Brandon Rickman is a seasoned entrepreneur and real estate investor who has flipped over 500 houses, developed 100+ new construction homes, and owned both short-term and long-term rentals. A licensed commercial and residential general contractor, Brandon also runs a private lending business and is currently developing a 115,000 sq ft Class A self-storage facility just outside Atlanta. Beyond real estate, he has built and sold multiple companies in the consumer products space. Brandon has been married to his wife, Kellye, for 23 years, and they have one 15-year-old son.

Here’s some of the topics we covered:

  • What Flipping 500+ Homes Taught Brandon About Wealth and Risk
  • Step-By-Step Breakdown of a High-Profit House Flip
  • The Direct Mail Tactics That Flooded Brandon With Deals
  • The Number One Cold Calling/Texting Strategy
  • Building Rapport With A Potential Seller
  • Why Finding the Right Mentor Can 10x Your Real Estate Game
  • The Business Partner Red Flag Every Investor Should Know
  • Creative Options For Funding Your Real Estate Deal
  • Brandon’s Proven Renovation Formula That Boosts ROI Fast
  • Other Real Estate Assets Brandon Does Business In

To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 72345 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com

Full Transcript Below

01:20:08:06 – 01:20:25:20
Rod
Welcome to another edition of Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate investing. I’m Rod Khleif, and I’m thrilled you’re here. You’re going to get tremendous value from the gentleman I’m interviewing today who came in from Atlanta, although he just got a condo here in Siesta Key, which I’m jealous because I love that particular area in my backyard here. Yeah.

01:20:25:20 – 01:20:39:15
Rod
His name is Brandon Rickman. And Brandon has done over 500 flips as a private lending business. He’s developing a class A self storage facility. He’s he’s done a lot of different things, and we’re gonna have a lot of fun today. Welcome to the show, bro. Thanks, Rob. Yeah.

01:20:39:16 – 01:20:39:29
Brandon
Happy to be.

01:20:39:29 – 01:20:51:00
Rod
Here. So. So why don’t you start like we typically do and just give us a little bit of your background? You know, when you got into real estate, if you started in real estate or if you started somewhere else and and kind of bring us current.

01:20:51:02 – 01:21:19:19
Brandon
Yeah. So my dad was actually a builder, so I kind of grew up around real estate and construction. My brother is still on the commercial side. He does commercial development. I stayed on the residential side primarily, doing the self storage facility, like you said. And we have an office as well that we owned. But for the most part, I stayed on the single family side and had a remodeling company for a few years and then moved over into new construction, started doing new houses, and for the last ten years have focused on flipping houses.

01:21:19:19 – 01:21:20:04
Brandon
So in the.

01:21:20:04 – 01:21:20:14
Rod
Atlanta.

01:21:20:14 – 01:21:28:10
Brandon
MSA, all around Atlanta, we’ve had some short term rentals that we’ve done outside of Atlanta. Right. And then, of course, the place here you mentioned in Siesta Key.

01:21:28:13 – 01:21:32:23
Rod
Right. Just as a quick aside, the short term rentals, where were they?

01:21:32:25 – 01:21:34:09
Brandon
They were in north Georgia, in the mountains.

01:21:34:09 – 01:21:41:22
Rod
It was in the Blue Ridge. Yes. Okay. Yeah. My brother has cabins up there, but he’s hurting right now. Yeah. It’s not going as well.

01:21:41:24 – 01:21:43:04
Brandon
Ours were on a lake.

01:21:43:05 – 01:21:43:15
Rod
Okay.

01:21:43:21 – 01:21:50:19
Brandon
In a golf course, community. Okay. Gated community. So they did okay because they were resort destinations. And so they did. Okay.

01:21:50:19 – 01:22:06:19
Rod
Okay. Yeah. He had to sell a couple of his cabins. Same same area at Blue Ridge. I love that area up there, by the way. Okay. Yeah. If you don’t mind, I’d like to really go deep on flipping. You flip 500 freaking houses. Even more than I’ve done. I mean, I’ve bought and held. I’ve flipped a few, but most of mine were buy and hold.

01:22:06:21 – 01:22:23:13
Rod
And so, you know, I’d love to go soup to nuts on flipping. Okay, for those that are listening, that think, hey, you know, I want to build some quick cash, you know, I mean, you could flip multifamily too, by the way. I’ve got students that have made a lot of money flipping multifamily, even wholesaling multifamily. You ever wholesale or just.

01:22:23:13 – 01:22:24:12
Brandon
Flip we wholesale?

01:22:24:16 – 01:22:42:03
Rod
You have wholesale some. Yeah, because there’s going to be properties you don’t want to go after and someone else might like them. Right. And that’s what I tell my students as well. You know, if you want you pick a market, you know, get a list of people that are buying there. Because if there’s a deal you can’t do or don’t want to, do you still, I mean, you know, it’s really interesting.

01:22:42:05 – 01:22:57:23
Rod
And then, sorry, I won’t steal the mic here, but, I put a, a question out to my warriors, my coaching students. I’ve got a big coaching platform. And I said, how many of you have wholesaling a multifamily? I made over 100 grand. And this was like 3 or 4 years ago, and 12 of them had two.

01:22:57:23 – 01:22:58:19
Rod
Made over a million.

01:22:58:23 – 01:23:00:26
Brandon
Are you serious? Wow. I’ve never done.

01:23:00:26 – 01:23:17:27
Rod
That. Yeah, right. We can wholesale and flip all sorts of things. So talk about how you got into the flipping. Maybe, and, and kind of give us, you know, how things progressed. Because to flip 500 houses, you had to put it. You had to put a team together. I put systems in place. So kind of bring us, you know, how you did that or.

01:23:17:28 – 01:23:33:12
Brandon
Yeah. So our first flip that we did, my wife was a math teacher. Okay. And no kids at the time, you know, been married a few years, and, I was working for a builder in town, so I was building houses for another builder, and we really just wanted to make a little extra money on the side.

01:23:33:12 – 01:23:45:28
Brandon
We never had a big vision of, oh, let’s build a big real estate company, right? It was, hey, let’s see if we can make a little money on the side. And there was a house in our neighborhood that was dilapidated, was kind of rundown, and we went out, knocked on the door and said, would you be interested in selling the house?

01:23:45:28 – 01:23:51:10
Brandon
And as it turned out, the father had passed away. The mother was going into assisted living and the house was destroyed.

01:23:51:11 – 01:23:52:02
Rod
Perfect.

01:23:52:04 – 01:24:11:09
Brandon
And so we made them an offer. They accepted it. We, you know, had saved up a little bit of money to do that, to do the repairs. 10% down or 15% down. Got a loan through a bank and then did all the work ourselves. So big learning experience. You know, it was we work our day job, you know, Monday through Friday, 9 to 5.

01:24:11:09 – 01:24:14:04
Brandon
And then at night and weekends were over there tiling floors and painting.

01:24:14:04 – 01:24:17:20
Rod
And you had the boss helping. I did have the boss help. Yes. Okay.

01:24:17:20 – 01:24:20:27
Brandon
Yeah. So she she’s the owner and I’m the I’m the worker.

01:24:20:27 – 01:24:26:29
Rod
Right, right. Let’s get that right. Let’s get that right. Okay. Yeah. We that was the first one. Did you make money or lose money on the first one?

01:24:27:00 – 01:24:40:00
Brandon
We did make money, but it took longer and cost more than it should have because we were trying to do everything ourselves. And I always tell people now find people who are experts. Let them do it. You know, it might take me a week to hang sheetrock, right? It’ll take them a day because they do it all day.

01:24:40:00 – 01:24:49:03
Brandon
They have the tools, they know what they’re doing. So we don’t do the work at all anymore. Back then, we were doing, you know, 1 or 2 houses on the side a year, probably.

01:24:49:05 – 01:24:56:00
Rod
You know, when I did it, I actually enjoyed it sometimes because, you know, you sit behind a desk and you go out there occasionally swinging a hammer. It can be fun.

01:24:56:02 – 01:25:01:04
Brandon
It can I describe it? It’s the difference in doing something because you want to do it versus because you have to do it.

