Giving a House Away?!?

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. So we have Sean O'Rourke with Simple Home Exits. And Sean flew in from Tupelo, Mississippi to share how he went from broke to multimillion dollar flipper. If If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trang, sales trainer for some of the top wholesalers in the country, and I'm gonna mention to create 100 millionaires.

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Ready. Alright. So first question is, what got you into real estate?

Sean O'Rourke: Necessity. Necessity? Yes. So I had a I was working a full time job, four kids and a wife, and I was working paycheck to paycheck. I mean, I made I made good money at what I did.

I was a production manager at a plant, but my bills were set to my check. Mhmm. And I hated it. Absolutely hated it. And so I just got tired of the monotonous rat race, and I said there's gotta be something easier out there.

Steve: So you said you're making good money. Yeah. Alright. I think it's perspective. It is.

Because you're living in in Mississippi. Yes. So what was good money for you?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Good money was around 80,000 a year.

Steve: I mean, that seems like that should buy you by anything.

Sean O'Rourke: It did. It did. It bought me anything, but it was a bill. You know? Gotcha.

It it bought me what I wanted, but it also bought me debt. And, Gotcha.

Steve: You said production manager?

Sean O'Rourke: I was. Yes. So what

Steve: were you responsible for?

Sean O'Rourke: I was responsible for all of, any kind of production to, on the manufacturing floor, all of the employees on the floor. So it was close to 60 different employees that we had. And, first, second, and third shift, I was over all the shift lead managers, and, we manufactured, pharmaceutical coolers.

Steve: Gotcha. Sexy. What kind of hours were you working?

Sean O'Rourke: I worked a nine to five. Okay. So you weren't

Steve: killing yourself?

Sean O'Rourke: No. I wasn't. I I did for a while. And I made I I had the ability to make my workload easier by figuring out little tricks of the trade because I'm lazy, you know, if you wanna be honest about it.

Steve: Yeah. If you want I mean, the the old, adage. Right? If you wanna get something done, give it to someone lazy.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Okay. So you did that. I mean, it wasn't like one day you woke up with four kids.

Sean O'Rourke: No. No. Yeah.

Steve: So you're doing this. What was it, like, the impetus? What was it the the thing that, like, changed? Like, okay. Something's gotta give.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So my boss had come to me and said, Sean, I know you had built a couple houses for yourself before, you know, the con the construction process. Would you be interested in helping me flip a house? And I said, yeah. Sure.

Absolutely. If I can make a few thousand dollars on the side doing that. So I started managing the process. Mhmm. And, I found the contractor, and we found the house found the house for him.

And we've started flipping the house, and the contractor was an absolute nightmare. You know, he was got on drugs and stole light bulbs and just crazy things. You know?

Steve: And I

Sean O'Rourke: was like Light bulbs? Yeah.

Steve: What kind of money are you in for light bulbs?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. I don't know. So, I just I thought to myself, there's gotta be something easier than what I'm doing right here. Mhmm. So I got on YouTube, and I started searching up.

So I was searching, you know, real estate, how how to make money in real estate Yeah. And found wholesaling.

Steve: And when was this?

Sean O'Rourke: This was in, September '18.

Steve: September 18. Yeah. Because I was, you know, going through your Facebook.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: And so you were at, WeLive Yes. '19.

Sean O'Rourke: I was. Okay.

Steve: Yeah. So was that before or after you you you started gaining traction?

Sean O'Rourke: That was that was before. So I'd I had, I'd done two wholesale deals or gotten two contracts. I'd gotten five contracts, and three of them fell out because I didn't know what I was doing. K. Normal?

Yeah. And and, and I'd gotten on, Max Maxwell's YouTube, and he sold me on on, on RBM. And so that's how I ended up starting. Nice. K?

And, and then, so I went to the WeLive event Mhmm. After that. But, I met Adam and, Adam and Brent. And Oh,

Steve: that's how you connected with them?

Sean O'Rourke: I would connect with them before. So Okay. Yeah. I'd found them on Facebook and found out that they were from Mississippi and, skip traced Adam, searched them down. And, and but I went to the WeLive event with them.

Gotcha.

Steve: I heard there was a fantastic speaker. Yeah. It was. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I was teaching sales.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Alright. Okay. So you get started, and you go to WeLive. What happened after that?

Sean O'Rourke: That year, I hustled. So on my breaks, at lunch, on my way home, I was going running phone calls, going on appointments, getting deals. So I did 36 deals my first year.

Steve: On breaks?

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, yeah. Lunch break. Like, any any any break. A fifteen minute break, I would be on the phone. Hey.

I got a couple minutes. You have a minute to talk? Tell me a little bit about your house. Alright. So, and that progression of doing that put me at 36 deals my first year.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sean O'Rourke: And, and then after the first couple, I knew it was viable. Right. Okay. So my first deal, I made $700. So let's talk about your first deal.

Absolutely. Yeah. So what I did is, I had pulled a list, and I bought into an RVM platform. Put that thing on on, on the RV on that list, and my phone blew up because I didn't set it up right. So I was getting 30 calls a minute.

You know? I'm like, Ended up luckily, I called one.

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: And, it was mister Price. And he, he had inherited two houses from his mother Mhmm. And didn't know what to do with them. And so I got one house under contract for $10, the other one was for $12. Come home to my wife, and I'm like, I got a house.

Yeah. What do I do? You know? And I figured it out. Went on Facebook, posted it on Facebook, and in a couple of days, I sold it to a guy and had no idea about negotiating the price.

He negotiated the stew out of me because he knew the deal.

Steve: Right. I mean, part of being new in the business. Right? I mean, now, if someone comes to you new, you can kinda smell it.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Absolutely. Right?

Steve: And you might be a little harsher on negotiations.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. So but but I got the contract and, closed it in two or three weeks. And But

Steve: it was two houses, and you made $700.

Sean O'Rourke: It was on one house. The other house was a tax deed Uh-huh. That took a year to clear up.

Steve: Got it. K.

Sean O'Rourke: But I ended up making, I think, 2,000 on that one a year after that.

Steve: Alright. Yeah. So you're doing deals. It was RBM, you said, for both of them.

Sean O'Rourke: Yes. Both of the deals

Steve: from the same person. And then you do 36 deals in your first year. Uh-huh. And just for context for everybody that is listening or watching, how big is your town?

Sean O'Rourke: 44,000 people.

Steve: 44,000 people. Yeah. So that's we have about 5,000,000 here. So we have about a 100 times as many people Yeah. Here.

Sean O'Rourke: How do

Steve: you do deals in a town with 44,000 people?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. You have to be creative and be willing to think outside the box. Yeah. So, you know, not I guess, my stupidity allowed me to be successful.

Steve: You didn't know how hard it would be? Or you you didn't in your mind, it's like, oh, 44,000. That market's too small.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. No. It wasn't. No.

Yeah. It was like, let's hit the ground running and figure this out.

Steve: Gotcha.

Sean O'Rourke: And, I mean, I would do a deal from, anything from a single family house. I did a deal that year for, with 16 house package deal. Mhmm. You know, a lot of people hadn't even done anything like that. That was my probably one of my biggest wholesale deals that I did that year.

Steve: Gotcha.

