HOW I BOUGHT $7MM IN REAL ESTATE WITH $10,000

Steve Trang: Shout out to Steve Trane. Jump on the Steve Trane. We real estate disruptors.

Steve: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of real estate disruptors. Today, we've got David Ols with EZRI. David flew in from Chattanooga, Tennessee to talk about how he bought $7,000,000 in real estate with just $10,000. Yeah.

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David Ols: I'm ready. Let's do

Steve: it. Alright. So I'm

David: nervous, a little excited.

Steve: It's crazy. You are a very, very big name in the industry.

David: So That is not true.

Steve: Now you're making me blush. These red lights are covering up some of the blushing here. Alright. So first question is

David: Yeah.

Steve: What got you into real estate?

David: Wow. Okay. So, I grew up I actually grew up in Boston. Went to Catholic high school, went to University of Massachusetts. I'm not hearing that.

Steve: You're not? I'm not hearing the Boston.

David: Oh, no. No. No. No. Like so I've moved.

I've lived all over the country, so I've lost all of that. But if you wanna talk to somebody from Boston, we'll talk about parking the car and how we got. We can I'll fall right back into it.

Steve: That's that's what I was

David: Yeah. Yeah. No. I I've I've I've I'm a little homogenized now because I've been all over the country. But, yeah.

So so, anyway, so I grew up. My dad, great guide, lots of I spent my life as a kid, like, doing additions on the house and fixing up and all of those things. Right? Like my dad, I had, like, two hours of chores to do every day. Like, it was very strict, very strict upbringing.

And, you know, it's funny. I I said, because I was, like, raking the lawn, raking leaves, and just all this to work as a kid. And I said, boy, when I grow up, I'm I'm gonna have a condo, and I'm never gonna do any work on houses ever because I wouldn't put my kids through that. But, so how I got interested in real estate, let's see. Moved to Florida after I graduated graduated college, and I went to work for a hardware company down there called Scotty's Hardware Stores.

Very became their youngest store manager ever. Was pretty successful. Was moving around a lot. And I moved 11 times in nine years. And one of the things my dad did tell you to me is like, boy, if you'd just bought a house all over Florida and just kept it as a rental instead of renting all the time yourself, you'd be really rich.

I'm like, ah, who wants to do that? So, so what happened one day, my wife and I bought our first house. Real short story, we didn't realize why we were buying it from Wells Fargo. I got I came out of the closing, and I talked to my realtor. I'm like, who who was the seller?

She's like, well, it was Wells Fargo. I'm like, well, why was I buying it from Wells Fargo? She's like, well, it was a foreclosure, dummy. I'm like, okay. I don't really what that means.

But so we bought the house, but because I work for this hardware store and I've been around my parents fixing up houses and doing that stuff, the natural thing to do was, well, let's fix it up. Like, let's replace this paint carpet with some laminate, and Mhmm. Let's take out these sliding glass doors and put in French doors. And we just did a little bit of that type of stuff over the course of two years, and we resold it, and we made $50,000. Mhmm.

Like, well, that was fun. Same realtor going to the closing on that one. She says, hey. Do you know that you get to keep all of this and you don't have to pay taxes? I'm like, well, why?

She said, because it was your primary residence, dummy. She called me dummy a lot. Right? But and I'm like, oh, well, that was really cool. So so that you know, because I had that little bit of a background, now I'm like, oh, we can just buy a house, live in it for two years, fix it up, and make a bunch of money.

Like, let's do that. Mhmm. So we we bought another one. And one day, I happened to be at the Orlando Airport. I was waiting on our kids to come back in on a flight.

I was at the airport, and it's the most cliche thing ever. You know where this is gonna end up. I'm at the bookstore. I pick up a book. I'm reading.

Rich dad, poor dad. Right? Like, it just is. Right? It's the truth.

And I'm reading, and I'm like, well, this makes a lot of sense. This is really cool. And at the end, what does Kiyosaki say? He's like, well, if you wanna be in real estate, go find, like, a real estate group or a real estate association. And this is back now 02/2005.

Right? Mhmm. So I go to my big big monitor computer. Right? Web crawler.

You know? Like, Google didn't even exist then. And I'm like, Real Estate Group Orlando, like, you know, like a caveman computer. And, this wholesaler's website came up. His name is Todd Hutchinson.

Still friends with him in Orlando. And he had this resources page, and it said, if you wanna learn about real estate, go to this link. And it was cfri.net with Central Florida Real Estate Investors. Like, okay. Cool.

So I go to that, and they're like, we have these meetings. So that was sort of how I got started. I I started getting involved in the RIA and still work full time and just got really immersed in in real estate and took all the classes and got all the coaching and, you know, tried to do all of the things and, started learning about creative financing and subject to and, you know, all of those types of things.

