APIA is an investor friendly insurance company owned and operated by Gloria Kelley in Castroville, TX. Gloria has over 42 years experience in the insurance industry and services a niche market-unoccupied, vacant, or "distressed" properties. She got her start providing insurance for large financial institution's Real Estate Owned (REO) portfolios and has been employed by various large insurance companies over the course of her career. She has experienced all types of claims in her ever-growing knowledge in the insurance world.
Gloria shared some great tips and gotchas that all real estate investors need to be aware of when it comes to insuring vacant houses. As investors, we have a lot going on and can sometimes make decisions without knowing all the facts.
I’m willing to bet that 90% of real estate investors don’t properly insure their investment properties.
In this episode we talk about the importance of understanding insurance policy vacancy clauses. This is a super important clause because it can basically allow insurance companies to deny claims.
Another important topic we cover is what happens when you under insure a property. I know most investors do this as well. It’s important to understand the ramifications when you don’t put a proper insured value on your vacant real estate investments.
They currently service investors all over the U.S. We build strong relationships with clients because of our customer service, competitive pricing, responsiveness, and flexibility to meet the unique demands of investors. They offer the investor the opportunity to pay insurance in arrears. This is especially important since you know investors are cash /cash flow focused. Most insurance providers require insurance 3 months in advance and you probably won't get a refund of the premium if you do not use it all. With them you pay for what you use after the fact-not beforehand.
Their policies is underwritten by Lloyd's of London.
Andy McFarland is a self-made real estate entrepreneur who started with nothing and currently makes seven figures a year in his real estate business.
After getting fired from his last W-2 job in 2004, Andy went into real estate full time and has never looked back. Andy currently focuses on wholesaling properties in three different states; Utah, New Mexico, and Indiana. In 2015 alone, Andy did over 150 deals.
Andy has been married for 10 years and currently resides in Farmington Utah with his beautiful wife and three amazing children. Andy enjoys being around family and friends and continuing to grow and learn every day. You can follow Andy on his real estate journey by going to his website: www.iloverealestatestories.com or on his YouTube channel by searching for I Love Real Estate Stories.
He was also with us on episode 19 where we discussed ‘how much do you really need to know before getting started flipping houses?’
In today’s episode we talk about how real estate wholesalers operate and how to become one of their VIP buyers.
There is a very common misconception that wholesalers don’t leave enough meat on the bone when they sell their deals. That can and does happen, but it’s not every deal and not every wholesaler.
We discuss how we’ve seen wholesalers put out great deals at crazy prices because they made assumptions that were invalid.
Andy gives an example of how he just bought a house from a wholesaler that thought the house would only work as a rental. Andy determined it would work as a flip and snatched the deal up and wholesaled it himself at a higher price.
Some key points to take away from this episode are as follows:
Andy wholesales a TON of deals every year and his insights on how to build a great buyers list and how he operates his business are priceless.
Mike Arch is a founder of Alamo Home Source and is partners with Erik Saengerhausen who joined us for episode 27. Mike has been flipping for many years and has flipped hundreds of houses. He currently focuses on creating and selling real estate notes.
On today’s episode, we talk about how to find the “right” real estate agents, attorney, title company/closer for your house flipping business.
This biggest take away from this episode is that taking the time to find the team members that care as much about your business as you do is paramount. There are agents out there that always work with a sense of urgency and are great for real estate investors because you cannot steal in slow motion (meaning not to steal, but to get the great deals :)).
We discussed the best way to find agents doing great things in the areas you are investing or want to flip in and how to approach them so that they know who you are and can send you great deals.
It might surprise you to know that many agents that list a lot of houses don’t necessarily want their name on a junker house so they’d prefer not to list it. If they know you are a ready and able buyer, they can let you know about those properties before they go on the market. It’s a true win, win.
We also discussed how to find the right escrow officer or closer at a title company to close your transactions. Find out what fees are negotiable as well as the tips that pros use to save themselves time and money.