01:25:01:04 – 01:25:17:01
Rod
Right, right, right. I mean, what’s what’s what’s your time worth? You know, I’d love to ride my my zero turn freaking mower out in the yard, but that is not the best use of rods time. So yeah. Okay. So so you did a few a like that and then you’re like, hey, this is this is looking very interesting.

01:25:17:01 – 01:25:18:09
Rod
And maybe we should ramp it up.

01:25:18:10 – 01:25:37:04
Brandon
Yeah. We were we were making good money doing that and kept finding houses. Inventory was was available then. Right. Certainly was much more plentiful. Right, right. We’re as many people doing it back then. It’s no 20. So I’ve been married 24 years. So it was 22 or 23 years ago. Okay. Wow. And so we kept doing it, finding another house.

01:25:37:04 – 01:25:52:26
Brandon
And eventually we realized that we were making more money flip houses. And so my wife quit her job. She got a real estate license. No, she did so that, you know, on the buy side, in the sell side, instead of giving up 3% commission, we could keep it ourselves. And then so she started working with me full time in the business.

01:25:52:29 – 01:26:08:11
Brandon
And, we started learning about and we joined groups, mastermind groups, where we could learn more about how to find properties, how to market. And we started doing a lot of outbound marketing for properties. Eventually, I quit working for the builder, and we were both full time in in.

01:26:08:11 – 01:26:10:09
Rod
Flipping nook, you go, see, we’re on the grand.

01:26:10:10 – 01:26:11:15
Brandon
Or I’m saying.

01:26:11:17 – 01:26:24:12
Rod
See that crusty old fart? I love him back in the day. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. And did you ever join the Tampa mastermind here with, those boys? I did you know who I’m talking about? Collective genius. Yeah, they they were, so.

01:26:24:14 – 01:26:28:08
Brandon
I was I was in collective genius. Oh. You were. I’m sorry. When you said Tampa, I was thinking of.

01:26:28:09 – 01:26:30:21
Rod
That’s where he came from. You guys based Jason, right?

01:26:30:21 – 01:26:37:00
Brandon
Okay. Yeah. I was an, collective genius from six, 2016 until 23.

01:26:37:00 – 01:26:56:21
Rod
No kidding. Well, then actually, then we crossed paths because before I was in there in 21 or 20 or 22, I don’t remember. I’m at probably 20 or 21 because I had built a multifamily mastermind and those guys do a masterful job with their mastermind, and I didn’t want to. I wasn’t there to rub elbows with flippers or learn how to flip or anything.

01:26:56:22 – 01:27:03:26
Rod
I want to just see how they ran their mastermind. So I joined for a year and enjoyed the hell out of it. But But I only did it for a year. But, yeah.

01:27:04:01 – 01:27:04:28
Brandon
We probably saw each other.

01:27:04:28 – 01:27:23:03
Rod
No, I think we did. Actually, I’m fairly certain we did. You’re faces a little bit familiar, so I don’t remember names worth a damn, but I remember faces. So let’s dissect a typical flip. Okay. And I guess it starts with finding the deal. Right? So talk about the different methodologies you’ve used to find deals. And let’s go a little micro if you don’t mind.

01:27:23:03 – 01:27:23:15
Rod
Sure.

01:27:23:15 – 01:27:30:28
Brandon
Absolutely. So I think part of that learning process was I knew how to I knew how to, come up with the RV for a house, right? I knew how to.

01:27:30:28 – 01:27:38:07
Rod
Repair value values, RV guys. So now you have to know what that is if you’re going to flip because. So what’s it going to be worth when you know when it’s time to sell? Okay.

01:27:38:09 – 01:27:45:11
Brandon
So I knew how to do that. I knew how to do the construction and estimate the cost of the construction. But what I didn’t know was how to how to find the property.

01:27:45:11 – 01:28:02:13
Rod
So hold on one second. You knew that because you’ve got a contracting background or your family’s a contracting background. So those of you that don’t have that background, then you’ve got to bring in a contractor, you’ve got to bring in, you know, you’ve got to develop some relationships with some subs and, and and have them, you know, bid this thing, bid it out so you don’t make a mistake.

01:28:02:16 – 01:28:11:00
Rod
Because the biggest mistakes correct me if I’m wrong. And that business from my understanding, the biggest mistakes are in in the, you know, the maker in in the in you know the work.

01:28:11:01 – 01:28:13:24
Brandon
Absolutely. Yeah. If you underestimate with the cost is going to be.

01:28:13:26 – 01:28:18:07
Rod
Or hire a bad vendor that rip you off and screws with you.

01:28:18:07 – 01:28:26:25
Brandon
Yeah we do upfront. You know, we’ll take a contractor in with us on all of our projects now. Yeah. What’s the cost going to be getting a fixed bid so we can put that in our budget.

01:28:26:25 – 01:28:29:12
Rod
Know exactly what it is. That’s that’s an that’s how it should be done. Right? Right.

01:28:29:12 – 01:28:32:23
Brandon
And it fluctuates a little bit. You know, you can put a 10% over again just to make.

01:28:32:23 – 01:28:35:08
Rod
Sure that’s not a bad idea because you may have changes. Right. Yeah.

01:28:35:08 – 01:28:49:04
Brandon
Okay. So really learning how to do outbound marketing to find off market properties. Right. Key for us because you can buy on the MLS, you can buy through agents. But by the time a real estate agent has a listing right agreement for a property, they are trying to sell it. For as much as.

01:28:49:04 – 01:28:59:28
Rod
I came back, back in the day, you could find deals that way and not anymore. Not I mean, maybe it’s coming again now with the market really slowing down. So how well would you find deals if you can’t find them that are listed within realtor?

01:28:59:28 – 01:29:04:10
Brandon
So we started doing outbound marketing. We really targeted direct mail to direct mail.

01:29:04:10 – 01:29:04:18
Rod
Yeah.

01:29:04:24 – 01:29:08:00
Brandon
So we were buying data from list providers.

01:29:08:03 – 01:29:15:13
Rod
And it names some of them because there’s a lot of disreputable ones out there. They’ll resell the lists and they’re complete crap. So what are some good ones.

01:29:15:13 – 01:29:23:24
Brandon
So list source is probably the best list source you go to and for your own list okay. Source. We’ve used them for ten years or more okay.

01:29:23:27 – 01:29:24:06
Rod
Okay.

01:29:24:07 – 01:29:32:14
Brandon
There’s also data providers that you can buy from. R.i 8020 re okay. Is a good one. They’re based down here in Florida.

01:29:32:21 – 01:29:34:12
Rod
And what makes them different from list source.

01:29:34:12 – 01:29:50:01
Brandon
They have data scientist. So they’re going in. If you think about a single family property you know you can go in and find every address in the state of Florida if you want to. Well, now we’re going to take all those properties. We’re going to see which ones are behind on their taxes. Which ones have notices for not taking care of maybe.

01:29:50:01 – 01:29:52:05
Rod
Been in there 20 or 30 years and they’re free and clear.

01:29:52:05 – 01:30:06:00
Brandon
Free and clear high equity. Right. So maybe it’s a probate property where somebody passed away and they inherited the property. So you stack all these things on top of each other. Now we come across properties that have four motivating factors. Yeah. Or five.

01:30:06:00 – 01:30:09:25
Rod
And it’s all about what? Motivation.

01:30:09:28 – 01:30:10:07
Brandon
Yeah.

01:30:10:07 – 01:30:24:15
Rod
What’s it about. You can’t you can’t push a rope okay. You know I get people to call me and say hey I can’t get to sell to sell. I’m like, yeah, okay. I mean, you can’t push your rope. So you’ve got to find motivation. You’ve got to get them when they’re motivated. Somebody died, did a divorce. Somebody is ill.

01:30:24:15 – 01:30:30:22
Rod
They’re tired. They’re they’re disgusted. Whatever they’ve had too many evictions whatever. Yeah. You know they’re worn out. Right.

01:30:30:26 – 01:30:52:09
Brandon
And and we say no doesn’t mean no. It means not right now. Right. And so there’s lots of follow up with them, but basically with outbound like direct mail, is an outbound technique. So we say, hey, if you’re interested in selling your house, call us. So we’re targeting that very specific list of data. We’re buying that data from 8020 I order antique as another great antique okay.