Sean O'Rourke: I did a multifamily deal that year of 32 house 32 door apartment complex that I would have bought now.

Steve: You know? Well, yeah, now we're now that you're in this position today. So let's just put it, again, for perspective here. What is the property worth, what are you tying it for, Were you wholesaling it for?

Sean O'Rourke: Now, like, in a general At that time. At that time. On average, a house was gonna be the ARV value is gonna be somewhere between 50 to 80 to thousand. Mhmm. I would lock it up somewhere in the 35,000 range, and I would wholesale it for 40,000 probably.

Initially, when I first started at the beginning of the year, $5 was a great goal for me. Mhmm. And, and then as I went through the year, I just changed mindset and said I want $15. Mhmm. And everything And you're getting it?

Yes. Yes. It was all mindset going into the process of trying to get acquire the house.

Steve: Gotcha. Yeah. And I asked this question because I know, like, I'm I'm thinking I'm talking with Brent and Adam and some of the other guys that market. Like, man, like, if you can get past over 8,000, you're doing pretty good. Yeah.

So you're getting 15. So 36 deals, 15,000. So here's the thing that kinda shocked me. When I met you at Real Estate Roundup, with, Brent Adams event, you were doing all these deals, and you would not quit your job. And so can you elaborate on that story?

Because I think, you know, we had, Brian on the show before, and he had the same thing. Talk about why you wouldn't quit your job.

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The biggest thing, I guess, is, I had a family. And the fear of not knowing that you could be successful, I guess, at what you do is what held me back. I knew you already had

Steve: all the success.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Absolutely. But but, I wanted a safety net. Mhmm.

Steve: You

Sean O'Rourke: know? And and, and so I wanted to make sure that no matter what happened, I could provide for my family. Yeah. Looking at perspective, my wife says material things matter don't matter anyway. Mhmm.

So go for what you believe. Go for your dream. But as a man, I'm like, can I really do it? Yeah. Yeah.

I can I can do it on the side, and I can make good money, and I can buy some rental properties, but can I really do

Steve: it? Mhmm.

Sean O'Rourke: And so that's what held me back.

Steve: So did you quit after one like, how long until you quit?

Sean O'Rourke: I started, November '18, and then, quit in July '20.

Steve: So in your first full year, 36 deals, what does that bring in?

Sean O'Rourke: 300.

Steve: $300,000. Mhmm. And you still did not feel so how much were you making your other job?

Sean O'Rourke: 88. Right. And I'm

Steve: just I'm I'm just putting this out here for you guys because I recognize this is a mental block. Right? And I'm not saying this is a bad quality. It's just this is one of those mental hurdles. And, you know, it's easy as a business owner to, like, give someone a hard time.

It's like, what do you think and what's the matter with you. Right?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: But you there is a real fear that you experience.

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely.

Steve: And I imagine probably Brandon and Adam were in your ear giving you a hard time.

Sean O'Rourke: Well, actually, Adam would tell me you know, he would say, you do what makes you feel best. You know? He was actually very supportive Mhmm. In in that decision. So, I imagine behind the scenes, they were like, that idiot ought to go take his job.

You know? But, he's got a real knack at making you feel good.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Well, because I know, like, we've had Max Maxwell on the show. Yeah. We had Scott Oates on the show, and they were both, like, beating the crap out of Brian.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Right?

Steve: To quit his job. And he wouldn't do it. And he and he he held firm, like you, right, until it made sense. Yeah. So for you, what what happened for it to make sense

Sean O'Rourke: for you to

Steve: quit your job?

Sean O'Rourke: There was two things. One, I I had an idea of what kind of cash flow I wanted from the rentals that I were able that I started to to come to acquire. Mhmm. That was one thing, and I didn't meet that goal before I quit. Mhmm.

The other thing was I have two business partners and now. So, they had come to me, and we had done some deals. I'd sold them some things, some multifamily stuff. I had, kinda helped them through the single family side. And, and they came to me, you know, a couple of times, and they're like, Sean, just quit your job, man.

Team up with us. We're gonna you know, we'll rock and roll. And, oh gosh. It was it was bad. You know?

And I and I literally, they had come to me, I guess, the third time, and, I told them I was like, give me a couple of days, and I took a day off work. I got in a hammock. And I prayed all day. You know? Lord, what do I need to do?

And, just felt comfortable about it. Went till the next day and was like, let's do this.

Steve: Right.

Sean O'Rourke: And we just hit the ground running. And, I mean, it just is it is exploding.

Steve: What was your target? And and I think you said that you didn't hit it yet when you quit. But what was your target? So you say if I get this amount, I'll quit.

Sean O'Rourke: It was 5,000 a month in cash flow after everything all expenses.

Steve: Right. So after property management, after Yeah. Servicing vacancy, everything. Yeah. 5,000 a month, that'd be enough for you to quit your job.

Mhmm. Got it. So how many rentals did you have when you quit your job?

Sean O'Rourke: 16, maybe. Okay. And what

Steve: was that bringing you in?

Sean O'Rourke: Maybe it was 24. I can't remember now. Total gross, oh, gosh. I'd have to look at my phone. I don't even I still don't even know exactly what it is.

Steve: Yeah. So here's what I I will say. Right? Brent and Adam, for those of you guys that are watching, Brent Marino, Adam Johnson, Real Estate Roundup, they flew me out to go speak at Real Estate Roundup. And as I'm out there, I'm in the back, and there's this panel.

And you were on the far right. Mhmm. And they went to you last. And I was just sitting there watching, you know, just kinda paying attention. Small chat in the back of the room, but just watching the panel.

And then someone said, you know, this is Sean and Adam was like, you know, this guy hasn't quit his job yet. He's like, yeah. You know, it's not unusual. Blah blah blah. And then they casually drop, by the way, Sean owns 16 rental properties.

To which I responded, internally, what the hell? Right? I'm over here busting my butt. They're they're flying me. Right?

They're putting me in a nice room. And this guy over here has got all these rental properties. So can you talk about rental properties in Mississippi? Because I think, for me, that was the first time where my eyes are actually opened on the possibility of different cap rates yields across the country. Yeah.

So can you talk about, a, your targeted cap rate or yield, whatever Yeah. And what's possible in Mississippi?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Absolutely. And I'll tell you what. I'll run a deal down. It's a pretty cool deal that I got the other day or Yeah.

Probably a month ago or so. So kinda what we had talked about before, if it's not 2% or better

Steve: Per blue.

Sean O'Rourke: Three, I'm not buying it. There's no way. Right? I'll wholesale it to some guys because in their opinion, it's what they are willing to make. Yeah.

But for me, it's not it's

Steve: not So just for everyone to understand, 2% of purchase price Yeah. Per month.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So if I bought for 50, I need to be making a thousand dollars a month. Yeah. And so that's that's the standard of what I shoot for. And that's gonna be any anything across the board if it's a single family house.

Multifamily is a little bit different, but, you know, we have a, an apartment complex there pretty close, and it's about the same at the 2%.

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: You know? So, that's that's the So let's talk about that deal. Yeah. So, had a guy call me, off of one of our cold callers that he'd called in and just happened to ring my phone because nobody else was in the office. And so it rang rang my phone, and I answered it.

