Dani Crowell on How She's Sold Over 1000 Houses in Her Career

Steve Trang: Hey, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we have Dani Crowele with Equity Connect, and she's here to share how she's wholesaled and flipped over a thousand homes in her career. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trang, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty and founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only app you need for wholesaling. And I'm on a mission to create a 100 millionaires, so please private message me if you ever need any help with your business.

If you're excited for today's show, please give me wave, give me a thumbs up. And as a reminder, I do not charge a dime for this show. I don't make any money doing this, so here's all I ask. If you get value out of this show, please tell a friend. Either share this episode right now, tag a friend below, or tell them your best takeaway from the show later on.

That way, we can all grow together. And, again, this is a live show, so please post your questions, and Danny will be happy to answer them. You ready?

Dani Crowell: I'm ready.

Steve: Okay. So what got you into real estate?

Dani: Alright. Well, we'll start out with I have a degree in finance. And so I, studied finance knowing that I was basically going to be managing money in some fashion someday, hopefully owning my own business. Yeah. And, so after I graduated, I was very unsure of what I was gonna do.

I never really did an internship or anything. I just kind of knew I was gonna own my own business. And, it didn't really come to me as quickly as I had hoped. So I was, bartending, actually. Okay.

And, I met an investor working at the bar and, kind of understood this was back in 2011.

Steve: Okay.

Dani: So I kind of, was talking to him and, he was in from LA. So he would come to, Phoenix, do some work here, go back to LA on the weekends and stuff like that. So Okay. He was investing in single family homes and buying straight on the courthouse steps. And so, he was he kinda he invited me down one day, to come to his office and just take a look at the operation.

And it wasn't much of an operation. It was kind of it was him in the back of a house, buying and selling real estate because back then, it was it was if you had cash, it was easy to find homes.

Steve: It's easy money back then.

Dani: Yeah. Exactly. So, basically, he was just kind of doing that and I was like, well, you know, do you need somebody to help you kind of manage the office? It was just him.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And so, I was like, how can I help? If there's any way I can help, I'd love to learn and kind of figure it out. And at the time, I didn't really know what of an opportunity this really was, but it was huge for me because, he needed somebody. I realized he didn't even have files. He didn't have he didn't know what properties he owned.

They they bought so many properties back then that they were just kinda like I mean, there was a there were spreadsheets everywhere, and they didn't quite know what exactly what they had. They knew they were in an opportunity to make money. So,

Steve: I just got enough money where they can afford to just lose track of things and be totally fine.

Dani: And they didn't even know how much money they were making because they were doing their books. I mean, we're talking. They just knew there was an opportunity. They had the cash to

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: Capitalize on it. And so what I did was I came in and I kind of saw that as an opportunity for me to, you know, I he he was like, I don't know what you're gonna do, but here's a computer and you can kind of figure it out from there, which was awesome because, I kind of went in and I organized everything. He didn't have QuickBooks, so I got QuickBooks. I hired somebody to teach me QuickBooks Mhmm. Because he didn't I didn't know he didn't know.

So not then I learned QuickBooks. I kept everything organized. And he was back and forth every week. And then after a period of time, he kinda started coming less and less. Mhmm.

So it forced me to kind of pick up the slack and start learning.

Steve: Because you were picking up more slack or because there are fewer fewer opportunities for him?

Dani: There were no. There were there were so many opportunities, but he was able to do what he did from afar. He was just

Steve: Oh, I see.

Dani: I mean, he'd be on the phone with the guy down at the auction and the auction, they'd be saying, you know, go up 5 more grand, 5 more grand. That's it. You know? So he was able to do that from his house. Yeah.

And he had people here. And so with me managing the office, I just just kind of started picking up the slack from there. So, the opportunity was there. So I basically went from managing the office to we started doing, like, construction and stuff. So I would kind of go and see the properties.

One of my scariest tasks scariest tasks was that I had to kind of, when we would buy a house, I would

Steve: have to go there,

Dani: knock on the door, and introduce myself because he didn't have somebody to do that. Yeah. So.

Steve: That's an awful job.

Dani: Yeah. But, you know, I learned from the ground up.

Steve: Right.

Dani: It was a good opportunity for me to kind of be thrown into it under somebody who, had the means to be able to capitalize in that time, which was cool.

Steve: So I used to do that for REOs.

Dani: Oh, you did?

Steve: Yeah. And so, I I listed foreclosures for a little bit. And I remember, you know, after a couple of very confrontational conversations Mhmm. I was thinking I need to get a bulletproof vest.

Dani: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Right. I was looking up bulletproof suits for a little bit, but then I realized I couldn't afford those. So I need to stop doing that.

Dani: Yeah. I got I ended up getting a gun and everything because I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna come across, you know, one day. So Exactly. Yeah. So anyway, we would be I'd be going into houses and taking a look and writing down what I thought needed to be done.

And it was it was a time where people were losing their homes, but then also needed a home to live in. So they were renting and the rent was going up and it was just super stable. And the, property prices were, I mean, we were buying what we're buying now for 140 back then for between 10 and 30.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: You know? So what we were doing was we were putting them from, REOs or the trustee sales, getting them just turnkey for rentals, which was, took like $10 to do because the cost of construction was so low at that time too.

Steve: Right. A lot of labor available.

Dani: Yeah, exactly. So we did that, put a renter in there, and then we would do like five, ten, 15 of them and then flip them to out of state investors, out of country investors, and then we would manage their properties in house.

Steve: So you're creating cash flow properties? Yeah. And you're selling those?

Dani: Yep. Selling them in With equity. Yeah. Yeah. With equity.

Well, we were selling them for quite a bit. So, you know, but but still, then we were managing in house and I mean, they still, the investors still knew that they had opportunity to make more money as, you know, time was gonna go on. They had a long term strategy. So we just kept them in house and, so yeah. And then when it came time that they wanted to sell, I was licensed at the time.