We also discuss the right kind of attorney to find. Obviously, you’ll want a real estate focused attorney. We talk about how we both have spent too much money in the past because we didn’t know how to approach and talk with attorneys. Don’t make the same mistakes, listen to this episode and gain the advantage.
Robert Nickell is a national speaker, published author and one of the most successful real estate investors in the nation. Robert is known for his unique ability to teach, train, and run successful virtual businesses. Robert co-created Investor Virtual Assistant Services, LLC (IVAS) with the purpose of sharing his knowledge, experience and success with fellow investors around the world that are looking to take more control of their time while increasing productivity and reducing costs.
Are you a solopreneur? Most real estate investors are. We try to do everything ourselves and think that it’s very hard to find someone to care about each task as much as we do.
It’s what keeps us mediocre as real estate investors.
If you want to really kick butt as a house flipper and real estate investor, you simply need to learn how to delegate and have other people do the busy work.
If you don’t, you won’t make as much money and you won’t truly get the freedom you started doing this to get in the first place.
Virtual assistants are great for investors that cannot afford full-time in-house employees. I’m sure there are dozens of tasks you can think of that you’d rather never do again in your life. Those are tasks that you can have someone else do. And, guess what? They don’t need to be in the same city, state or even country as you.
Robert Nickell runs a very successful wholesaling business and uses almost entirely virtual assistants from the Philippines to do it! Sounds crazy, but it’s true.
He’s done so well with it that he’s started to train and provide these virtual assistants to real estate investors so that we can all benefit from their help.
Not sure where to go to find virtual assistants? Not sure what qualities to look for? Not sure how to streamline your processes and coordinate and make the most out of the virtual assistants’ time? Not sure how much you should be paying for virtual assistants?
We cover all of these questions in this episode. I learned a tremendous amount from Robert in this podcast episode and I’m sure you will to. Even if you’re not immediately considering needing help, it’s best to know that it exists so that when you start getting bogged down, you’ll know where to go and how to handle it.
To find out more about Robert’s virtual assistants service, visit MyRockstarVA.com
Brandon is a painter, extortionist, exorcist, and lover (not a fighter.) He' would also like everyone to know he is not a robot, despite claims to the contrary. Little known fact: He’s the VP of Growth and Communications here at BiggerPockets.com.
Brandon joined me on the Flipping Junkie podcast way back in episode 2 of the show. He’s very busy and I really appreciate him taking the time to be on the show again. I enjoy talking with Brandon and consider him a great friend.
On this episode, we cover over 22 actionable tips for beginner real estate investors. Even though we say these are tips for beginners, I think we can all say that even experiences house flippers do not do all of these things. If we all would work at putting these tips into action, we’d all make more money and have more free time.
The important thing to always remember is that this is a marathon, not an all out sprint. Do not try to go out and do all of these things this next week as you will burn yourself out and half-ass all of them. That’s just a waste of time.
Take your time. Pick 3 and commit to do them well.
My favorite actionable tips from the show are:
1. Eliminate 2 words from your vocabulary completely: ‘I Can’t’ and replace them with ‘How Can I?’
2. Write your first “yellow letter.” Simply get a yellow pad of paper and write, Dear Johnny Appleseed, I’m interested in buying your house at 123 Plum Orchard Rd. If you would consider selling, please call me at 222-2222. Very sincerely, Joe Investor. Yes, it’s really as simple as that. Drive for dollars and find a vacant house. Look up the owners address from your county’s tax assessor website. It’s very simple.
Matt Theriault, a fifth-generation California native, Desert Storm Veteran (US Marine Corps), has worked as a full-time real estate professional since 2003. After building a small real estate empire (100+ income units) with hardly using one dime of his own money or one point of his own credit, he discovered that he had a knack for simplifying the complicated, implementing systems and producing desirable results for both himself and his investor partners. His “knack” has manifested itself via consistently better-than-average market returns for both himself and his investor partners, a thriving online real estate investing academy (EpicProAcademy.com), as well as one of the more popular Real Estate Investing Podcasts (Epic Real Estate Investing) on iTunes.