And he said, hey. I've got a house here. I was wondering if you'd be interested in possibly no. I've gotten a voice message from you. I said, yeah.

Absolutely. And, ended up locking that house up for 14,000. Put 6,000 in it. I bought it from, ended up buying it from the company, personal. Bought it from the company, put about 6,000 in it.

And I right now, that one's written for 700 a month. So if you kinda get it in perspective there as far as dollar wise goes. Had a little bit of foundation issue. You know, you have contractors out there that'll squeeze underneath the floor and jack it up. And

Steve: So $7,700 a month? Yeah. Into for 20,000? Yeah. So 2% of that's 400?

Yeah. So you're doing three and a half percent

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: Per month. Absolutely. So that's a yield of three and a half percent per month, which is, like, I don't know, 40 plus

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: Per year. So in two and a half years, that's paid off.

Sean O'Rourke: Yes. Absolutely. If that's what I wanted to do.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. And over here in Phoenix, we're fighting for 4%. Yeah. Right?

We're we're fighting for 4% cap rate. Yeah. And you personally are taking down at least 24 in this instance, 40.

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely. And and people even on our team So we'll have deals that come in. Ashley works for us, and she's wanna get into rentals. Mhmm. We bought one, we got one under contract the other day, I think, for 19,000 or so.

It's gonna take probably 5 to $8. She's she bought it from the company, paid a wholesale fee, bought it from the company, and, was gonna rehab it, and she's gonna rent it out for 800 a month. Mhmm. $3.01. You know?

Just Yeah. That's kind of stuff. We want our we want our team to be able to grow with us too.

Steve: So why is that possible?

Sean O'Rourke: Well, rents are rents are, continuing to grow in our area. We don't have inflation like the rest of the country. Yeah. So inflation doesn't happen. You know, we're at 2% inflation rate, maybe.

And it usually stays consistent. We don't see the spikes. Mhmm. So but currently, especially with COVID and everything else, rent rates are continuing to rise.

Steve: So rents continue to go up Yeah. But you're seeing very minimal appreciation.

Sean O'Rourke: That's exactly right.

Steve: And so it's getting better to be a landlord.

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely. And you burn that stuff out and get tax free money. Yeah.

Steve: So let's talk about Burr in a second. Is you said something interesting here. Is it Ashley? Yes. My team.

So you want your teen to get wealthy with you?

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely. Let's talk about that.

Steve: Yeah. So what's the motivation, and and how do you do that?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So we I train. I work with them. You know, everybody in my other two partners, they teach and show people how to make money work for them instead of them working for money. Mhmm.

And, there's incentives, but then also there's standards that we put in place. I ask everybody on our team to set to give me goals. What is your one year goal? What is your five year goal? What's your ten year goal?

And we need to have those on a list so that I can look at those goals and say, okay. How do I help my teammate achieve what they're wanting to do? Mhmm. If it's not a rental, that's fine. If it's not real estate, that's fine.

But I still won't be able to figure out how to do that. That brings camaraderie. You know? They care about who they work with, and and I care about them. You know?

And and so, you know, if they wanna buy a house, we've got a young guy. His name's Caleb. He's he's, I think, 19 or so. Smart, you know, and he saved up already $40,000, and he's 19 wanting to buy a rental house, you know, and he just came to us. And, man, I don't care if you pay me or not.

I just wanna work and learn from you. Well, of course, we're gonna pay him.

Steve: Right.

Sean O'Rourke: You know? But, that's how we just we just wanna grow, together. We want everybody to be successful together. So

Steve: how big is your organization right now?

Sean O'Rourke: Six. There's six, five people that are employed and then three partners.

Steve: And everyone has opportunity to partake?

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely.

Steve: How do they partake?

Sean O'Rourke: They can either, they can buy wholesale. They can buy a deal from us at a discounted rate. They can, they also learn. So every morning, we have sales training. And I told the guys, you know, guys, I if you guys don't wanna be here long term, if something happens, fine.

I don't expect you to sit here the whole time. So, they can they can invest in multifamily. So if we want multifamily, if we have multifamily and they have a little bit of cash and they wanna put it in and get some type of equity or something out of it, they can invest there. Some of our employees lend money to us, lend money to the company for our flips. Nice.

And they get nice returns back on that because they're they're hard money lenders. Mhmm. Anything in between, really. You know? We Yeah.

So

Steve: Alright. So let's talk about the BRRRR component. So it's really hard to BRRRR here in Phoenix. And so we're actually moving not moving, adding Oklahoma City to our, to another market that we're gonna be doing business in so that I can burr. Right?

Yeah. How is how are your burrs doing? Or how how's that you know, you're talking about tax free money. How's that working out for you?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So I have two different strategies that I do on borrowing. K? One strategy is and I'll give you another example on a deal. So I bought I've bought three houses.

One house, was 2,500 square foot. I had a little bit of foundation issue. I bought it for $30,000, five bedroom, two bath house. K? And I'd I'd owned two other houses that had mortgages on them, private money mortgage, private money lended on them to buy.

So what I do is I'll go to a private money lender, and I say, hey. I'm gonna give you x amount of return to lend me money for x amount of time frame.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sean O'Rourke: And, I'm gonna take this property down, and then I'm gonna refinance it in a couple three months and, and pay you back. And so I had these houses under that. I went to the bank, and I said, hey, mister banker. I've got this 2,500 square foot house. It should appraise for about $1.75.

I wanna get a loan on it. So I borrowed that house out. I did foundation work, and then I put some new light fixtures in. That was it. Right?

So $8,000 in foundation work and then a couple of grand in light fixtures and install. And, it come back and it appraised out. Got 30% of that, so I got $1.35. Mhmm. I paid 30 for the house plus so let's just say 40 altogether all in.

And then I took the rest of that cash, and I paid off the other two loans Mhmm. And then took $20 and put it in my pocket.

Steve: So I

Sean O'Rourke: got $20. Now I own two houses free and clear and one that's debt loaded. Mhmm.

Steve: Yep. And so it's crazy to me what you can do with the BRRRR strategy. So, again, let let's let's talk about 2021 numbers. What are you buying for right now, and then what are the ARVs?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So, I mean, on the flips, let's just kinda go with the flip side. We're buying anywhere from well, we have a house that's closing Friday. We bought that house for 32,000 maybe, I believe. And, well, if I had my phone, I could tell you exact numbers.

But it's 32,000. I believe we put, 15 or so in it, and we sold it at $1.10.

Steve: Yeah. So why not bear that one?

Sean O'Rourke: It was out in the county. It's not in an area. It's kinda far away. It wasn't plus, you know, we generate quite a bit of income off of flips. So if we can right now is, in my opinion, is the time to flip if we can flip.

Mhmm. So get the money while the money's good because I still think that after the market starts tanking, I can still buy these houses at $30

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: And rent them for 800 a month.

Steve: So what is your criteria then for deciding whether to burr it? I mean, are those your two strategies, burr it or flip it?

Sean O'Rourke: No. It's, we will we'll buy and hold. Mhmm. We'll, we'll burr. If we if we can make quite a bit off of it, we will flip or we wholesale Okay.

