Doug Hopkins Shares How He Did Almost 500 Transactions in 2019 and Over 17000 in His Career

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of real estate disruptors. Today, we have Doug Hopkins, a living legend. He's done over 17,000 transactions, just shy of 500 last year and every and did 40 over 40 last month. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trang, founder of the OfferFast Homes app, the only MLS for off market wholesale properties, and I help entrepreneurs create businesses that support their life, their family, and their goals through mentorship.

I'm on a mission to create

Doug Hopkins: 100 millionaires.

Steve: If you wanna be one of those millionaires, drop me a message on Instagram at Steve dot Trang. If you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up. And as a friendly reminder, I do not charge a dime for the show. I don't make any money doing this.

So here's all I ask is what it cost for you to listen to this show. If you get value today, please tell a friend. You can 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 this is a live show, so please ask your questions for Doug to answer.

You ready?

Doug: Yeah. I'm ready. Let's do this.

Steve: Alright. So when did you get into real estate?

Doug: I got into real estate in 1993, actually. I was a, I was going to school. I was going to Arizona State University, and, I was selling cable door to door. And, a buddy of mine that I was selling cable with, graduated and decided to become a a loan officer. So, about that time, rates had come way down, and he was doing the same thing I was doing except he was doing loans.

And my commissions were $50 and his were a couple of grand. And so he showed me his paycheck, and I we compared paychecks. And, I'm like, alright. How do I get into this? How do I get into this?

Steve: That's like the Wolf of Wall Street scene.

Doug: Yeah. I'm like, I I wanna do this. So Yeah. I I quit my job. I went and and worked.

I had to do a thirty day, thirty or forty five day training, got got trained, try try to figure out what I was doing. I knew nothing. I was just a, you know, young kid just trying to figure out what what the heck a loan origination point was and all the escrow terms. I had no idea what any of it was. The day that I started, rates had jumped back up, and that was the end of refinancing.

Steve: Oh, really?

Doug: Yeah. And so they said It's a very

Steve: short window.

Doug: It was it was horrific. Yeah. And and so I was like, alright. What do I do now? And they said, well, you gotta go out and and and hit all the real estate companies and try to get business that you know, from realtors that are that are, you know, finding people houses.

So that's what I did. And and, you know, it was all commission based, and I was down to my my last dollar. I mean, it was it was bad. Mhmm. So I had a bunch of baseball card collection.

I had to sell my baseball card collection just to just to pay rent, and, wound up meeting a couple, that that worked at Realty Executives, that said we're not gonna use you as a loan officer, but we'd really like to hire you as a real estate agent. And, I said, you know what? I'm not doing very well with this this mortgage loan office loan officer thing. So I'm like, yeah. What the heck?

I'll I'll give it a shot. And so I did and, wound up just doing four deals.

Steve: Just snap your fingers, get your real estate license.

Doug: Yeah. Well, I did. I got well, no. I it took a while. It's well, back in the day, and I think you still can do it now.

You can do it in three weeks. Yeah. So, I did it in three weeks. I didn't have the money to put myself through school.

Steve: Not at all.

Doug: No. Not at all. Right? And I didn't have the money to put it through. My my parents, thank thank God they paid paid for me to go because I was I was literally couldn't come up with the $350 I think that I went to to go to school.

Mhmm. When I the day I got my license, I went in there, like, oh, it's gonna cost you, like, $500 to get your license and your lockbox key and this and the other. And the people I was working with, I turned to them, like, I don't I don't have it. And they're like, okay. We'll we'll pay for it and and you can give it to us on your first your first Oh, they

Steve: really liked you.

Doug: So yeah. And it it turned out really well. In fact, I still work with them today. They're in the eighties. Bob and Mary Millard.

Yeah. I still work with them to to this day. They they they referred me a lot of business, actually, still. Very interesting. Yeah.

It was pretty cool.

Steve: Okay. So '94, you get licensed.

Doug: I get licensed. Doing deals. Doing deals. Met a couple of, investors that were buying houses. I got really good at finding at finding, investment properties.

Mhmm. And I was making making a bunch of money for these investors because I was finding, VA repos and and HUD foreclosures and but I I never went down to the courthouse steps because I was always told, you know, it's like the mafia down there. And you go down there, they'll break your legs. They won't let you bed. They're they're gonna bid you up.

Don't even bother going down there. It's it's crazy. So I never did. And I found I I found other ways to find houses.

Steve: Yeah. The what I was always I was always told is the good old voice network.

Doug: Yes. Absolutely. I was yeah. And and there was a little bit of truth to that. There was there was a people would, if they came down there and they didn't know you, they would bid you up just on purpose and and, you know, make it make it so that you had a really hard time buying a house.

So they they take it, you know, they take a little bit of a hit, you know, on their commissions or whatever whatever their overage was gonna be and, just to make sure that you didn't come come down there. Because if you started making money down there, then all of a sudden you'd be there every day, and they didn't want that.

Steve: Yeah. So at which point then did you start going down?

Doug: So I I, I sold the my first million dollar house. It was, like, $1,100,000. And I got a commission, 3% commission, so it was, like, $3,333,000 and change. My buddy had a bar in his house, and I'm like, man, I like, hey. Can I come over and take a take a picture of your bar?

Because I I wanna give it to my contractor. I think your bar is really really cool.

Steve: Mhmm.

Doug: And, I wanna build one in my house. And he's like, oh, I'm not gonna be home tomorrow. I'm going down to the auctions. I'm gonna go check it out down there. I'm like, hey.

Do you mind if I come with you? And he said, sure. I'm going to Tiffany Bosco down here in Phoenix. And and so I'm like, I hitched. I went over there, met him for a cup of coffee.

We drove down together. I saw this house go. Gosh. I'm trying to remember this. Revere Revere Street.

And, and it was going I'm like, man, that thing just sold for I think think, it was, like, $68,000. It was it was it was maybe it was, yeah, $68. And so I'm like, that house is worth, like, a $135,000. Like, I I know that area. I know you know, and I I was like, man.

I go So

Steve: this is 99?

Doug: This is 99. And and somebody had a sheet, and it it showed me the square footage and everything else on it. And I'm like, wow. I had never seen a a house go that cheap in that in that area. So I I said, hey.

Went to the guy who who bought it. I go, excuse me, sir. What are you planning on doing, you know, doing with that house? And he goes, what the heck do you wanna know for? And I said, oh, I just just wanna know because, you know, maybe I I, you know, I have might have a buyer for it.

You know, I work with investors. He goes, were you bidding against me? I go, no. I I wasn't bidding at all. I just came in here to watch.

Who are you with? And I said, that guy over there. He's like, alright. $10,000, you can have it. 10,000 over what I paid for it and you can have it.

And I'm like, alright. Cool. I'll write up a contract. I can close in thirty days. I can and he goes, no.

He goes, you you need to pay for it in twenty four hours.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: And I'm like, I don't have the cash to pay you in twenty four hours. And he goes, well, just, you know, go get hard money. And I said, alright. What's hard money? I had no idea what hard money is.

He's like, here. Gives me gives me a guy's card and says, here. Go down. It was, Scott Gould, over at RLS Mhmm. There.

So I called him up, and he said, yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'm available. Come on down. So I went down there and was like, alright. You know, I'm gonna need 20% down.

It's gonna be 18% interest, you know, and

Steve: 20% down, 18%. 18%

Doug: interest. Correct.

Steve: Correct. Different Yes. Than today.

Doug: Yeah. So it was, yeah. Not much, but it's yeah. It's changing. The times are changing for sure.

So so I'm like, man, I don't have the 20% to put down either. You know, that's it was still a $78,000. It's still gonna be 15,000 and change. So I'm like, Oh my god. I don't have that money.

He goes, well, okay. Well, wholesale it then. And I said, What does that mean? What does wholesaling mean?

Steve: You get a quick education.

Doug: Yeah. Oh, it was all in in within, like, a three hour period. And and, he goes, well, just, you know, you got you know, you could buy this thing for 78,000. Go find somebody that'll buy it for more, and you can collect a check tomorrow. And a light bulb went off in my head like I it was like, that is the coolest thing I've ever heard.

Steve: The clouds cleared.

Doug: Yeah. It It it was just like that. Yeah. So I literally called my dad on the way home, and I said my life just changed. Yeah.