01:30:52:09 – 01:31:09:16
Brandon
We buy data from both of them and pull our own data from list source. So we’re targeting those people who have motivating factors. They have a reason to sell or a need to sell. Right. And across the country, they say it’s about 2% of the people who want to sell their property are motivated to sell for some reason.

01:31:09:19 – 01:31:16:25
Brandon
So we had to learn that, you know, if we get 100 phone calls, two of them have motivation. Now we have to go through those and see if we can come up with a deal.

01:31:17:00 – 01:31:26:23
Rod
So I’ve done a lot of mail as well. And to talk about some of the different mail strategies specific to mail, because I remember, you know, you talk about bulk mail and all that stuff. So talk about some of the strategies.

01:31:26:26 – 01:31:52:15
Brandon
So when we pull data, I always encourage people to, to do repetition. So let’s just say you have a budget of $10,000 that you’re going to spend on, direct mail. Well, don’t go drop $10,000 worth of direct mail this month. Spread it out over a three month or four month period. Because like any other kind of marketing, the more they see your advertising or your direct mail campaign, your postcard or your letter, the more likely they’re going to be to go, to go.

01:31:52:16 – 01:32:08:29
Brandon
Oh, this is a real company. They’re not just fly by night. They didn’t just drop mail one time and see what happens. So I encourage people to spread it out over a three month or four month period. Hit the same people 3 or 4 times, switch it up between postcards and letters, different yellow letters, handwritten letters, different types of letters.

01:32:08:29 – 01:32:12:13
Rod
Invitation letters. Yeah. Those that those envelopes are really good. Yeah.

01:32:12:18 – 01:32:13:25
Brandon
Pink envelopes. Right.

01:32:13:25 – 01:32:14:20
Rod
Pink envelopes.

01:32:14:20 – 01:32:24:24
Brandon
Okay. Yeah. Decorated envelopes because people it’s not your typical spam type mail. So they’ll actually open it and read what it says. We’ve done check letters too. That was a big campaign for.

01:32:24:24 – 01:32:27:00
Rod
Did that work. It did an interesting.

01:32:27:01 – 01:32:28:20
Brandon
It’s a slow start but it picked.

01:32:28:20 – 01:32:46:12
Rod
Up. So it just looks like a check in an envelope and a day open it up. You know, I mentioned bulky mail back in the day. They talk about all these different strategies where you throw a little eraser in the envelope or throw some, some ski of some sort in there and, and you get people to respond, and so you change it up.

01:32:46:13 – 01:33:07:07
Rod
One thing that’s worked really well for us, if I might add, is we put a, a return self-addressed, stamped postcard in the letter so they could fill it out. Now, of course, it’s double the price of the mail because it’s stamped. But, you know, it was only to people that had owned at least 20 or 30 years, you know, so we knew they were high equity, if not free and clear.

01:33:07:09 – 01:33:23:18
Rod
And that demographic is retirees. And their primary initial primary modality of communication was mail. And we had fantastic results with that. Yeah. In fact, you know, what was what is your average response just from your mailing? Typically, I’d like you to hear yours.

01:33:23:18 – 01:33:26:19
Brandon
Well, it’s gone down a lot over the last 5 or 6 years.

01:33:26:21 – 01:33:27:19
Rod
What? I mean, we’re.

01:33:27:19 – 01:33:28:27
Brandon
At like .02.

01:33:28:27 – 01:33:31:02
Rod
Percent, 6.02.

01:33:31:04 – 01:33:33:09
Brandon
We were at 1%, right? Five years ago, right.

01:33:33:09 – 01:33:43:18
Rod
And 1% people are thrilled. If they get 1% right, you’re going you’re not going to believe this was truth. When I did some of the things that I did, I was getting an 8 to 9% response rate.

01:33:43:18 – 01:33:44:27
Brandon
Are you serious? From direct mail?

01:33:45:02 – 01:34:00:22
Rod
From direct mail. Wow. Yes. Now, one of the other things when I was mailing multifamily, though. And so one of the things we did that, that, that takes a lot of work is most multifamily is owned in an entity of some sort. So we’d break down the entity, we’d find out who owned it, we get their home addresses, we’d mail them there.

01:34:00:22 – 01:34:09:08
Rod
That was a big thing. Yeah, you know, obviously, obviously handwritten envelopes every time never printed. And that self-addressed stamped thing really worked extremely well. Yeah.

01:34:09:08 – 01:34:11:25
Brandon
So anyways, you break all that down, how do you find all that information?

01:34:11:25 – 01:34:27:00
Rod
By tracing. No, you get it. It’s a pain in the ass. I mean, I had I had at one time I had, eight virtual assistants. I had six in the Philippines. I was paying each one of them $1.93 an hour, 40 hours a week. I had six people working for under 12 bucks an hour, and they were thrilled.

01:34:27:00 – 01:34:42:21
Rod
Okay, it’s not like I was taking advantage of them. And, so they would break down the entities they’d contact. They go to the secretary of State’s office and and look up the the documents, break it down. They also I had them also geocode every mobile home park in the country because a lot of the mobile home parks are misclassified.

01:34:42:26 – 01:35:00:11
Rod
And I thought I was going to oops. And I thought I was going to get into that business. And, I didn’t, but, that was my son. But anyway, I found out I’m going to be a granddad that first time saying that publicly. Yeah, he’s got a baby girl coming. Yeah. It’s incredible, but,

01:35:00:16 – 01:35:16:05
Rod
But anyway, Yeah, I thought I was going to get in the mobile home park business in. A lot of mobile home parks are misidentified. So you can go on Google Earth and you can have a geocoding overlay, and you can click on something and you see who owns it. Which is kind of cool. If you’re, you know, interesting that I never did it.

01:35:16:05 – 01:35:32:06
Rod
I never pulled the trigger on it, but, Yeah, Vas are incredible for that. Now, now, I’ve shifted from the Philippines and India to, Latin America because we’re on the same time zone, you know, and I’ve got people down there that are incredible. They’re just wonderful virtual assistance. Prices a little different. It’s a little more.

01:35:32:06 – 01:35:38:04
Rod
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eight bucks an hour or, you know, maybe even a little more than that, but still compared to. Yeah, yeah.

01:35:38:06 – 01:35:40:02
Brandon
Yeah. So anyway, job we use Vas as well.

01:35:40:04 – 01:35:46:25
Rod
Do you. Yeah. They’re fantastic. So. So, So male. Okay. So you do male talk about some of the other strategies for marketing.

01:35:46:25 – 01:35:48:27
Brandon
So we’ve done pay per click.

01:35:49:02 – 01:35:49:20
Rod
Okay.

01:35:49:22 – 01:35:51:08
Brandon
Pay per lead, which is slightly pay.

01:35:51:08 – 01:36:00:01
Rod
Per click in Google. Yes. Okay. So what sorts of of keywords would you be clicking and it has it was that successful.

01:36:00:04 – 01:36:21:21
Brandon
It was successful. You know I always encourage people to do think of marketing is like a three legged stool. So you need to have three legs going. Obviously not when you’re starting out. If you’re just starting out, pick one, right. It could be cold calling, it could be SMS texting. While that’s still legal, right. It could be direct mail, but pick which one you want to do and learn it and become an expert at it.

01:36:21:27 – 01:36:28:16
Brandon
So do that, become good at it, know what you’re doing with that. And then as you grow, add other marketing channels to it and.

01:36:28:19 – 01:36:31:25
Rod
As you have some money come in, you know, so you can afford it, right. That’s right. Yeah. Okay.

01:36:32:01 – 01:36:48:05
Brandon
The issue with, with Mark, with outbound marketing is all of those channels will work. They just goes up and down and nobody really knows why it fluctuates. So this month direct mail may kill it next month. Direct mail doesn’t do that. Well you know you get ten deals this month out of direct mail next month you get one.

01:36:48:05 – 01:37:02:23
Brandon
Got it. So with a three legged stool for marketing, you might choose direct mail, paper lead and cold calling. And then as one of those goes up and down from month to month, the other ones do well. So we do it like a multi-channel marketing effort.