Or wholetail. So we'll do really any strategy, and we have to kinda do that because of our market. We have to be open to a lot

Steve: of different strategies. Right. And then you mentioned you kind of expanded out Yeah. Yeah. So 100 miles.

Sean O'Rourke: Something like that. Yeah. So we're anywhere in between. Yeah. So that still doesn't get you to Hattiesburg?

No. Okay.

Steve: Alright. So we talked about, you know, your your journey to this point, but what were what were some of your early challenges?

Sean O'Rourke: Struggling with time. So

Steve: You had a full time job.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. And four kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was a struggle.

Steve: So how did you, manage that?

Sean O'Rourke: Initially, got him on board. So I talked to him and said, listen. Guys, I'm all about I'm about to hit it hard for a little while. But if I make if I get to this point, we hadn't go hadn't gone to Disney yet. And I said, I'm taking the whole family to Disney.

And I hit that, and they were tickled. You know? We all took off. Yeah. You know?

So I got them on board on willingness Mhmm. To be there with me and understand. I'm about to put some time in because I've got to.

Steve: Alright.

Sean O'Rourke: But but that was probably the biggest thing was time management. Just trying to figure out So that was pretty smart.

Steve: Yeah. Getting the bought in. Are they still bought in?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes.

Sometimes. How old

Steve: are your kids?

Sean O'Rourke: Got two that are 14, one that's 13, and one that's 11.

Steve: 15. Yeah. Wow. So you guys started pretty early? Yeah.

Alright. And then I was also looking at this, you were a high school dropout.

Sean O'Rourke: I am. Yeah. So

Steve: but you still got a really good job. How do you manage that?

Sean O'Rourke: Because I can sell. I I faked it till I made it, really. Yeah. That's the truth. I dropped out of

Steve: a natural salesperson. Yeah. Gotcha.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. My my father was a regional sales manager, and he he had conferences all over Northeast and taught people how to sell.

Steve: Your dad taught how to sell. Mhmm. Yes. Gotcha.

Sean O'Rourke: And so I would go to those conferences. And as a kid, I'd kinda listen,

Steve: and

Sean O'Rourke: I'd pick up stuff. You know?

Steve: Alright.

Sean O'Rourke: And, and what let me know where I could sell was I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. Yeah.

Steve: That's I mean, that's one of those things. You see Kirby on a resume. It's like, okay. This guy can sell. Yeah.

Yeah. Alright. And I I asked this question because, I got kids myself, and one of the coolest things is being a sales trainer is watching them pick it up.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: And they're gonna be super dangerous. Like, whoever they run into in the future, I feel bad for them, because they're they're monster salespeople already. I I really know kids are natural, salespeople. Yeah. And then now we give them the tools as well.

Now you started with nothing, but you said you're a credit card debt.

Sean O'Rourke: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I actually put Adam and M's. My wife's listening.

Oh, gosh. I put Adam and Nim's course on credit card.

Steve: Okay. Yeah. How much was that?

Sean O'Rourke: I think it was a thousand bucks when they first did their thing.

Steve: It's a lot more now.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because what's a lot about? I was there for I was in their first training, actually.

Steve: Oh, you were?

Sean O'Rourke: I was. Yeah. I was in their first first deal.

Steve: Alright. So let's just do a quick pivot here. You're talking about giving a house away. Yes. That sounds like nonsense or a scam.

What's that about?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. We, me and my partners, Jeremy, and Daniel, we kinda have a heart for people. Mhmm. And, we had talked about when we sat down and set our goals, we wanted to set goals as far as for the company and then personal goals as well. And one of the goals for a ten year goal is to give away a million bucks,

Steve: our goal. That's huge.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. And, and one way that we can accomplish that is by giving away real estate. So that goes into that goal. Mhmm. And then it's it's expanded from there.

So it was initial just a thought, just a cool, this is what kinda what we wanna do. Mhmm. Starting to become reality, but also is to help somebody in need. So, that's kinda where it comes in from giving away who we're gonna give it away to. Got it.

Alright. So what exactly?

Steve: Who's getting the house?

Sean O'Rourke: We don't know the name, and I really probably couldn't get it out, give it out anyway, but, it'll be some it'll be someone that's been in the trafficking industry, somebody that had been trafficked, a young woman that had been trafficked.

Steve: Because someone rescued.

Sean O'Rourke: Yes. Yes. And so rallying the community, and then I have some really good people, as as far as in the, Christian community that are willing to kinda donate some stuff as well. But, rallying the community, and this is what we're asking for is people that are in Lee County or in Tupelo or or anywhere, really, if just caring about somebody else that they have no idea who it is. Mhmm.

And so, you know, if they're willing to do a little bit of labor, they're willing to donate a little bit of, money or materials, that's what we wanted to do is rally the community to love on somebody else instead of themselves.

Steve: So, this is a charity that you work with who has identified or going to identify an individual. And when and this is I mean, what was it? What was that TV show? It's like Dream Makeover. Right?

Right? So but, basically or maybe, like, Habitat for Humanity situation where someone that's in a horrible, obviously, terrible situation Yeah. And you're giving them a fresh start. Absolutely. Got it.

Sean O'Rourke: Where they can feel safe, and they don't know anybody, and they don't have to worry about running from somebody.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't wanna sound terrible, but, like, kinda like in the middle of nowhere.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Steve: So Yeah. Got it. Okay. So let's talk about your business today. Right?

We talked about your journey, how you got here. What does your business look like at this very moment?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So we have built out a team. We've built out an operating system or CRM. Mhmm. So we now own a Podio system that we use.

We, currently text message. We cold call. We send out mailers. We have, Facebook marketing. We also do we have a website.

So we do a lot of forms of marketing. And then I have acquisition managers inside the office. We have a an assistant, basically, a personal assistant between me, Jeremy, and Daniel that's just basically herding rats because we're all over the place. Yeah.

Steve: Business owners.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. And and then and so what our what we do currently actively, we're looking for flips. Mhmm. But we will grab hold wholesales and hotels as well. So we're calling, once the the the lead comes into the system, we're actively running that.

Our access to departments running that lead, locking it up over the phone, if we can. You know, sometimes we'll go run the appointment, but, lock it up over the phone. And then, and then we're trying to get to the virtual side of flipping as well, which we can get into if you wanted to. To. But Yeah.

And then we're just flipping that property, putting it on the MLS.

Steve: So a lot of people are always asking, like, what list, hot list, this and that. Yeah. 44,000 people.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: Is there a list, or you just go after everybody?

Sean O'Rourke: No. There's a list, and you have to be targeted.

Steve: Okay. So who are you targeting?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Anything distressed. You know? Same thing as anybody else. Right?

The

Steve: Is there a particular one that you like better than others?

Sean O'Rourke: As crazy as it sounds, absentee owners. Yeah. That's the best one, man. Because landlords get tired.

Steve: Yeah. They'll never get tired. Yeah. But I imagine in Mississippi, it's really easy to evict somebody.

Sean O'Rourke: It is. It's not terrible. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. And they're still tired.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Gotcha. Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely. So, but, yeah, we still target. I mean, I don't you know, our marketing cost right now, our marketing budget on average is somewhere around $4,500 a month, if that gives you an idea.

