you guys. And this is why I'm telling you the power of living in the property. And if anybody wants to hit me up, you know, I'll give you guys my email or whatever. If you guys want the name of that credit union, I believe they're still doing it. They were doing it during the pandemic, so if they could do it then, I'm sure they're doing it now. 100% loan to value. What does that mean? They came out, they appraised my property, they said it was worth $820,000. I only owed $610,000. So that was like a $210,000 gap in equity. And I said, well, how do I get my $200,000 out? Home equity line of credit. What did they do? They gave me a line of credit for $200,000.

That's like, I mean, yes, I don't even— that's just like, just, yeah. I mean, if anyone doesn't realize the power of that, like you need to go do some studying.

And, and let me, and let me tell you guys this. Let me, let me, let me just explain the power of that. So I've also done, done this with credit cards, business lines of credit. I know I've talked to Shona slightly about this, but business lines of credit. It took me an entire year. Took me an entire year of, of gaming the system, applying for credit cards, using them, getting the rewards, paying them off, playing the game, all that stuff. I've even reached out to a company to, to help me. So there's a company that will help you get the most business credit you possibly can. I'm sure you've seen those.

I have an affiliate link if anyone is interested.

Right. And I promise that wasn't, I wasn't really, I was, yeah, I wasn't trying to set Shona up. I wasn't trying to set Shona up, I promise. But, but there is a company, there's multiple of them. I can give you, you know, the name or Shona, right? They'll help you get business credit cards. After a year of, of, of doing it myself and working with the company, I have about $125,000 worth of credit with that one asset. With one HELOC, I have $200,000 of credit. And, and here's, and here's the best part here. Okay. If that wasn't amazing enough, you know what I did? I got pre-approved to buy another property, right? Because that's the, that's the strategy, right? Get a home equity line of credit.

W-2, right? When you got pre-approved, right? And that's the key. Like, it's very helpful to have that. The bank likes stability. They want to know skin in the game. They don't like risk. They do not like risk.

They love it. Gosh, they love it. I mean, yeah, if you walk in there with a credit score above 700 and a W-2, I mean, they're gonna be giving you soda. They're gonna give you the candy. Brandon, what else we can do for you? You know what I mean? They're just, yeah, they love it. They love it.

They do not like self-employed. I've had my, they've had called my CPA to like verify employment. Like, it's just really difficult. So just if— keep that job even just to get to a point where you're like, okay, because it's—

keep the job, keep the job. Yeah. So this whole time while I was renting out 5 bedrooms in my house, renting out 3 of the units in, in the fourplex I was living in, still had the W-2 job. So then what I did next, and I actually, I had to consult my CPA. Funny you bring that up. I said, hey Troy, I have this home equity line of credit for $200,000. And he said, please don't buy a boat. And I said, absolutely not.

A depreciating asset or—

Yeah. He said, do, yeah. I said, do not buy a boat. He said, I will, I will kill you, Brandon. Do not buy a boat. And I said, absolutely not. I said, there's this, there's this fourplex that I, that I want to buy and I'm, I'm prequalified for and everything, but they need $150,000 for me to get into the deal. That's 20%. On this, on this property. Because, and the reason why, well, hey Brandon, you, you got 10% for the first one. Why couldn't you get 10% for the second one? You only get one FHA and there's rules around that. You could, you could, you know, move away 200 miles and this, that, and the other. There's, you know, or there's some rules, but anyways, it didn't work. So I couldn't use the FHA again. So I had to do a conventional owner-occupied 4 units. And that was before the rule change. Rule change. So they need $150,000 for me to get into the deal. And I said, hey Troy, I don't have $150,000. I didn't. I think at that time, cause I had, I'd been working on the fourplex, spending money on that, all that stuff. I haven't been able to save as much as I would wanted to. So I maybe had like $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000. I can't, I don't remember. But I said, hey, but, but Troy, I want to buy this, this fourplex. And he said, your second fourplex. Second fourplex. I said, how do I come up with $150,000? The only thing I have is this HELOC for $200,000.

But you didn't know to use your HELOC? You didn't— that wasn't—

well, that was a rhetorical question. That was a rhetorical— that's a rhetorical—

I got shot at.

I got shot at.

That was a rhetorical question. Of course.

Of course. And I said, hey Troy, I have this HELOC, but I, but I wanted to know like, what is the tax ramifications of me using this home equity line of credit to buy the fourplex? And you know what he told me, guys? He said none. He said it's a tax write-off. He said, you're buying an investment property, right? And I said, well, of course. He said, those— that's a tax write-off, just like mortgage interest. And I said, wait a minute. So, so not all of, but a significant portion of the interest that I pay on this, this $150,000 is going to be a write-off. To buy an asset that's going to cash flow day one, pay for its mortgage and pay for the HELOC payment and still cash flow. And I said, Troy, is there anything I'm missing? I said, am I just— am I stupid or what? Like, should I do this? Because it cash flows day one, the mortgage is paid for, the HELOC is paid for, I get cash flow and I get a write-off on the mortgage interest and the HELOC interest payment. He said, no, Brandon, it sounds like a good deal. So I did it. I spent, I spent $150,000 that I did not have, not my money equity.

Well, you borrowed your equity.

You borrowed leverage. So fourplex number one, every penny of it, every penny of it bought fourplex number two. And this is the power. And this is, I think, maybe the heart of this whole livestream is that one asset buys another. Buys another, buys another. If you can just will yourself to get the first couple, just will yourself to get the first couple, it will have a domino effect and your, and your assets will continue to buy assets for you. And that builds the legacy that will retire you. That will change your family legacy forever. If you're just willing to do the hard work on the first couple. Yeah. And literally for me it was just two. The third one was paid for by the equity of the, of the, of the first, of the second one.

Yeah.

And then the house I'm sitting in right now, right here, I, I bought subject to, subject to the existing, uh, mortgage and I needed to come up with $55,000. I did happen to have that in cash, but you know what I also had? I had HELOC number one from house number one. I didn't use that one. That one I had, I have $63,000. So I use that one and bought this house. So house number 1, bought house number 2, 4-plex number 1, bought 4-plex number 2. And that's going to go in my book just like that. So I'm going to be— Brandon does Sesame Street with multifamily properties. House number 1, house number 2, 4-plex number 1, 4-plex number 2. And, and ever since then, like, I've just the equities have been buying more and more, right?