And he's like, what do you mean? I said, I just went down. I saw these auctions. It was amazing. These people are bidding on houses, and they're going so cheap.

And that meant these hard money lenders and they could give you they could close it in twenty four hours and it's insane. It's so fast paced and amazing. And my dad just said, just be careful, Doug. Maybe you should you're doing pretty good at what you're doing. Just stay stay doing that.

I'm like, no, dad. You don't understand. This is amazing. I know what I'm doing here. So, anyway, I,

Steve: All the way at

Doug: that time? I was 20 28.

Steve: Okay.

Doug: So, wound up, calling everybody I knew that had that had money. I'm like, I got this great deal, and I found up, talking to a buddy of mine that, was a vice president of a bank. Mhmm. And, he was looking for rentals. We went over and checked it out together.

He said, how much is it? And I said, $7,082,000. And so I tacked $4 on it. He goes, yeah. This looks good.

Let's do it. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I called the the I called, Scott down at RLS and I said, hey. I got a guy that wants to buy it. We went down together.

We did all the paperwork, got the checks, sent them off to the trustees, the trustee company, and I had a check-in my hand in twenty four hours later for $4,000.

Steve: Also, on your first experience

Doug: First experience at the auction. First experience at the auction.

Steve: Four k.

Doug: Yeah. That's not common. No. No. So that was, and the guy that I bought it from, I wound up working with his company for for years, sold a ton of houses for him.

I I was their East Valley guy. So I was in my I was in Mesa. I lived in Mesa and Gilbert at the time. So you

Steve: were kinda like what we call today the disposition guy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure that's what they called it back then.

Doug: Well, back then so it it was times were a lot different back then, you know, going from '99. I worked from them from '99 to about 02/2007 or so, '7 2007 or '8. And, basically, I was they would call me up. The information wasn't as readily available as it is now. So you you literally a lot of the the the stuff that you had to do, the research, you had to actually have people go down to the courthouse, get the documents and, you know, make copies of them and then track them yourself.

So a lot of people had no idea what was going what was on the docket to sell that day. Yeah. And you're literally bidding against maybe five other people and stuff was selling at fifties $40.50, 60¢ on the dollar. I mean, it was it was a great time. I mean, it was insane.

And it was only a thousand dollars. You had to have a thousand dollars cash

Steve: Oh, really?

Doug: Instead of 10,000 as it is now.

Steve: Okay.

Doug: And if you made a mistake, it's like, I lost a thousand on this one, but I made 30 on this one.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: So, you know, it was no big deal. Now you lose a couple of $10,000 checks, and that's not fun. Plus the spreads are not anywhere close to what they used to be. No.

Steve: No. That that definitely got ruined. Yeah. I think and we'll talk about later on partially by your company.

Doug: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true.

So yeah. So so basically what happened is is during that time, I was I would drive houses. Mhmm. And then I would give them my the number that I would I would pay for the home. And, if and and most of those are on the East Valley.

So I was the East Valley guy. They had other people for the West Valley. And then I had first shot for driving them, and and there was no pictures. I wasn't taking pictures or anything. I was just literally giving them a report of what I thought it was worth because I was, you know, my extensive background is being a being a real estate agent.

Mhmm. And and, what I thought it was worth, what I what I would be willing to pay for it. And, and then if I got it under if they came in under that number, I had first first dibs at it. And it was never a a set number. Right?

It was I would say, okay, I'll pay up to 250,000 for it. They'd get it for a 110, and they'd charge me a 140. And it was always every day was always, like, oh, come on, man. You got this for $1.10. Can I get can I get it for a buck 20 at least or something like that?

But so it was a lot of haggling Mhmm. Back and forth. And but, you know, I did I worked that worked out pretty well until, till things got bad in in o seven.

Steve: So at that time, you're you're driving the properties. You got first shot. Are you selling it to the investors that you were working with previously?

Doug: Yeah. So I was so I knew a lot of people. I knew a lot of investors. I worked at, Realty Executives at the time. And then I want in 2,004, I wound up opening up Red Brick Realty and opened up my own brokerage.

The great thing about that was a lot of people that were investors, that were also real estate agents came over because they wanted to be have first shot at at all the stuff that I got. Mhmm. So it worked out really well. We're buying, I don't know, 30 a month, 35 a month, something like that, and and I'd sell most of them in house. I built a building, over on, Higley And Southern.

Yeah. And that's still there. And we had a we had everything under one roof, mortgage company, appraiser, brokerage, and, and insurance, all and title, all under one roof.

Steve: Mhmm.

Doug: And, literally, I was I wouldn't leave the building in order to sell it. It. Everything that I sold was right there. Everyone that everyone that was in the business that was doing a sort of volume that in the on these in East Valley was was right there in my office.

Steve: Right. So it

Doug: was pretty it was pretty cool. I mean, the the energy was electric every day. The going to work was amazing. I would go into work at at 06:30, 07:00 in the morning and and wouldn't leave until eight, 08:30 at night. It was Yeah.

It was just awesome. It's not because I wanted to work all day. It's because it was awesome just being there and being around everybody. I mean, it was just, the culture there was was fantastic. Money was go flowing.

Houses were flowing. They you know? It was just it was awesome.

Steve: So you're doing, like, 30 a month?

Doug: $30.35 a month.

Steve: Yeah. Before the slowdown?

Doug: Yes.

Steve: And then what kind of fees were you tacking on?

Doug: There was no set fees at that point. So, it could be anywhere from $10.15, $20,000. In o five, you know, in o five, I bought most of a lot of the stuff had dried up at trustee sale because, you know, stuff was going up so high, and it was not hard to sell your house. So I was literally buying houses. I bought 365 houses.

360, I think. Three, off of MLS in in 2005, of which, you know, I would normally pay full price. I I would I was buying most of these first day on the market. I was manually going into to MLS every single day between, you know, in between o four and o and and o six. And, and anything that came up brand new, I was checking literally every ten minutes, you know, manually.

And then, if if I saw one that I look. A lot of realtors didn't know how to price houses. They were using comps from six months ago. They didn't realize that it was going up $10,000 a month. Right.

So you didn't you have a $101,110,000 dollar house, and they put it at full price, and it's that thing's worth $1.70. $1.60, $1.70. Yeah. Because nothing has closed in there for the last, for the last six, seven months. So they're using their old old comps.

And then, you know, but you you don't you're just looking in the subdivision. A lot of realtors didn't know how to how to comp out a house or price out a house because it was going up so fast. Yeah. And by the time it would close, it'd go up another ten or fifteen grand. So I'd wait right before close, and then I would wholesale it.

And I was making probably 20 average $20,000 a deal.

Steve: Wow.

Doug: You know, just and that and plus commission.

Steve: So when you're talking about slowdown, for most people, the slowdown is 2,007 through 2,009.

Doug: So But for you,

Steve: the slowdown of the auctions, was that the same for you or the

Doug: same for you? So so so this the auction slowed down start starting for me in in o five.

Steve: Right. Because so for you, it was a different challenge.

Doug: Yes. Correct. So I I completely completely flipped. So I I think people ask me, what do you think your number one reason for being as successful as you are? And I think it's the ability to adapt to what's going around, out there.

And the reason I've been able to adapt is because I always have my finger on the pulse of the market of what's going on. Mhmm. And, and that being a real estate agent has helped me tremendously figure out, you know, what's going on in the market. Being an owner of a company, a real estate company is is and seeing the numbers and seeing the trends and what's selling and what's what's sitting and and, you know, how come we we were 20% down this month or how come we're 20 up this month or, you know, see what's happening with interest rates and whatever. I'm always constantly, seeing what's happening.

And And

Steve: I'm glad you're saying that because one of the things one of the original reasons why I started the show was to kinda, like, unite, you know, the realtor and the wholesaler community. I think that's been a massive failure. I think that James died. But that was one of the reasons why I started the show. Mhmm.

And so I think, you know, realtors need to open their eyes to wholesaling, which obviously you you do. But I think wholesalers need to look at potentially getting a license as well for and this is one of the very many reasons. Right?

Doug: Well You

Steve: have a pulse

Doug: Yeah.

Steve: On the market. You you can see what's happening, and you know the neighborhoods. You know the Yeah. Terrain.

Doug: Not only that, but if you're gonna be marketing at all, you you get to monetize it. Right? Right. You know, there there's several times where I can only, you know I mean, they they they want you know, they owe so much. I'm only gonna make 3 or $4 on this wholesale deal if I'm able to get it down.