And then I and then I represented them on the sale as well. Mhmm. So

Steve: So how'd you go from there to Equity Connect?

Dani: Well, that was 2011 through 2013 ish.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And then in '14 is when the market started to shift and it became more of, like, you had to buy and put value into it and then list it. You couldn't just buy and then necessarily sell tomorrow for a profit. Right. So we, started to do more, construction, which was difficult to turn.

Steve: Were the same guys?

Dani: That's exactly my point. The same guys were not the guys that were gonna be adding, you know, nice tile and doing, you know, value add construction. So, no, we we ended up kind of shifting the model there and then the investor that I was working with, he wasn't quite as interested in doing those types of flips. The opportunity wasn't there as much anymore. So, I actually brought my family in, my parents, and, we started to do more and more renovations with them, which was cool.

Gave us an opportunity to work together. And my parents were the money and I was in there just doing the work.

Steve: It's a good situation.

Dani: Yeah. My sister was she was there to root us on, but because she was in California, but she would come back and forth. And so we tag teamed that and that was a good opportunity. And then then from there, we found it difficult to find properties. So that's when Jesse, you know, Jesse, he, he was like, I I know this guy.

Let me introduce him to you. You know, you guys, let's see if we can do something with this. He's starting a wholesale operation. You know, you're looking for properties. Let let me introduce you.

So what I didn't know was he introduced Jared in a way that was like, you need to meet my investor. Apparently, I'm this investor that he wanted to introduce.

Steve: It's kind

Dani: of a funny story because Jared goes into the, meeting with me thinking that I'm this older woman and I'm like, you know, like, he doesn't know what he's walking into. And Right. We go in and we meet each other and and I'm who I am. I was five years younger at the time or whatever, four years younger. So, that's when we kinda decided to partner up and and create Equity Connect.

Steve: Okay. I see.

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: So what were some of your struggles then when you started Equity Connect?

Dani: Yeah. That was I mean, it was tough to get off to a start because, at that time I was kind of walking away from my, partnership and my, working relationship with the investor that I was working with at the time. And I never really, truly, like, worked for myself, like, you know, with expenses and with, profit and losses that were actually my profit

Steve: and losses. You actually had to pay for it.

Dani: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: So, it was a true learning experience. It was a good one. I mean, we worked in one of my, rooms in my house that I owned. So I had everybody come to the, house every day.

Steve: And The space was affordable?

Dani: Yeah. Exactly. At least we didn't have to pay rent, which Right. We can't say now. But, so yeah.

I mean, it was it was good, but it was a learning experience. We didn't have deals just falling in our laps like we hoped.

Steve: Right.

Dani: You know, we were on a round robin. We had our website and we were on a round robin. So Jesse, Jared and I, we would get the phone calls and talk to homeowners. So it

Steve: was at that time, just the three of you?

Dani: Yes. Exactly. At that time. And then we brought in a fourth partner who I was doing some, larger construction projects with, Hillary Hobson.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And so Hillary has an eye for marketing.

Steve: I don't

Dani: know if you've talked to her about do you know Hillary? No?

Steve: I don't know Hillary. No.

Dani: Okay. So she, she's she's amazing at marketing. She's just got an eye for it. And so she brought in, Tommy and Dustin who do our they're our marketing partners

Steve: and they

Dani: do our website.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: And so, she we we just, she was able to bring something to the table that we didn't quite have, which was, just a marketing, process and and strategy. So, yeah, with that, we were able to kind of scale our business up a little bit from there. And we went from doing you know four or five deals a month here in Phoenix to doing nationwide like 20 deals a month nationwide yeah which was we grew too quickly we didn't quite know what the heck we were doing and, you know, to do to go from that to, like, being in North Carolina or in some other state, and you don't know their rules, you don't know their laws, you don't know, you know, the difference between, something that's built on, you know, wood or on, on a slab. It's just you're in in a different league.

Steve: So another world. Yeah. So Jared was this fancy wholesaler Mhmm. Probably five years ago.

Dani: No. He was not. Oh,

Steve: a little bit of a bait and switch on both parties.

Dani: Yes. Exactly. It was. A bit. Exactly.

Steve: Okay. So, I had a couple people mention to me. They reach out to me the last, week, since the meeting, interview with Josiah. And they're like, hey, you know, we love all this content. It's motivational stuff.

But, we don't have, like, a blueprint. Like, how do we get started? So is that something that you can share with me, like, you know, like, the first three, five things you would do if you were starting a wholesale flip operation tomorrow? Mhmm. What are, like, the first three, five things you would do?

Dani: Sure. If I was going to start I know what I'm good at, and I know that I'm not good at certain things. Like, the marketing side doesn't come naturally to me. I have a finance degree. So partnering, you can't say that you can just go partner with anybody, but partnering with somebody that is kind of the yin to your yang in a way is, is super helpful.

I, that was good for me. It's not for everybody. But, I guess so that you can kind of sit down, put a plan together. I I would say that when we started, we didn't quite know what our end game was, but we knew that we just wanted to kind of start and and start getting deals. I would say that sit down and be real with yourself about what, your end wants what you want it to look like at the end and then work backwards.

If you wanna start, if you wanna have a passive lifestyle with a bunch of rentals, then start with that in mind and try to cater your business to that. Mhmm. If you wanna have a passive operation, which was, you know, something that Jared and I definitely wanted, then start with a plan to eventually get there through hiring and and and strategic, you know, build with the end in mind, basically.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: I would also say that if you get in with a good contractor, be willing to give up more to your contractor then, you know, don't try to get the cheapest contractor. If you're flipping, you're gonna get what you pay for. And trust me, I've been through some of the worst. So, you know, like on this on this large project we just did, I partnered with my contractor

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And he had, some skin in the game to, you know, get it done on time, on budget. And, I was willing to give up more because I trusted that I was outside of my league on the scope of work.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And, so I trusted that his word would would have my best interest at heart as well as his. So, like I said, give up give up a little more. Don't be so cheap at the beginning.