On this episode we talk about how Matt got started. He had made a fortune with his own record label and then lost everything when Napster and everything in the music industry changed.
He ended up going from being a millionaire to bagging groceries at the grocery store.
But, he didn’t let that stop him from trying. He went on to become a real estate agent and working with investors. He wasn’t making much money, so he decided he was on the wrong side of the action.
He became a real estate investor right away and started doing tons of short sales back around 2008 when the real estate market was tanking.
In this episode, Matt makes it clear that you’ve got to see things from the agent’s perspective when you are trying to work with them. He shares the fact that almost all agents will immediately think you will want to submit hundreds of low-ball offers with almost no chance of getting any accepted or that you will want to have the list your properties with a severely reduced commission.
Prove them wrong on those counts and you’ll have someone happy to work with you.
In this episode, you’ll also learn how to find the agents you should be working with and how to filter out very quickly, the ones you shouldn’t be working with.
Erik Saengerhausen has been developing his owner financing real estate investment company for over 6 years. He and his business partner, Mike Arch, run Alamo Home Source. They buy houses, fix them up and sell them with owner financing. Then, they sell the notes to investors for incredible returns.
They currently flip more than 75 houses a year and are working up to 100 houses. That’s a lot of fixing up of houses! They know a thing or two about finding and working with the right contractors to be able to do that kind of volume consistently.
In this episode, we cover the definition of the “right” contractor for the typical real estate investor. We also talk about what negative aspects to look for when trying to find the “right” contractor.
Erik has a different model for paying contractors than I do. He has guys that he pays on a weekly basis rather than per job. I hire on a per job basis so that the contractor is paid per job rather than for the amount of hours worked.
That’s an important thing to keep in mind — there isn’t simply one correct way to work with contractors. There are lots of strategies for how to work with contractors and you should find the one that works best for you and your contractors.
Many times these discussions will focus on the point of view of the investor and not on what it means for the contractors. We discuss how important it is to make sure you see things from the contractor’s point of view as finding and keeping the right contractors working for you can mean the difference between success and failure in this business.
Marco Romero is a real estate investor and a licensed real estate agent. In this episode, we talk about the pros and cons of getting your real estate license. There is no cut and dry answer to this question as it's more about your specific situation and goals. We take an in-depth look at all possible scenarios so that you can make an informed decision on which way you want to go.
Justin Williams has grown a very successful real estate investing business that flips hundreds of houses every year. He does this all while having the time to teach other investors and help out in his community.
The reason he has all of this time is that he focused on creating a team that runs his business so he only has to focus on what he wants to do.
In this episode we talk about how Justin hired his first person to take over some of the tasks in his business and how she grew to run his entire operation. It’s a very interesting story that all of us investors who spend way too much time working on our business should pay close attention to.
Have you thought about bringing on people to do some of the day to day for you but worried that they might learn from you and go off on their own? Don’t do it! In this episode Justin explains the fallacy in that kind of thinking.
Enjoy the episode and be sure to subscribe on iTunes.
Hal Elrod is the #1 best-selling author of what is now being widely regarded
as “one of the most life-changing books ever written” titled, The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed To Transform Your Life… Before 8AM. It is also one of the highest rated books on Amazon with over 1,300 five-star reviews!
What’s even more incredible is that Hal actually died at age 20. He was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 mph, broke 11 bones, died for 6 minutes, and spent 6 days in a coma only to wake up to face the news that he may never walk again...
Not only did Hal walk, he went on to run a 52-mile ultra marathon, become a hall of fame business achiever, an international keynote speaker, one of the world’s top success coaches, he’s a hip-hop recording artist, has been featured in the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, writes for Entrepreneur.com, has appeared on radio and TV shows across the country, and the list just goes on and on.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad said the following about Hal: “Hal Elrod is a genius and his book The Miracle Morning has been magical in my life. As my rich dad often said, ‘I can always make another dollar, but I cannot make another day.’ If you want to maximize every day of your life, read The Miracle Morning.”