But you got to get that one property. You got it. That's how my first house had two lines of credit and I bought two properties. The house I'm sitting in was bought by that house where I house hacked and had Craigslist roommates, total random people, and, you know, left home depot interiors and all. Yeah. I mean, it's just the power and it's not without risk. Like, you have to calculate, you have to make sure that—

that, yes.

The debt, the income covers the debt, right? I'm not saying it's not risky and you have vacancy, but like you're going to look back and be like, remember when you— I remember buying rental properties and we're in Portland, Oregon, right? For context, it's a pretty expensive market. Yeah.

If you want to think about the worst place to do this, it would be Portland.

But I mean, $350,000, you could get—

or California, or California, you could get like a decent cash flowing rental.

That is no more like— and that seemed like And you're always going to look back. Yes, things ebb and flow, but like you just, you have to just, things are going to happen and it's going to suck sometimes, but you're always going to look back and be like, oh my gosh, look at the equity. And you roll that and it just—

and let me, and I don't mean to age you in any way, Shona, but her first property was $200,000. Mine was $400,000.

Right.

Yours might be $600,000. $800,000. Your kids might be $800,000. Are you seeing a pattern here? Are you seeing a pattern?

It continues to go up, right?

Buy now. Buy now, please. Buy now.

Don't wait. It's all— there's always going to be politics. There is a window of opportunity and there's always going to be some reason why we shouldn't buy. You just got to like, as long as I have choice, don't buy stupid property. Don't buy like a double yellow line. Crappy, don't do that, right?

Yeah. You know what's so funny? I've actually said that to like a few people, Shona, when I tell them like, oh, I don't want anything on a double yellow line because that'll reduce the ARV like $30K. And they're like, what do you mean double? Well, they're like, what do you mean double yellow line? And I'm like, high traffic, high traffic, double yellow lines, right? You know what I mean? Like, so they didn't even know that. And I don't mean that to shame anyone. We all had, I didn't know what it meant for a long time.

I didn't know either. I didn't even know what ARV. But that's jargon.

That's real estate jargon right now. Double yellow line, right? So people, people don't even know that. But yeah, high traffic areas where you buy commercial buildings, buy, you know, buy, you know, whatever. Right. You know, loud, loud industrial stuff. Right. People, you wouldn't want to live there. Why would your tenants?

And use that as a filter. I, I'm like, if worst case, if something came to pass, could we move our family in there? The one property that'd give me pause had the homeless camps behind it. But guess what? They passed. I used to have to tell tenants, you know what, How do you feel about tents in the backyard? And it was a very uncomfortable conversation. If I didn't say that, it would've— and you know what? It's passed. It was like a couple years of like, I've gotta turn over there and I've just gotta—

yeah. And just, and just, just, just for clar— just for clarification, you guys, she wasn't renting to the homeless people. They weren't in her backyard. They were on the opposite side of the fence, just over the fence. So she wasn't—

yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Just so— but can you imagine any of us, right? Can you imagine opening your sliding glass door and going into your backyard And there's a homeless camp right there on the other side of the fence. Right. So tough sell. Tough sell. That would have probably scared me. So Shona is a beast.

They— well, they were not. Okay, here's the thing. They were not there in my first property. So just really quick backstory. When I bought my property, the equity went up like $40K and I was just like, this is insane. I went to the bank. I was too scared to do a refi. Like, I knew on some level that's what I should do, but I didn't know any strategy. Convinced a family member to buy a duplex, and there were literal meth heads next door and dogs in cages. And it was like, it— but this is a great neighborhood now. But at the time, I remember still getting a note from my tenants, oh, guess what, the meth heads left. Handwritten note. And like, right, you just gotta see past that. If it's a decent neighborhood, you can't— like, I'm not saying go after like the— but if you can see past that, right? That's—

yeah, definitely you want to invest in— and this is, this is what I was told too, this is find the best neighborhood you can afford and buy the worst house in it.

Mm-hmm.

Right. So I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's the strategy, right? Because it takes a while for neighborhoods to change, but they will. Could be for better or for worse. But you never want to be the best, best house on the block. You know, everybody else's property values are bringing you down. So yeah, I mean, is there strategies? Absolutely. You know, is there a time for analysis? Absolutely. Like again, with my second fourplex, I didn't stroke the pen and just willy-nilly said, said bye-bye to $150,000. Like I did serious analysis. Like I wanted to make sure I said, what are the rents in this area? What can I get? Like, you know, could I move into it if I needed to? What's, what's going on with the neighbors? What's going on in the neighborhood? What's going on with this, the city? What's going on with growth in the city? What's, you know, will it cash flow? What happens if my HELOC, because most HELOCs are variable interest. What happens if my HELOC goes up? Right. What is that going to do to my payments? Right. Like what? You know, I mean, I ran so many numbers, I thought my lender was going to drop me because I just mean, we're just like, I want to know everything, right? Because that's $150,000. Like that for some people may not be a lot. To me, that was a lot. That is, that is the most money to this day. $150,000 is the most I've ever spent in a single— I mean, we wired the money, but I pressed the wire. Wire the money. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Super scary.

I think wires, by the way, is scary. I'm like, I don't want to fill it out. Here's my check. Like, I don't want that. I missed a number. No, I thought like, yeah, those big numbers. I still— it's just like, yeah, no. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Well, and here's the thing, like, if you had sold that, right, you would have been taxed crazy, right? Capital gains. So let's just touch on like this whole flipping, wholesaling, like what's, what's an investment, what's a job? Because I have a soapbox. Like, I think you agree that, like, what's your point of view?

Yeah. So I think I can speak onto this. I'm currently under contract on a property that I'm trying to wholesale. So I'm wholesaling. I work with other investors. I JV. In fact, I'm working with another investor right now. We've, as of last Friday. So what is today? Today? Tuesday?

Tuesday. Yeah.

So as of Friday, as of Friday, we stopped one foreclosure. And then yesterday we stopped another. So I'm partnering with another, another investor. They reach out to me because I'm door knocking foreclosures. They reach out to me. I partner with another investor so we can get the foreclosure stopped and we can, you know, disposition this and all that stuff. And when it comes to wholesaling, that is a job. That is 100% a job. As a wholesaler, your number one job is finding people who are in a distressed situation that are willing to sell below market value. And advertising, advertising, marketing, marketing. That's all you do. And then you get a lead.