Steve: When you say give the contractor skin in the game, like, what is that?

Dani: Well, I gave up, I gave up it was just a kind of a joint venture agreement that we wrote up a contract.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: And he gets a percentage of the back end of the, when we go to sell.

Steve: Of the net profit?

Dani: Of the the net profit. Yeah. So, you know, every day that we don't sell it, he, you know, that comes out of his pocket too. So he wants to he's urged to

Steve: Speed of sales is is critical.

Dani: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Speed the market

Dani: and Yeah, watch the budget and get, get to market and all those things. Yeah. So that and, honestly, don't, don't be so quick to make decisions. Make sure that things are, like, ethically the way that you want to do them because cutting corners might get you in the long run. I don't know if that helps but that's, that's something that's helped me along the way.

Steve: Can you give me an example?

Dani: I could I guess there's certain times where you're gonna come across a seller who wants to sell and I'm trying to think of a situation. I wish I could give you an example. This has come up a lot in my life, though, where I've said no to quick cash.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Dani: in the long run, it it helped me by, people knew that I was the person who would say no to that Mhmm. And yes to doing the right thing. And then Right. You know, more money comes to you when people know that that's how you operate.

Steve: Karma pays back. Pays off.

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: So you mentioned earlier, you know, you had some bad experiences with cheap contractors.

Dani: Yes.

Steve: So some of the worst experiences. Mhmm. Where are some of those experiences so so these guys can learn from your experience versus doing it on their own?

Dani: For sure. Okay. One of the worst ones was I got in, and this is this is some good advice is so I had two large projects, two, Arcadia, like, almost ground up projects, and I took them on at the same time. So first things first, don't go so outside of your comfort zone

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: And do two at the same time. And that's what I did. I went from doing my, you know, let's say $25,000 scopes of work straight to two $200,000 scopes of work. Yeah. Because I I like to push the envelope a little bit.

Yeah. You know, I wanna get to where I wanna be quickly and, just that's maybe just grow into it and don't cut corners. And so what I did was I was recommended to work with this contractor through a friend, and I didn't vet him properly. Hillary and I, actually, she was my partner in this. And so we went in, to these projects, and we just kind of trusted his scope of work.

It was the his bids were maybe 60% of what any other closer bid was. So it was much cheaper to go with this person.

Steve: Alright. Bought the business.

Dani: Uh-huh.

Steve: He bought the deal or the, the, the work.

Dani: Yes, exactly. So anyway, we go in, he's like, I need, I need 30% upfront or something like that. That should be a red flag because we were not, into even permitting yet or anything like that. You don't need that amount of money that early on.

Steve: Right.

Dani: So red flag. And I should have seen it, and I didn't. I had money to spend, and I had, like, money that I was hoping to make. And I just I saw that happening quicker than reality really is gonna allow, really.

Steve: Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.

Dani: Yeah. Exactly. And so, we started the construction project. We basically I I paid him those deposits and then, he one of them, he stopped I I started getting calls that the, subs weren't getting paid

Steve: and we

Dani: hadn't quite started the other project yet.

Steve: And we're talking about 30% of 200,000?

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: Okay. Yeah.

Dani: So the subs weren't getting and I paid both at the same time. I remember it was New Year's Eve and I had

Steve: For both projects to one contractor. Yes. So a $120. Mhmm. Wow.

Okay.

Dani: Yeah. And and a third project too we were doing. So, his subs weren't getting paid. Just things were not adding up. Like, we would go there and you could tell that they hired somebody at Home Depot to do the drywall.

And it was, you know, a smooth finish that was, like, more like a a knockdown. It just didn't look right. It was just janky. You could see the seams. There was just it was shoddy work.

And so we started looking into it his con his like foreman his foreman was like missing a tooth and like it just things weren't adding up.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: Sure enough. He got his license on January something of that year. Mhmm. And it was like March 1 when I noticed that something wasn't adding up and I looked up his license online and he had eighteen eighteen, reports on his license.

Steve: In two months?

Dani: In two months.

Steve: That's pretty impressive.

Dani: Because it's from when he was acting without a license. Got a license, he racked them up all quickly.

Steve: I gotcha.

Dani: Yeah. So, anyway, so I I was like, stop work. Stop right now. Do not go any further. Like, don't order anything else.

Like, we hadn't started the other project yet, and I was like, I want my money back on this other one. Like, we'll finish this one off. You know, I'll work with you. We're gonna we're gonna get this done, but this one you need to stop. And this was these were major remodels.

This guy had no business contracting work. He's like, I have 40 crews. He said all these great things that

Steve: he has. No. He didn't

Dani: have any of it. Yeah. He sold well. He was a salesman. Yeah.

And he

Steve: sold me. Did you get your money back on the

Dani: second project? I didn't get

Steve: a penny back. Really?

Dani: I didn't get 1 dime back. And I was I had a third project and we were exposed to him too. Anyway, after all of this, he's like, I call him. I'm like, I want my money back. And he's like, you're not, you're not getting your money back.

You know, you're gonna have to sue me for it.

Steve: Wow.

Dani: So I sued him, and we won. But then he What

Steve: did you win?

Dani: We won 250,000.

Steve: I know. But

Dani: He closed up shop. Right. He closed up shop, and it was under an LLC, and he said sue me. Sue sue me personally, and then he skipped town.

Steve: That sucks. Valuable lesson.

Dani: Valuable lesson. It's if it looks too good to be true, it's it's for sure too good to be true.