01:37:02:28 – 01:37:10:19
Rod
Okay. Now what do you do that now? Now. Got it. You started with direct mail, correct? Let’s talk about each one of those for a minute. So let’s talk about cold calling. Do you have Vas.

01:37:10:19 – 01:37:11:16
Brandon
Do that with you.

01:37:11:19 – 01:37:26:25
Rod
Okay. And so where are they located? Philippines in the Philippines. And you know, I had people in the Philippines that sound like they’re from frigging Wyoming. I mean, they you can’t tell that they’re in the Philippines. It’s crazy. Yeah. You know, it’s it’s brutal for them because they’re doing it in the middle of the night. But so what do they say?

01:37:27:02 – 01:37:36:20
Brandon
We actually have our Vas who are doing cold calling and texting from the Philippines. Okay. And, lead manager from the Philippines as well, so they can be trained to do all that. And they do a great job.

01:37:36:20 – 01:37:37:26
Rod
What does lead manager mean?

01:37:37:28 – 01:37:54:03
Brandon
So when you get, if you think of like a typical sales funnel, all the leads that come in at the top are just lead. Somebody owns a house. So our requirements are number one. Do they own the house? And number two, are they interested in an offer. Right. If they say yes to that it goes into the top of the funnel okay.

01:37:54:06 – 01:38:05:09
Brandon
And so then we have to determine okay which one of those is qualified, which one’s motivated. What are their motivating factors. So the cold caller or the texter that’s their initial reach.

01:38:05:10 – 01:38:06:06
Rod
They’re doing the screening.

01:38:06:06 – 01:38:19:07
Brandon
They’re doing the screening. And so then a lead manager manages those leads. They take the initial phone call or the initial text. They respond to the people. They ask a series of qualifying questions to see if they’re motivated or not. And it moves down the funnel. Well, you know.

01:38:19:07 – 01:38:28:18
Rod
I’m going to ask you what those are. Back to marketing for just a minute. If they’re actually cold calling, like calling a homeowner that without knowing if they want to sell or not. Yeah. What’s the script?

01:38:28:20 – 01:38:44:06
Brandon
So, hi. As this Mr. Smith. Yes. Hey, Mr. Smith, this is, John with Simply Sold Atlanta. We are buying houses in your area. In your neighborhood, and just wanted to know if you might be interested in selling your property at one, two, three Main Street.

01:38:44:06 – 01:38:59:26
Rod
That’s it, that’s it? Yeah, yeah, I did a little cold calling in my script was, Hey, I you know, just I just come on. I left field, but my, my, my boss needs to buy a property. He needs to buy in the next 30 days, i.e. maybe 1031, and they feel like they got a little edge on you.

01:38:59:27 – 01:39:15:11
Rod
Right? So. So because with the 1031 exchange, you know, you’ve got a certain amount of time to identify a property, certain amount of time to close. So they might date this. If the seller has any savvy at all, they may know that they have a better chance of, you know, pulling a trigger with that, but don’t know if you’ve ever thought of selling, if you have any interest in selling.

01:39:15:11 – 01:39:32:09
Rod
If not, you know, please don’t be offended. But if you do, I’d love to connect you with my boss. Yeah. That’s it. Right? As simple as that. Yeah. So cold calling direct mail, pay per click, you know, and, direct mail, pay per click. You’ve got, you’ve got inbound calls, obviously. Any other outbound besides that or was that it?

01:39:32:12 – 01:39:34:11
Rod
How about social media? Any anything on social media?

01:39:34:11 – 01:39:36:11
Brandon
We’ve now we post on social media but but.

01:39:36:11 – 01:39:47:04
Rod
But not advertising okay. All right. And so so lead manager handles it. You you qualify them sort of sending me some of the qualifying questions. You know. Why are you selling.

01:39:47:06 – 01:40:03:06
Brandon
Yeah okay. Yeah. Why are you thinking about selling. How soon do you want to move? Right. You know, any time we talk to a seller, they. It’s always best case scenario. We say all sellers are liars. Because I say especially when you first talk to them. So if you’re, if you’re reaching out to them, if you’re cold calling them, they have no idea who you are.

01:40:03:06 – 01:40:18:10
Brandon
They don’t know if you’re a bot or if you’re a scammer. And so you have to build rapport with them. Right. And so the initial questions are obviously, do you own the house? Are you interested in selling. If so, that goes into our CRM. Our lead manager would then follow up with a second call and second series of questions.

01:40:18:10 – 01:40:19:06
Rod
And ask those qualifying.

01:40:19:06 – 01:40:28:08
Brandon
Questions. Right. And those would be we find out, we break it down. I say, okay, first thing we want to do is find out about the house, and we don’t really care so much about the house. Right.

01:40:28:10 – 01:40:36:25
Rod
But but but it comes from down. That’s right. It builds rapport and build. So how many bedrooms, you know, describe the house. Why do you like it or what’s great about it? Whatever. You know, just build rapport.

01:40:36:25 – 01:40:57:12
Brandon
Yeah. And there’s a lot of tricks and things to say and not to say. As an example, we always ask, do you currently live in the house? I don’t ask them. Is the house vacant because that puts them on a defensive? No, it’s not vacant. I live in it’s my primary house, so do you currently, even if I think it’s vacant or it’s a rental, we we train our our folks when they call them, say, okay, are you currently living in the house?

01:40:57:12 – 01:41:07:07
Brandon
Right. No I’m not. It’s a rental. Well, now we got that information we need and we didn’t offend anybody, right. How quickly? So we first go through the questions about the house. Right again. Right.

01:41:07:08 – 01:41:14:16
Rod
Okay. So you get you get in, then you get the more troubling question. That’s right. Like, how much do you owe? Have you ever thought about carrying things like that? Right.

01:41:14:19 – 01:41:14:24
Brandon
Yeah.

01:41:14:24 – 01:41:17:09
Rod
Well, why do you care how much we owe? You know this business, right?

01:41:17:12 – 01:41:34:15
Brandon
And if you ask that upfront, I forget. I’ve been there. Forget it. So we’ll say, okay, so you might be interested in selling your house, right. Again, we’re not saying do you want to sell your house, right. You may be interested in selling. And if they say, well, that’s softer, it’s softer. And we say, well, if it’s a fair deal for both of us, I mean, it’s got to work for you and it’s got to work for us.

01:41:34:15 – 01:41:45:26
Brandon
So if we can come to an agreement on on price and on all the terms and everything you might be interested in selling. Yeah. Might be. Okay. Great. Can you tell me a little bit about the house? And they start talking hopefully.

01:41:45:26 – 01:41:51:04
Rod
And you let them talk as long as they want. Much as they’ll talk, they love the conversation. If they’re the ones doing the the talking.

01:41:51:04 – 01:41:55:05
Brandon
And the more they talk, the more they feel like they know us. Which doesn’t make sense.

01:41:55:05 – 01:41:57:15
Rod
No, that’s how to win friends and influence people.

01:41:57:15 – 01:42:10:26
Brandon
Dale Carnegie’s book, that’s it. Right? Yeah. So then after we’ve gotten some information about the house, how many bedrooms, how many about whatever they don’t tell us, we’ll say, you know, have you done any work to it lately? Have you have you done any updates or, when when they.

01:42:10:26 – 01:42:16:11
Rod
Love talking about that too, because it makes, you know, it adds value. They feel like they’re, you know, adding value. Yeah. Love that. That’s a.

01:42:16:11 – 01:42:22:24
Brandon
Good one. Yeah. And then, okay. Great. Thanks for sharing that information. Let me ask you this. Why are you thinking about selling now.

01:42:22:27 – 01:42:23:25
Rod

01:42:23:27 – 01:42:27:27
Brandon
How quickly are you thinking about moving. How quick are you trying to get something done.

01:42:28:00 – 01:42:30:00
Rod
Have you tried to sell it before you try it.

01:42:30:03 – 01:42:43:15
Brandon
And we ask them all the time to let me ask you this. If, based on what you’re telling me, why don’t you just list it with an agent? If you want full retail price and you want to get as much money as you can, why not list it with an agent? By the way, we have agents on our staff and we can list it for them.

01:42:43:17 – 01:42:48:15
Brandon
As an option. So, you know, we ask that question just to find out what their motivation.