Steve: So you moved 11 times in nine years?

David: Yes. Yeah. That's what you that's yeah. Yeah. That was the tough part.

Steve: Why were you moving so much?

David: So here's what happened. This was before I got married. So I was a store manager for this hardware company, and I was really good. Like, I was really good merchandiser. I was a good salesperson.

And what happens when you're 25 and you work for a company like that, which is a 177 stores at the time of Florida, every time they fire a manager, who who are they gonna move? They're not gonna call Steve who has a bunch of kids, right, and a wife and all of that stuff. Who do they call? The young guy who's single.

Steve: The guy with no responsibilities.

David: Literally, I would get called on a Thursday and be on the other side of the state on Monday. So that was why. Right? So I would be the guy who would go in and, you know, fire those managers, hire new ones, get the store up and running.

Steve: You're the efficiency expert.

David: Well, yes. Yes. Turns out. So, yeah, so that just kept happening over and over and over again. I'm like, I need to get married to stop this.

Like

Steve: It's a defense mechanism.

David: That's right. So the good part was I got a raise every time. So I was making a lot of money, and it was really great. But, yeah, it it gets tiresome after a while.

Steve: So you you make 50 k on your first one tax free because it's a primary residence for two years.

David: Yep.

Steve: And you're like, this is cool.

David: It's really cool.

Steve: Yeah. And you bought another house with the intent to do it again. Yes. Yeah. And in those in that time, you picked then you picked up Bridgeport at Port Ave.

David: Yeah. We were in we were in the middle of that second one when I picked it up. Okay.

Steve: And so you go to this, real estate investor association. Yeah. Todd Hutchinson, that name really rings a bell. I think he's done some pretty big things.

David: He used to own I buy houses or something like that. And he had it he he I think he sold territories and stuff. Yeah. He's he's a, yeah, really smart.

Steve: Yeah. So he's he's a bigger name

David: Mhmm.

Steve: At that time. Yeah. Was he that same like, did did his reach grow from that time, or was he

David: think so. I don't

Steve: He was already kind of, like

David: Yeah.

Steve: Out there.

David: He was just, yeah, he was just a local guy local to to Orlando.

Steve: Okay. And so you joined this meetup. Yep. And then it sounds like you bought every coaching program under the sun.

David: Pretty much. Pretty much. As many as I could. And I would volunteer to, like, you know, check people off as they came in to be able to sit there as an attendee. Like, I did everything I could to be immersed in in real estate.

Steve: Went all in?

David: 100%.

Steve: How was that experience?

David: So on a couple different levels, good and bad. Mhmm. Good because I was learning a lot of things. I was reading a lot of books, you know, back in those days. Right?

Because I'm the old guy now, right, in real estate.

Steve: Look. I get it. Sometimes I'll just say, you know, in the before time.

David: In the before time. Before Facebook times. Right?

Steve: Before Sean Terry is kinda how he described it.

David: Yeah. Right? So you'll remember this. You're almost as old as me. But, like, back then, like, real estate education, there was one guy on YouTube.

It was Ty Taylor, the flip man. That was it. I've watched all of his videos countless times. And then there was a Wednesday night webinar. Mhmm.

Tim Mai, Preston Ealy, you know, those guys, Stan Merrill. There would be a webinar on Wednesday. It would be a bunch of content. And then, of course, they're selling you something at the upsell, which is upsell. Fine.

Perfect. Mhmm. But, like, I was just trying to absorb as much as I as much as I could back then. So the good side, learning a lot of stuff. Still incredibly shy.

The guy in the back of the room, afraid to talk to anybody, which You

Steve: were afraid to talk to people.

David: Dude, I I'm gonna tell you a story in one second. Can only get through this one. But yes. Here's the was the bad part was that I was I still worked a full time job, forty, fifty, sixty hours a week, a lot. Had a great job.

But you work forty, fifty hours a week, and then you're consumed for another twenty hours. There's something that gets squeezed out there. Right? And thank God that I'm blessed enough to have an understanding wife who believed in in what we were doing and, you know, my two boys. But, yeah, there were times where, like, I was the guy in the third bedroom doing real estate trying to figure it out at night and not being the greatest dad.

So, like, you know, we were talking earlier about, you know, personalities and needing therapy, which I think most investors probably do, but there was no balance. Right? I was fully committed to to growing growing up a business, and I didn't even know what that meant at that time. Yeah. But I knew something was gonna happen.

Steve: Sure. So going back to signing up for every single program

David: Yeah.

Steve: What percentage of those programs did you execute?