Steve: Yeah. Which one was that?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Now we'll pull big lists, you know, and there'll be a large dollar amount associated with that. But on average, somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 a month. Gotcha.

Steve: Okay. And then you're you're attacking so you pull this list. You're attacking that list from all angles. Absolutely. So texting, RVM, cold calling.

Sean O'Rourke: No RVM?

Steve: No RVM.

Sean O'Rourke: No RVM.

Steve: Why no RVM?

Sean O'Rourke: Two things. In my opinion, I could hit everybody with RVM in a month Mhmm. With the size deal I'm dealing with. Mhmm. Right?

Other thing is there's a little bit of legalities to it, and I don't know if I really wanna go down that road.

Steve: Same as texting.

Sean O'Rourke: It is. It is. But I'm hoping it's not gonna be as bad. Yeah.

Steve: I I don't think the rules are any I think they're the exact same rules Okay. Texting RVM. But everyone's got different, you know, preferences. Leon Johnson, two studs in the same room. I call him all the time.

He's a great, great, wise, mentor. Let's see what else we got here. Yeah. They're saying Adam and Brent are amazing. Corey g says you're solid.

36 deals your first year. So Candace Anu wants to know when did you decide to scale?

Sean O'Rourke: I didn't really scale because in all honesty, I have no desire to be any kind of technical guy. Okay? So if I can do it on my cell phone, I'm happy as a glark. Okay? So I really didn't decide to scale until I got business partners that were smarter in different areas than me.

Mhmm. Jeremy is extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about the technical side. Yeah. So setting up Podio, all that stuff would've took it would've I would've pulled my hair out. Mhmm.

Okay. So, Daniel was very good at negotiating and dealing with contractors. Just awesome at it. You know? And then not counting other stuff stuff that both of them are good at, but those two things for me, I struggle with a little bit.

And I sell eyes to an estimate, oh, absolutely, if that's what I needed to do. But negotiating with contractors or doing anything technical like that, oh my gosh. Yeah. But that's

Steve: what I said. Really, it wasn't you decided to scale. You decided to partner with other people Yeah. Whose strengths happen to be your weaknesses. Absolutely.

And then when they said it's handed scale, you're like, let's go. Let's go. Alright.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Well, as a matter of fact, as soon as we partnered, it was wide open. Yeah. It was wide open because we all knew each other's strengths.

Steve: Gotcha. Yeah. How did you connect with your partners?

Sean O'Rourke: I had sold them some deals.

Steve: Got it.

Sean O'Rourke: And they we went to a conference together, just become friends. We have the same kind of values. Mhmm. You know, we're going in the same direction. You know,

Steve: I think that's really important, the values component. Yeah. Not enough people talk about the importance of values, within the organization. So Candace wants to know then what markets are you in?

Sean O'Rourke: I'm still in Mississippi. So, you know, just local markets, Tupelo, Starkville. We're branching out into some other markets that some smaller markets like Amery and, actually, that may only have, I don't even know how many Amery has, maybe ten, fifteen thousand people. But really smaller markets, but, but but still in a radius of where we're at. We're we haven't gotten a 100% comfortable yet on the virtual flip inside to say, I wanna go to Nashville and do that or whatever.

Steve: Yeah. K. How many multifamilies do you own?

Sean O'Rourke: Four. Four currently. And then some mini storage as well.

Steve: Gotcha. And who's managing all of them?

Sean O'Rourke: Christy. Christy is managing yeah. She works in our office.

Steve: Okay. So in house managed? Yes. Not using a third party? No.

Okay. But some people would say you're crazy. Why self manage versus hiring out somebody else to do

Sean O'Rourke: it? You just have more control. Mhmm. You have more control. You can see the numbers.

And, you know, you know who's on your team. Christy is absolutely phenomenal at what she does. You don't have

Steve: to worry about her trying to sell some other rental or get some other property occupied. She's focused on your property.

Sean O'Rourke: Or put any cash in her pocket. There's a 100% trust there. You know?

Steve: She's great. Is Leon helping you with that?

Sean O'Rourke: As far as what?

Steve: Like, I know like, I I haven't got into it, but, like, master leasing and this and that.

Sean O'Rourke: He yes. So I actually did so mister Leon is probably the best book you could ever get a hold of, okay, in any kind of rental. And, so I'll pick his brain if I can. Mhmm. And he helped me.

When I first started, that was actually the first thing I did was some type of master leasing. That's how I got my my feet wet in rentals. And mister Leon kinda guided me on that. Yeah.

Steve: And he's guided a lot of people. So for the those that are listening right now, would you care to elaborate what master leasing is?

Sean O'Rourke: Yes. Basically, negotiating with a, with an owner of a house and getting that house under a lease and then subleasing that house out to another individual. Mhmm.

Steve: So, basically, subletting. Gotcha. Let's see what else is there. Corey, do you want to know what is your average assignment fee?

Sean O'Rourke: Right now, we're pacing about 9,700 because we had a few low ones. We track that pretty regularly. So we're pacing around 9,700 currently within the first, what, four months of where we're at. On average, we're gonna be probably in that 12 to $15,000 range. But then if there's times where you take a thousand dollar wholesale fee because it's gonna pay for marketing.

Steve: Right. Yeah. Or you just want to help somebody. Yeah. How many rentals do you want to own?

Sean O'Rourke: I go back and forth. You know? I'd like to have a thousand doors if I could.

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: I don't think that's I think within the few next few years, I think that's very viable.

Steve: Definitely very viable. Yeah. And Benjamin wants to know if you could have coffee with someone dead or alive, who would it be?

Sean O'Rourke: Wow. Well, one, I'm I have the opportunity to sit here, so this is a big one right now where I'm at. But I would say if I had the opportunity, I I guess it'd be Jesus.

Steve: Fair enough. And Candace wants to know, are there any masterminds you're a part of?

Sean O'Rourke: I was a part of some and ended up getting too busy, which is the dumbest thing I could say, but it's the truth, what I told myself. And so currently, yes and no. We've got a couple of things with my partners that we do where we get together. We're going, fishing, trophy fishing, and we're gonna get together with a group of guys and, just talk shop, you know, which is gonna be great. And then we're gonna eventually build something out ourselves.

But, currently, Oh, yeah. Red fishing. It'd be awesome. Louisiana.

Steve: Adrian Oden wants to know, who do you look to as a mentor?

Sean O'Rourke: Mister Leon is a very good mentor. Adam is still a mentor of mine. Mhmm. He's incredibly encouraging, and then he also has a ton of knowledge.

Steve: Don't you think Adam's too nice? No. I think he's too nice. He's too darn nice. Yeah.

Don't trust him. Yeah. There's an angle in there somewhere. Alan t wants to know, when you started out cold calling, what helped you stay consistent and organized?

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, I would say Google Sheets and, and sticky pads or notepads because

Steve: And I think that the the truth here is that it's not the system. No. It's the desire. It's the you had a job that you didn't care to stay at. Yeah.

Right? So the pain was bigger. The pain of staying at work was bigger than the pain of cold calling. Absolutely.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. All day long.

Steve: Yeah. So I think that's something like you know, when when I hear this question, like, how do you, you know, stay motivated cold calling? It's like, obviously, whatever you're doing right now is not sucking enough.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and two, you know, I had a desire.