01:42:48:15 – 01:42:57:17
Rod
They’ll, they’ll tell you some interesting things. Well it needs, it needs a little more work than it probably should or. Yeah. Or we really want to sell it more quickly or you I mean you get great information.

01:42:57:24 – 01:43:09:28
Brandon
I had last week, I had an agent that I talked to who doesn’t want to list the property. She wants to sell it off market, even though she’s an agent and could list her own house herself. She doesn’t want to. And she said she had some other private stuff going on. I think she’s going through. And it.

01:43:09:28 – 01:43:10:09
Rod
Could be.

01:43:10:09 – 01:43:12:28
Brandon
Yeah. You never know what situation people are in.

01:43:12:28 – 01:43:18:02
Rod
Interesting. Yeah. So you go with deeper questions. How much do you own things like that? So what’s the next stage?

01:43:18:05 – 01:43:22:21
Brandon
For us, since we’re doing everything locally in Atlanta, which I recommend, certainly if people.

01:43:22:25 – 01:43:24:10
Rod
Stay geographically specific.

01:43:24:10 – 01:43:44:15
Brandon
Yes, yes. If you’re going to wholesale, you can do that virtually. That’s not too difficult. But when you’re flipping I know the streets, I know the the school subdivision know the values. Right. So I encourage people, if you’re starting out, stay in the local area where you know, right, know that area. And then obviously if you’re going to do another strategy you can buy out of state.

01:43:44:18 – 01:44:01:19
Brandon
So we will our next step is to say, okay, great. Thanks for that information. It sounds like a property that it will probably work for us. The next step is to have our acquisition manager come out and physically walk the house with you. I’ve got an idea of what the cost will be to do the rehab based on what you’ve told me, but we need to put eyes on it and make sure.

01:44:01:19 – 01:44:04:08
Brandon
And then we’ll send an acquisition out to a to a in person.

01:44:04:08 – 01:44:07:23
Rod
And that person has a contract or. How’s that work? They have a contract.

01:44:07:23 – 01:44:08:23
Brandon
With a contract with them.

01:44:08:23 – 01:44:10:05
Rod
So they can write it right then and.

01:44:10:08 – 01:44:16:24
Brandon
Make offers on the spot, hopefully sign a contract. It doesn’t happen as much as we would like, obviously, because people want time to if they.

01:44:16:24 – 01:44:17:23
Rod
Want to think about it, right.

01:44:17:27 – 01:44:34:00
Brandon
But then we’ll follow up with them. You know, we set a follow up date. If we go out to the house, look at the house. We have our acquisition manager who leaves and says, let me go sit in my car, run the numbers, call my boss, like you said before my underwriting team and see what kind of number.

01:44:34:00 – 01:44:34:21
Brandon
Oh, you use them.

01:44:34:21 – 01:44:43:07
Rod
Good cop, bad cop to say use. Okay, well, my boss only thinks it’s worth this, you know? Yeah. Okay, I love that. Just like a car salesman.

01:44:43:07 – 01:44:56:11
Brandon
Yeah, if I could, if I could. Let me ask you this, Mr. Seller. I know you want 200 for your house. We’re at 120. I know we’re kind of far apart. I’m not sure if I could get my boss to agree to it, but let me ask you this. If I could get them to come up to 130.

01:44:56:11 – 01:45:07:02
Brandon
Right. Would you be willing to do it at 130? I know it’s still less than what you’re asking, but, I mean, I want to try to get you as much as I can, right? So our whole mindset then is we want to be on the same side of the table with the seller, right? We don’t want to be a cross.

01:45:07:02 – 01:45:11:08
Rod
It’s you and you and the seller against your boss. That’s right. Yeah, I love it. No.

01:45:11:11 – 01:45:12:18
Brandon
As if you’re across the table.

01:45:12:18 – 01:45:13:00
Rod
Right?

01:45:13:00 – 01:45:27:26
Brandon
Then they think it’s adversarial. It is. And as soon as you walk into their house, you know, we say we knock on their door and we say, thank you for inviting me into your house today. Oh, that’s good, I want you. I’m not coming because I’m forcing you. You’re asking me. You’re allowing me to come in and say, that’s a good.

01:45:27:26 – 01:45:29:00
Rod
So that’s a good reframe.

01:45:29:00 – 01:45:43:23
Brandon
Yeah. All that kind of mindset just to, let them know we’re not adversarial. We’re not. That’s not me against you. Right? Right, I love it. Me and you are on the same side of the table, and my boss is the one we have to convince. So I’m going to try to help you get the most money you can.

01:45:43:27 – 01:46:01:25
Brandon
Okay? And we go in to we talked about this a little bit earlier, but when we every house that we go into, we evaluate it to see does it make sense to buy and hold ourselves right. Does it make sense to flip right. Does it make sense to sell to another investor, to wholesale, to seller investor? And then we also offer all of those strategies to the seller.

01:46:01:26 – 01:46:04:17
Rod
Oh, so you get multiple multiple offers. We did you okay.

01:46:04:17 – 01:46:08:09
Brandon
Yeah. So I, we train our people. We’re a real estate service company.

01:46:08:13 – 01:46:09:03
Rod

01:46:09:05 – 01:46:25:10
Brandon
We were there to help people. May we buy and sell, you know, 100 or more houses a year. A lot of people buy 1 or 2 houses in a lifetime. Right? We’re experts. They’re not. We’re going to come in and listen to your situation and help you figure out what’s the best strategy for for getting the money you need based on your situation.

01:46:25:10 – 01:46:26:26
Rod
So create a win win. Yeah.

01:46:27:01 – 01:46:30:15
Brandon
So I want to hear about the property. But more importantly I want to hear about your situation.

01:46:30:22 – 01:46:38:07
Rod
Sometimes price isn’t the thing they need out quick right. Sometimes the price if you can close in a week or whatever. Yeah, that could be the deciding factor.

01:46:38:08 – 01:46:43:28
Brandon
Right. And that’s our first option. We pay cash. We can close in seven days. Right. Here’s the price if you’re what’s up.

01:46:43:28 – 01:46:45:26
Rod
What’s the second option. So finance.

01:46:45:28 – 01:46:47:02
Brandon
Know we actually don’t.

01:46:47:02 – 01:46:49:14
Rod
Subject to you do subject to know none of that.

01:46:49:15 – 01:47:03:01
Brandon
No. So we basically have four different strategies. The first being the cash offer. The second one would be we might be able to get you a little bit more, if we can take it to another one of our buyers that we work with, another investor that we work with. So that’s kind of a.

01:47:03:01 – 01:47:04:01
Rod
Wholesale deal, right?

01:47:04:09 – 01:47:13:21
Brandon
Where we might be able to get them a little bit more, tack on 10 or $15,000 and sell it to someone else. Which you know, as a strategy that we didn’t know for a long time even being in real estate.

01:47:13:22 – 01:47:14:08
Rod
No kidding.

01:47:14:08 – 01:47:15:01
Brandon
Yeah. We had.

01:47:15:07 – 01:47:15:24
Rod
You didn’t know.

01:47:15:24 – 01:47:21:29
Brandon
We started with flipping. Yeah. And new construction. And then went back into wholesaling after the 0809.

01:47:21:29 – 01:47:41:15
Rod
Yeah. You know, it’s funny, I didn’t have any mentors at all when I was doing this, and I had already had 5 or 600 houses. No more net, no more net. I bought a thousand houses that I owned. And, and that’s when I met Ron and started going his events. He’d have me up on stage and stuff like that, but but I was learning stuff that I hadn’t learned before.

01:47:41:15 – 01:47:46:01
Rod
Yeah. You know, but, you know, that’s, you know, it’s, Fire! Ready, aim. But I think.

01:47:46:01 – 01:47:55:11
Brandon
It’s now I think, one of the important things is having a coach or a mentor has been for sure. I mean, it was important then, too, but there weren’t a lot of.

01:47:55:11 – 01:48:23:07
Rod
Yeah. And in my space, I mean, just to brag for a minute, my warriors, my coaching students, they own 265, I think 65,000 units that we know of under my tutelage. And it’s probably closer to 280 or more honestly, which I’m really proud of, you know, and that lots of single family, lots of other asset classes, self storage, like you’re doing tons of those mobile home parks, retail, mixed use senior housing, student housing.