As the bestselling author of The Miracle Morning, I brought Hal on today to talk about how you can change any—or literally EVERY area of your life, by simply changing the way you wake up in the morning—even if you’ve never been a morning person.
During this episode, Hal talks about the ‘5 minute rule’ he learned as a salesman. It’s what helped him to stay positive after his experience with the car accident. This is a power rule to live by in and of itself.
A favorite quote of his is from Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn said, “Your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.”
That quote is HUGE! You must become the person required to achieve the success you want. Focus on improving yourself.
During the interview we also talked about SAVERS. That’s an acronym for each of the 6 practices that make up a miracle morning.
S stands for silence. This is where you spend 10 minutes practicing deep breathing and meditation.
A stands for affirmations. This is where you affirm who you are and who you want to be.
V stands for visualization. This is where you envision yourself doing the things necessary to become who you want to be in order to achieve what you want to achieve.
E stands for exercise. Do it. Feel better. Live better.
R stands for reading. Read and learn to grow.
S stands for scribing. Journal. It’s a great way to reflect on your days and how you are progressing. Plus, it will become a treasure that you can share and pass on to generations after you.
I want to personally thank Hal for being on the show and taking the time to share his story.
Marco has been interested in real estate since reading Rich Dad Poor Dad at an early age. After laying out a success strategy, he began to acquire the skills he would need in order to build a career as an investor. He gained valuable people skills by working in sales and the restaurant field. The experience he gained by working with a wide spectrum of individuals was critical to his success with investment properties.
Since obtaining his real estate license over seven years ago, he has worked for several investment companies in San Antonio and now successfully runs his own business independently.
He has spent time in all realms of residential real estate, from standard single family homes to small multi-family properties. Taking what he has learned in other fields, Marco has followed the philosophy that a transaction is never about the property, but the people.
In this episode Marco walks us through his start in real estate investing. He walks us through his reasons and how he setup his companies for asset and liability protection.
So many new investors use the question of which entity to set up to stay in their comfort zone and not take action. Marco advises against that and recommends you take action and then setup your company.
Obviously, if you have a lot of assets to protect you might want to set up the entity first. Otherwise, you should just get out there and make it happen and worry about it later.
Nathan Brooks is a dad, husband, worship leader, and real estate investor in Kansas City. He’s also a foodie, coffee addict and Crossfit junkie. He’s a real deal real estate investor that did about 60 deals last year and plans to do even more this year.
On today’s episode we talk about how to quickly realize what you’re good at and should focus on, and what you’re not so good at and shouldn’t be doing.
Nathan mentions that if there is a pile of papers on your desk, that’s a pretty good way to figure out what you don’t like doing…
A great piece of advice for hiring people to do tasks for you that won’t require a full-time position is to hire friends, family, neighbors, etc to work with you part-time. It’s a great way to spend time with people that you don’t get to see too often and get things off your plate.
We also talk about how being able to explain the exact processes you use in your work to other people helps you to clarify exactly what you exactly do, and improves the processes because you realize things that you wouldn’t if you just continued to mindlessly do the tasks.
An unexpected turn for the podcast was also a powerful realization. Forgiveness is a big deal in the health of organizations. As you start to work with more and more people, it’s very important to be open to forgiveness so that you can work through issues and improve the processes along the way.
This is the fifth episode of the flipping houses training series we are doing on the podcast.
We’re still in the foundation stage where we help you work on your mindset and improve yourself so that you are prepared to get out of your comfort zone and make things happen.
The podcast is being released every Monday now. This way you can listen in while headed to or from that job that you are working on leaving behind. :)
Mark J. Podolsky (AKA The Land Geek) is widely considered the Country’s most trusted and foremost authority on buying and selling raw, undeveloped land within the United States.
He has been actively investing in Real Estate and Raw Land since 2001, and has completed over 5,000 unique transactions. Mark’s company, Frontier Equity Properties, LLC, is an A+ rated BBB real estate company.