Steve: Right. Let's see. What would you attribute your success to?

Dani: My success? I would say in recent years, just really hard work. Mhmm. I would say Jared and I work something like seventy hours a week, probably even

Steve: more. Really?

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: Each?

Dani: Each. Yeah. Wow. Jared, even more than me, I have to say. He is his work work ethic is

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: Something to admire for sure. For me, going back to the ethical thing, I think that's something that people would say about me is is I'm ethical, and and I I also push the envelope. I I like to take risks.

Steve: So Right.

Dani: Those are those are things that I attribute my success to.

Steve: Okay. And then I read your profile that you're a third generation investor.

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: So let's talk about that.

Dani: Sure. So, my grandparents, my mom's parents, they own a an apartment building down in, Milwaukee, which is where we're from.

Steve: Okay.

Dani: And, so they they have rentals. The stories I hear is that my grandma, like, she would go in and evict people and, you know, just all these things that

Steve: Your sweet grandma, like, is this the image of your Like,

Dani: this tall and she The

Steve: one that bakes the cookies? Yeah. She's

Dani: not a cookie baker. No. This person, she was and she passed away a couple years ago, but she was I mean, this stuff that they've seen in these apartment buildings, I'm told that there were, like, several instances of dead bodies and stuff like that. And she's the one who would go in and find these people. And, like, I think she even cleaned up a few of those.

She was a strong lady.

Steve: Different time.

Dani: Yeah. I know. And then but they still own it. They sold it to my uncle and or they worked out a deal, so that's still in the family. And then my dad and my mom, they were in the Harley business.

And, Okay. Yeah. So that's where the Harley enthusiast comes from.

Steve: Right.

Dani: My parents worked for Harley corporate, in Milwaukee, and then they moved out to Reno. We all moved out to Reno in 2005 or something like that to buy a dealership.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And so, we owned the Harley business and then and so that's where my sister and I worked all through high school and everything. And then my dad, he bought the the dealership building and then all the real estate around it. Oh. Yeah. So, like, all the dealerships that were around it and different buildings.

So he's somebody that I've learned a lot from.

Steve: Oh, that's a pretty good resource to have.

Dani: Oh, yeah. I I mean, he's great. He's great in business. He's a consultant for other dealers now. He ended up selling his business, but he consults for other people.

So he I get to it rubs off on me. He gets to help me with my business.

Steve: Very cool. So you own you own a Harley?

Dani: No. No. I've I have my license, and I've ridden plenty, but I don't own one.

Steve: So there's a you know, we have a lot of friends in this business. Right? Friends, peers, competitors. Right? We're all running in the same circle.

Dani: For sure.

Steve: How are you different, than, you know, our friends?

Dani: I can't speak for everyone because I do see some people doing, you know, big things out there. Josiah, you just had they have and Jamille, they have a fantastic business. Yeah. We're all kinda learning from each other too because

Steve: We definitely are.

Dani: Yeah. I mean, everybody's got different things going on. You've got, you know, this stuff going on, which is awesome. You know, Jared and I would love to do more, like, social media and stuff like that, just more presence in this industry.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: So we have all have a lot to learn from each other. But our business, I think, is built or we're building it, actively. Like all the work that we put in, our seventy hours is not spent on doing deals. Mhmm. We're building a business that's gonna work for us.

We've got a team of 14 people that, you know, salespeople, we've got an analyst, we've got a transaction coordinator and administrative staff. So we've got all these different roles that we're hiring out to let our business run for itself. We're creating a great culture for everybody to work in and so I would say our business is built for the long run to kind of operate on its own rather than us doing deals that might differentiate us.

Steve: When do you plan on not being actively involved anymore, you and Jared?

Dani: We finally just hired out our last position. So is? Our transaction coordinator.

Steve: Okay.

Dani: We just, changed transaction coordinators. So, and the analyst was a huge role to to hire out. Now anytime I want a property comped, I just send it to her Mhmm. And she she'll look all into it and all that. So, I would say we're never gonna be fully removed, but we're gonna be able to do the more creative deals, focus on, like, some of, like, larger deals, more multifamily stuff like that, and let the single family operation run itself.

Steve: Right.

Dani: So Okay. Within the next year, I'd hope.

Steve: Cool. Very cool. So we touched on this a little bit. What is your role exactly at, Equity Connect?

Dani: Sure. So our business is twofold. We've got our wholesale side, which is we look at it as more of an acquisition part of our business, and that those acquisitions come in and we determine whether they're gonna go into the investment side or be wholesaled.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And if they're gonna be wholesale, they they stay in kind of Jared's arena. He manages dealing with, these the buyers and he kind of runs that side. I'm more on the investment side. So if we decide to purchase that property, I'm determining who we're going into it with as a as an investor.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: Like, we have different investors that we work with that'll partner with us on private capital, deeds of trust, stuff like that. So I'm managing that. I also handle all of the, like, just administrative side of the business, anything like, all of our, tax strategies, stuff like that, keeping the books up to date so we can tax return at the end of the year.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: So we're we're managing our revenue expenses, stuff like that. So that's on my side. With the finance degree, that's kind of comes natural to me.

Steve: So we talked about investment partners. I mean, at any one time, how many investment partnerships do you have or flips going on with these investor partners?

Dani: Sure. Right now, we own, I'd say, about 30 or so properties. Mhmm. Obviously, that's

Steve: They're in the process of being flipped.

Dani: They're either on the market. They're rentals. We actually our long term play now is to, rent them out. So we have, I think, I don't know, maybe seven of them are actually rented and sitting aside, you know, for the long term place. So they're cash flowing.

They're, we have investors in them, but they have to season before we can get the long term financing in place. So, I would say we've got, like, seven projects or eight projects right now. Everything else is finished.