So going back to with my father, when he was out teaching these people how to sell, well, these are, successful business owners. And I would get in there really cool b 12 Mercedes, and they'd take me somewhere.

Steve: You know?

Sean O'Rourke: I'm just this little nine year old kid, 12 year old kid, whatever. And, and I'd ask them, how could I how do I do this? And every one of them would tell me, you can't work for somebody else. Mhmm. You've gotta work for yourself.

Yeah. And so that's always been in the back of my mind. So, you know, I'd started a business pre o eight, this decorative concrete business. I wanted to work for myself just listening to these guys. You know?

But I I'm not smart. I'm still a redneck from Mississippi.

Steve: Okay. But probably didn't hurt to be surrounded by other business owners. Right? Like, your mind was probably a little bit more open.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: That's the one thing I have as a blessing, is that my dad went to real estate seminars and would drag me to them, and I hated them. Yeah. Right? And then we had someone else who ended up starting with the biggest private money lending companies in Phoenix, right, with someone that my dad has a mentor. Yeah.

And we didn't do anything with that information or that connection. But, man, I got to see how his nice house. Yeah. Absolutely. Right?

So some were asking my parents, you know, why is this guy's guest house bigger than our house? And they didn't have an answer. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

So Joseph proudly wants to know what's the best advice for someone in in these small markets of 50 k and less population?

Sean O'Rourke: The best advice I can give you is just talk to people. Ultimately, if you're not talking to people, it doesn't matter what system you have in place, what process you do. If you're not talking to people and selling, it doesn't matter what you do. Yeah. So so that's the best advice I can say is talk to every real estate person that you can talk to, any kind of real estate agent, any kind of anybody.

If you're anywhere where you are I go to the gas station. The woman's sitting there talking, and she's a little bit talkative. I'm, how's your day today? You doing alright? You know?

And then you wouldn't happen to know anybody that's got a house for sale, do you, because I buy them. Mhmm. You'll be surprised. I bought two that way from gas station, talking to somebody across the thing.

Steve: Are you an extrovert?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. I

Steve: am. Okay. Yeah. One thing I have I have this idea, this theory. I haven't tested it yet.

K. I have this theory that extroverts are terrible salespeople, but they're natural billboards. They walk around, and they tell everybody what they do. And we walk around, tell everyone what you do. You don't even have to be good at sales.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Alright.

Steve: Everyone knows you do. Yeah. Right? So, anyway, that's just a theory. So Jeff Bartus says absentee owners are the best.

Let's see what else is there. Aaron Gonzales wants to know how old were you when you got into real estate?

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, I was, let's see. I'm 38 now. So You're just a child. 35? Just a child.

Steve: When did you turn it into a system? I imagine a business. When did you turn this into a business?

Sean O'Rourke: It was last year. Really when it become a a true business. Otherwise, it was a side hustle.

Steve: And were there any major changes that put that turned it into a healthy system?

Sean O'Rourke: It was systems. Putting systems in place. Mhmm. Where, like, today, you know, I'm here in Phoenix, and my guy at the office is texting me saying, hey. I can get this house for $18.

Do you want what do you want me to do? And I'm like, lock that sucker up. You know? Right. Those systems, it's already in place now.

And so I can actually go do things like this, and I've got great people and great systems in place now that can be a business that runs with if I'm not there. You know?

Steve: So this is gonna be a little bit of, self brag. So but, you know, Ryan Penida, he was out here a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And turns out, you know, we're doing two deals together. Like, we're both friends.

Yeah. But we don't really talk business.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. And, like, I find out. I was like, oh, we're doing two deals with Ryan. And Ryan here's some of Steve. Oh, by the way, we're doing two deals with Steve.

It's just crazy. Right? You have the right systems in place. Everything takes care of itself. Yeah.

So Dean McCall wants to know what is the name of the book by mister Leon.

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, well, it's not a book. It's not a book. And Leon is a book himself.

Steve: Yeah. Leon Johnson. He was actually one of our guests. I wanna say, maybe either last year or the year before.

Sean O'Rourke: Maybe last year.

Steve: Yeah. I remember. But wealth of knowledge, I still can't believe. You know? Like, when you saw talk on a stage about his history and this and that, it's like, this guy was at a real estate seminar before I was born.

Yeah. Right?

Sean O'Rourke: The amount of and the amount of seminars that he's been to since.

Steve: Oh, really?

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, man. He's he continues to feed himself, and I think that's part of this industry. Mhmm. You can't be stagnant and think that you know everything.

Steve: Right.

Sean O'Rourke: Like, I wanna learn something new because it makes it fun for me.

Steve: Yep. Yeah. So, yes, Leon Johnson. Any impact on your business as far as eviction moratoriums?

Sean O'Rourke: None whatsoever.

Steve: Yeah. I think that just goes back to being in Mississippi. Mister Adam Johnson, mister nice guy, wants to know the biggest mental hurdle that you had along the way, and how did you overcome it?

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, gosh. It may it kinda makes me think he knows something that he's trying to get out of me. Mhmm. The biggest mental hurdle I guess, the biggest mental hurdle that, that I dealt with was, honestly, I guess, believing in myself even though I knew I could do it. Mhmm.

You know? Yeah.

Steve: And I guess that kinda comes a little bit to the not wanting to quit your job.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah.

Steve: Right? You wanted you wanted a little bit of safety and security.

Sean O'Rourke: And and then there's times where, you know, I want, approval from people.

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: You know? And, and so that's that was another one. You know? It was like, my wife can give me approval all day long, but she's gonna support me no matter what I do. Right?

Yeah. And I love her for that. But I needed approval from somebody else that says, you know what? You can do this, and you're gonna be okay.

Steve: Yeah. Some external validation.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Absolutely.

Steve: Gotcha. And that makes sense. Luis Garcia wants to know how do you hold your assets? LLC, land trust?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. We do LLCs for the most part. Yep. Our business, our flip business is an s corp. Mhmm.

We have it set up as an s corp when we take salaries, and then we take on our disbursements on every quarter. And we've set it up. I don't know if you've ever, read the book Profit First. Mhmm. We set our business up in the Profit First method.

Steve: Yeah. One of of the best things for those of you guys listening, one of the best things you can do is run your finances, the profit first model, which is just kinda silly. You know? Yeah. Pick yourself first.

Okay. We all learn it.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. We

Steve: don't do it. Yeah. So the book really hits hard why you need to do it. Yeah. He wants to know, do you have any VAs that work for you and your business?

Sean O'Rourke: We do. Yes. Yes. Have, multiple cold callers, that work and then also tech the VAs that that text for us as well.

Steve: What service are you using? I don't handle that part

Sean O'Rourke: of it, so I couldn't tell you exactly.

Steve: Samantha, wants to know what when cold calling, does your team have a script?

Sean O'Rourke: Yes. We do have a script. And we will we'd, there's two things. So there's a script, for the VAs. Mhmm.

And then there's also a script for the the, our our in house team.

Steve: So Gotcha.

Sean O'Rourke: And then there's also a script for the text messages. So as the text messages come through, there's responses for that. What are

Steve: you using right now for text messaging? Batch. Batch? Yeah. Very cool.