Mark has achieved this level of success largely due to his core business philosophy – “Happy Customers Guaranteed.”
Mark is the host of one of the top rated podcast in the Investing Category on iTunes, aptly titled: The Best Passive Income Model. He is also the host of the Land Geek Podcast: Work Smart. Earn More. Learn How.
In this episode, Mark shares with us his views on when you should quit your day job and start flipping houses.
We know that everybody is at a different place when it comes to how much money they make, what responsibilities they have, families to care for, etc. so we decided to talk about 3 different scenarios for where you might be when making the decision to go full time or get started in this business.
I think this boils down to each persons situation, so let’s try to cover several common scenarios:
1. In college, but realizing the corporate world isn’t what they really want. Have the opportunity to live and their parents’ house. Single, so don’t have to support a family. Don’t really have much money at all because either not working or working an entry level job. What do you recommend in this situation?
2. Second scenario: working an entry level job making just above minimum wage and have a family to support. They don’t really have any money available at the end of each month, creating a shoestring budget for finding deals. What do you recommend for this person that really wants to stop trading dollars for hours and provide much more for their family?
3. Working at a corporate job making a decent salary that is sufficient for themselves and their family. They’ve got a little extra money each month and can afford to take a little time off. What do you recommend for this person that wants to exit the rat race and choose their own hours and be their own boss?
The answers to these three questions are in the interview. Listen and enjoy. Thanks!
Jason got his first taste of real estate investing after joining a local real estate club. In 2012, he made his first transaction and hasn’t looked back since. Jason founded HoustonHouseBuyers in July of 2013. In its' first year they produced $3MM of gross revenue, through wholesaling, leasing, and flipping 70 houses. HoustonHouseBuyer's is expected to buy 100 houses in 2015 and produce nearly $6M in gross revenue.
In this episode Jason talks about some of the realities he feels most new investors aren’t prepared for. We want you to be prepared so we discussed them in length.
Key takeaways are that this should always be looked at as a business and not just something you can do willy nilly.
Always focus on a strategy and become the best at it because you will get nowhere fast by trying to learn and use every tactic out there.
Things I’ve run into:
Contractors don’t all do a great job, manage themselves, get done on time and all for a great price and you will have to have the courage to fire them.
There are a lot of people out there that are will to sign a contract and then not honor it (sellers, buyers, everybody in between).
When a seller says the house doesn’t need any work, rarely is it true.
There are places in town where druggies will attempt to jump into your moving vehicle.
Nobody is going to care about your work as much as you will (realtors, contractors, other investors)
The hours aren’t going to be 9-5.
I’m sure you’ve run into issues that you didn’t expect. What were they (let us know in the comments)?
Andy McFarland is a self-made real estate entrepreneur who started with nothing and currently makes seven figures a year in his real estate business.
After getting fired from his last W-2 job in 2004, Andy went into real estate full time and has never looked back. Andy currently focuses on wholesaling properties in three different states; Utah, New Mexico, and Indiana. In 2015 alone, he did over 150 deals!
Andy has been married for 10 years and currently resides in Farmington Utah with his beautiful wife and three amazing children. Andy enjoys being around family and friends and continuing to grow and learn every day. You can follow Andy on his real estate journey by going to his website: www.iloverealestatestories.com or on his YouTube channel by searching for I Love Real Estate Stories.
In today’s episode we talk about how people need to take action to overcome fear and find out what they need to learn.
Too many new real estate investors spend countless hours, days, weeks, months and even years study all there is to know about flipping houses but never take any action.
The reason for this has to do with fear and the Confidence/Competence Loop. Here’s an excerpt from the <a href=“http://blog.kevineikenberry.com/leadership-supervisory-skills/the-confidencecompetence-loop/” target=“_blank”>Leadership and Learning Blog</a> with Kevin Eikenberry:
Let’s take a task you likely know how to do well, like riding a bicycle. Are you afraid to ride a bike? Likely not, because you know how to do it. So if I give you a bicycle and invite you to ride, you likely will do it right away – there is no reason to delay, there is no real fear, you just ride. If I gave you a unicycle instead, for most people, fear would well up – and they wouldn’t even get on the seat.