David: I was pretty consistent. So 70%. Right? And and and what it was, you know, it was a weekend course on land trust. Right?

So, of course, we do land trust. It was, you know, a coaching program learning to do subject to mentoring, to do wholesaling, you know, all of those types of things. So I hear a lot of people like, oh, these courses are they're junk. They don't work. No.

No. No. All the courses work. Mhmm. Like, unless it's real trash.

Right? But the the the vast majority of all the courses work, just typically the person doesn't do the work to

Steve: Well, I bring it up because, like, right now, you know, for a person who's listening to the show

David: Mhmm.

Steve: You might be considering, you know, my sales training.

David: Yeah. Dude, which I've only heard great things from it. I know you just had a a big event like last weekend. Right?

Steve: Last weekend. Yeah.

David: Yeah. Packed it out.

Steve: Right. So they're looking at my sales training. Yeah. They're looking at Brent Daniels.

David: Dude, I'm an original TTP guy.

Steve: TTP guy.

David: Love

Steve: it. They might be looking at sub two. Yeah. Astro. Mhmm.

Right? And there's Ryan Zolin with, Agent Investors. Yeah. There's Chris Jefferson with Start Flipping Deals.

David: Chris has been around since I started.

Steve: Brewer with Brewer Method. RJN. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait.

David: Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait.

Steve: Wait You I mean, how many of those programs would you have bought back then?

David: All of them.

Steve: All of them.

David: All of them.

Steve: Right? So how do you balance that, or how did you balance that So in that time?

David: It's interesting because it's gonna get into where we where where we're talking about buying the houses. There's something to be gained out of all of those courses. Right? There's Bruce Lee. Right?

We're gonna we're gonna take what's useful, absorb it, and discard disregard the rest. There's something in all of those courses that that's going to be useful. And typically, not to get too esoteric, but there's gonna be some universal truth that runs through all of them. Right? Absolutely.

It's gonna be some sales techniques, talking to people. Like, there's going to be some some commonality.

Steve: Sales techniques won't work if you're not talking to people.

David: What? What? I can't do this from my my couch and my underwear eating my Froot Loops. Come on, man. Yeah.

There there's gonna be something that that runs through all of them. So couple things with with, I think, where you're going. I hope this is where you're going. There's a lot of ways to do real estate. Right?

You can be, you know, the wholesaler, the the fix and flipper, the apartment guy, the storage unit. Right? You're like, there's it's like being a doctor. You can be the eye doctor, the nose doctor, the toe doctor, the butt doctor, whatever. Right?

There's lots of ways to do real estate and be in medicine. Right? So you have to find the part of real estate that you love and that resonates with you. Right? Yeah.

I would not be good at doing short sales. Right? It's also like running a transactions company. Right? Like, I am not gonna be good at sitting on the phone all the day.

It's it's not the thing I'm like I like I do kinda like to talk to people even though I am introverted. But, you know, so so in all of those courses, there are a lot of different things that are gonna appeal to different people and their personality types. So you have to find the one that's that's going to work for you. But beyond that, sub two and Novations and, you know, Brewer and, you know, talk to people, of course, is good. It's good for all of them.

You know, now you have a bad belt. Right? You have this belt of all of these different tools. And the way to for me, the way to look at that is not to try to shoehorn, you know, this strategy into this deal. I think that's the wrong approach, and I see some people doing that.

But let's talk to the seller and find out, hey, missus Smith. What's going on? How can I help you? Oh, you're going into foreclosure or, oh, some mister Smith passed away. Whatever the situation is now, now I've got this this group of tools, and I can go, this is the one where I can help.

Right? Because that's our job as a as a wholesaler is to help people not make not make situations worse.

Steve: Right.

David: So I don't hope that that answered the question.

Steve: It answers, the question partially.

David: Okay.

Steve: So for a person that's listening right now,

David: though,

Steve: like, would you recommend Mhmm. Like, this person right now who's working a nine to five

David: Yeah.

Steve: Maybe a hardware store. Right? He's listening to this. Yeah. And he's thinking, well, should I buy all the programs?

Yeah. Should I buy some of the programs? Try to only buy one program and just focus on that. Like,

David: what do you want with with with your area? With sales. Yeah. Right? I'm gonna start with sales, and let's do something that's gonna give you a quick win.

Yeah. Right? Let's even

Steve: This is not a this is not a paid plug here.

David: No. I listen. I I've I've lots of people that have gone through the training, so I know it's good. Even in our own company when we would hire an acquisitions or disposition people, right, we want them to get a quick win. We want our salespeople to get that fast, the fastest one possible.

Steve: They need that adrenaline rush.