01:48:23:07 – 01:48:28:22
Rod
I’m getting into senior housing in a big way. Yeah, a big way. Yeah, I’m gonna start teaching it as well. That’s great. Yeah. But,

01:48:28:24 – 01:48:43:01
Brandon
So having someone who’s been there and. Yeah, for flipping houses, I’ve been flipping houses for over 20 years. Right. Well, if you’re just starting to flip a house, right, I’ve probably made a lot of the mistakes that you’re going to make, and I can tell you how to do it. So I think that was a huge part for us was just, you know.

01:48:43:01 – 01:48:43:24
Rod
Finding a mentor.

01:48:43:24 – 01:48:44:12
Brandon
Working with you.

01:48:44:13 – 01:48:44:20
Rod
And.

01:48:44:21 – 01:48:45:27
Brandon
Finding a mentor.

01:48:45:28 – 01:49:14:09
Rod
You just get one tip from a person can save you tens of thousands of dollars and, you know, save you from a seminar. Yeah. And so, so once you write the offer, I initially I’m sure you were buying with your own funds and bank financing. Right. Then you started bringing in private investors and like, like private lenders, which now you now do, you know, I mean, I remember I had this old woman in Denver that that that, would loan me money at 10% plus two points, you know, and I think you do 12 and two.

01:49:14:10 – 01:49:15:10
Rod
I think you just said.

01:49:15:12 – 01:49:15:17
Brandon
Yeah.

01:49:15:19 – 01:49:29:05
Rod
Yeah, 12 and two. So you buy the house with private lending, private money, hard money. You’ve done that, I’m sure. Banks, private investors. Have you ever done splits where you bring them in and they get a piece of the deal? Or is it always be spent alone?

01:49:29:05 – 01:49:38:26
Brandon
We haven’t as partners. Oh, there’s another thing I’m a a big advocate of is don’t ever have a partner unless you need to. I’ve had a lot of them.

01:49:38:26 – 01:49:46:02
Rod
Oh, I I’m dealing with a nightmare with a partner that, just this is just a complete POS. Yeah. So, yeah, I’m dealing with.

01:49:46:02 – 01:49:48:25
Brandon
It’s it’s a it’s like a marriage, you know, on going.

01:49:48:25 – 01:49:50:08
Rod
Easy to get to and hard to get.

01:49:50:08 – 01:50:09:00
Brandon
Out. Exactly. And you’re going to see everybody’s best side going into. Oh sure. In the dating phase. Sure. But over time when things get difficult, that’s when, that’s when the real bad side of people comes out. So we have to make sure we paper everything correctly upfront. Yeah, but we, my wife is, is really good about putting the brakes on anytime.

01:50:09:00 – 01:50:13:22
Brandon
I’m like, oh, why don’t we partner with this person to do that? She’s like, we don’t partner with people. Don’t forget we’ve been down.

01:50:13:22 – 01:50:34:03
Rod
Love that, love it, love it. So you close on the deal with whatever financing or whatever, cash arrangement you work out. And then you bring in your contractors. What are the typical upgrades that you make to a to a house? Like, do you have a stock? I’m sure you’ve got a, like, a stock paint package, you know, same paint colors.

01:50:34:05 – 01:50:43:12
Rod
You know, if you put in a new kitchen, you probably get the same cabinets and countertops and all that stuff. So talk about a little a little micro on that. So what do you typically do.

01:50:43:15 – 01:50:58:15
Brandon
It if I can jump back to something you mentioned real quick on the on the financing part, because that’s one of the biggest questions I get okay for business and half for years. One is how do you find the property. The other one is how do you fund it. Right. And so like you said, when we started out, we were trying to use bank money, save up our own money.

01:50:58:18 – 01:51:16:13
Brandon
And what I discovered over the years was you mentioned both of these hard money lending and private lending. Right. And so I kind of break it down into those three buckets, institutional lending, which is a bank, lower interest rates, much harder to get. They require w-2s and tax returns and all that, right? Hard money lenders are bigger companies who pull money together.

01:51:16:20 – 01:51:28:00
Brandon
And they are. They’ll loan out to other, flippers and wholesalers and, buy and hold investors. They’re going to charge a higher interest rate. So two points and 10% dew points and 12%.

01:51:28:00 – 01:51:28:27
Rod
Which is what you’re doing.

01:51:28:27 – 01:51:42:16
Brandon
Which is what we’re doing now. Right? Right. But they’re much easier to work with. Sure. They’re going to look at the property and based alone on the value of the property, not on your property too. Right. So if you have a job but you’re not making enough to pay for two houses or three houses, you can go to a hard money lender.

01:51:42:23 – 01:51:52:13
Brandon
And again, I had no idea when I started the business this was out there, right. But they’re very prevalent and we work with a bunch of them. And then private lenders is my preferred method, like you talked about.

01:51:52:19 – 01:51:55:01
Rod
What’s the difference between hard and private to me, they’re the same.

01:51:55:01 – 01:52:09:25
Brandon
So private lenders, people will call me and say, hey, will you share your private lenders? And I’ll say, sure, I’ll share them, but they don’t know you. They loan me money because they know me and they trust me, and they’ve seen me and do this business for 20 years. So it’s friends and family. It’s people that I’ve met over the oh.

01:52:09:25 – 01:52:11:24
Rod
That’s what you mean by private lenders. Got it.

01:52:11:25 – 01:52:19:06
Brandon
I got it. Okay, I set that bucket up but got it. So a hard money lender, they might you know I can give you a hard moneylenders phone number. You can call them and do a deal with them.

01:52:19:06 – 01:52:20:24
Rod
Sure.

01:52:20:27 – 01:52:40:06
Brandon
A private lender is someone, a friend of mine that I’ve known for 15 years and I call them the good thing about private Lender. And this happened a few months ago. I have a private lender in Poland, actually. Wow. Who was having trouble wiring funds. So he wrote me a check for $400,000 and put it in the mail, and it came to my house for $400,000.

01:52:40:06 – 01:52:43:12
Brandon
And then I had to go deposited in the account. So because he trusted you?

01:52:43:13 – 01:52:51:16
Rod
Because he trusted me? Yeah. The same, same way with private lenders I’ve dealt with, you know, they don’t even look at the property. Okay. How much is it worth? Okay. You say it’s worth that alone. You this, you know, that’s it.

01:52:51:18 – 01:53:06:18
Brandon
And they’ll give you, depending on the private lender, you can get 100% purchase and rehab. Right. So now I’ve got the money. So that house was 300 to buy it and 100 to do the rehab. So I put 100 grand in my account and I do the rehab out of that. So I’m not using my personal funds or other stuff.

01:53:06:20 – 01:53:15:18
Brandon
Right. So private lenders are my preferred version. If you pay another point or two in interest. As long as the numbers work in the budget, I prefer to work with private lenders.

01:53:15:18 – 01:53:24:29
Rod
Sure. Much easier. Yeah, absolutely. I had the same thing, but total hundred percent purchase price. Yeah, a couple hundred times at least. Yeah. Same here. Yeah.

01:53:25:02 – 01:53:27:23
Brandon
So then you’re asked. I’m sorry I jumped back on that, but it’s.

01:53:27:23 – 01:53:40:16
Rod
No, no, no, it’s very interesting. No thank you. I’m glad you did. And so, you’ve purchased the property. You’re going to renovate it. Talk about the typical renovation, strategy. And, you know, your business model for that.

01:53:40:18 – 01:53:46:16
Brandon
Yeah. So the last couple of years, we’ve had to do higher remodel cost. So when we were first.

01:53:46:16 – 01:53:47:22
Rod
Oh, yeah, it’s getting into business.

01:53:47:22 – 01:53:52:25
Brandon
So we could do 20, $30,000 rehabs. Now our average is 85,000, 85,000.

01:53:52:25 – 01:53:54:00
Rod
Holy crap.

01:53:54:06 – 01:53:54:23
Brandon
So that’s.

01:53:54:23 – 01:53:55:14
Rod
Crazy.