So how do we get started?
We put our butt in the seat.
Action overcomes fear.
In the Podcast episode, Andy talks us through how he did his first deal by just jumping in and figuring it out.
We only need to focus on the immediate steps to achieve a simple, clearly defined goal. These simple goals can be, ‘get my first deal’, ‘get my first motivated seller call’, and/or ‘go to an open house’.
It doesn’t really matter what it is, just choose one. Focus on it and do the things that will get you to accomplish that goal. DO NOT waste time learning about sandwich lease options before you ever talk to a motivated seller. Work first on talking to some motivated sellers.
Marcus E. Maloney is a Real Estate Investment Strategist that has an eye for real estate oriented solutions. As the Founder and Principle of 3rd Generation Mgmt & Holding LLC, the firm has done and assisted with an innumerable amount of real estate transactions. Marcus holds a Master of Business Administration; which provides him a proper knowledge and understanding of business applications and practices. As a philanthropic effort Mr. Maloney also has assisted with the development of State licensed facilities that acquire property for transitioning youth.
Marcus’s childhood was a lot like mine in that we both did demo on rehabs as children. His parents were fixing and flipping and my dad was working as a contractor for real estate investors. We both learned how hard that kind of work was and that may be one of the reasons we both decided to aim bigger.
This episode covers a very important step in your path to becoming a successful real estate investor.
Marcus’s first goals when he was getting serious about real estate investing revolved around building the right connections. He hustled and hustled and stayed persistent. He talked to a lot of people and built lasting relationships where he was able to provide value and gain education.
This isn’t just for new investors. This is for anybody, at any stage in their life. There is always something to be learned and the best way to learn it is from someone already doing it.
Marcus talked about some of his goals for 2016 which include:
Writing his first Ebook about birddogging
Increase his deal conversion rate to closing 1 deal per 25 leads
Writing 26 blog articles
Giving away more money than he did last year
Here are the steps Marcus outlined and went into detail on during the interview:
1. Define Purpose - Who you are. What you are trying to do.
2. Visualize and Confess - Visualize yourself the way you want to be with regards to Spiritual goals, physical goals, family goals, community goals and business goals.
3. Association - Find someone that is doing what you want to do or being the way you want to be and ask them for help so that you can do what they did
4. Strategize - Determine your results for the end of the year and reverse engineer your goals so that you can get specific in what you need to do this week to get started
5. Take Action - Goals are worthless without action. If you don’t have your “why” figured out correctly, you won’t last outside of your comfort zone, which is where you need to be if you are to grow. Welcome embarrassment. Challenge your fears.
Brant is a full-time real estate investor, business owner, entrepreneur, author & speaker. He has been featured on Fox News, hosts local seminars and is even being considered to star in one of those “Flipping Houses” TV shows.
Brant is a proverbial ‘rags to riches’ story, while living in an apartment and having no money, was able to purchase his first investment property on a credit card! He went on to by 10 properties that same year with no money down and within only a few years later, has rehabbed hundreds of homes and now owns a portfolio of rental properties worth millions and routinely flips houses for fast cash.
Brant is a former police officer who prides himself on integrity and serving others. He is a husband and father of three and enjoys helping and teaching people to experience the freedom and success he has achieved through successfully investing in real estate.
“I want to see you succeed and I don’t want to let you down, I hope you take action today and see incredible results soon!”
In this episode Brant shares with us what he calls the 4 Pillars of Power: Mindset, Skill set, Environment and Accountability
His main takeaway here is that it’s of the utmost importance to be clear about what you want and who you want to be before anything else.
You’ve got to work on all aspects of your life to be a true success. His 4 Pillars of Success are Business, Faith, Family and Fitness. Work on all of these things.
Don’t just focus on business. You will grow much faster in each area when working on the others.