David: Well and now they believe. Yeah. Right? So there are a lot of people who are probably watching this who are like, yeah. I think wholesaling works.

I think wholesaling would be really great. I think I think I think I think I think it. But, like, the reality is it's happening a thousand times a day across The United States. Our company closes a ton of them. Like, I know it's happening.

But until you get that first one Mhmm. You don't believe it. Right? So I would say focus on sales because then now we can start to add some other things in. Right?

Like, we need to have that baseline of being able to talk to people. Right. Some how to communicate, how to have some tonality, and, you know, how to how to do those types of things, body language. Then we can add in, oh, well, mister Seller, you know, I understand you're getting relocated to, you know, to Maine next week, and you can't afford the payment here and the payment there, and you really owe what it's worth. Hey.

I do have this program Mhmm. Up to. Right? Oh, hey. You know, I know, you know, you've got a little bit of equity in this in this deal.

You know, you'd love to sell it, but you don't really have to sell it, but you don't you're gonna be gone. You don't wanna deal with the agents. Through our method. Right? Right.

Like, there there's going to be a different tool that you're gonna pull out of your tool belt to to handle that problem with the seller. Okay. But I would say it all starts with sales for sure and talk to people.

Steve: Talk to people for sure. Alright. So you bought everything under the sun, and you made it happen. What was Yeah.

David: Some things didn't work, though.

Steve: Oh, some things didn't work. But, eventually, you were able to

David: Yeah.

Steve: Obviously, run a real estate business. So Yes. Around when did you say you picked up Rich Dad Poor Dad?

David: Oh, February.

Steve: February.

David: You go

Steve: to you go to a real estate investor meetup?

David: Well, sort of.

Steve: Sort of.

David: The first time. So I'm on the computer, and I remember it is it's July. And it says, the meeting is the first Wednesday of the month. Perfect. Cool.

So I go I go to the first

Steve: meetups in July.

David: Well, I mean, Orlando's a big it's like here. Right? A big it's big investor community. So, so I drive down. I tell my wife, leaving work, going to the going to this meetup.

She's like, okay. Great. I'm like so I drive. I was in, Sanford, Florida where I worked, and this is on Orlando. And it was at the old Bumby Theater.

And it was just this theater that they rented, you know, once a month, whatever, to do to do this event. So I drive down there, Steven. I'm like, going going to my first Ria meeting. And, so I pull in the I pull in the the parking lot, and there's like, I didn't realize at the time it was the third biggest Ria in the country. So big.

Right? It's a really big place. I pull in and they're like, this was back when decals and car wraps were were really big. So there's like, you know, I buy houses, the inspector, hard money, soft money, easy money, our four zero one k, STR, whatever. And I'm driving through, and I'm looking for a spot.

I'm looking for a spot. I'm looking for a spot. Drive out the other side and go home. And and I could count on the times on one hand where I've lied to my wife, and she's like, how'd it go? I'm like, couldn't find it.

Couldn't find it because I got scared. I got I just got scared.

Steve: You were intimidated.

David: I was so intimidated. I'm like, I don't have any reason to be here. I don't belong here.

Steve: I don't deserve this.

David: I don't deserve this. I shouldn't even go I can't even go in the building. I'm paralyzed. Could not get out of the car. So so now I remember the reason I remember that's July is because I didn't go in August.

September is my birthday, and now I'm pissed. Just you know, you've been just so mad with yourself. You're just, like, gripping the wheel. Your fingernails are digging into the palms of your hand. I'm like, I cannot believe I went all the way down there, and I didn't go in.

So now now I go down, like, white knuckled. Right? I'm like, I'm going I'm going into this thing. So I drive down there. Like, I park as fast as I can.

I go up to the door, and I pay my $20, and and that was my my first time going in. So but literally

Steve: How many how many trips?

David: It took me two trips. I got it on the second one.

Steve: Got it on the second one.

David: But I did go in and, you know, I walked in and they had, like, a, you know, like like a like an event, you know, tables with people giving stuff away. And I didn't know what to do, so I got a bag like everybody else and started throwing pens and papers and all that stuff in. And and I went into this theater, and there's a couple 100 people. And I just sat, like, in the far back left hand corner, took my pamper out, and I'm like, okay. Gotta take notes.

Yeah. I'm gonna learn something.

Steve: Okay. But you took action.

David: I did. It was hard. It was scary. Like, I like, I remember that feeling. Very twenty years ago is clear as day.

Steve: So when because you still have a full time job.

David: Still a full time job.

Steve: When like, what were the steps, right, to get you from attending this live meetup to doing your first deal?