But it's a $300,000 house. If I can sell this thing for, you know, for market, I'm gonna make $9.

Steve: Right.

Doug: You know? So, even if I have somebody else do it for me, I'll make 50% of the of the of the profit or the commission. And you can't really collect that if you're not a real Laces real estate agent. Right. So I was, you know, with the amount of leads that I have coming in, I wanna be able to monetize those leads in other ways if I'm not able to buy them.

And we do quite a quite a few listings. I think, I think we did 68, eight, listings, last year in in Arizona and I think another 40 something in in California. And the ones in California, the the commissions are ridiculous. Astronomical. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's insane. When I first went to California, you you know, seeing these little two bedroom, one bath, 680 square foot houses selling for 5 or $600,000, I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. I mean, it's it's this number still are just that's why I let my partner Damon out in California. I let him handle that because I I I can't do it with seeing those numbers, it just being from Arizona and knowing the Arizona market, I just don't know how he does it, honestly.

Steve: So did your radio ads start around what year did your radio ad start?

Doug: Ray radio, we started in, probably see, we did, radio ads in 2013, somewhere around when Property Wars was was going on.

Steve: Alright. So then we'll we'll we'll hold off on that then. Okay. So you transition to MLS.

Doug: Yes.

Steve: Right? And then you do well there, and then we have another shift.

Doug: Yes. So then we have another shift, and nobody knew where the bottom was. Right? I mean, o seven, everything everything. I went, I made one tenth the income in 2007 as I did in 2006.

And

Steve: You wanna put, like, perspective, like, what the numbers were?

Doug: Over well over 2,000,000 to about $200,000.

Steve: So slight change in lifestyle.

Doug: You know, it and it's amazing. Sometimes, no matter how much money you make, you still live the same way. Can you still spend the same way?

Steve: They all get spent somehow.

Doug: Or the government takes a bigger piece, and it just feels that way. So, and then, and then all of a sudden, you know, there was tons of of houses going to foreclosure. So much so that I didn't know, I didn't know what to do. So we were buying our fair share, you know, and I was and I at this point, I'd I'd broken away from the other company. Mhmm.

And I was trying to figure out, you know, how to make my niche. They were trying to make it pretty hard on me and,

Steve: To get back in.

Doug: And and In auction. Yeah. And, I, you know, finally, they you know, I think they relented because I was persistent. And, what what happened was, Queen Creek, before it was San Tan Valley, Queen Creek, I was devastated. It it just was devastating.

It was a ghost town out there.

Steve: Streets filled with signs.

Doug: Just whole subdivisions. It was it was horrible. I mean, houses that were selling for $230,000 now were being sold off for $50.60, 70,000. Nobody was buying them. Yeah.

And, it was driving me nuts because I saw so much potential and opportunity there, because I was always a Pinal County guy. I was always the guy doing the Pinal County sales for the the other company. So I knew Pinal County, like, you know, and especially Queen Creek, and and Apache Junction. Yeah. Because I was a East Mesa guy.

It was easy to get to both. I wound up, going to Scott Gould from RLS, and and, I sat down with him. And I said, listen. I I need some money. He goes, I'm I'm not not fun funding financing anything out in Queen Creek.

Not happening. Because I lost millions out there. Oh. And I said, I'm telling you right now. Look at these numbers.

I go, you the replacement cost. What's the replacement cost on these? You're selling for $20 a square foot. 20 I mean, $20.30, $40 a square foot. What's the replacement cost on this?

It's insane. So, so we he's just let me let me make some phone calls, and I'll I'll get back to you. He goes, you know what? You got it. There's you got something here, I think.

Yeah. He goes, I'll I'll do a few for you, see how they go. And I said, okay. So I went down to the auctions, and I and I bought five, and I wholesale them all. And, I took one down myself, which which I still have I still have as a rental, and sold off the other four.

The people so it was it was crazy. So you'd have a model match with somebody who was still in it for that that owed a 180,000 on their $230,000 house. So they're listed at $1.80. We buy it for 60 and we list it for $1.10. And, of course, the one ten sells.

Steve: Of course.

Doug: So what happened was every everyone who was stuck in in these big houses, they would say, okay. I can I'm gonna just buy this other one over here for $80,000 less than what I owe Mhmm. And then just give up give up the other house.

Steve: Right.

Doug: And that happened quite a bit. And and

Steve: So you're saying you might have been at fault for this whole short sell?

Doug: I was not at fault. No. No. No. I mean, you know, I I was buying at 60 and putting it where the market was, which I thought was, like, $1.10, $1.20.

Steve: Gotcha.

Doug: I would I I wasn't the one who who who, you know, said, okay. You still owe me a 180,000 on that loan. So I was just going where the market was. Right. So you had a bunch of bunch of them up here and they couldn't compete with the ones down here and we we would, you know, make a rip on on each one.

Right. And it started going and going and and then it caught it it really caught fire. I wound up hooking up with a, Canadian investment company, and they put together a fund and we wound up, going

Steve: Can Am or different?

Doug: No. It's it was, it was a I can't remember the name of their fund right now. But, he wound up selling it. I think they tripled their money on on on it. It was Oh, I believe it.

It was crazy.

Steve: I remember those days. Yeah. You know, I'm showing houses for 85 k Yeah. Back down in Santa in Santa Valley.

Doug: They sold everything. Did did a unbelievable job. Yeah. We're able to to to we bought them all for them, and we sold them all for them and and, and managed them all too. So it was, it was pretty it was pretty cool little project.

Steve: So you're working with Scott. You're building out San Tan Valley. Eventually, I imagine you just take over all East Valley.

Doug: So so basically what happened was, there was, up to at one point going to 1,500 houses going a day. There was no physical way for me to to to check them all every day. I was

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: As it was, I was going nuts. So I came up with the idea of going to, you know, my my investors that I was selling to and saying, hey, guys. I'm gonna give you the list. And, you know, the list, that was the big word back then. You know?

If you had the list, you know, of of what was going the next day, that was, you know, again, information was still very hard to come by. Yep. And, so I gave I gave it to my investors and I said, I'm gonna give you the list. You tell me what you'll pay for it. And the problem was everyone's bidding on the same houses.

Mhmm. So then I had to come up with a thing of going, okay, whoever's highest wins and and how that could anyway, it got so crazy. And then when you buy it and you sell it for a different amount, then this person got got mad at this person for getting a good deal because he was higher. Then I'm selling it for $10 over and then everyone's pissed off. So I'm like, you know what?

I'm just gonna make a flat fee. I'm gonna make this a flat fee and it started out at $5 and then it came down to $3. And nobody else had done that. Everyone else is making $2,030,000 dollar rips on every on every single property. And, so I decided to just do a $3,000 flat fee.

Well, that went haywire. Right? So everybody in there everybody. I mean, I had people coming in, 10 people a day coming into my office to sign up, and I would give them the list.

Steve: You were the first one to go to 3,000?

Doug: I was the first one to go to 3,000. I went down to we had bought, I think, we had bought already 20 houses in the morning auctions, and I had to go down for another one other auction. And I walked in because I had nobody else I had nobody else to cover. And, I walked into a lot of very upset people, and I sat down at the table. And they said, so, Doug, seems like you're doing pretty good, You're buying everything.

I said, well, I'm trying, you know. Aren't you guys? And he goes, yeah. How does it feel to single handedly ruin trustee sales?

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: And I said, what are you talking about? He goes, this flat fee garbage that you got, now everybody's all of our clients are leaving over to get to go to you. And I'm like, yeah. Sounds pretty cool to me.

Steve: And you walked out of that meeting on stage?

Doug: Oh, no. No. There was there was a couple times where I I I yeah. They were pretty pretty heated. You know, you go in you're a disruptor, you know, and and and, you know, some people like like the things the way they are, especially when they're going good.

And when somebody comes in and takes their cheese, they're not very happy about it. I mean,

Steve: they're doing 20 k ribs. Yeah. And now they're zero.

Doug: Yeah. Yep. And their clients are jumping over to us. And so, yeah, it was it was a pretty crazy time. And we're buying, I mean, I think that my our record was 34 in one day, and that was just Maricopa County.

We're Yeah. Yeah. It was, and then Pinal County would always have, you know, it was we're buying probably five, six, seven a day down there too. It was it was unbelievable time. And then, and then all of a sudden, the the I don't know.