Steve: Okay. And then the the ones that you've got tied up that you're renting Mhmm. With investor money, those investors don't wanna go long term?

Dani: They're they're too expensive for long term.

Steve: Okay. I see. Yeah. Because that's that's one of the things that, Eric Sage was a previous guest, and he's got them, I guess. He's borrowing at 7%, and they'll do it for thirty years.

Dani: Private capital? Yeah. I might wanna talk to him. Yeah.

Steve: If you wanna yeah. Definitely connect with Eric. And then the other ones where you're flipping Mhmm. What is your arrangement if you can share with your investor partners?

Dani: Yeah. So Jared and I are kind of in a growth strategy. We're trying to not use because what we've done in the recent past is that we've used our own capital a lot on, like, the debt service, the, the the renovation, stuff like that. That's not a scalable business for us. We want to be able to keep our capital, you know, compartmentalized to the acquisitions.

And, and so what we're trying to do is structure everything to be pretty much 100% financed.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And so, right now we've been using a company called Anchor Loans and they're, lending to us. I don't know if they'd want us to say, but we have really good rates with them.

Steve: Single digits.

Dani: Oh, yeah. Okay. And then, we've got and that's at 95% loan to value. So that's a and we also assign to ourselves so that we can make sure that our acquisition company is paid in full Mhmm. For the marketing and stuff.

So we assign to ourselves. So essentially, it's almost 100% financing.

Steve: Right.

Dani: And then if we wanna take on an equity partner, which usually I do, I take let's say the renovation is gonna be $25. I'll take that $25 from an equity partner and we'll do it's usually about ten and two or so for a second. Ten ten percent two points or eleven percent two points.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So, everything is financing. There's no share of the profits.

Dani: I do do a share of the profits. I'll tell you about this deal that we just did, in Vegas. It's a larger property. We had it in contract a year and a half ago. Yeah.

And, the seller

Steve: actually signed

Dani: with a real estate agent to list the home. So the listing agent, when he came to sell to us, the listing agent threw a fit. So she listing agent threw a fit. So she sued him for it. And so during that time, that took a year to, resolve that lawsuit.

So we had to pay everything for that seller, all of their legal fees, all of their they had a hard money loan. The homeowner did. So we paid their they had no money. Yeah. And in order to make sure this deal went through, we had to front.

It was about $80.00 in front in fronted costs for them to be able to resolve this lawsuit with her, us to get the deal, and then, you know, so it finally closed a couple months ago. And so what I did was I worked with an investor who it's actually my dad. He he partnered with us on it. He lent all those upfront, costs, and I gave him 15% of the back end plus 8%, return on his money.

Steve: Oh, awesome. So Duane Murphy wants to know, how much real estate do you own personally, you and Jared?

Dani: I think we touched on this. I think we have about 30 or so right now.

Steve: 30? Okay. And then, are they predominantly single family family or multifamily or a mix?

Dani: It's all single family.

Steve: Single family? Mhmm. Okay. And then Nathan Cass wants to know who's the lender. Was it Anchor?

Dani: Anchor Loans.

Steve: Anchor Loans.

Dani: Yeah. They're really good to work with.

Steve: Are they local?

Dani: They're not. They're out of California.

Steve: Okay.

Dani: So anything local, we use, Bench Equity. They're super easy to work with. You gotta make sure that you have a backup because sometimes they run out of funding. But, so Anchor's been really, really easy to work with. You can usually get it done in a couple of days.

Steve: Cool. So one of the things you'd also talked about was creative deal structuring. Mhmm. So what is creative deal structuring?

Dani: Okay. So we, we've done multiple different types of deals, especially, I mean, in wholesale and direct to homeowner acquisitions, you are privy to a lot of circumstances that people are in when they wanna sell, but they don't quite know how to sell because of one thing or another.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: And one kind of one thing I just touched on was that one where we fronted all the money and then we got paid back at close of escrow. They're risky deals, but they're the most lucrative. Mhmm. We had another one I'll tell you about, and it was a partial interest buyout. There was a homeowner that wanted to sell, but the woman's, boyfriend's or husband's ex wife or something like that, she was on title too.

So you have like wife one and wife two on title. Wow. And they don't like each other at all. Yeah. They won't even talk to each other.

Steve: The guy was never very sharp.

Dani: Yeah. I know. But he passed away. So he so they were fend fending for themselves at that point. Okay.

So one of them came to us. The other one did not wanna talk to us. And the one who came to us, we we said, well, we'll work with you, but we're gonna need this for a significant discount because we're gonna have to go talk to this other homeowner. So we paid for her 50% interest in the property, for cash, she gave us the deed of trust. You can only do this with joint tenants.

Yeah. Because it's obviously divisible. So we worked with her and then we were able to go back to the other homeowner and say, you know, we're now on title with you and we're gonna need to work something

Steve: out. Right.

Dani: So we worked something out where she bought us out Mhmm. And it was an extremely lucrative deal for us. So we've tried to go after those ever since.

Steve: Wow. That's awesome.

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: So we just gotta find properties where the wife and ex wife are

Dani: on top. Yeah. Exactly. I don't know how you can exactly do that, but or, like, brother and sister. Sometimes, you know

Steve: I can see that.

Dani: I hate to see it.

Steve: But Especially in probate.

Dani: That's exactly right. Yeah. Inherited properties.

Steve: And then you guys were on stage not too long ago talking about bulk deals. So what's that about?

Dani: A few years ago, I did I had a friend who, was a commercial broker, and he had recently started working with people who wanted to liquidate portfolios. And, he came to me because he knew we were trying to buy single family homes, and so he ran a a package by me that was about 140 homes. And, so we went through it, and we were like, okay. A few of these are deals. So we made an offer on the the whole package, and we made an offer on 60 of them

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: Of which we we cherry picked the best one. So we were able to give a a more, like, a better looking, offer to them on those. And they took our offer on the 60. Mhmm. So we we did that deal.