David: I got I paid for private coaching, small group coaching Mhmm. With this guy, John. I cannot remember his last name. But we literally went to his house once a week, and it was small group coaching, talking to people, and, how to do a subject to do. Mhmm.

And he taught us all kinds of cool stuff, like how to instead of putting money down, how to do a promissory note and just all kinds of just wacky, wacky ways to do it. But not only that, I bought a course. There's this great guy named Chris Kershner who's not in real estate anymore, but wrote probably the greatest course that I've ever read called, Real Estate Autopilot. That was very foundational for me. So, yeah, between those two things, we started doing some marketing and getting some calls and, you know, and that was the tone scare like, every stage is so scary.

You know? It was it just it was just it was incredibly intimidating to

Steve: So tell me about your first deal.

David: Okay. So so we're, so I have a job. Right? Like, I can't like, who's gonna take calls? Right?

I'm gonna send out send out these postcards. And at the time so here's another course that I bought, Marco Rubell's foreclosure riches or something. And he had this course where you would upload your your list of people, and and it would mail merge it. Very high-tech. Right?

Obviously, my wife's the brains of the operation. She did that. And, it would print out these letters, and and you would put them in the envelope. It would actually barcode them so you could if it came back, you could scan it and skip trace. I'm very, very, very revolutionary at the time.

Yeah. So I had I had his course. I, like, I bought a lot of courses, man. And then I also subscribed to foreclosures daily Mhmm. Out of out of Florida.

So what was happening and this is a different time. Right? This is now we're, you know, maybe five, six, seven. Like, there's a lot of foreclosures. Everybody's, like, talking about foreclosures, and we're gonna buy them sub two and all of that.

Nobody knew what was coming, but that's where we were at the time. So subscribing to foreclosures daily every night at 10:00 for whatever counties you subscribe to, your list is now online. They literally had somebody who went to the courthouse every single day in all the counties, and they would upload this information. My wife would go in there at 10PM, download the list, put it in a Marco Revell's profit finder, spit out the letters. She would lick them, stamp them, but, like, she did that part, and I would drop them at the post office on on the way way to work.

So good and bad. We were very quick. We were very proactive. The bad news is sometimes our letters got there before the list pendants, and then that created some interesting calls. But it is.

But,

Steve: What were some interesting calls?

David: My house isn't in foreclosure. I don't know why you're sending me this. I'm like, oh, so sorry. That's probably our mistake. Have you ever thought about selling?

Selling. So, you know, another thing that they they talked about at the Rio was a call center that would take your calls because that's what Rio's do. Right? We're here to they're here to provide solutions and and answers. And at the time, that was the only place you got education.

We did not have real estate disruptors to, you know, to do this. Right? None of this existed. So they talked about this company called VoiceConnect out of Atlanta. And similar to Pat Live, they'll answer, they'll do whatever script you want.

Awesome. So I'm running all of my all of my calls to them. That's the phone number. They pick it up, and they're like, hey. Thank you for calling Baystate Investments.

That was our company at the time. Do you have a house that you like to sell? And they would ask a bunch of questions. So literally, I remember coming home, and I had three leads that day. Three leads.

So it's 07:00 at night, and I'm sitting there, and I'm looking out the glass at the pool. And I I remember this, a wood grain table, and I printed off three leads. And I sat there, Steve, and I'm like, I start comping. And I'm like, oh, I don't know. This one's not gonna be good.

This one This one's probably never gonna sell to me. Right? You know what's happening. Right? Yeah.

This defense mechanism in my brain, I'm like

Steve: You're you're talking yourself out

David: of it. Myself right out of it. And then, you know, this this one, that's stupid. That's a bad ear. Like, I'm I'm doing all of these things.

And then in the back of my mind, I remember this conversation, when I worked in Vero Beach, Florida as an assistant manager way back in the day. I I shared an office with a corporate recruiter. This guy's name was Leo, and he told me the story about, when he was a young buck. Like, he was, like, 70, 60 at the time. So we're guys probably not alive now, but he's like, my boss told me pick up that phone and with lady with profanity and never put that phone down.

If he ever saw me put that phone down, he was gonna duct tape it to the side of my head. He's like, all I wanna see you doing

Steve: is dialing.

David: Right. So that's that, like, this one of those things that stuck in my head. I'm like, oh, I gotta pick up I just gotta pick up the phone and just do this. Right? I just gotta do this.

And no matter what course you take or who you talk to, they're like, you gotta work through that initial fear. Right? You have to you have to, you know, do that. So, like, I just would just pick up the phone and start calling. Calling.

Calling. So my first my first, the first sub two deal that I bought, that wasn't a house that we bought to fix up and live in and all of that. 930 Tappan Circle in Orange City Orange City Orange City, Florida. Right. So I go to this house, and this, guy and his wife had inherited the house from, his dad who had passed away.