Coming in 02/1112, the the big corporations started coming in. They're the big, iBuyers or or whatever you wanna call them came in.

Steve: Those hedge funds. They Hedge funds.

Doug: Yeah. Changed the game. Yes. They did. Yep.

Steve: So this service, this 3000 this three k bid service that eventually turned into posted properties?

Doug: Yes. Correct.

Steve: And then you guys were national?

Doug: Well, it wasn't national, but we were in I guess we're like CNBC or whatever. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we were yeah.

They they would come in. Yeah. It was we were on a lot of different we were in the Wall Street Journal and

Steve: and That must have blown up business.

Doug: Yeah. So so I was, it was and and it it did. And then we moved out to California and got picked up by a hedge fund that that asked us we we had built a software, that was able to scrape all the the websites and and get, information in real time, drop bids where where you everyone's making a bunch of money, which means it was scheduled at the auction to go for $200,000. And at the last second, they dropped it to $1.10, just to just because they bank didn't wanna keep it anymore, and it was awesome. Yes.

That's how I bought my house. The the house that I bought that I lived in, I mean, I bought it. It was a $3,000,000 house that dropped that dropped at the last second to $780,000, and I bought it. And, and I lived in it for a while. My ex wife can thank me for that.

She got to take that up.

Steve: She benefited too.

Doug: She benefited. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Steve: So you started to post the properties. Yeah. That did well. And at some point, property wars.

Doug: Yeah. Yeah. So during during the the late, during I think it was 2012, so we're still going pretty good in post the properties. And, from a producer in New York, and they wanted to do a real estate, foreclosure show. And I'm like, okay.

And they said, well, we, you know, we were gonna do it and and, we have it scheduled and we went down to do the auction. I think there was 12 houses that were scheduled to go and you bought 10 of them. So we realized we don't have a we don't have a picture or a a show without you. And I said, well, I'm not doing it. I said, why?

I'm like, because I don't want, you know right at that time, Storage Wars was, like, really, really popular on TV. And I'm like and I heard all the people that were going down to storage auctions now, and I'm like, I don't want a show going on because I don't want more competition coming down here. And, and so, I I stopped answering their phone calls. And he called me from somebody else's phone one night. It was about 05:30, 06:30 at night.

And he called me from somebody else's phone because I wouldn't pick up his phone call anymore. He's like, just please give me a shot. Just let's meet me tomorrow morning and, you know, and let let's just go out with you. If it works, it works. You you know, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

At least we have you on camera if you decide to do it. And I said, well, what the heck? I'll I'll I'll meet you. So I went out and, the only reason I did it is like, I'm like, I was just just got a divorce. I'm like, maybe it'd be a cool way to pick up checks.

You know? That's that's really one of the only reasons I did it because I didn't want anybody else going down there. You know? So I I wound up, meeting up with them and and I literally just said, hey. Just stay out of my way.

We're I'm just gonna go look at houses. So I went out, looked at houses, made sure they were vacant or occupied, and and, you know, if I could get in and take pictures, I did. If I if I couldn't get in, I'd, you know, make notes of that. And that's all I did for, like, three hours. And they're like, so this is what you do?

I'm like, yeah. That's it. It. I'm just going and checking out houses. And, like, what about, you know, what what about the houses?

I'm like, yeah. I just I'm calling them the numbers to to the guys down down at the, at at the courthouse. Like, so what about the interaction with, like, all the other guys and stuff? I'm like, yeah. There's not really there's not really too much of that.

Yeah. And, like, well, we wanna try something. Let's meet at this house over here, and let's have you all meet meet over here. And so I'm like, alright. So cool.

We met at a house. I'm like, hey. Hey, guys. How you doing? And I said, alright.

Like, this is pretty weird, having these cameras, but yeah. So this house on Saratoga in Gilbert, that was the first house. It's never been seen on the on the, on TV. That's the first one. Mhmm.

They said, alright. Well, you guys been on this live. Well, I owned a house three doors down as a rental. I really wanted this house. And at the time, it's a house in Gilbert.

You can imagine, this house in Gilbert is 1,312 square feet, tile stucco house, you know, built in 2000 I don't know. It was early two thousands. And it was worth 115, 118,000, if you can imagine that. It's probably worth $2.60 to $2.80 right now. Mhmm.

So I was opening it up at $85,000. No. It's less than that. I'm sorry. I I figured I was gonna buy it at 85,000.

It was opening up at, like, fifth 58,000 or something like that. So I'm like, alright. Cool. So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna buy this house. I'll probably go up to $8,085,000 on it.

It's, you know, Gilbert neighborhood should be pretty good. Mhmm. And I really want it as a rental. So it goes up to $60.65, $70.75, 80. Yeah.

I'm like, what's over $80,000? I'm like, these guys aren't even dropping off. So $81.82, 83. I'm like, there's no room in the wholesale anymore. I gotta take it down myself to use it as a rental now.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: $90.91, $92.93, and I'm like, I'm looking around. Finally, John and and one of the other guys drop out and there's just me and this guy Scott. I didn't realize when you have the cameras running, how much people hate to lose. They don't wanna look weak on on TV, and who knows who's gonna see this. So neither of us wanted to lose.

I wound up winning winning that house at a $100,000 for a house that was worth 118,000. Yeah. And it was occupied. So I had no idea what it looked like inside.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: And I turned around to Scott and I threw my papers in the air and I started screaming at him and going, what the heck are you doing way about? And and, and cussing and screaming and everything else. And then I turned around to the producer, I go, is that what you wanted to see? You know, like, that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. He's like, dude, you you're hired.

I want we want you on there. And that was that's how I got hired on Pro

Steve: Plus. Audition?

Doug: That was it. And I I was just messing around. You know? So

Steve: for someone, you know, that's looking at this on the outside, outside, you know, outside looking in, how was having a reality show? Did that impact your business in any way?

Doug: Oh, absolutely did. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it gives you it gives you a couple of different things, pluses and minuses. You get, you have a little bit of a target on your back.

Mhmm. I had to read some really horrific things about me, you know, on Twitter and people that hide behind there and say, oh my god. Look at this guy. He's a this, that, and the other. Keyboard warriors.

Yeah. And, but for for the most part, it's been a really good, you know, gives you a certain letter level of credibility, and, it's given me an opportunity to to help a lot of a lot of people as well. Yeah. And and and, and some opportunities I wouldn't normally had before, you know, doing the commercials and doing stuff that, and getting out of my box. I I was never I was never the head guy.

I was always very shy when it came to being on camera or, doing any public speaking. The fact that if I had to do this back ten years ago, not a chance. I would never have come on the show, bro. Yeah. I'm telling you right now, not that I wouldn't want to, like, because I'm having a good time talking to you.

Yeah. But I wouldn't have been able to. My voice would have been shaking. My whole body would have been shaking. My face would have been red.

I'd be sweating a lot more than I am right now. So it would have been it would have been a lot worse. But, you know, it that helped to do a lot of public speaking and going on and doing, they wanted me to be the face of of property wars. And so I got to do all the commercials and going on all the new shows and, which was really intimidating, you know, walking into a studio in, you know, Fox ten and or, you know, ABC, you know, doing a lot NBC was on all the channels, channel three, and getting interviewed live on, you know, on on TV. I was scared to death, but, you know, the more repetition, the more you do stuff, the the easier it becomes.

And and so it's got a lot easier. I still get a little nervous here and there. But,

Steve: But this led to advertising on TV.

Doug: Yeah. So so that's what happened. So I figured, you know, I went into a, a marketing agency in California trying to figure out what next. Right? It's hard to buy houses.

You got all the big the big behemoths in here in town with billions of dollars, you know, eating up stuff at 100% margins. You know? I mean, they're they're basically paying what it's worth. I'm like, what what's next? So I walk into a marketing firm and they said, well, you're you're on a national TV show.

You should be marketing your name. I would create a, you know, create a company, doug hopkins dot com, and start going direct to seller. And, and I'm like, that sounds like a really good idea. And so I did that, and, that was probably before PPC or I I didn't even know what PPC was. In fact, I that's I'm still pretty new with that stuff, but, we just started doing commercials and and, and on radio and also on on, on TV.

And we had a really small budget, And it was very scary because I'd never really had to put out a budget before to bring in business. It was always there. You know, you just go down to the auctions. You know? There wasn't there wasn't a marketing budget.