And Joseph Preyler wants to know how much time did you put towards your business with a full time job and your family?

Sean O'Rourke: As much time as I can do anytime I could. Literally and I was talking about this today. I would be laying in bed, and I would be listening to podcast on AirPod while me and my wife are watching TV, and I'm actually listening to podcasts. Right? How are those conversations?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But that that's that's what I did, and I had to

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: To be able to be successful.

Steve: Right.

Sean O'Rourke: Because I didn't have time otherwise. I had to learn. I had to continue to learn because I didn't know I still don't know everything, and I surely didn't know hardly anything then. I was just winging it.

Steve: Yeah. You

Sean O'Rourke: know? And, and so I had to I had to learn and then had to just give every waking moment that I wasn't spending time with my family or spending time at work. I was having to I was hustling, trying to make a deal happen.

Steve: Yeah. And I think that's one of the, things that people don't recognize, you know, when they're getting in and, like, they they might give up a little faster. It's that part where you have to make sacrifices. This doesn't just come easy. No.

Sean O'Rourke: You know,

Steve: they said, like, this doesn't work. It's like, have you given up anything? Like, have you actually sacrificed anything? Mhmm. Right.

I'm sure you weren't having the funnest conversations with your wife Yeah. When you're listening to it. And I and I experienced that myself. Right? It's like, you know, what what, what comes first?

Yeah. Yeah. How many does but we need to make money. Absolutely.

Sean O'Rourke: I have a goal, and I wanna know where I wanna be. Yeah. You know, I wanna retire.

Steve: No. So let's see what else we got here. Brian Bell wants to know who was your first hire?

Sean O'Rourke: Our first hire was, our assistant, Ashley. Mhmm. And, without her, you know, the it wouldn't stay organized. She's our organization.

Steve: And are there any realtors on your team?

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely. So Ashley has become a realtor now. We have Ricky. Ricky Murphy is the bomb. Right?

And he works for a realty company there. I love him to death. K. And he hustles for us, and we give him a bunch of deals, a bunch of listings. And but at the same time, you know, we we still couldn't figure out how to make just a little bit more profit because we're paying that 6%.

And, and if you think about doing 10,000,000 in gross sales a year, 6% is a ton. Mhmm. And so how do we capture some of that? So Ashley got her real estate license or she's, she's in the process. She's almost finished with it.

And, and then we've kinda broken it up, and and Ricky's still on board with us, you know, about he's gonna continue to work with us, and him and Ashley are gonna work as a team. So

Steve: Gotcha.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So we're gonna capture some more of that percentage back into the business to help cover some of those costs.

Steve: And one thing you and I were talking about, offline, was you're gonna start listing your properties off the MLS. Yes. Talk about that.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. You're talking about the wholesales? Mhmm.

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: So that that's something that, somebody had brought up to us. We are currently doing the hotels, so we're currently wholetailing them. Somebody had brought up the right now, the market is so high that listing those wholesales on the market, and getting, you know, that kind of value back was was phenomenal. Mhmm. I didn't know that you could do that.

I didn't know that that was legal.

Steve: Gotcha.

Sean O'Rourke: So, so that's something right there that we're highly looking into as far as putting them on the market, but I need to ultimately, I need to get it to where I need to fully understand if it doesn't sell within a certain time frame, how do we take it down? We're gonna have to take it down. Mhmm. Because I don't wanna be that company that doesn't do what we say we're gonna do.

Steve: Right. Yep. And so for those of you guys that are watching, we're talking about equitable interest, listening to property MLS with equitable, interest. And Vincent wants to know how long ago did you start real estate?

Sean O'Rourke: November '18. So almost three years now. Almost three years.

Steve: So what is your why?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. My wife would kinda argue with me a little bit because she thinks that this isn't something that I really should be thinking about, but my why is to provide for my family. Mhmm.

Steve: And I

Sean O'Rourke: have a certain vision of how that provision is. That's my vision. And the hope is that I can make enough cash flow where that time is spent with them even more. Mhmm. I don't think I'll ever quit working.

You know? I'd I'd say I wanna retire at 45. Retiring at 45 doesn't mean that I'm done working.

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: You know? But I would say my why is just I've got a goal in mind for what I think my family should look like, and that's where I'm that's where I'm headed.

Steve: Gotcha. And what is your biggest struggle right now?

Sean O'Rourke: Biggest struggle right now is market. We need more deals. We've gotta find more deals.

Steve: Yeah. Everyone everyone is dealing with that right now. Yeah. So, obviously, you're naturally motivated. How do you get motivated again when, you know, you get knocked down and so on?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta have good people to rally around you because, you know, ultimately, you can beat yourself down internally. Mhmm. But those good people that come around you and you can talk to you and say, man, this I suck today.

Yeah. And they say, shut up. Put your big boy panties on. Let's go. You know?

Yeah.

Steve: I do. That's that's awesome. So Alan t wants to know. So Elon Musk was once asked to give words of encouragement to entrepreneurs, and, allegedly, he said, if you need encouragement, you should be an entrepreneur.

Sean O'Rourke: Okay.

Steve: Do you agree or disagree?

Sean O'Rourke: I disagree. I think everybody needs encouragement in their life at some point.

Steve: Gotcha. Why do you feel that way?

Sean O'Rourke: Because life happens. You know? And it may not be that everybody has a business mindset or wants to be any type of entrepreneur. Mhmm. But you still have life.

Steve: Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: And so, you know, no matter what happens, you still need somebody to rally around you and encourage you.

Steve: Sammy wants to know how do you actually list wholesale deals?

Sean O'Rourke: Basically, just get them under contract and go to the realtor and say, hey. We've got this property we wanna list on MLS. Let's list it.

Steve: Yep. And make sure you guys check your local markets whether you can do that or not. It is different per market. And Corey wants to know how what my thoughts are on it. I think it's a great idea.

I just won't personally do it because I'm a broker, and I don't need any more targets on my back. I have enough targets already. Let's see what else we got in here. Where and how do you manage the funds for over 20 flips at a time?

Sean O'Rourke: Oh, Ashley, it covers our butt. So the way if you wanna do you wanna kinda break out our structure how this Yes. Okay. Alright. So what we do is we have, we have private investors we've found and we've talked to and communicated with that trust us and know that we're gonna provide them with good good service, but then also guarantee that we're gonna give them their money back.

And so we say, hey, mister private investor, we found this deal. Would you be interested in going in with us? Absolutely. So they guess, let's just say, a $100. K?

We're giving them an x amount of return and then x amount of kicker at the end. K? And, so, we'll take that property down, get it under contract, take it down. Ashley coordinates with the closing attorneys. She coordinates then with the sellers, and the private money lenders to get everything closed out.

We get enough money off the private money lender to rehab the property. We then start the rehab process, and we start and and we have a spreadsheet and Google Sheets, and then we also use Podio. So my Podio system keeps track. But I can take my phone and pop up Google Sheets. It's simple and easy, so we keep that.

We go through the rehab process. Ashley coordinates paying contractors, for the most part. And then Daniel handles, that side of it. So I'll do an initial walk through on the rehab and say, okay. We're gonna need $25 for the rehab on this house.