Cool. Two mortgages on the house. So I'm using Chris Kirschner's autopilot. He's got this this form, this amazing form, and it, the idea is you go walk go to the house. You walk around.

Hey. Tell me what's going on. Okay. Let's do this. Let's let's let's see what we can purchase your house for.

So it starts at the top, ARV. Right? And then it's got all these lines, and it's rocket science at the time, man. So it's like, hey. So let's talk about you know, this is this is what we think the house is worth.

Let's talk about the repairs. Right? So, and then at the bottom is what do you owe, and then it says what's your equity. Right? Because we're trying to shrink down to what the equity is, and then we're gonna negotiate off of that.

So here's here's the out of body experience. I'm nervous as the day is long. I remember exactly where I was standing in the kitchen. We're all on the counter, and I've got this this paper. Now before I went there, this software that we had, we preprinted out with what it thought was acceptable and what you should make the offer.

So I go there, and I've got all this in my head, but we've got a blank line. I'm like, okay. So what do you think for you know, do we need a new roof? No. We don't need a roof.

Okay. But we need to paint. Right? So what do you think it would cost to paint? And every number that I had in my head, he was shooting higher.

Like, I know what he's doing, and he's just trying to be really helpful. But if my number was gonna be five and he's telling me eight while he's reducing his equity, you're right all the way down the line. And then he's he's an electrician. I remember that. And there was this old shed out there, and I said, so what about the shed?

He's like, oh, man. You're definitely gonna need to run power to that shed. I'm like, okay. Like, what do you think that'll cost? Probably another 1,500.

I'm like, okay. Like, I couldn't even spit the words out. So, like, I'm like, it's every every part of me is I'm trying not to shake, and they're giving me this number. So whatever it was, but we had the two more or the the ARV, all the repairs, then the mortgage balance, and it was maybe 20,000. I don't know.

Whatever whatever the number was. And I said, okay. But now he's messed up all like, I was ready to make an offer right then, but now I'm all kaboggled out. Right? Like, I don't even know.

I'm nervous. Like, here's what I'm gonna do. I think his name was Joe. I said, Joe, let me do this. Let me go out let me go out and call my partner and I don't I'm not sure we can make this work, but let me go out and and call my partner and see what what we can do.

Is that cool? Do you have just a minute? Okay. So I go out to the car, close the door, turn it on. I call my wife.

She's like, how's it going? I'm like, I don't know. I know different. It's not what I expected. It's not what they told me on the on the CD at all.

She's like, what do you mean? Like, he gave me higher numbers. I don't know what to do. She's like, well, just fix it, dummy. I'm like, okay.

So I'm like, I'm like, okay. So I I I think I've got it figured out. So I hop out of the car, and I walk back into the driveway. And here's the way that the way that they made the offers. I said, okay.

So here's your equity. Right? So we'll pay you the whole thing was sub two. Right? So we're we'll, you know, I'll I'll pay you this much for the house in cash.

Right? Well, that doesn't cover that doesn't cover the mortgage. Okay. So so we know that's our second offer might be a little bit of money down, couple thousand dollars. I'll take over your mortgage, and I'll give you this much money at the end in a balloon.

And the third was like zero down, take over your mortgage, and I'll give you more money as a balloon. So, they look at it, and they're like, okay. Yeah. We'll we'll do this one. I'm like, oh, you you know what, man?

That's the number everybody picks. I didn't even know what I was doing. Right? But I'm anchoring them to the like, I didn't even know. I'm like, oh, man.

You know what? Number two? That's what everybody picks. It's really crazy. Yeah.

And they're like, yeah. Okay. Do you have the you have a contract we can sign? I'm like, yes. Yes.

I do. Hold on. Let me go back to the card. Back in those days, we had to carry around, like, these briefcases with every possible contract that you could ever have. Right?

Because no iPads. So we did it. We signed the contract. I did no deposit. Oh, I did a deposit, but as a promissory note Mhmm.

Because that's what my guy taught me to do. They didn't care. Like, it was the craziest thing ever. Yeah. Like, it the whole part of it felt like an out of body experience.

And, like, I just left there like, worked. The thing worked. They said do the thing, and the thing worked. It was crazy. Oh.

That was my first one. That

Steve: was your first one. Yeah. Now my question for you

David: Yeah.

Steve: Because you were saying, you know, when you buy your REO from Wells Fargo Yeah. People had no idea what's happening. No. And then you guys start buying all these properties sub two. Yeah.

And then this little recession came along.

David: This little thing. This little thing. Yeah.