He has a “power hour” each day where his kids know that he has to turn off the computer and turn off the cell phone and focus and be present for them. They hold him accountable.
His wife and kids also send him a score card email each month that rate him on different aspects of his life. This is an incredibly good idea that we should all incorporate.
Here’s Brant’s process to determine what you want and how to find out who you are
1. Be ok with where you’re at - Eliminate self-abuse - That was the past, let it go
2. Go to a quiet place and really consider where you want to be within the 4 pillars of success
3. Start Living Your Passion Right Now by commitment to work on each area DAILY
He also like to create names for targets of goals so that they become more fun and easy to keep in his mind. He has Operation Adoption which is his goal to adopt by the end of the year (he already has 4 kids of his own).
Make a plan for yourself, otherwise you’ll end up a part of someone else’s plan. - Jim Rohn
Danny is explaining the new direction for the Flipping Junkie Podcast in this episode.
We are moving to a format where each episode flows from the previous one. The first episodes will cover mindset and then move into building your team, funding, analyzing deals, finding deals, negotiating, working with contractors, determine repair costs etc.
It’s basically a free real estate investing training course in podcast format!
Let us know what topics you want covered and who you’d like to hear Danny interview for each topic by leaving a comment on the Facebook page at http://facebook.com/flippingjunkie
Also Melissa (Danny’s wife) is going to be sharing more of what we are doing in our house flipping business for 2016 on the FlippingJunkie.com blog and on Instagram (http://instagram.com/flippingjunkie).
We’re going to flip over 100 houses this year. Follow along and let us know what you want to learn about.
Jason got his first taste of real estate investing after joining a local real estate club. In 2012, he made his first transaction and hasn’t looked back. Jason founded HoustonHouseBuyers in July of 2013, in its' first year produced $3M of gross revenue, through wholesaling, leasing, and flipping 70 houses. HoustonHouseBuyer's is expected to buy 100 houses in 2015 and produce nearly $6M in gross revenue.
Jason has more than a decade of experience in risk management in the private and public sector. He managed the risk finance program for The University Of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. During his tenure he managed the workers’ compensation program for 5,000 employees, property conservation program for $2B in insured assets, business continuity and emergency response program. He also managed the Fire and Life Safety program responsible for nearly 5MM gross square feet of laboratory, class room and office space. His program additionally reviewed plans for new biomedical research facilities, one facility built annually during his tenure at $250MM per project.
Jason has a BS in environmental Science from Sam Houston State, Masters in Security Management from The University of Houston and an MBA in finance from Houston Baptist University. He lives in Houston with his wife Sarah and two sons, Cameron and Carson.
This episode is full of great tips on getting funding from when you don’t have any experience real estate investing up until you’ve built relationships with small local banks.
It took Jason 6 weeks to buy his first house which was a rental. He worked through the tough times making 15-20 offers per week and not getting very far.
Then he decided to partner with someone and put a 40k budget to work for marketing.
That’s how you get the ball rolling!
So many people are afraid to spend money to get the deals. The fact of the matter is you can net over 40k on a rehab and do it multiple times for that 40k budget in marketing.
The numbers don’t have to be that big, but an investment will likely need to be made to get going.
Jason’s tips for finding a good hard money lender to get funding for your first deals are as follows:
* Go to local Real Estate Investor Association meetings
* Find out who does lending and how long they’ve been lending and how many deals they’re funding per month
* Narrow down your list to the ones that are doing the most and for the longest amount of time
He was paying roughly 3 points and 13% interest for his hard money loans in the beginning. Those aren’t bad numbers for hard money.
After getting some deals under your belt, put together a packet showing before and after pictures and the numbers for the deals to show to potential private lenders.
Private lenders are people that lend money to investors to fund their deals. They typical lend the money because the interest paid is much better than other forms of investing and a lot less risky.
The best thing to do when looking for private lenders and who to borrow from is to find the ones that are already lending to other investors. This way you don’t have to convince them to lend money. You don’t ever want to have to do that.