01:53:55:14 – 01:54:11:04
Brandon
Yeah. And I think it’s been a seller’s market for years now of course. But and interest rates have gone up. But what we found is that houses that are completely remodeled and ready to move into and everything’s done, they sell quick, right? It used to be five years ago you could go in and put lipstick on a pig and it would sell.

01:54:11:06 – 01:54:24:03
Brandon
It doesn’t. It’s not happening. At least in our market. It’s not happening anymore. So people don’t want to buy a house and then have to spend a month and another $30,000 getting it. Like they want it. Right. So we’re going in and we’re redoing everything. New cabinets, new countertops.

01:54:24:03 – 01:54:25:12
Rod
Oh, you always do. New cabinet.

01:54:25:12 – 01:54:30:00
Brandon
Everything. Wow. New vanities. I mean, most of the time the kitchen and the bathrooms are wet.

01:54:30:00 – 01:54:32:10
Rod
So that’s what sell. That’s the it’s the woman that buys.

01:54:32:10 – 01:54:32:27
Brandon
It’s the woman.

01:54:32:27 – 01:54:37:10
Rod
The kitchen and the bath. Yeah. So new new cabinets, new vanities. What sort of countertops? You typically.

01:54:37:10 – 01:54:37:28
Brandon
Put granite.

01:54:37:28 – 01:54:38:22
Rod
You put in granite.

01:54:38:22 – 01:54:40:05
Brandon
Granite countertops. Stainless.

01:54:40:05 – 01:54:45:19
Rod
So what’s what’s the price. What’s the price range of the of the houses that you have done most recently.

01:54:45:21 – 01:54:57:00
Brandon
Probably 40 or 50 is our average sales price 450,000 okay. Okay. Which Atlanta is a great market for that. You know. Right. You can still buy prices at a decent. Yeah. For for it to be a major metropolitan area you can still get.

01:54:57:02 – 01:55:01:27
Rod
What what do you typically target for your profit on a flip.

01:55:01:29 – 01:55:18:10
Brandon
We target 20% okay. But that’s not that’s not net profit obviously. That’s what we’re so we’re we’ll buy at 80% of after repair value. Okay. Minus rehab costs. So after we spend our rehab we want to have at least 20% margin in there. Right. Because by the time you pay for marketing.

01:55:18:10 – 01:55:28:19
Rod
Yeah, you got to pay for all the, all the, all the overhead marketing you’ve done. Okay, okay, okay. And then your wife’s in the MLS, she’s a realtor. She throws in on the MLS. And that’s probably where it sells. Yes it.

01:55:28:19 – 01:55:48:26
Brandon
Is. Yeah. Some of our people that work for us to are agents and we have a program with them where if they get their license and we’ll let them list properties for us and pay them a percentage, you know, a point a half instead of the full 3%. So it saves money. My wife is not, she doesn’t love, handling working with all the other agents and handling all the calls and all that stuff.

01:55:48:26 – 01:55:57:26
Brandon
So if it’s $1 million home in our backyard, she’s more than happy to list it. But if it’s a $350,000 house an hour away. Yeah, we’ll get somebody else.

01:55:57:26 – 01:55:58:19
Rod
Gotcha, gotcha.

01:55:58:20 – 01:56:00:03
Brandon
Yeah. We then sell it at retail.

01:56:00:04 – 01:56:18:00
Rod
Oh, dealing with other agents. Oh, my God, it’s amazing. They make any money I, you know, I experience it because I literally just rented a place in Miami and just to get them to answer the damn phone, it’s astounding to me. And there’s a reason. There’s the reason that 90% of the people to get their real estate license never do anything with it, you know, and they fail.

01:56:18:00 – 01:56:40:13
Brandon
I was going to say, yeah, I’m I’m not a fan of real estate agents. Yeah. Wife is one. So I feel like I can say that. But yeah, I think at least in our business, our, motives are not aligned. And, you know, like we talked about before, if, if a real estate agent comes to you and say, and you say, I want to sell my house, they get paid more the more they sell it for, which is good for you, sure, but they don’t care if they overprice it.

01:56:40:13 – 01:56:41:15
Brandon
They don’t care if they sell it.

01:56:41:21 – 01:56:56:18
Rod
They’ll list whatever price they can just to get the listing, and then they’ll beat you up to get it down, to try to sell it. And, you know, yeah, the whole idea is you have the more you make, the more I make. But the problem, the reality of it is if they can sell it for a lot less and get a quick commission, they’ll do that every single day.

01:56:56:18 – 01:57:08:15
Brandon
They will. And I’m coming in telling them, hey, here’s what I’ll pay for your house and I’ll pay cash for it. Right. Well, my agent said it’s worth $40,000 more. I say, well, then tell your agent to come in and buy it from you. Sure they they don’t want to buy it. They want to help me sell it.

01:57:08:15 – 01:57:12:27
Brandon
Yeah, because they want the commission. Right? I’m telling you, I’ll give you cash and this is what I’ll pay for it. Right.

01:57:12:27 – 01:57:23:03
Rod
So I just and you got to tell them and they’ll, they’ll tell you anything just to try to get the listing. And then they’ll beat you up, and you’ll sit here six months later and wish we’d have done a deal. Exactly. You know, I’m sure that’s a conversation. Yeah.

01:57:23:08 – 01:57:26:09
Brandon
You’re going to lower the price if you sell. I’m showing you it’s not going to sell for the price.

01:57:26:09 – 01:57:42:16
Rod
They’re telling. Yeah. Right. So anyway. Right. And then they believe you or they don’t. But, I think you really had a tremendous amount of value with flipping. And I really appreciate that. That’s deeper than I’ve ever done on the show. And so hopefully that’ll add value. You guys, you got a cell storage facility. You’re building 115,000ft². That’s a big one.

01:57:42:18 – 01:57:52:13
Rod
You know, I know you’ve done some other things. You’ve done some multi as well. I think, or you know threatened to do some so talk about that. Why transition and what are you doing at.

01:57:52:13 – 01:58:06:17
Brandon
One of the things that I’ve realized over the years is that whether it’s flipping houses or new construction, it’s transactional. So what that means is you go find a house, you buy it, you do the rehab, and then you sell it. Well, now you got to go find another one.

01:58:06:17 – 01:58:08:04
Rod
You’re only as good as the last deal, right?

01:58:08:05 – 01:58:24:03
Brandon
Yeah. And so you’re always on the hamster wheel. You’re always marketing. If you quit marketing you don’t you don’t have any deals. And so it’s a constant, you know, daily grind to find the next deal. Same thing with new construction. You find a lot. You build a house, you sell it, you make money. That’s great. But then you got to go find another lot.

01:58:24:03 – 01:58:40:29
Brandon
So I over the years, I realized we had a lot of single family homes. At one time we sold most of them. But, as rentals at something. Right? Right. As rentals, both short term and long term and even those, you know, if you cash flow $100 a month or $200 a month and then you or your condition.

01:58:40:29 – 01:58:47:11
Rod
Goes, yeah, you have one or or they move out and they’ve trashed it, right. You lose the whole year or two years worth of profit.

01:58:47:11 – 01:59:04:06
Brandon
Exactly. And I realized, you know, I need to get to like 100 properties before it makes financial sense to do it. So I sold most of those off. But, the transition has been I want to do something that is more generational, wealth generating generational wealth, not transactional.

01:59:04:06 – 01:59:09:19
Rod
So lifetime cash flow. That’s why we call this podcast Lifetime Cash. I love it lifetime cash flow.

01:59:09:21 – 01:59:12:27
Brandon
And even with single family homes, it’s really not like you can’t.

01:59:12:27 – 01:59:23:02
Rod
I mean, I I’ve had 2000 single family homes that I’ve rented long term. Okay? It took me a long time to get this frickin memo that we’re talking about right now. Okay, I’m a slow learner. But anyway, yeah, yeah.

01:59:23:02 – 01:59:38:12
Brandon
So so I just, you know, realized that I want to do something that you put in more time and energy and money upfront, but then it continues to pay month after month after month for as long as I want to keep the asset. Yeah. So initially we started looking at buying self-storage facilities that we could add value to.