And sales though, right?

And sales, right? Then I had to convince these people to trust me. Because I basically said, hey, you're going to lose your home. The guy on Friday that signed with us was going to lose his home on Tuesday. Today he would have lost it. He was going, his auction date was 9:00 AM today. And he, I had to convince him to trust us that like, hey, I'm the guy that will stop this for you and I will help you. Which is tough because they're getting door knocks, they're getting letters, they're getting texts, they're getting phone calls. Everybody's trying to tell them that same thing.

So, so why did he believe you? What was— how did you frame it? So, like, because that's a— it's a very scary thing, right, to be in that position. Yeah.

I mean, I just told him and I brought on my partner. I said, hey, look, we've done this before. We do this. We're investors. I own properties. It's here in Happy Valley was that property. And I said, hey, look, I've been to your property. This is an amazing property. We're going to have no problem stopping the foreclosure. We have the forms. We know I know exactly what I need to do. We have attorneys ready to go that we'll pay for. Like, we're solid, you know, we got this, you know, and basically it's just building rapport, right? That wasn't the first time I talked to that guy. He actually called me back. He said, Brandon, you know, I got, you know, more papers. I wasn't able to solve the problem. You know, I appreciated talking with you. I appreciated you giving me advice. You know, I need your help. And I said, no problem. You know what I mean? I'm glad, you know, thanks for reaching back out. I'm glad that you decide, you know, try everything you can. This is what I tell people. Here's my door knocking strategy. Hey guys, I want you to keep your property. I never, as an investor and as a fellow human being, I never want somebody to lose their property. That's the last thing I want. But if there's no other option, I'm here to help. But I tell people, I said, beg, borrow, and steal from friends and family.

Mm-hmm.

Donate plasma, donate blood, rob a bank. If none of that works, and I tell people that jokingly, I, I hope nobody ever does.

Did you say like call the bank and negotiate? I mean, that's, I mean, are you just, they'd be on me to tell them, right?

I mean, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I tell, I mean, you know, I tell people all that. I'm like, yeah, you can do a loan mod, you can do, you, you can, you know, try to do payment plans with, you know, if you're behind on your mortgage, if you're behind on your taxes, there's different strategies. But yeah, I mean, like I tell people all that stuff, but the problem is they don't typically do it. They, they just don't. They're like, I mean, it's, I mean, to get into foreclosure, at least here in Oregon, you're, you're 6, you're 6 years behind on taxes, 6 years to get to the point where I knock at your door.

Mm-hmm.

So that's, you know, I mean, they had all the time in the world to figure it out.

Mm-hmm.

And then with the mortgage thing, right? You're, you're, you get a notice of default, so you're 90 days behind. You get a letter, they, you know, then you go into pre-foreclosure, you get more letters, then you go into actual foreclosure, you get more letters. And I mean, that's a long process. That's, I mean, that's over 6 months of non-payments, not working with the bank. They can't get ahold of you. They're sending documents and notaries taping things to your door. I mean, it's crazy. And then eventually then you get like, hey, your auction date is set, you know, for a month or two down the road. And, you know, basically, you know, figure something out or we're gonna auction your property. So, but yeah, so I mean, that's a job, right? I'm cold calling people, I'm marketing, I'm doing sales. This is a job. So that's my job right now is to buy and wholesale properties.

So how many calls do you make a day? Because I know you're, you're like at it. What, what kind of calls?

Yeah, I, I typically like a good day if I'm really locked in, probably 100, um, a day. And, and, and that, and that's, yeah, that's what I strive for. That's my goal. Because I'm not going to get— I'm not going to talk to 100 people, right? I may be lucky to talk to 20. So for anyone listening, text messages.

Yeah. You want to dabble in wholesaling? You don't— I don't think you dabble in it. I don't know what your point of view— I mean, you're—

it's—

no, right?

Yeah. I, I talked to one person on Facebook. I have a lot of people. I, I'm now kind of a pseudo guru and I have people reach out to me all the time because they see me talking about, you know, the, the door knocking, the cold calls. I have people reach out to— in fact, This Sunday, 2 days ago, I had somebody from Facebook drive around with me in my car while we door knocked. Cause she was just like, hey Brandon, I want to see what you're doing. And so I, you know, I made a little post about it, but I was just like, yeah, if you want to. And now, and now since I made that post, I have 2 more people that want to drive around with me on the weekends and door knock foreclosures. So I'm going to have to start charging these people. Like, like I, like, I don't mind helping people and stuff, but, but yeah, I had one person not 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago they said, hey Brandon, you know, I tried, you know, wholesaling. And I said, well, what'd you do? And they're like, oh, I made, you know, I made cold calls. And I said, how many did you make? And they're like, oh, you know, I made maybe, you know, 20 or 30. And I was like, oh, was that a day? And they're like, ah, you know, over a period of a couple weeks. And I said, and I said, no, man, I'm making 100 a day. They got, they got people in the Philippines and Pakistan and Egypt. They got, they got call centers. Of hundreds of people making hundreds of calls a day. Like you, you are, you're not competing. You're, you're not even, if you're not, if you're not spending money on marketing, if you're not door knocking, if you're not cold calling, if you're not hiring people to help you do these things, if you're not doing mailing campaigns, you're not even in the game. Not even in the game. And, and it is a full-time job. You know, that foreclosure that we stopped yesterday. Okay. This is maybe even more of a crazy story. This guy called me at 3:00 PM and he said his foreclosure was today at 9:00 AM. So he called me at 4:00 PM yesterday from a door knock.

4:00 PM yesterday. And no, that's, that's the timeline.

Yeah. 4:00 PM yesterday. And he said, hey man, I'm trying to call my bank, trying to call the mortgage people. I'm trying to get this thing paid. And I was like, well, dude, I mean, You have, you have 2 business hours to stop your foreclosure. And I was like, I mean, it, I mean, it was today at 9. So that was actually, I know both, both of those properties were today at 9. I stopped one on Friday and stopped the other just this morning. So we got, basically we got him to sign an agreement. We got all of the, all of the paperwork we needed. We, because we have a good, really good relationship with that attorney. At 8:00 PM, he was doing, they were doing paperwork for us at 8:00 PM, and then we filed it at like 9:30. And then we left a, we sent an email, left a voicemail to the proper people that do the, that do the auction stuff.