That was a really cool deal when we first started.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: We wholesaled all but 11 of them. So there was a lot of moving parts because we had like

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: Eight different buyers.

Steve: 60 properties.

Dani: Yeah. Exactly. We had And

Steve: some really good TCs.

Dani: Yeah. Well, I actually I was like, no one else is touching this one. I I've got this. Yeah. Which I mean you have to make sure that because you've got all these people moving in the same direction.

You've got to make sure that everybody's gonna close at the same time. Otherwise, we had our financing in place just in case people didn't close because if one didn't, we were in breach on all of them. So

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: It ended up working out. We did very well on the package. So

Steve: So on that 60, like, what did you guys offer as part as as percentage of ARV?

Dani: It was so good at the time. Like, we got this package at, like, 73 percent or something like that, and I think we sold them for, like, 80.

Steve: Wow. It's not too shabby.

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: Okay. And then so we were talking about interest buyouts, and you mentioned REO earlier. Is that the what what's what's the REO with

Dani: your restructuring? We were we were just, buying at the courthouse steps and

Steve: Okay. The trustee properties. Okay.

Dani: Properties.

Steve: Alright. So, you mentioned you have 14 people working for you. Mhmm. What does your organization look like today?

Dani: We've got five salespeople.

Steve: Mhmm. Or

Dani: yeah. Five salespeople. We've got one sales manager. He's kind of the operations manager.

Steve: Salespeople meaning acquisition people.

Dani: Call them salespeople.

Steve: After the leads been scrubbed, they're talking to the homeowner.

Dani: Exactly. Okay. Okay. So, well, we can start with marketing. We've got several different types of marketing that we do.

We've got a call center that, it's, we basically, we also service other people. So we have created a name for it. It's called Call Geeks.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: But we run our own cold calling in that as well. We've got, I think, about five or six agents there. We also have another call center that we have outside of that, and we have about seven agents there.

Steve: Okay.

Dani: So we've got a bunch of cold calling going on. We do some reverse or

Steve: what

Dani: do you call ringless voicemail.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And then we've got our website and, a couple different other small types of marketing. But then all those leads come in and we do, we have a specific strategy on how we disposition those leads into our sales floor. So, they're we're all virtual, so we're not doing much, in the way of going out and meeting with the homeowners. We kind of have built our business to be able to do everything from our hub and then we disposition or we, we send people out boots on the ground to go and get pictures and stuff like that. But we do everything from our hub.

Steve: So who's taking the photos?

Dani: We have people, boots on the ground. So we've got a guy here who's a locksmith, and he also does our pictures. So Okay. We give him a call. Hey.

Go get pictures. But we usually do that after we get it in a contract. Right. We we go we do everything based on seller stated information.

Steve: So Okay. So you got five salespeople, one sales manager

Dani: Mhmm.

Steve: The locksmith, photographer guy.

Dani: Yeah. I he's got his own operations, so we just kind of work with him.

Steve: So who else is in the in the organization?

Dani: So we've got that. And then we've got, we've got a dispositions manager. So he's the one that any investor.

Steve: Oh, you guys finally found somebody. It's not Jared anymore.

Dani: It's not Jared. Well, Jared tags tag teams with him, but, his name's Perry.

Steve: Okay.

Dani: And he's got a lot of experience in this industry, so he jumped right in and he does very well. So that's who you're talking to if you call us at my house. And then, we've got let's see. Who else do we have? Oh, we've got Rhoda.

She's she works with me on all all of our asset management. She's my right hand. She helps me with everything. She keeps we keep our books up to date. She kinda just does everything with me.

Yeah. And then she went to Houston with me and everything. So she's dealing with the contractors, and she's crucial. And then we've got our transaction coordinator that we just hired. Mhmm.

So she's managing all the transactions. And then we have Kayla, and Kayla is our analyst.

Steve: Okay. So And that's so she's our underwriter?

Dani: Underwriter. Right.

Steve: And that's different than the disposition because there isn't typically disposition underwriter the same hats?

Dani: In in most cases, yes. But, a lot of our stuff doesn't actually get dispositioned outside the company. We keep it. So we underwrite everything as though we're gonna buy it. And Gotcha.

So she does that. And the dispositions is just purely, working with buyers and trying to grow the network of our company.

Steve: So Cool. Very cool.

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: So you mentioned Houston. What other markets are you in?

Dani: Oh, so we're in Houston. That's where our long term rental play is. So everything we buy there, we buy with the intent to rent it out. And then we've been in California, both Southern and Northern California, which is a really tough, tough place to be. So we're kind of slowing down there a little bit.

Vegas Vegas has been very good for us and then Phoenix.

Steve: Okay. So why is Houston the focus for buy and hold?

Dani: So the, Hurricane Harvey over a year ago provided, kind of an interesting net, market out there right now. So you've got like all these larger businesses that are out there. So people it's a strong economy. People need to live there. They have their, their jobs there and everything.

It's a

Steve: huge metro.

Dani: Yeah, it's huge. Yeah. And, and so it provided an economy that people are still needing to live there and they'll spend the money to live there but, the homes of all kind of got destroyed. So it was, a lot of supply and demand, interesting stuff that was going on there which allowed us to get in for, let's say, 60 to 70% of, market value and add value to it. And then we're sitting all in for about 75, 70 to 75% of ARV all in.

So then you're renting it out. We we bought this one deal for 88. We put 25 into it, and we're gonna rent it out for 1,800. So that kinda gives you an idea of the pricing. Pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good deal, but that's also not uncommon.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, that's like, you know, you're you're spending, like, $2.42 50 out here. Mhmm. To get

Dani: 1,800. So it's half. Yeah. Which is why, you know, we shifted our targets to Houston because Yeah. That's a good home.