It was

Steve: That's what was available.

Doug: That's it. You know? So, you know, spending $10 a month or something like that, but to me at the time was like, I, you know, I don't wanna that's that's a lot of money. And $10,000 a month in TV doesn't get you much.

Steve: No.

Doug: So, but and, you know, I started getting I started working. I was like, oh, well, shoot. I got three deals out of it and, you know, those three deals made 40 or 50. And then next thing you know, you you just keep going and going and going and going. And and, and so now we're at the budget that we're at now.

But, that's that's how that that all started.

Steve: So let's talk about, you know, what you got going on today. Right? Yeah. I mean, you've done amazing what you've done in your career.

Doug: Yeah. Thank you.

Steve: So right now, is TV and radio your biggest source?

Doug: So right now, we're doing we do a little bit of everything. Radio, TV, obviously, is the biggest. It's the most expensive, but radio is is pretty good as pretty big as well. We do some Facebook, not much.

Steve: Branded?

Doug: Yes. Yep. Okay.

Steve: And Because you already have the name for radio and TV.

Doug: Yes. Yep. Gotcha. And, we're also doing PPC, and we do some mailers, not a lot. We get a lot of a lot of stuff that comes in on the on the Internet, that that gives false information, but they they just wanna they don't wanna talk to anybody.

They just wanna see what their house is worth or they, you know, they don't wanna put their give us their address or their their their email address or something like that. So we have we're trying to chase them down too and see if they can we can get them to sell their house as well. So, do a little little bit of everything.

Steve: Yeah. But if you were, you know, eighty twenty rule. Right? I think it applies to everything.

Doug: Yep.

Steve: So 80% of your business is coming from I can't say 80% of it's coming

Doug: is coming from? I can't say 80% of it's coming there. But, 65 has come from commercials. Commercials? Yeah.

20 from from radio and the rest from all the other sources. Okay. It's it's funny because they all kinda go together.

Steve: Right.

Doug: When well, I wasn't doing PPC. I'm like, why would I do PPC? I'm like, well, then I figured out why I need to do PPC because everybody's advertising over my name. You know. I get I would get so upset I put out, you know, you you Google Doug Hopkins and then all of a sudden you got six different, you know, guys that are all over me.

One of them, you know, a few a few times they put, we pay more than Doug Hopkins. And and so I had to call them up. It was they were cool about it, but I'm like, hey. You know, you can't do that, bro. You gotta get that off of there.

And and so they did. It was it was a funny story. We joke about it now. Yeah. But, you know, there's there's still some people that that, that put my name on there, and and we we've got it kicked off.

But, you know, it is what it is. You know, I I don't blame them for doing it. You know? It's it's a good way to to try to leapfrog or leap leap onto somebody else's advertising.

Steve: For sure.

Doug: And so, I had to do it myself in order to, you know, be there as well because a lot of people will click on those ads instead of going to the organic search

Steve: Right.

Doug: Or the or the number one. So it's it it was frustrating at first, but we have to do it. We know it's we're like, if we don't do it, our our conversions go down tremendously.

Steve: Yeah. So you're doing TV and radio, PPC, some direct mail, some Facebook ads. It's gotta be pretty tough when you're first getting in. You said 10,000 was a tough check to write. Mhmm.

I mean, what kind of checks are you writing right now for TV?

Doug: 80.

Steve: 80. Yeah.

Doug: That and that's In

Steve: both markets?

Doug: Nope. That's just in Phoenix.

Steve: That's just in Phoenix. So it's gotta be a lot more.

Doug: Yeah. In in LA, it's a 100 and I think it's a 120 a month. I mean, it's not double. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's but it's, you know, it's it's climbed. It it's it's it's climbed from there. You know, those are those are crazy numbers, but I, you know, I I didn't start out that way. Mhmm. I didn't I didn't start out that way.

A lot of people can't relate to that, and I so I'd I'd I'd like to to talk about how how people could be successful in in this day and age. And I I I see the the guys that that got me that got me so focused, and and the reason I even know who you are is because of of Carlos and a lot of the other guys that that have made their way from from nothing and and now are are, you know, big deal and doing doing multimillion dollar businesses. And, and they started from from nothing. I you know, I'm I'm sure that I'm I'm paying a lot more for my advertising than they are from theirs, and they're figuring it out. And I I really admire that.

I I respect that. And and, and it got me it it's gotten me to the point of, I wanna figure out how to do that. Mhmm. I I know how to do spend a bunch of money and make the phones ring. I I know how to do that.

I don't know how to spend a little bit of money and make the phones ring or or, you know, try to, you know, do the PPC stuff or a lot of the other stuff that they're doing. Yeah. And and, and just their their systems and stuff that that, they they got going. I mean, the Keegleys of the world and, all these guys that are are doing unbelievable business, I have tremendous respect for them. And, I didn't wanna be the the guy that got I I saw, you know, during the birth of posted properties and going forward, be passing by a lot of my mentors and people that I that I thought were were untouchable, and they had unbelievable businesses.

Yeah. And I felt myself getting stagnant and being, just just being that guy. You know? It's like, here's the cycle, you know, and and I was gonna be part of that cycle. I I had my time, and, and now I'm gonna go back.

I mean, a lot of the guys that I was working with back in the in the early two thousands are are out of the business.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: You know? And I didn't wanna be that guy. I love real estate, man. I this has not worked for me. You know, we were talking earlier, you know, that that, you know, about how many how much time you put into to the job.

And I to me, I I eat, live, breathe, and sleep this stuff. I I love it. I like I I'm I love making deals happen. I just made a deal happen this morning before coming in here that I'm gonna get paid $2,500 on. And I worked on that thing harder than if I had get probably gotten a $30,000 rep just because I want to make that deal.

It was a challenge for me.

Steve: Right.

Doug: And and I wanted to make it happen. And Pace and and and Greg were able to make make that happen for me, because they knew they know a lot more about about, creative finance. So they Yeah. Subject to stuff. I don't know anything about that.

That's something I need to learn. If I wanna stay relevant, you gotta keep on learning in this business. And if you don't keep on learning it's and staying relevant, you'll get passed by. And I don't want that to happen. And I

Steve: think you you mentioned something to me, yesterday when we're talking, you know, like, sharing a stage with Carlos. Like, you looked at him, and that gave you a kick in the butt. He didn't know it.

Doug: He didn't know it. Nope. Nope. I don't I haven't even told him this story.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: Yeah. We were on, last year, we were on a stage, for Phoenix Rio, and and, I was up there, and and he went after I just got an ape was what like, what do you do to get stuff? I'm like, hey. I still go into people's living rooms now, you know, on the East Side. I'm I'm still going out there meeting with people.

I love I love doing it. And so, you know, they'll set I have my phone guy set an appointment. I'll go out there and I'll try to get the deal done. And, you know, I was explaining to you how I why how I differ from from my buyers, you know, from the open doors and offer pads and Zillow's. And I'm like, I actually go in their living room and and try to make a personal connection with them and, you know, and and give them an offer right there on the spot that's a real offer that it's I'm not gonna go back and try to get it down or that, you know.

I was explaining that on stage. And then he comes up, you know, next, and he's like, Doug's no g, man. He's old school. He goes, I don't even go in the house. I just do it all over the phone.

That guy's closed over the phone, and we're closing this amount of deals. And I'm like, first of all, I went to myself. I sit in there and go, what the heck is an OG? Like, I had no idea what an OG was. Yeah.

Original gangster, I believe, is a is a term now. So, and then, and then I'm like, That's, that was pretty impressive, you know. And and, and so it was cool and and went home and and that's that. I couldn't sleep. Couldn't sleep.

I'm like, how the heck is he doing that where he's getting he's getting the phone to ring and he's doesn't even have to walk into the house? And he's buying them buying a getting a contractor without even seeing it?

Steve: Like Yeah.

Doug: What? Like, it was it was completely foreign to me. So I started follow following him and then that led me to you, led me to a couple other guys, and I just and I'm like, man, this is this is pretty cool. I know nothing about it and made me made me join a a mastermind group. Mhmm.

And, Collective Genius is a mastermind group from across the country. And I walked in there last last March, so a little it's a little less than a year ago. It'll be a year in March and, and met a bunch of guys that were doing a lot of this stuff. And I did my presentation in there and I'm like, I have no idea what everyone else is doing. This is what I'm doing here, and nobody else is doing what I'm doing.