Mm-hmm.

And as soon as they opened up shop at 8:00 AM today, we were able to stop it because they got our email, they got our voicemail, they got all the paperwork. And it, within one, from 8 to 9, at 9, at 9 PM, at 9:00 AM, that's when they're gonna start auctioning his property.

But I mean, you make it, I mean, clearly you know what you're doing, but how many calls, how many door knocks did you make get that, those two amazing, and you said you helped people out clearly. Like how many, I think the ratio, right?

I'm just wanting people, cause people think they're gonna dabble and it's just, I mean, the cold calls, I mean, is at least 10,000 to get, to get a deal all the way through. I mean, yeah, I would say, yeah, easily, easily. Cause I mean, I get people all the time and some of them turn into realtor referrals. Some of them, you know, some of them turn into other things, right? But to like get an actual deal, right? Like, something that I can do something with where, you know, they're reasonable, you know, they don't lose their property to foreclosure, that there's not other people involved, whatever, you know, where we agree on a price and it actually goes through. I mean, it could, I would say probably anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, right? And there, and there, and there's, and there's months like, months like this, right? Where two foreclosures back to back, literally Friday and Monday evening, and we stopped them both. So, you know, there's, Sometimes it happens like that, but sometimes I go weeks, weeks with cold calling. No, no response. No, no walking anybody's properties. I, I knock probably 10 to 15 doors a day on the weekends. So, so 30 to 40 doors a weekend. And there's, there's, there's been entire weekends where I knock 40 doors and not a single person opens. Friends and I just, you know, leave information and, you know, hope they call me when they're ready. But yeah, you just gotta follow up with people and it's a sales and marketing game, right? It's follow up, follow up, follow up.

But that's what I just, it's like, I think I get, I get a lot of wholesalers calling me 'cause I have a good online presence and I really think they watch maybe 2 YouTube videos and they think they have the sales script. Like I can tell and I just really want to dig in, but I try, I'm trying to be kinder, but I'm like, don't, you know, it's just, and if it's a good deal, anyone will buy it, right? For anyone that doesn't get that, right? If it's a good enough deal, but you, you have to spend a lot of money. So to me, it's like if you have the resources to get into a property, spend that on owning, getting into a property. And that's kind of my point why I'm trying to like, clearly you're doing it, you're really good at it, but you're also putting in the time.

Yeah. And then, yeah, and that's, and that's the thing, guys. Like out of, okay, let's say out of 10,000 phone calls, I probably get 100 people that are willing to sell. And out of those 100, I'd say 50 of them want above Zillow price. They're like, oh yeah, sure, I'll sell you my house. I, yeah, for sure. Zillow says $450,000, $500,000. I want $575,000. Right. Okay.

Okay.

And I just tell them, I'm like, well, I'm an investor. I need to make money. So there's no way that that's going realtor couldn't sell you that property, sell that property. Like you're just, you know, what basis of reality? And they're just not motivated, right? Like I reach out to people, doesn't mean they're motivated, right? I mean, the guy in the foreclosure, the guy waited until 3:00 PM the day before his auction and he was still still like, you know, I don't know, I'm trying to call the bank. Like, I think there might be something I can do. And I'm like, okay, man, well, figure it out. But you know what I mean? If you don't, if you don't figure it out, like if you don't do everything the way, like, and I feel bad, right? Cause like I have all the knowledge, I have all the contacts and everything, but I mean, like even I have, I have to pay people, like I have to pay people. For those resources, right? Filing the paperwork, knowing who to contact, all that stuff. Having the money available to show proof of funds so that they actually stop, you know, the auction and this, and it's not just some fake purchase and sale agreement or whatever, right? Like, you know what I mean? All that stuff, right? Like, I mean, I don't think there was any way for him to save it at that point. Like he needed a third party to come in and say, I was a buyer. He needed a third party to say, hey, this guy has messed up. He doesn't know. He's, he's lost his ability. But he does, he's willing to work with me. I'm an investor. I can stop this. I can, I can take care of this property from here on out. So, so yeah, so that was what was required. And, but yeah, so that's a job.

100 leads, 50 maybe, and half of those are just like Zillow, right?

So yeah, half of them are ridiculous. Maybe of that, of that 50, maybe 30 of them are willing to, you know, to, to be reasonable and might turn into a listing. And that's even if they want to sell at that time, right? A lot of people are like, oh sure, I'll hear an offer. Oh, I think that's reasonable. But most of them say, okay, well, I want cash. I don't want to list it. And I was like, well, I'm not going to give you, you know, if Zillow says $450,000, I'm not going to give you $425,000 cash as is. There's, you know, because as you know, right, Sean, you're right. Like as we need a margin, right? I need to make money, right? I have selling costs, I have marketing costs, I have When I go to sell the property, I have to have all these costs. And that was before I do any renovation or make any money. So like, I'm like, hey, we, if you're not, if we're not like $100,000 below Zillow, we're, we're not even talking the same language right now. Mm-hmm. So then, you know, I, and then I'll like, okay, well I have a preferred realtor, you know, they could probably help you out. And then maybe those listings happen, maybe they don't. Of the 25 people that are willing to hear a cash offer and be somewhat reasonable, me personally, because I'm not the only person marketing to them, you know, maybe, maybe I get 4 or 5 of those and maybe they turn into a wholesale, maybe they turn into a flip, you know, so, so, you know, you know, of the 25 people who are realistic, they're getting beat, they're getting their doors knocked, they're getting the phone calls, they're getting the texts by everybody else. I'm not the only game in town. Shona has a presence. There's other much bigger wholesalers than me. And, uh, you know, and, and sometimes they go with other people, right? So it just, you know, I, and I tell people all the time, I'm like, hey, look, I'm not the only game in town. Maybe you don't like my, my offer. Maybe you don't like my face. That's okay. You can do business with other people. I'm just here to present you an offer and let you know I'm an awesome person to do business with if you, if you're, if you're willing.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, and I mean, I can't tell you how many times where I, I've I've had it, I've had an agreement with somebody like, hey, I can give you $205,000 for your property. And then somebody swoops in at the last moment, calls the guy, he's like, oh, I have an offer for $205,000. And but we don't have it signed yet. Right. And then like, okay, well, I'll give you $215,000. And then, but you have to sign right now. Boom. Signs with another, with another investor. So, you know, anytime you give somebody your price and they say, okay, let me think on it, really what that means is they might go shop your offer. Or at any time somebody else can call, call in and they'll just say, oh, I'll give you $5,000 over that and steal the deal. So I mean, that happens all the time too. But yeah, so I mean, wholesaling is a job. It's 100% a job. It's, it's, I'll never be able to retire doing that. I'll never retire doing that.