I mean, we're buying that in 1990 build or newer. And so, you know, your CapEx is relatively manageable. And so yeah.

Steve: Cool. Very cool. Now I know that you guys have, you mentioned earlier that you're outsourcing a couple of different, functions. So what services are you guys outsourcing at the moment or offering available?

Dani: Offering available. Yeah. We have our call center. That's really the only thing that's live right now. We do, so we have 140 agents in, Mexico that are cold calling and so, we sell those on a bulk between three and five agents usually is the average for our clients want to work with a call center and that call center that understands their business.

And, so we've been able to, package up a pretty good package for those people. It's just a turnkey call center for them.

Steve: Who's training them?

Dani: We partnered with Carlos and Sal. So Carlos, Sal, Jared, they all go down there and they'll work with them. But, we have for every about 20 guys, there's a supervisor and a QA. So, and then they've got training all in house. So we've trained them up.

Steve: Okay. And what is your monthly overhead for your operation?

Dani: It's a lot.

Steve: It's a lot?

Dani: Yeah. As a percentage? Sure. As a percentage, I'd say it is about 2020%.

Steve: 20%?

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: And then some of the people that come into, you know, that, I see posting and wholesaling houses full time with all these other groups is, you know, who to talk to, where to go for coaching, this or that. Is there any particular group coach coaching organization that you direct new people to, or what do you do?

Dani: I don't usually I'm not as out there. Mhmm. You know what I mean? Like, in the networking and meeting with new wholesalers. So that question doesn't I don't get that very often.

Your best bet would be to just start talking to people yourself and kind of learning this business. I I don't know if you necessarily need to pay for coaching. Right. You know, you might wanna pay to sit in a room at a round table and brainstorm with people.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: But I don't know if for me, I'm coming from a completely different place than most people in our business come from. I was lucky enough to have a mentor.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: So, you know, what I would pay for that, I don't know if I necessarily have an answer, but, I know that there are lots of good people out there offering coaching.

Steve: There are a lot of people offering coaching.

Dani: It's really hard. Spend your last dollar on it because put out some marketing and learn for yourself. You know?

Steve: School of hard knocks.

Dani: Yeah. Exactly. Right. School of hard knocks.

Steve: Okay. Is there any CRM tool or system that you could not live without?

Dani: Podio. We use Podio, and we've, we've got it pretty much down. Our Podio is is a huge tool for us, us, keeps us organized, keeps us in front of sellers. Mhmm. We and also, it's super customizable.

Like, it's nice that you can get into Globey flow and change all the things and really customize it on the spot for you. So I know everybody uses that in our industry. I think it's good. We've spent a lot of money on different CRMs. I don't know.

We did Infusionsoft. We spent, I'd have to say, probably $20 on it. Yeah. And it was such a waste of money because it's it's no not as good as the simple Podio tool

Steve: that It's crazy to me because, you know, I I've gone through Infusionsoft. I've gone through I've seen other people's Salesforce. I've seen all these other different CRMs. You go through Podio. I was like, this is really simple.

Yeah.

Dani: It's super simple.

Steve: And effective. Yeah. It's crazy.

Dani: It's built on Excel. So I mean Yeah.

Steve: Is it? I didn't know that.

Dani: Yeah. That's what I'm told. So Yeah. And you it's kinda clunky in parts, but you can make it yeah.

Steve: But you can make it do what you want it to

Dani: do. Exactly.

Steve: There's no I haven't heard of any restrictions. Like, oh, you can't do that. It's just like

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: We have to figure out a way to make that happen.

Dani: Exactly. And then also, I mean, QuickBooks for me, like like I said, we we we really run our business based on numbers and knowing what our revenue is and making decisions based on what that is and what's manageable. QuickBooks is able to tell me that. I've got some VAs that keep it up to date. So Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve: So going back to Podio, you guys customize it all on your own. You're not using InvestorFuse or anybody else's add on.

Dani: No. We actually, worked with Sal. Sal, and Jared, and I Sal pretty much built up the whole thing. And, he and Jared kinda worked to customize it to our business, which was super helpful. And then GlobeyFlow, you know, that sits on top of it.

So we pretty much have just made it our own.

Steve: Probably doesn't hurt that Jared's a former engineer.

Dani: Yeah. No. Jared and he is an engineer to a t. So yeah. And it almost to a fault, he'll spend all of his time tinkering with things to make it perfect, and it's like, go hire that done.

Just tell him how you want it. You know?

Steve: It's a pain in the butt, but when it pays off, it really pays off.

Dani: Yeah. And he knows his business and his what he's doing left and right. So Right. It's good.

Steve: What would you guys do if the market dips?

Dani: I think that our business, our wholesale biz or our direct to homeowner acquisitions business is made for that type of a situation Mhmm. Because rather than I mean, our goal is to just fix and flip and buy and hold and that's why we are our direct to homeowner acquisitions can be retargeted from taking those, investments in house to just wholesale them out to other people.

Steve: Mhmm.

Dani: And so I think that we would just double down on wholesale.

Steve: So you're saying because you have the tool available, like, your whole operation's already geared towards it

Dani: Yep.

Steve: That it's just gonna be better.

Dani: I think it would just be better.

Steve: I mean I agree with you.

Dani: I was

Steve: just wanting to get your opinion.

Dani: Okay. I would say that, you know, it's really also a a good thing to be, like, liquid in that time. Mhmm. So, you know, hopefully I know that everybody's worried about a a correction you know, I think that working with the capital partners that we work with allows us to be liquid when we want to, you know, if that situation happens, hopefully capitalize on it if you want to purchase. But I think we would really shift more and and double double down on wholesale is gonna be great in that in that time, I think.