And and and, man, I got such a a a lesson in in a lot of this stuff. And I came back from it was in it was in Tampa Bay. I came back from Tampa Bay. I went to my COO and said, listen. We're changing everything.

And so he's like, well, pick three things. You you got, like, 30 things here. Just pick three things. So we we picked three things, changed it all, and now we are flowing like like we wouldn't believe. Had a record year.

Steve: And So what were those three things that

Doug: So three things I changed were, I, we we changed our phone system. Mhmm. We we went to CallRail and, CallRail and call RingCentral.

Steve: Mhmm.

Doug: We got two lead managers, and we started doing KPIs on the amount of time from our leads, that our leads came in to when we got got to them. At that time, we were averaging, almost twenty four hours Mhmm. Getting back to a lead.

Steve: Wow.

Doug: It was ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. And we've gone from from, over twenty four hours. And not not doing anything on the weekend.

Like, they if you came in on Friday after 05:00, it didn't get touched until Monday. Yeah. Now it's an average of three three minutes fifteen seconds. Yeah. So a lot of those times are, like, instant and, you know, there'll be times where yeah.

But three average tilt from a lead being touched to when it comes in to being being called back is three three minutes and fifteen seconds.

Steve: That's massive. So one question I have is, you know, doing a lot of TV and radio, that's where all the iBuyers are. Right? That's where they're advertising. Right?

They've got heavy, heavy money. Yeah. Have you found those guys to impact your ability to buy houses?

Doug: Love them. So the reason I say that and people are surprised by it, because we're so different.

Steve: Mhmm.

Doug: I'm way more, my whole company, the guys that work for me, we're way way more personal. We do the personal touch way more. I mean, I'm in your living room, you know, and doing negotiating right there instead of negotiating over over the telephone or on, you know, online or whatever. I put my knowledge up against anybody that works for any of those companies.

Steve: Right.

Doug: You know? So it's just it's just different. And they've made it more mainstream to sell your house this way. Mhmm. When I first started doing this, people were like, you want what?

You're gonna my house is worth $2.50 and you're gonna offer me 200? Get out of my house. You're trying to screw me. You're blah blah blah blah. Now it's like, well, here's you know, it made it way more mainstream.

You know, it's like, well, here's the numbers. That's this is why 200 works and, you know, if you but you have to get in front of them to do that. And I think that the credibility of of the the name brand recognition of myself, and also seeing what the other people are coming in at as well because we're all gonna be right around the same number for the most part. Yeah. So, you know, they advertise on me.

I advertise on them. If they're gonna hook up if they're gonna somebody's gonna click on them, they're gonna see me. If somebody couldn't call me, they're gonna see them. So all three of us have an opportunity to buy a house. I put my money on me.

Steve: Yeah. I love it. I love it. Alright. So

Doug: That doesn't mean I buy as many as them. I'll tell you that. They buy they buy a heck of a lot, but I bet you I make a lot more money than they

Steve: do. Yeah. I know that. Alright. I see Elizabeth in here.

Glad to see you're okay, Elizabeth. She was in an accident last night. Saw the picture of that truck. It was kinda crazy.

Doug: So She's

Steve: glad to see you're okay.

Doug: Yeah.

Steve: Let's see. Carlton wants to know, Carlton Hooks, can you explain the flat fee thing? So what was the flat fee?

Doug: So, basically, if somebody wanted to buy 123 East Main Street and they were willing to pay $200,000 for that for that house and

Steve: At the auction?

Doug: At the auction. And it went for 190. They don't they'd pay a $193,000 for the house. Mhmm. They wouldn't pay the 200 for the house.

Now there could be a lot of people at 196, 197, 198, 199, but that guy was at 200. So he's gonna get it for whatever the the final bid fee whatever the final bid was plus the fee of $3,000.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: So that's that's what that means.

Steve: Cool. Cool. Yeah. And, Kyle was on the show, Kyle Wailash. Yeah.

He had a good service for a little bit.

Doug: Got it. Yep.

Steve: Alright. So,

Doug: He bought from us too. He was a he was a he he was, yeah. I think he was a client. Yeah. Kyle was a client for a while too.

Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Yep. Great guy. Great guy.

Doug: Yep. For sure.

Steve: Let's see what else is there. ZZ says get his license to use. That's awesome. Very cool. If you're in Phoenix, ZZ, let us know.

Alright. So not a whole lot of questions. So let me go back to this. So we talked about property wars. We talked about post property.

We talked about radio and TV. So, you know, we're in Phoenix. This is if this is not the guru capital of the world, I would love to know which city it is. Yeah. So, you know, we mentioned earlier, we got Kigley.

We got Pace. We got Kyle. Right? We mentioned Carlos. A lot of guys in town here.

Doug: Mhmm.

Steve: What do you think is the differentiating factor besides TV?

Doug: There's there's, there's enough business to go around. We got what do we got? You know, 5,000,000, 6,000,000 people here now or it's and just growing like crazy.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: Everyone seems to be prosperous and and making making a a good living. I can't get to every house. They can't get to every house. You know? Everyone's gonna get their fair share.

A lot of us actually trade houses together. So

Steve: I know. We'll sell it to each other. Yeah. Yeah. You're you've worked with, Templeton.

Yep. Right? So I guess the question another question is, like, you've seen, like, this whole upside and downside. Like, I started in o seven.

Doug: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? I came in optimistic. I'm gonna conquer this industry.

Doug: Mhmm.

Steve: Took thirteen years to figure out what I was doing.

Doug: Yeah. But,

Steve: you know, you've seen all the ups and downs.

Doug: Yeah.

Steve: So what are you doing to prepare so it's two part question. What are you doing to prepare for when things change? And what should a newer wholesaler do to prepare for that?

Doug: You know, a couple of things. Number one, what I've seen with people that have, we have we have an ability, especially in this market, to make a lot of money.

Steve: Mhmm.

Doug: What I've seen though is a lot of people will spend every last dime they get. For me, the reason I when I said In their

Steve: business or personal?

Doug: Personally. Okay. Yeah. Also their business. You gotta watch your bottom line.

You know? You gotta you gotta watch there's no way in heck that I would be spending the amount of money I am on marketing right now if it was back in the day. But I also learned that I need to you know, there's there's times where you need to turn that off completely or or very soon or dial it back. You can't, and you can't expect the same ex you can't have the same expectations if something's changing. And, you know, you're going from spending a certain amount of money getting a certain return and you're seeing, like, you know, two, three, four months go by and that return keeps falling, you gotta start looking around and go, okay.

What's going on? Someone's moving my cheese here, and I gotta figure out why to to go back. But a lot of people will just continue to to to stick their head in the sand and do the same exact thing over and over while the market's compressing or going down or or changing and, because they don't know any different. So, figure out, you know, how to weave in and out of traffic, so to speak, when when when problems arise, and to be able to adapt. I've gone from trustees or go buying VAs and and VA foreclosures and and and HUD foreclosures to, you know, going to down to trustee sales to buying off of MLS, to, you know, selling that business and and doing doing poster properties and and doing the the being a disruptor and to, you know, go into direct to seller.

So I've been done the whole gamut because I've got you gotta go where where where the things go. What's next? I have no idea. Yeah. But it'll be interesting to see because I know there will be a next for sure.

Right. You know, this this is not gonna stop. It's you you know, you only have a certain amount of time for anything and then it it's gonna gonna shift. So who knows what that thing that next thing's gonna be.

Steve: So for the newer guys, don't spend everything.

Doug: Don't spend everything. You know, another thing I was getting into, I had a lot of friends that bought big fancy cars and and bought boats and all sorts of stuff and and didn't save anything. I put I put all my money.

Steve: Didn't save anything?

Doug: Didn't save didn't save a lot. No. They might have bought a house or a rental house here or there.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: My whole first twenty years in in business, I didn't I put it all in real estate. I put I shouldn't say all. I put here's a funny story. I I made a bunch of money on a house. I put $200,000, away, gave it to a stock market because, you know, the whole, it was that .com era, you know, when everyone's making all this money.

So I put gave $200,000 to stock broker. In a year, he turned this $200,000 into 75,000, you know, down a 101 quarter. Mhmm. So I walked into his office one day and I said, so what happened here? You know, I see everything's doing really well and, you know, we went from 200,000 to one this to to down to 75,000.