I'll let Daniel Daniel know the budget that I come up with just through the preliminary walk through. He does a a walk through with the contractor. The contractor gives him a price on what he thinks it is. They negotiate and pretty much usually, we're pretty close to being spot on on where the contractor's gonna be because we know our contractors. Yeah.

You know? And then we once we do the rehab process, we list it on MLS. If it wasn't for Ashley, I wouldn't be able to keep all of it straight.

Steve: Mhmm.

Sean O'Rourke: So it's key people in our office that are coordinating in key moments that we need done that are helping all this flow like it is. I think we had 22 flips going at one time the other day or whatever. You know? And they're in different processes. Right?

So you've got a beginning stage where we're acquiring the property to the rehab process to the listing process to it's under contract and being sold. So in that

Steve: How much do you and your partners personally have out on the streets with that, and how much private money do you have out on the streets?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. So we have zero personally Mhmm. Minus what the business pays, you know, of course, on expenses or whatever. Yeah.

So we don't and and except for the company does fund some of the deals as well. So if we have tax money that's sitting in because profit first Mhmm.

Steve: We have

Sean O'Rourke: a tax account. That money's sitting there. Well, we fund a deal with that tax account, of course. So we will do that. But I think

Steve: you said you're not supposed to touch that money. But, anyway

Sean O'Rourke: So, anyway so and then somewhere anywhere in the range, it varies from, you know, 1,000,000 to to $2.02 and a half million dollars in in private money at some point in fashion going back and forth.

Steve: Who's raising private money for your company?

Sean O'Rourke: All all of us. So our three, that's main Jeremy is the main guy that's tasked to do that, but then we all three kinda that's kind of a conglomerate. Gotcha. Private money's what what what we run on.

Steve: And then Aaron's follow-up question is how many private money lenders do you want to have?

Sean O'Rourke: You know, I don't really have an answer for that because some we wanna build relationships. Because what I want, ultimately, is I would love for our private money people to make enough and feel comfortable enough with us that when we've got a 2 or $3,000,000 deal and we need a down payment for whatever Mhmm. We can go to them and say, hey. Look. We're gonna need $750,000.

Are you interested in providing that, you know, what you're gonna get with us and and stay along with us and we become partners and teams in different avenues on larger deals?

Steve: Gotcha. Leo wants to know, is there anything you can do different? If if there was anything you could do differently, what would that be? And this could be business, family, day to day life.

Sean O'Rourke: Okay. If it's business, I would quit. I would have quit earlier.

Steve: For sure.

Sean O'Rourke: I think I was in

Steve: a year or two at dinner.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. If with family, I would I'd apologize to my kids more for mistakes I've made.

Steve: Wise words.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So I think those are the two biggest things. And then, you know, the last thing is make sure that I stand on my faith like I'm supposed to.

Steve: Besides rental, what are your other, passive forms of income? Or what other forms of passive income?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. A little bit of Bitcoin, not very much. That's really it. I mean, I'm all in invested in real estate in some shape, form, or fashion.

Steve: And you're only buying in Mississippi?

Sean O'Rourke: Yes. Currently. Well, now we will buy apartment complexes all over the country depending on where they're at.

Steve: How are you getting those?

Sean O'Rourke: Various different leads. So, we've also now built out another side to Simple Home Exits, which is Simple Home Exits commercial Mhmm. Division. And that commercial division is now marketing to multifamily. And so on that marketing, we're either gonna take it down and wholesale it to ourselves or other people or, or take those multifamilies down.

Steve: Gotcha. Yeah. What, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you learned from Joshua Ortiz?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. Biggest mistakes. I say continuing to make sure you are two things. Number one, continue to make sure that you maintain the relationships that are truly bringing you value. There's times where you let some relationships that truly bring you value kinda go because you you're off on your rat race.

Mhmm. K. The second thing is, make sure you do as much social media and document everything you do every time you

Steve: can. Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: Don't fail at that because you're gonna look back and you're gonna be like, dang. I should've documented where I was at.

Steve: Yeah. And you're not the first person to say that. Right? There's, who was on the show? Matt Matthew Simmons.

Sean O'Rourke: Okay.

Steve: Right. He's like, he made a bold plan. I'm gonna make I'm gonna do a million dollars my first year. And he was gonna document it, and he never did.

Sean O'Rourke: And he

Steve: made a million in his first year. Oh. That would've been amazing. Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: It was a great follow. Right? Absolutely.

Steve: And

Sean O'Rourke: I still fell at it today. You know? Yeah. I'm doing it like I'm supposed to.

Steve: So you mentioned that you neglected some real important relationships. Yeah. Am I sharing what those neglected relationships or those relationships you neglected were?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. I would say, you know, key men in my life that would coach me on not business related stuff, you know, just life in general. And then you get caught up in the business, and that is that becomes more important. So it's just, you know, key religious men that would kind of lead me and say, you know what? This is probably the better decision to make.

Mhmm. But also some of the business guys. You know? I was I was staying up on, Facebook a little bit better, and I was doing some things and some people would comment. And even in Facebook groups, there would be people that would bring value because you didn't think at it think about it in a certain way.

Mhmm. And, and just kinda failed at that too.

Steve: What is your superpower?

Sean O'Rourke: Talking to people.

Steve: Making relationships. You're a natural born sales salesperson. Yeah.

Sean O'Rourke: I I I like to learn about people.

Steve: Yeah. I think that might also be closely, and tied with, one external validation as well. Right? Yeah. Right?

You like people. Yeah. And then the side of that usually is you also wanna be liked.

Sean O'Rourke: Absolutely.

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

Sean O'Rourke: I would say there is a book that I've told people about more than any other, which would be Profit First.

Steve: Profit First? Yeah. Yeah. We've mentioned it a few times.

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. The other one, though, I would say would be the Robert Kiyosaki book. Which one? I just got a brain brain freeze.

Steve: Reached that forehead. Reached that forehead. Yeah. Very eye opening for a lot of people. So it looks like we've got all the questions answered.

So I want to think about something you wanna leave all the centers with. A parting thought. I'll make a few quick announcements. Guys, if you get value today, please like, comment, share. It helps us reach more people.

Next week, we got April Molina coming in. She's been talking about how she went from massive debt, which I think was $600,000 worth of

Sean O'Rourke: debt Oh my gosh.

Steve: To paying off and making 6 figures a month. So if that's something that'd be of interest, tune in next week. What are your parting thoughts?

Sean O'Rourke: Yeah. So this is something that, that I started pre our business, but it's also something that we've implemented in our business and is our number one motto for our company, and that's care about people, not about profit.

Steve: People first. Awesome. If someone wants to get ahold of you, how would they do that?

Sean O'Rourke: They can email me at, sean@simplehomeexitswithaz.com. They can also check me out on Facebook, Sean O'Rourke, or our our Facebook page. Message me on Facebook. Or, you know, if they wanna give me a

Steve: shout, you you know, if

Sean O'Rourke: they wanna give me a call or whatever we need to do, I'll connect anyway, and I love to help people.

Steve: Awesome. Thank you guys for watching. Thank you. It was an absolute pleasure.

Sean O'Rourke: Thanks, man.