01:59:38:13 – 01:59:48:16
Brandon
Sure. Really couldn’t find anything that penciled, that, that I was comfortable with. Started looking at multifamily and loved multifamily. We had a property in San Antonio that we talked about. All right, 87.

01:59:48:17 – 01:59:49:21
Rod
Don’t try to buy that.

01:59:49:21 – 02:00:00:03
Brandon
We had under contract. And, and so with this self-storage deal, that we did now, I actually got it from another wholesaler. It was two houses side by side on four and a half.

02:00:00:03 – 02:00:01:01
Rod
Acres, scraped it.

02:00:01:05 – 02:00:19:27
Brandon
And during my due diligence, I found out that the future land use map showed the property as commercial. And there was a new Walmart next door. Oh, wow. So I thought, okay, well, what if I could do a self storage facility here? So I went through the zoning process, got it approved for a special use permit, and now we’re building a 115,000 square foot self storage facility.

02:00:19:29 – 02:00:23:03
Brandon
It’s been a great process, has taken a lot longer, as you know.

02:00:23:03 – 02:00:25:24
Rod
Have you picked up a shovel yet as is. Yeah. Yeah, it’s on the way.

02:00:25:24 – 02:00:28:28
Brandon
Scraped the properties and got the site ready starting.

02:00:28:28 – 02:00:33:15
Rod
Well, the verdict wow, wow, wow. So are you, are you going multistory or just single story?

02:00:33:15 – 02:00:34:14
Brandon
It’s a three story.

02:00:34:14 – 02:00:36:19
Rod
Three story with the last. Okay, cool.

02:00:36:19 – 02:00:36:27
Brandon
And it’s.

02:00:36:27 – 02:00:38:02
Rod
Interesting. It controlled all.

02:00:38:02 – 02:00:49:12
Brandon
The climate control. Yeah. Interesting. When you talk to people, some of them have a mindset of only doing the single story kind of old school, right? One level, one climate controlled. And that works in some areas. Sure.

02:00:49:14 – 02:00:50:22
Rod
Well, not not in Hotlanta.

02:00:50:22 – 02:00:51:06
Brandon
Not in hot.

02:00:51:12 – 02:00:51:27
Rod
Yeah.

02:00:52:00 – 02:00:56:18
Brandon
And from a sales standpoint, the REIT’s like public storage and extra space.

02:00:56:18 – 02:00:57:17
Rod
They like the bigger ones.

02:00:57:17 – 02:01:02:23
Brandon
Yeah, they they’re not going to buy a 20,000 square foot property. They want something over 80,000ft².

02:01:02:28 – 02:01:08:24
Rod
So that’s your exit plan is exit plan. Are you going to use a flag like like a national brand or you came up with your own brand?

02:01:08:24 – 02:01:13:23
Brandon
We do have our own brand, but we’re using a national manager to manage the property. Gotcha. So it’ll have their logo.

02:01:13:23 – 02:01:14:07
Rod
They’ll have their.

02:01:14:07 – 02:01:15:16
Brandon
Stuff. It’ll look like it’s theirs.

02:01:15:17 – 02:01:16:06
Rod
Okay. Got it.

02:01:16:10 – 02:01:30:20
Brandon
My long term goal with that is this was my first one. And so I partnered with someone who has done 55 self-storage facilities. Wow. Brought him in after I got it approved and zoned and everything as a general partner so that I could learn the process. Sure.

02:01:30:20 – 02:01:48:08
Rod
And so that’s how that’s how you do all this business. That’s why my students are so successful. You know, you need to align with somebody that’s done it before, do it with them, get it on your resume, and then you’re off to the freaking races. Right. And that’s like I said, that’s why we’re so, so successful. Then, you know, when you approach investors and did you raise money for that deal?

02:01:48:08 – 02:02:08:28
Rod
We did. Yeah, I syndicated it. We did. Okay. And and so, you know, when you approach investors you use the keyword, you know, we’ve done 55 self storage facilities. And that’s how you do it right. Yeah. Same thing with multifamily is the same thing. Yeah I’ve FHA same thing is senior housing. This deal I’m doing right now. We did the webinar presentation last night to it’s a small raise 1.8 million.

02:02:08:28 – 02:02:18:07
Rod
I think we’ll have it raised by the day, but but, we’re aligned with somebody who done $3.6 billion with the senior housing. That’s our operator. So same thing. I’m doing it myself.

02:02:18:08 – 02:02:22:22
Brandon
Yeah. And you’re going to my philosophy is you’re going to pay the dumb tax trying to do it yourself.

02:02:22:22 – 02:02:24:19
Rod
Oh, it’s stupid or you just. Yeah, yeah.

02:02:24:21 – 02:02:26:17
Brandon
Bring in a partner or give up some equity. Yeah.

02:02:26:19 – 02:02:30:06
Rod
On your first deal. Don’t be greedy. Be smart. Exactly. Hello.

02:02:30:10 – 02:02:30:26
Brandon
So.

02:02:30:27 – 02:02:34:28
Rod
Okay, so you want to do this again, then? Yeah. You’re liking the looks of this. Okay.

02:02:35:00 – 02:02:47:05
Brandon
I love, multifamily and self-storage. Yeah. So much better than the transactional business I’ve been in for the last. But I do think, you know, as I look back at it, I think it’s very valuable to go from buying one house on the side to doing a.

02:02:47:06 – 02:03:00:08
Rod
It’s a great way to start. It’s a great way to start. Great. I mean, I did it like I said, it took me a lot longer to get the memo. I shouldn’t I should have gone into much larger properties much quicker. Yeah. You know, when I lost everything in oh eight, nine, I’d mention this to you. My apartments did just fine.

02:03:00:08 – 02:03:10:29
Rod
They would have survived if I didn’t cross collateralized. And so that’s why I got into multifamily hard. After the crash. But, love it, love it. So. So you’re you’re loving this.

02:03:11:02 – 02:03:11:27
Brandon
Hold on to him.

02:03:11:27 – 02:03:12:11
Rod
Yeah.

02:03:12:12 – 02:03:21:16
Brandon
This partial. So this first one, we’ve already had public storage and extra space make us offers. Atco. No kidding. They’ll pay Atco. Wow. And so it’s a, you know, it’s a.

02:03:21:23 – 02:03:26:02
Rod
Certificate of occupancy once it’s completely done. What seal means. That’s right.

02:03:26:04 – 02:03:34:26
Brandon
Most of the time they want to see it, leased out to about 80, 85% before they pay top dollar. But sometimes they’re willing to pay a certificate. Well, yeah.

02:03:34:26 – 02:03:37:09
Rod
With Walmart next door, they know, like, hello.

02:03:37:09 – 02:03:38:08
Brandon
It’s a good area, but.

02:03:38:08 – 02:03:38:23
Rod
Good call.

02:03:38:23 – 02:03:48:07
Brandon
A long term goal again is to to learn this first one with a partner. And I might do some others with him. And then, and then, you know, do something I’m going to hold for the long term.

02:03:48:08 – 02:04:06:11
Rod
Sure. Go for the grandkids. That’s right. And their kids. Yeah. I mean that’s that’s it man. That’s that’s the that’s the name of the game. Yeah. My son I’m trying to get him to get his GC license. He’s moving here now that he’s having a baby. So very exciting that he’s coming down here and, exciting. You know where I want to build some stuff?

02:04:06:11 – 02:04:28:25
Rod
I’d love to build some self storage, build some townhouse communities. Any anything, I don’t care. Senior housing, even. I’m really excited about senior housing lately, but, That’s great. Well, listen, this has been a lot of fun, Brandon. You’ve added tremendous amount of value. And, you know, I just appreciate you coming down, and I love that you’re going to be down here anyway, so we’ll have to maybe have dinner sometime.

02:04:28:25 – 02:04:31:01
Rod
You know, when when you’re convenient. Yeah, absolutely.

02:04:31:01 – 02:04:34:23
Brandon
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. And, added a little value to.

02:04:34:24 – 02:04:41:12
Rod
No, you absolutely did. No, I’ve never gone this deep on flipping ever on the show. So that’s been very valuable. So thank you. All right.

02:04:41:12 – 02:04:41:21
Brandon
Thank you.