Would you say it's a full-time job? Because I think people think it can be part-time. I don't, I don't curate, I don't think it is.

You get in when you put out, you get in when you put out.

Right. Okay. Fair enough.

Yeah. I mean, Is there a chance that somebody gets a list from a title company, picks up the phone, the first call they make is a screaming deal? Sure. Is it more likely that you have to call 10,000 people to find a screaming deal? Yes. You know, so, so yeah, it is a, yeah, I mean, but you know, with anything, right? Like, I mean, you, you can do whatever you want, right? If you want to make 10 calls a week, You know, who do you think is going to get a deal before? Let's just say we have you on the phones at 10, 10, making 10 calls a week and me making 100 a day. Who do you think is going to find, who do you think is going to find the person first? Me, just by statistically, by law of average, right? Like I'm making more phone calls, right? So, so yeah, it's, you know, and let, and let's say you're only willing to make 10 calls a week. You may have called that person and left a voicemail. But I call them and I get them on the phone, right? And then I take the deal. You could have had that deal, but you weren't following up.

Well, and the other thing, I think if you get a list of this distress sandwich, I like to call it, they look, they look motivated, but being motivated on paper versus being motivated in real life are not the same things, right?

So, like, I can't tell you, I can't tell you. And Sherry, you've seen my posts when I'm driving around. When I'm driving around door knocking foreclosures and probates and water shutoffs and notice of defaults and code violations, when I'm knocking all these different doors and everything, I drive by just some absolutely garbage looking houses, like houses that I think from the outside probably need to be torn down or not even occupied or something. Yeah. Yeah. Worse, even worse are occupied. And I'll go knock on the door and I've done this multiple times. I'll knock on the door and I'll just say, hey, you know, I was driving by the area. I literally, I was driving, there's my car driving through the area and I'm looking for houses that maybe need a little bit of work that I can put my own personal touch on. Would you consider selling? And they say, I had a guy say, I'll never sell to somebody like you and slam the door in my face. And his house had tarps on it. It had a, had a honey bucket porta potty up front. Had multiple dismantled cars. The site, like, I mean, the site, I mean, if you could picture like a house that's ready for demo, it was this house. And that guy was the least motivated person I've ever spoken to.

Right. Yeah. And it could be timing. Someone could come by the next day and he's in a better mood. They, a different approach. Who knows? Right.

And I've been a sales trainer. I've been a sales trainer before and I've told people like, hey, I could call somebody. And they could just hate the way my voice sounds. They could be having a bad day. They could, their kid, something could have happened to their kid. You call the next day not knowing anything. And I have 10 years sales experience. I know all the rebuttals. You call not knowing anything and you could sell them the moon and they would say, where do I cut the check? Here's my credit card.

And, and I just want to underscore, like, I wish someone would have told me as an entrepreneur, I wish someone had said, like, invest in sales training because we are selling a product or a service. And I didn't realize it until kind of recently. I'm embarrassed to say that, like, You, if you don't like sales, then you better go get yourself some training because you're willing to. And it's a hard thing to sell. It's like the biggest decision someone's probably going to make in their life, right? So like, it's, it's just—

Yeah, so you better be good. You better be good. Exactly.

But I just want to underscore too, I mean, it's a toolbox. You might get a lead and you might wholesale it, but just going in and a lot of courses teach like just wholesale and make all this money. Like, I just don't think that's realistic. So you have to treat it like a job and it's a tool. It's good to understand it, to know how to do it, right? But it's that's what your mission is, to quit your job and then make a bunch of money wholesaling and then buy and hold. Like, I'd flip that personally, right? If you can, because— Yeah, it's just—

Yeah. No, I— and you know what? It's funny you say that because I've had— I did exactly that, right? I started with long-term holds. I have never sold an investment property, right? If I bought it as a long-term hold, I've never sold. You'll hear all these people And I've had this conversation with so many people. They're like, man, I wish I never sold my first property.

Mm-hmm.

So many people have said that it'd be paid off. I'd be making $3,000 a month.

And they're happy.

It'd be worth $500.

Yeah. Yep.

It'd be worth $500. It'd be worth 10 times what I paid for it. I still have my first property. And I think, and I think, right. And I think I'm going to hold onto it because I've heard that story too many times. And here's the deal. I pushed all the money I could into buy and hold. And the only reason why I'm doing wholesaling and flipping is because I now need more money to buy more properties. Flipping, I flipped a property that sold, I think it was like December 15th or something like that. I don't know. I made $30,000 on a flip. So really cool. That's awesome. $30,000. I mean, that's, That is nothing to sneeze at. I didn't do very much work. We bought it. It took 30 days to remodel, 30 days on the market, 30 days to sell.

Mm-hmm.

So about 90 days and it—

just saying that's a perfect scenario. I've done that too. I've made, but it's like, that is the stars aligning. You have to have a good team. Yes. Flipping, there's so many variables. That's why I do it very selectively. I love it. I love transforming properties, but like the numbers have to be just like, like the location, all of the things. Like, it is on the risk level, to me it's one of the riskier— I think it's riskier than buy and hold, frankly. I don't know what you think. I mean, if you—

yeah, I mean, I would say worst case with buy and hold— what, I mean, what do you, what do you think? I'd say worst case with buy and hold is you— worst case with buy and hold is you maybe you're out a couple hundred dollars a month.

Let's say you lower your rent, right?

You have to— yeah, you, you Yeah, you have to feed it a little bit. Let, you know, let's say, you know, you, you know, thought it would rent for $2,500, but it only rents for $2,000. You know, worst case scenario.

And it's maybe seasonal, right? Winter turnover, right?

That, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and maybe, yeah, maybe during the summer you can raise rents or something, right? Or, or whatever, right? Or, or maybe, yeah, you try to rent during the wintertime and now you're stuck with them for a year or whatever. But yeah, so yeah. Okay. So $500 times 12, you're out that. That's worst case scenario with a buy and hold, right? I mean, and maybe there's repairs and stuff that have to happen, right? And they're different.

And also just the other, I wanna say this really quickly, like my, yeah, when I had to replace a furnace, I did a furnace one time, I had a furnace and I had like, I don't know, it was like some kind of pest issue and I put it on a credit card. Like there's ways to get creative. Like I didn't know how the hell I was gonna pay for the furnace, but I'm like, there's ways to finance things. So don't, you don't need to have all the reserves in the world 'cause you're never gonna have enough reserves to feel comfortable, I don't think personally.

Yeah, absolutely. And no, and that's exactly what I did too. I had a furnace and a shower replacement. I had $11,000 that I was not expecting to come out of my pocket. And that's why you have 0% interest business credit cards, right?

Or not lines of credit, or they can finance.

Yeah. Right. Home equity line of credit. Yeah. All that. Or reserves.

Finance it for an extra year. You can make payments. Like, that's the thing is you don't have to, like, things are going to break, but there's creative things, right?

So, yeah, but, you know, so, okay, so that's worst case scenario. You're out maybe $10,000 or $20,000 on your rental. And I'd say that's worst case scenario unless you really egregiously make a huge mistake and the roof caves in or something. With a flip. Yeah, exactly. You just don't do an inspection. You buy it sight unseen. With a flip, I mean, I mean, you could lose with seller concessions. With being on the market with interest. I mean, you could lose $50,000. I would say like, like that. I would, I would say, yeah, I mean, $30,000 to $50,000 swing can happen easily.

Worst case, you can't pay back your lenders. That's the worst case you have.

Yeah. And you get foreclosed on. Yeah, that'd be even worse.

Or you can't, like, you have holding costs and you can't— I mean, there's no income to make those payments, right? Because you're planning on flipping it. So you have to like rent it or renegotiate. So yeah, right, exactly.

Yeah. And then you say, okay, I can't sell this thing now. You turn it into a rental and at least, at least you're able to make payments, right? So again, rental is a great strategy. If you, if you lose on the flip, then you put a renter in there and that, and that might save you, right?

But if you have hard money or private money, you have to have thought ahead to be able to— they may not want to renegotiate. They may be like, 6 months is up, like it's due. What do you— you don't always have that luxury, right? So that's why you have to really be like, like, what are my work? You know, make sure you build that into your, when you're getting a private money loan, the option to extend, right?

Like, yeah, flipping is super risky. Yeah, exactly. So wholesaling is hard, flipping is risky. I honestly, I think buy and hold is the least risky, easiest thing you can do.

Mm-hmm. Right. Because you have the, you're probably sitting at most people, what kills me, Brandon, is people that owner occupy home, they want to upgrade and I'm like, just keep it and rent it. Oh, I don't want to be a landlord. I'm like, I just have to be like, okay, take a breath.

Yeah.

Okay.

Me neither. I don't wanna be a landlord either, but, but I also, but I also don't wanna work until the day I die.

Right. Yeah.

Choose your hard. And actually, this is another little motivational inspirational thing for you guys, right? Being healthy is hard. Being fat is hard.

Right.

Being poor is hard. Being rich is hard. Right? Like, choose your hard. I didn't make that up. I saw someone on Instagram or whatever, but like all those things, right? Like being a landlord is hard, but being an employee is hard.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Waking up, hearing your boss yell at you.

Right. Like, yeah. Yeah.

Being a renter sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I remember when I was a renter, right? I, trust me, I, I've rented from people and I, you know, my landlord would come in and do their inspections and eyeball you like you're messing up their property and You know what I mean? And raise your rent and, and write like all that stuff, right? Like, you know, you know, I, in fact, I'll never forget this. I, I was renting a 2-bedroom, 1-bath downstairs duplex, kind of like what you do, right?

Mm-hmm.

From this guy. And there was a hot water heater in the second spare bedroom that I wasn't ever really using. I go in there one day 'cause I just have some stuff stored in there. Luckily I did it in my socks. And I step, step, squish, squish, squish. His water heater had been leaking, had been leaking, and the, like, half of the carpet was soaked.

So it was just soaking it up so you didn't know it was wet. Soaking up.

And I, I didn't know, right? Because I never really go in there, right? Because it was a water heater room and it was a spare bedroom, right? So I called the guy and I was like, hey man, tough luck for you, landlord. Your water heater's leaking and it's like, you know, your carpet's all messed up. So he comes over there, you know, and he, I sent him a video of it dripping or whatever. He comes over there and he starts ripping up the carpet and he said, hey man, can you help me out?

Are you serious?

100%. 100%. And, and it was on a weekend and I was like, okay, yeah, sure, man. I guess, you know, not really my problem. But anyway, so I start helping him. We're pulling out the padding and stuff. Wet, nasty, smelly. Like padding, throwing it out the front. And he's like, cool, I'm going to go to Home Depot, bring some fans in. And like, I get it, right? Like he was trying to take care of the stuff as soon as, as soon as he knew. I get it. But I was just like, hey man, not really my problem. But you know, anyway, so I mean, yeah, landlords just, you know, whatever. Right. So choose your heart, choose your heart. Like, you know, what do you, you know, what do you, what do you want to do? And like, and if you just want to do Netflix and chill every night and then go into work and, and, and eat ice cream and not exercise, you know, there, there'll be there. And, and I mean this in like the nicest way possible. I, I don't mean this negatively. There's consequences for every action.

There is. You, yeah, exactly.

If, if you work out and you eat healthy, you'll reap those consequences when you're 60, 70, and 80. If you choose to Netflix and chill, you don't read books, you don't learn, you're not around the right people, you're not in the right rooms, you're not investing in yourself, you're not investing in assets, you will also reap those rewards and, and consequences down the road. So, you know, it's totally up to you. It's your life, you know?