Steve: How did that impact

David: your business? It it it financially devastated us. Right? So So

Steve: where were you guys at before the recession?

David: We were doing good. You know, we were we were flipping, like, two a year, right, plus the one we were living in. So, you know, I had a great job. I was making, probably back then, 70,000. My wife had a good job, maybe $50.60 like, we were doing good.

Mhmm. And then we would pop these rehabs for $2,030,000. So we're we're doing good. But you know what the problem with that is? You know how much of that you're saving?

Like, zero. Like, zero. And you're also paying you know, not saving for taxes. Mhmm. So, yeah, we were living great, but we had nothing ongoing, nothing residual, nothing like, nothing.

Like so, you know, the money comes in, and it's very easy to spend $30,000. Like, for those of you that think it's a lot, it's I could blow through 30,000 in the next two days. Right? You know, a little bit of coaching, you know, some some PPC. Like, it's very easy to burn through it.

So, so what happened? So we're on this train, and, you know, we're doing all of these rehabs. And we did a really big one, and it didn't sell, like, when it was hot. Like, it was kinda hot like it was two years ago. Like, your dog could put a sign in front of the house.

Like, you were nothing special. Right? Like, everything was selling. Selling for a different reason. Now what what's selling now is because there's it's a demand issue.

Back then, it was just money was free and literally, like, the movie strippers were going out and putting $500 down on a house to make 20. Right? It was ridiculous. Everybody was doing it. And, so when when the stop happened, I bought this last house, 742 Trafalgar Street in Deltona, Florida.

And so I bought this house. It was a referral. It was a probate deal. Guy just passed away. I actually bought it from he left his house to the VFW, and I bought it from them.

So, Deltona, Florida, every house is the same. Kinda like here, like an older part of Phoenix. Right? They're all ranch. They're look really similar.

So I look at my house. I got it for 97,000. My comps, one block over, two blocks down, $2.17. I bought it in July '8. Good comp.

Like, good comp. So, and at this point, we'd we'd already kind of figured we were gonna get out or start investing someplace else. We didn't know if we were gonna move. So, so we contract this house. And back then, I was younger and skinnier and did all the rehabbing myself.

Right? Scraping popcorn, laying tile, actually built the cabinets, or, you know, out of a box, ready to assemble. I did make the countertops with, like, a a router and laminate. Like, I did it all. So I finished this house in, like, early early November or late October.

Call my realtor, and she's a different realtor. She's like, hey, man. You know, let's not put this on the market till January because, you know, it's kinda slow, the holidays. We don't wanna build up a bunch of days on market and, you know, just have the sink sitting there. Okay.

Cool. Well, in this amount of time, my wife has gotten laid off. She was a purchasing manager for, a custom home builder. Okay. Like, that ain't great.

Not good, but we're gonna sell this house and we're gonna at this point, we I think we decided we were moving to Chattanooga. Some other stuff had happened. So January comes around, call a realtor. Shana was her name. Shana comes over, and she says, dude, you did a great job.

I know. Like, it looks really good. I'm like, yeah. I know. That's what I do.

That's my thing. I'm like, cool. What can we get for it? She goes, well and she starts opening the book. Right?

The book with the you know, this is before this. Right? It's like, well, this one over here just sold for 97, and this one just sold for $1.10, and this one and this one and this one and this one. I'm like, oh, well, that sucks. But my house is better because

Steve: Of course.

David: Because I'm I'm a smart new investor. Right? You're right. So myself new. Yeah.

Yeah. Still consider myself new. She goes, I think we can really get, like, $1.45. One block over two blocks. $2.07 $2.17, six months ago.

Mhmm. Like, yeah. Well, now there's all these foreclosures. What we didn't realize is all of these people that we've been marketing to for the last three years. Guess what happened?

The banks the banks started flooding the market. Mhmm. Bad timing. Like, this is the definition of bad timing. Mhmm.

Oh my but my house is better. Like, I'm remodeled. That like, those people moved out, and there's still, like, dirty clothes in the corner. She's like, yeah. It doesn't matter.

I'm like, but my house is better. Don't you understand? She's like, what do you wanna do, man? I'm like, one fifty five. Mhmm.

Dude, I thought I was being the most magnanimous SOB that's ever walked the earth. Like, I'm thinking I'm giving somebody just a $50,000 steal. He's like, okay. Because she's a listing agent. What does she care?

Sign in the yard. She's like, I'm out. So it's January. No calls. Like, not even a call.

And I'm I I feel like I'm a good, like, client. I don't burn you up every day. Maybe once every two weeks we're talking, but, like, I know my job is running out. Like, I was a salesperson for eighty four Lumber. You know, the recession hit.