Steve: Yeah. I I wholeheartedly agree, and I'm looking forward to

Dani: it. Yeah.

Steve: Is there anybody you would recommend? Nathan Caps wants to know, for customizing Podio. Is there a resource that someone could look into if they need help customizing it?

Dani: I mean, like I said, Sal I know Sal and Carlos are offering their services to help build out Podio. I I would say contact them. I don't know what they're charging. But

Steve: Yeah. And I think that's all in marketing.com. Yeah. It's not that. It's something very much like it.

Dani: Yeah. Something like that. Just call Sal.

Steve: Sal. Yeah. Sal Shakir, s h a k I r. What is your biggest struggle right now?

Dani: Biggest struggle right now is Sorry. Hold on. Let me think. Personally, in Houston, I learned that when I I just went there, because we just acquired a bunch of deals there and we want to start getting good getting going on construction, And it is scary out there. Honestly, like, there are you don't need a a license to GC projects.

And so,

Steve: In Houston?

Dani: In Houston, you don't need a license. It's like the Wild West.

Steve: I thought we were the

Dani: Wild West. Wow. Texas. And so, it it's like a whole another, thing out there. And so I would say that I'm struggling with trying to make sure that I don't want to make any moves there until I know I'm making the right moves.

Clearly, I've had some issues in construction, you know, so I Equal scars. Yeah. And I don't want to just give all of our projects to one person. So trying to find the right course of action in Houston is probably my my biggest struggle. Also Jared and I struggle with trying to make this business completely passive for us and so it requires pulling us out and letting everybody, you know, fend for themselves, and we're way too hands on.

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: You know? So

Steve: Well, it's a very tough business.

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: This one, I think I think because you're dealing with more emotions and more people. I mean, we already know that real estate is the most stressful one of the most stressful events in someone's life.

Dani: Yeah. No. I know. You only buy or sell a home a couple times,

Steve: and

Dani: so people are stressed as it is.

Steve: And so when you're doing 10 or 20 or 30

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: You're doing 30 of those a month, it only takes a few to lose their mind

Dani: Yeah.

Steve: For it to throw a wrench in everything.

Dani: Yeah. And I just I I hate seeing my people stress in my business. For some reason, I just I sometimes I I try to fix, you know, and so I struggle with just removing myself and letting it the machine run on its own and, you know, believing in our people enough. I I believe in them, but I always feel like there's education we can give to them and stuff.

Steve: Is the mom kicking in?

Dani: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: What is your superpower?

Dani: My superpower. I think that after doing as many deals as I've done and seeing as many situations as I have, just I would say that I don't say no to anything. I Or I don't Let me rephrase that. I don't, I find a way to get it done always. I guess like if someone comes to me with a problem, I'm not gonna ever say no this isn't doable and I hate that when people like lawyers, they like to say no, like you can't do that.

Well, no. You need to tell me how. You know? So I would say that that's my superpower, and and people always would say that they come to me to problem solve and, try to find a way, like I said, to do it ethically. Don't cut corners through it and and just get it done.

So

Steve: So creative solutions.

Dani: Creative solutions.

Steve: And I think that is ultimately what we get paid for. So that's Exactly. Great thing to have for a superpower.

Dani: In wholesale and in direct to homeowner acquisitions, homeowners want to bring you their problem and, like, fix it for me and

Steve: Right.

Dani: That's what we do.

Steve: It's awesome. What is the greatest lesson you've learned?

Dani: Greatest lesson? I would say that, we like I said, we've spent a lot of money, on let me think here. We've spent a lot of money on things in our business that aren't really going toward our end goal. And so, especially for people who are just starting, just figure out what your end goal is and or like what you if you're ten years down the road, what would really make you happy to see and then back out and make a plan from there and don't let yourself get, distracted by quick money and by the shiny objects that are all around us.

Steve: It's really easy really easy to get distracted.

Dani: Yeah. It is. And, I mean, people do it every day. And Yeah. And I, like, I'm coming from a place where that I I worked for somebody who literally came here on a shiny object

Steve: Yeah.

Dani: Syndrome, you know. And and I don't know. I just I I put my nose to the ground and just work my butt off, and I don't really get distracted by that stuff.

Steve: So what is your favorite best or most interesting failure?

Dani: I mean, the the contractor was a huge failure. That's probably it.

Steve: Yeah. And what book have you gifted more than any other?

Dani: I gifted, How to Win Friends and Influence People to a few people. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good book.

Steve: That's a great book. And then the last question is, why do you think so many people have a hard time making it in wholesaling and flipping.

Dani: Going back to the shiny object syndrome thing, I think that if that people I like Grant Cardone's rule of 10 x. Mhmm. You know, you go into something and you think that it's going to be I mean, not everybody thinks it's easy, but it's always 10 times harder, 10 times more work, just 10 times everything that you think to to get to where you wanna be. So, that is what I would say.

Steve: I would say for myself, the, 10 x is probably not a big enough number.

Dani: Yeah. Exactly.

Steve: Because for me, I I think everything's gonna be easy. Yeah. It's like, oh, I didn't see that coming. Didn't see that one. Oh, that's another problem.

So, yeah, that's a very interesting, point. So, this is awesome. What's it's been great. What is the best way for one of our listeners to get a hold of you, if they had a question or a follow-up question?

Dani: Just call me.

Steve: Okay.

Dani: I'll put my number in the in the comments. Yeah. Call me or text me anytime.

Steve: Awesome. And, again, guys, if you like the show, please share this episode right now. And, we actually don't have a guest for next week, so we're gonna have to figure that one out. But we will be here Wednesday at two. We just don't know who the guest is yet.

So thank you, guys, and thank you. This was awesome.

Dani: Thank you so much for having me.

Steve: Appreciate it.