But yeah, you might as well choose something hard that will actually reward you or invest in a mentorship or a coach or books or edu— I mean, you can do all of this yourself. I think also I've had lots of coaches and I've learned strategies I would not if I hadn't invested that. And I'm not saying you have to, but like you just, this isn't, everyone says it's really easy and simple and I, it is, but it isn't, right? I mean, it's just, yeah, there's a lot of, I keep hearing of strategies that I have, I thought I knew like the whole toolbox, right? There's so many ways to like. And so, yeah.

Oh, I just, I just learned something new about seller financing just like 3 days ago. Blew my mind. Robert Hardin. Robert. I was talking to him about something. He told me something that blew my mind and I was like, geez, man. And that's the thing, right? If I wasn't in the business doing the thing, Robert would never talk to me.

And being in the right rooms and going in person.

Being in the right rooms, or at least knowing people who are in those rooms.

I'm coming to my event tomorrow.

Coming to Shona's event, of course, right? You're being in the right rooms, knowing the right people. But yeah, if, if I wouldn't have done those things, if I wouldn't have networked, if I wouldn't be posting, we wouldn't be on this right now, Brandon.

If we, and I remember, I wouldn't be right here not wanting to go to that event. It was like late and dark and it was like an hour away. So every event is super far and I'm like, it's gonna be really awkward. I don't know anyone. Yeah. And I, and it's like, you don't know who you're gonna meet or what you're gonna learn. So you gotta put yourself out there and talk about what you're doing. 'Cause people people don't know what you're doing if you don't talk about it.

So yeah, exactly. And who was the— and who was the guy you talked to that made you go?

That was— no, when I met you, I remember it was like, oh yeah, yeah, it was—

yeah, sure.

And I was just like, I don't— I just don't want to go. I'm like, just— I had to really like force myself, you know? And you just like—

yeah, no, we met like literally this whole thing was because of a real estate investor meetup thing and a random— yeah, yeah. And, and, and, and, and God honest truth is I think that was Maybe the first or second meetup that I ever went to. Oh my God.

And I was like out the door and we ended up talking about like video tours or virtual tours and how I do properties.

Yeah. Cause I told people I was, I figured if I was around investors who buy properties, there'd also be real estate agents and I could do my little virtual tour side hustle thing. And like I'd provide value to these investors and agents and I'd also get my foot in the door telling them, hey, I'm, I'm a wannabe investor too.

And look what happened, right?

You're like, yeah. And I still do those virtual tours too, 'cause I like money. I'm a hustler. I'll do virtual tours. I'll, yeah, whatever, man. If it makes dollars, it makes sense.

And for anyone, it's also great for, you know, whatever kind of, even long-term, whatever midterm, but people can view it. It's like a, you know, a tour without going in person and wasting all your time for tire kickers.

Yes. Yeah.

Of course, they have a typo in my name. That's really funny.

Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything, but I was like, did you, did you add the extra A to your name? When did you do that?

Lunch today, had a seller call, had a sales call, had a dentist appointment. So yeah, I'm a little off.

So, okay, now let this be a lesson to you guys. You're going to forget how to spell your own name. That's how hard you have to work if you want to be successful. You're going to forget how to spell your own freaking name.

Really embarrassing. Well, here, but I'm still here at the live.

Yeah, she should. She showed up. She's performing. She's she's, she's putting on a good show for everybody. Yeah.

I think, I think this is like, I like have a record of the longest podcast. I, we probably should wrap up. I was hoping to do Q&A. Anything that you would add on this topic? Like I had kind of an agenda, obviously. I know you knew what that was. Anything else just towards wrap?

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, kind of full circle, you guys. I mean, I've had a W-2 job. I'm doing wholesaling. I've done flips. I plan to do more of all of that stuff except for the W-2. Maybe if I need a bank loan, maybe I'll get a W-2 for a month, whatever.

Right.

But, but all those things, all of those things are a means to an end. And, and what it is, is for me to continue to buy and hold assets over time. And I, and I, and I like telling the story and it may mean nothing to, to a lot of you. There might be a lot of people way wealthier than me. Out there and you might laugh, but I don't know very many people at 32 that have more than half a million dollar net worth, cash flowing properties. And I mean, I could easily, I could easily be the janitor somewhere, right? I could be a janitor somewhere. I could have no assets. I could be 32. I, yeah, right. Pulling blackberries. I could be a landscaper. I could be doing HVAC work. I could be in IT. And I could have no prospect of ever getting outta my job. And that could just be the next 40 years of my life. But because I made a couple hard decisions at the beginning, I, I'll, I'll say this, my real estate pays for my real estate. So I am again, still in my home right now. I'm living for free because of the rents that are collected. I don't pay for my primary residence. I, I'm obviously not wealthy, but by, by, by no means am I, will ever be forced to go to a job. And that's if I did, and that's if I do nothing else, if I just let the rents come in, if I raise them over time, my net worth, the equity in the properties, the debt paydown, the tax write-offs, all of that will do what it does. I have, and this, you know, may not, again, may not be very much to people, but I have about $2.75 million owed in or of real estate. And I owe about $2 million. So, and I know the number's like $750,000, but there's, you know, HELOC payments and other stuff in there, HELOCs that I own everything. So, so, you know what I mean? But I, I owe a bunch of money. I owe like $2 million, but that is worth more. So, you know, and that's risky too, right? Like my, my tenants could leave, all these things could happen, but I'm willing to take the risk. And, and I'm setting up my family for, for future wealth. I'm setting up me like I'm thinking myself, Brandon, at 60 years old, you know what, what will be the biggest benefit to me? And 30, 30 years from now, every property that I own right now will be paid off. They'll be paid off by tenants. And I have, have not paid for any of those mortgage payments. And they'll be— I don't know what the value could be. Could be over $5 million. And it'll all be paid off.

I mean, the trajectory of— and I just want to say that's— we're in an appreciating market. Go somewhere else. There's pros and cons.

Midwest is— yeah, yeah. Midwest, Louisiana or something different. But yeah.

And we're here in Oregon, right? And you— we made it work. Like, I'm a big advocate of in your backyard, whatever you love. But like, there's benefits and there's that you're leveraging what you don't get that kind of appreciation. Somewhere else, right? I'm just saying.

So, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you want to be in one of the blue states where they hate landlords, there's usually appreciation right on the coasts. In the middle is where you find the cash flow. But, but yeah, I mean, if you're able to cash flow in a state like this and get the appreciation, I've been very fortunate. I found deals, you know, I've made them work and, and, and luckily it's worked out for me. Is it possible today? Yes. Is it harder? Yes. Will it get harder 10, 20 years from now? Yes. You should start now.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it, that is, but yeah, buying and holding is, buying and holding is where it's at. I, I promise if I, if, if I have $5 or $7 million worth of real estate paid off and I walk into any bank, I don't know what you're looking at. I mean, yeah, it'll be a done deal. They'll, they'll gimme anything I want.

Exactly. And yeah, so if anyone needs help with that, like I have courses, I coach students on this. I help you find off-market deals without door knocking or cold calling. I know Brandon's really good at that for most of us.

Yeah. Yeah. Sean won't teach me the easy way to do it, so I have to do it the hard way.

I just got a call today. The guy is like, he said creative financing, said to you it was a direct mail thing in a very specific way. So it's all out there. Just figure it out and stick with it. But if you don't like what you're— if you don't like door knocking, don't try and do it and try and find an off-market property. Go on market, do whatever you need to do because like just get something at that That's the lesson. Okay. So Brandon, if someone wants to reach out to you, work with you, what, whatnot, what, how do they get ahold of you?

Yeah, I mean, I probably, I'm not, like I said, pseudo guru, so I, I don't have like the whole, the whole pitch or anything like that. But I mean, Brandon Hendrick, you can find me on Facebook. I will, we'll put my, my information down below, but, uh, pnwrentalsll, pnwrentals1@gmail.com. You can reach out to me there. You can reach out to me on Facebook. I don't really do X. I don't really do Instagram very much. But if you need to, Shona knows how to get ahold of me. I don't wanna give out my personal phone number because I already, I already have people trying to drive with me on the weekends. Last, you know, I, I, I, I, you know, I, I like to take some of me time, right? Hey, I own assets. I don't have to pick up every phone call now. Right?

So it could be a seller though, you know?

I, and that's why I do pick up every phone call because it could be a deal, but it has to.

All right.

But yeah, but, but yeah, if you want to reach out, you know, that's my email. Shona knows how to get ahold of me. You can find me on Facebook. You know, if you're interested in flipping, interested in wholesaling, interested in house hacking, multifamilies, you know, I just, I'm doing it very steady. I did it with W-2 incomes. I'm now not W-2 anymore. I'm now a full-time investor. So, you know, at some point you need to bank on yourself. Mm-hmm. But you know, there's seller financing opportunities, there's joint venturing, there's commercial, there's, you know, DSCR loans, all kinds of stuff. So there's so many ways. The sky's the limit. Sky's the limit. So many opportunities for sure.

Yeah. I mean, if any of this resonated with you, if you want good cash flow mid, you know, midterms are great. I coach students on that. I give you the recipe. If you want off market, if you want creative deals, like you just, you gotta take action. And I think, I know, Brandon, you haven't done a lot of coaching. I've done a lot of it. I coach students and I think having someone there to guide you is really valuable or even be part of a community, whatever that looks like, going to events, knowing who to call. But I think there's definitely— I mean, you want to spend the— take the 10,000 calls or just get into a property and start building equity.

I don't know. I would be a terrible coach, Shona, because I'm just going to tell people to do it. Just, just do it. Do that thing or 10,000 phone calls. Just to pick up the phone and start dialing.

That's a lot of— who has the time, though, if you're working a W-2? Like, I don't know who has those kind of that time, right? That's definitely—

yeah, yeah.

Or just send out the right kind of marketing and get off market.

Yeah. And you're going to have to— you're going to have to bring me back on for the third time so I can tell you guys how I found all of those properties. First one on market, the other three off market.

Yeah, right. Exactly. And that's— I mean, look, but I think we also put off market on a pedestal. You can buy on market too. It's just— it's more oftentimes you can be more creative. You find deals that aren't being advertised, right? So it all works, but off market is kind of the, the standard gold.

I've seen terrible off market deals.

Right.

I've seen terrible on market deals. Yeah. I mean, even right now, even right now, I'm one of the properties I'm under contract on that I'm wholesaling is on market.

But it's a good deal. I looked at that and the numbers are, it's actually a legit deal, right?

Some of these wholesalers. I'm one of those wholesalers that doesn't send out nonsense. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like it's like, oh, that's actually, you know, really creative and cash flowing. And especially if you add like, you know, MTR to it. So yeah, well, for anyone listening, reach— if you need help with this stuff, reach out to me. I have a couple courses. I have the REI Playbook. It's how to find, you know, properties off market without door knocking and cold calling. If that is— if that's not your jam, that's not my jam. I mean, you can be really good at it. Or if you want to figure out how to like maximize your cash flow, an expensive market and get great tenant, great guests, I like to call them, reach out, can help you. And Brandon, thank you so much. This was fun as usual. We could probably go on for a few more hours.

Yeah. Yeah. You guys think an hour and a half is long? I mean, we could, we could double it. I'm sure we could go for another hour.

Yeah. Marathon. We'll do like a marathon.

Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have to start taking donations though. Like, for every hour we need, we need to hit X amount of dollars. and we'll keep going and yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Awesome. Well, yeah, I will, I'm sure I'll see you out in the field at some point in an event maybe. Who knows?

I, I do go to those sometimes. I, my presence is my presence.

It is. Time is valuable, right? You should be intentional about what you do for sure. Well, yeah, so any, for, I'll put stuff in the show notes for anyone that was live. I didn't, we didn't get to Q&A, but thank you for tuning in. If you're watching the replay, like drop a comment and we'll try and answer it, but yeah, I think This was fun. So thanks, Brandon.

I really appreciate it. Yeah, always, always. I love talking to you. And next time I have a landlord complaint, that's the person to call. Anytime you're, you're any— yeah, Shona. And she does that for free too. If you call her and just start complaining, she'll be like, oh my God, yeah, tenants are the worst. And she'll get into it, right? So that's the best way to get ahold of Shona is call with complaints.

Complaints. Yeah. I have a special complaint line. It goes right to voicemail, by the way.

Oh man.

Awesome. All right, Randy.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Let us know what you thought. Leave a review. Follow us. All that good stuff. Show them, show them out. I can't even talk anymore. She's got assets. That's like, kill.

Yeah. Go have a sandwich. Go have dinner. Jesus.

All right. Okay.