He said, well, the the company did really well and I did really well. Two out of three ain't bad. If you can believe that. It was a it was a joke. He said it in jest.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: But I took my money out the next day. It wasn't a good joke. And, and I realized, man, why am I putting my fate of my money into somebody else's hands? Mhmm. I know what the heck I'm doing when it comes to real estate and investing.

Why am I why am I giving them this guy money to to do that and, you know, and he's making commissions off me and and the company and the their company is making commissions off me. I'm like, I'm why don't I make commissions off me? So I stay in my lane now. I do my thing. I don't go and I I don't buy land.

I don't buy multifamily. I don't do this stuff. Every time I go out and try to do something different, I wanna be losing. So I stay in my lane and and realize I don't know a lot about this. I mean, there's a lot of stuff to learn about real estate.

I don't know a lot about the the subject two stuff. I don't know a lot about land. I don't know a lot about commercial stuff. So I stay in my lane, and I realized that a long time ago. And as long as I stay in my lane, I'm pretty darn good.

So I'm I'm gonna do that.

Steve: Makes total sense. Max Men is my business partner. He wants to know, what's the next big thing for Doug?

Doug: Well, we we start a media company. So we're we're now, we're now buying, commercials and doing that for a lot of the members of of the Collective Genius that are around the country, because we have so much data on on on what works and what doesn't. We've we've been running because we've operated and bought houses in the Philadelphia area, in in the New Jersey, in to, Chicago, and LA and and Phoenix and Tucson. So we have all this data of commercials that work, channels that work, how what what programs work. Yeah.

And we're able to really dial that data into going, okay, our money is best spent doing this. So we've gotten into more of the data of Yeah. Of going through and and really, going going down and what's what's the word I'm looking for? Burying down.

Steve: You're diving deep.

Doug: Diving deep. There you go. And and, and that's really helped. So we we took it over ourselves about a year ago, and since then, our cost per lead is is significant. I think it's gone down 30% over the since we took it over, I think, you know, because we have all the data of every single commercial that we've played over the last eight years.

Steve: Yeah. So can I be a customer in Phoenix?

Doug: Yeah. Yeah. If you do anything besides real estate buying, yes.

Steve: Alright. So Herman Sores wants to know, do you see a dip coming?

Doug: Honestly, no. Let me tell you why. This is and this is my opinion. Obviously, I have no idea what's gonna happen. I did predict the the the what what was gonna happen when we're gonna lose in two I think I called it in August 2006.

I said it's when I was gonna stop everything as far as buying and because I was buying a bunch of stuff for myself. Yeah. And I think I was off by, like, a month of when it started dipping. Right. But here's the reason I don't think it's going to go down right now.

Because number one, interest rates are so are so low. Alright? You saw that little hiccup last year right around the beginning of the year and, when interest rates rose. Mhmm. I think there's a downward trend and that's gonna continue to go down, and there's there's pressure putting it that way.

Number two, there's so many people, and I don't know if that's for here specifically. I'm just gonna say for Arizona. Yeah. There's so because it's so you know, it depends on where you're at in the country. There's so many people moving here, and there's so little inventory.

We have what what do we we have? Like, less than 11,000 or 11,090.

Steve: Forty four days of supply.

Doug: Yeah. I mean, it's unheard of numbers.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: Right? I mean, this is it's crazy. So, you know, and I I think it's the same amount, by the way, in LA with twice as many people or three times as many people. So I don't know. It's that's just insane to me.

Yeah. So I as inventory being the way it is with the amount of people moving here, and there's really you know, if you remember, if you were here in the in the in the nineties, into the early two thousands, you had you had, flagpoles up everywhere. Right? There was all these new builds new builds going on. I mean, there's there's a lot of new building going on, but not as much as you if you can remember back in the day of what of how much new inventory was coming on the market.

I think there's a lot less and it's because, you know, the price the price to build now is a way way higher than it used

Steve: to be.

Doug: The price of land is way higher than it used to be. You know, so it's it's it's interesting. I don't think it's gonna go go down anything. In fact, I think it's gonna go up another 8% this year. That was my prediction.

Steve: All the predictions that we're we're making is double digit appreciation this year.

Doug: Yeah. Could be.

Steve: Warner Korogan wants to know what's your average deal size in Phoenix and in LA?

Doug: Okay. Deal size is in is in, our take on it? Or In fee. Our fee. So our our I know exactly what it is.

It is, our average, in Phoenix is 11,900.

Steve: Mhmm.

Doug: And our average in, California is 32 it was 32,300.

Steve: So you should just double down in LA and leave Phoenix alone. Don't waste any more time with Phoenix. Alright. So you're going because you're licensed. Right?

You're a former broker.

Doug: Yeah. Or No. No. I'm not a broker. I just I just own the company.

No. I I was the owner of the company. I wasn't a broker. Oh, you're not a lawyer. I didn't want anybody else's problems.

I got enough of my own. So that's the deal. The broker deals with all the other people and stuff. I didn't wanna deal with that.

Steve: Okay. So, you know, you got your leads coming in. What percentage are purchases where you buy them? What percentages are you well, assigning. What percentage are you assigning?

What percentage are you flipping? What percentage are you listing?

Doug: Got it. So, listings are completely separate. So, so I I don't can't include those in in my numbers. Those that's just gravy. Mhmm.

So, the we we we wholesale most of the stuff we get. I'll I'll keep usually about 3 or 4 a year for rentals, just for personal rentals. I try to increase my portfolio every year. And, for the most part, we're we're selling we're wholesaling 95% of them. There's there's stuff, that we keep that we're we're that that I'll literally there's there's some houses there's some houses where you don't have to do anything to them.

Mhmm. If there's a house I don't have to do anything to them, but I'm I'm just doing it myself, put up the sign and do that. I do that. I don't know. I we do about 12 a year ourselves, you know, myself.

We're and then I keep another three or four. That's not true. I have another partner that we keep we keep another six or seven. So, yeah, about 10 a year, we'll we'll keep and, for ourselves. And then, about 10 to 12 a year, we'll we'll do, and then the rest we wholesale out.

Steve: Gotcha. So you mentioned you have a partner.

Doug: Yes. How long have you had a partner? So, I call my partner. It's I I own the business, but he does we we partner up on the West Side. Yeah.

So Josh Bartner, I don't know if you know him. He does all my West West Valley stuff. I do all the East Valley stuff, and then we we do a split on on what he's able to get. Gotcha. We used to we used to work together down in the Pinal County auctions.

Mhmm. And, it's been he's been a good guy. You know, it's hard. In this business, man, there could be some snakes and there's some when money gets involved, there's some people that can do some really not, not not good things, let's say. I think

Steve: there's a TV show about it. Yeah. Let's see. Alright. So, Javar x wants to know I think you mentioned this earlier, but what do you attribute your success to?

Doug: Just being able to adapt and to to to roll with the changes. You know, that's, that is 100% the reason I'm able to do it. That and, you know, not as much now, but, man, I was hungry. When I when I when I first started in this business, I was hungry. I wanted to make it in this world and I was willing to work.

And too many people nowadays, you know, they'd rather throw money at it or, you know, they hope to get something or they want to get something Yeah. But they're not willing to do to get something. And I was willing to do to get it. I was willing to go go and be in the office at six, 06:30 in the morning. Yeah.

I was willing to work until nine, 10:00 at night. Not every day, but, you know, when I was getting started, I mean, I was I had a family, man, and I I did not wanna I didn't wanna you know, I had kids really early, and and I I wanted I didn't I wanted to have a roof over their head. You know? I didn't I didn't come from much. I was my my family, my parents were were were not very well-to-do.

And, so, you know, that I I wanted I wanted the the nicer things in life.

Steve: Yeah. And

Doug: and I was willing to to work to get them.

Steve: I think that's the way I describe it to most people. It was like, most people wanna be successful. Like, I want a six pack. Like, man, I want a six pack.

Doug: Yeah. No. I want a six pack too, but I got a keg, bro.

Steve: But I'm not putting in the work.

Doug: I did not put in any of the work. No. I'm not putting

Steve: in the work to give us what's happening.

Doug: I do for a certain period of time, but not the work that needs to be done on a continuous basis, which is exactly it. I mean, that's it's it's very, very similar to the gym and what's important to you. Yeah?

Steve: Marcus Staggy wants to know, what's your best negotiating tactics in the living room?

Doug: Saying no.

Steve: Saying no. Simple enough. Chris Voss. Right?

Doug: Yeah. So I I I literally, I I don't know who that means. I I don't read a lot of

Steve: Chris Voss is like, it's just, you know, saying no is the giving the option to say no.

Doug: Got it. Yeah. I I what I what I do and it and it's and it's it's true. And I and I kinda found this out accidentally was I'm like, I mean, I understand that you're you're not gonna wanna do this.

Steve: Mhmm. You're

Doug: not gonna wanna do this, you know, with this number. Like, what what number? Like, give me the number. I'm like, you're you're not I'm embarrassed to even give it to you. I know you're not gonna wanna do it.

And and I give the number, like, yeah. You're you're right. I can't do that number, but I I can do, like, $2 over that. I'm like, okay. So I started started using that a little bit, and,

Steve: It's a takeaway.

Doug: It's yeah. And it it it worked out, so it's worked out pretty good. So yeah.

Steve: That's awesome. So Leo Guar wants to know, what is your plan for ad spend for 2020?

Doug: What's my plan for what? I'm sorry.

Steve: Your ad spend, your marketing spend.

Doug: It's probably gonna be, a little bit higher. Mhmm. We're we're we'll probably add a couple things. I'm always trying to add and and and add and subtract, take away, and and kinda kinda test things. We'll probably add another, I don't know, 1010% a month to the budget Yeah.

And and just see where it sort of where it goes. The thing that that, that really intrigues me, and I've been burned by it before, I'm I'm a sucker for anybody that comes and say, oh, I got AI to do it. I've lost so much money with guys that say they have AI stuff that's gonna it's it's gonna revolutionize everything.

Steve: Everything.

Doug: And and this AI you sons of guns, you got me, man. I mean, I I've spent so much money on these guys that tell me they have AI. So I'm I we I've had that conversation this morning as well. I go I go through all this stuff all the time. Another thing is, when you when you get bigger, you can get complacent.

And and that happened to me, you know, where I have all these other people running my business, and next thing you know, your business falls on its face because you're not there overseeing it and and, and seeing what's going on. So, instead of just, you know, being like, I'm the man, the big CEO, and don't have to work, I wind up, going out, and that's why I kind of buy I still go into living rooms, and I'm still there going all going going over all the numbers. And it's important to have good people around you too. My COO, I've been friends with for thirty years, and and I trust them like like my brother. So, you know, it's it helps to have really good people as well.

Steve: I can't stress that enough. Having the right right people around you. Yep. So

Doug: Lakes are hot, bro. Okay.

Steve: What is your biggest struggle today?

Doug: My weight? No. My biggest struggle. Oh, gosh. I would say being, that's a good question.

What's my greatest struggle? I never think I'm good enough. I never think we're good enough. Mhmm. I get frustrated very easily when things don't look right the way it should.

I'm not very good in systems. Like, I'm the I have, people certain people that are really good at systems that work with me. I'm good at at making deals happen and and being being the guy and and, you know, I know a lot of people and, we don't it it's hard for me to to work in a in a system. And, but I but I but I'm doing it. I'm I'm trying I'm trying to anyway.

I we our CRM is Salesforce. Mhmm. Okay? I'm a multimillion dollar company, and I didn't know how to work my own CRM up until up until up until a year ago.

Steve: Yeah.

Doug: Okay? And then, then a year ago, I was like, I've I've got to learn how to how to do this because they're like, oh, just look. It's in it's in Salesforce. Everything's in Salesforce. I'm like, yeah.

I I don't even It's overwhelming. I don't even know my login.

Steve: So You've never seen it before. It's overwhelming.

Doug: It is overwhelming. And that's why I took I remember going in a I spent before Salesforce, we had, another one. I spent $10,000 for, you know, a week to to try to figure out how the heck to use it, and I and I don't think I logged in after that. I'm so just being able to to you can get a little complacent with how things are going, and depending on other people. But when you can really dial down into that stuff, it makes a huge difference.

I was able to make changes over this last year because of my knowledge of Salesforce. Now now I can get in and navigate and and, and know exactly where my numbers are. That's why I'm able to to to tell you when you my KPIs are off the bat because I'm in there every day, and I got dashboards and everything else hit me in the face, you know, blinking going, hey, you know, you know, hey, we're you're only at 98% of your goal or you're at a 103% of your goal or, you know, all this stuff. It's pretty cool, you know, what you could do when you set that thing up.

Steve: That's awesome. Is there a book you've gifted more than any other?

Doug: Yes. My own. You have a book? Gifted. Yeah.

I do. But, the the book that I that most was for me, that meant the most to me was, How to how to win friends and influence people. You know? I I I love that book. In fact, I've read it and I have it a a book on tape, and I make sure to listen to it every couple of years just to just to remind myself of some of the stories.

And I don't think it gets it it it doesn't get old, you know. And and it's it's so important. We live in such a different time now than when I grew up, you know. It's, you know, there was, you know, there was nothing bad. There was no cell phones back then, you know.

There was no Internet. There was no I mean, you had to actually talk and communicate with people. And, you know, nowadays, half the people won't pick up your phone call, you know, if they don't know who you are. And and Right. If somebody knocks on the door, you're hiding instead of jumping up and going to grab it, you know.

I mean, back when I was a kid, it was like, shut up the door. Yeah. Now it's like, someone's at the door, hide. Don't say a word. Shushy.

You know? Such a different world, man. It's it's it's crazy.

Steve: It is. Totally. So I'm gonna let you think about one last thought you wanna leave the listeners with while I make a few quick announcements. Guys, like I said before, we got some amazing feedback from our workshop that Max and I did, two and a half day event. They were surprised by the level of transparency because we go over every part of our business.

So if you wanna double your business, go to disruptors.com, see if the workshop makes sense for you. And next week, we've got mister TTP, Brent Daniels, and Todd Toback coming back for, they're gonna be making an announcement, so check it out next week. Got Brent Daniels and Todd Toback. Alright. Last thoughts.

Doug: Last thoughts for me? Yeah. Oh, I thought you were gonna ask me something.

Steve: No. What do you want? Like, what's what's some something that that the listeners need to know?

Doug: Oh, you know what? Real estate is the the best industry that I can even imagine. More millionaires have been made from real estate than than any other industry. Yeah. I mean, was 8080% of all millionaires made it from

Steve: The quote's 90.

Doug: Is it 90?

Steve: That's the quote. I don't think anyone's ever been able to verify it.

Doug: Yeah. Sure. But, and it's such a rewarding experience, such a rewarding thing to do. Growing rentals, even growing rentals, people are are that that are, you know, make a a certain amount of money and they're like, how can I invest with you? I'm like, don't invest with me.

Go invest with you and go buy yourself a rental. That's exactly what I did. I saved every freaking penny that I bought. I lived off of peanuts, you know, and saved my money to to continue to buy houses. My goal when I was a kid, or not kid, when I was 25, I told myself I'm gonna buy yeah.

Yeah. When I was 25, I told myself I'm gonna buy 10 houses because that's all you could buy and and be under the limit for

Steve: For mortgages.

Doug: Yeah. For mortgages. Yeah. So I was gonna buy 10 houses, put them on 15 notes, and by the time I was 40, I'd be, I'd be a multimillionaire and I'd have, you know, 10,000 plus dollars a month coming in in in in, in in monthly income. Mhmm.

And I wouldn't have to work ever again. That worked out really good. And I still have nine out of those 10 houses, believe it or not. I bought 10 houses over the next year and a half. Yeah.

All of them paid off and then some.

Steve: Oh, so you had your vision and then you executed your vision.

Doug: That is correct. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That's correct.

And, I was flipping houses to buy rentals. Mhmm. So I would flip a house, make the $20 on it, you know, whatever I would make, take half of it to flip another house and put half of it toward buying another another rental Right. Until I got my 10 houses. And then I tried to figure out a way to get more houses and, you know, now I got a nice nice little, you know, nest egg for my kids who will be able to enjoy when I'm hopefully, when I'm, you know, been a long time away from that.

But when I'm gone, they'll they'll be able to enjoy that.

Steve: That. Awesome. I think that's a great message. Thank you guys for watching. Yeah.

Thank you, Doug.

Doug: Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Steve: Appreciate it.

Doug: My pleasure.