People stopped building. Like, my my days were coming. So at the end of the first month, I'm like, hey. What should we do? She's like, oh, man.

What do you wanna do? Do you wanna sell it? I'm like, yeah. Like, you're gonna have to drop the price. I'm like, $1.47 5.

She's like, okay. I'm like, but you said $1.45. She's like, well, that was last month. Like, what is it this month? She's like, you know, $1.30 something.

I'm like, $1.47 5. Again, like, still, they haven't broken me yet. Right? Like, optimism still reigns supreme. Mhmm.

So another month, I get there's a couple of calls at least, but no showings. So at the end of that month, I'm like, alright. Like, I gotta, like, I gotta, like, I gotta move. Like, I gotta go. Like, now we bought two houses sub two in Chattanooga.

Like, we're we're we know we're moving. And, she's like, you gotta drop it again. I'm like, to what? He's like, maybe, like, 1119. 217.

Like, what are we talking about here? And here's the analogy I wanna give you. Like, to to picture what happens at a real falling market, which drove me crazy this last year when people are like, we're in a recession. We are not in a recession. Let me just tell you.

It's a fat kid chasing a tennis ball down the hill. Right? That price is dropping so fast. You can't catch it. The fat kid is like, like, sooner or later, you're the ball rolling next to the ball.

Right? Like like, you can't catch it in a falling market. It's like trying to catch knives. Mhmm. You you can't get in front of you have to take such a drastic price cut to get in front of it Mhmm.

To get to where you're gonna be appealing. And this is what I did. I chased chased chased chased. So finally, now I'm like, alright, baby boy. There's gotta be an answer here.

Well, you know how to sell houses. You've been to a million real estate things. You've got a course on how to sell your house in seven days, right, which was a course. So I what did I do? I went back to what I do.

I went out and got banded signs. I went and put signs all over town, said, Deltona, three bedroom, two bath, owner will finance with $5,000 down. Because, like, time's up. Like, like, my job is over. Like, I I've gotta move or, like, it had to happen.

So I did end up finding, a lease option buyer who gave us $5,000, and we literally packed up our stuff. That was the only five by this point, that was all only $5 that we had left. Mhmm. That was it.

Steve: Really?

David: Yeah. So you've all seen those memes of burning the boats. Like, we're gonna burn the boats and take the shore, so there's no retreat. That sounds awesome. And people, when I tell this story, they're like, it's so empowering.

It's so awesome. No. It was dumb. It was dumb. I moved to a city where I didn't know anybody to do real estate with a wife, two boys, and three fat dogs.

Mhmm. And knew nobody with $5,000. It was the most irresponsible thing ever. Yeah. Like, surely, I could have just kept the house and found another job.

Mhmm. But then we were in Chattanooga, and that's you know, things change up there.

Steve: So then when did you start your whole, you know, acquiring properties? Yeah. Was that, like, when you went to Chattanooga?

David: Yeah. Yeah. Because we I mean, basically, everything you know, we had just flipped some houses in in, in Orlando. And interestingly, you know, out of all those courses and boot camps I took, I took a week long course with, this guy. His name is Jason Rodriguez.

He's out of New Jersey now. But so it was a whole week long course on how to wholesale. Like, I can do this. Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

David: So so they teach bandit signs. Right? So I I and I bought bandit signs, and I bought the postcards, different color postcards for different man whatever. So I go out, and I try to try to do wholesaling. And, like, I was supposed to put a sign at every intersection, but because I'm so smart, you know, I put eight at every two, like like, every up and down 1792 from from Deland to, like, Orlando.

And, like, my wife and I were out all night long and, putting out these dopey signs. And, like, I get home, get to sleep, like, 09:00 in the morning. Hi. This is sergeant. Joe, whatever.

Dude, what are you doing? I'm like, I was trying to buy some houses. Come get these signs. So the the funny story was, like, yeah. Oh, I had to go pick them up.

Twice in my life, I've had to do that. It's the most humiliating thing ever. But I tried wholesaling in in Orlando, and it didn't work. It didn't work. Right?

Which is interesting now for a guy who's wholesale 1,600 houses. Right? But, like, I was that guy who tried it, and and it just didn't work. I didn't work. Right?

Mhmm. I was making money. I didn't need it to work was really what the truth was. Yeah. So so we moved to Chattanooga, and, you know, I had this fantasy, like, oh, because now I've read Rich Dad.

I've been I've been around real estate. Like, I wanna go there and buy apartment units and, you know, and duplexes and multifamilies. And, like, I wanna level up like every investor. Right? I wanna go from the single family to the you know?

So go to Chattanooga. And, like, again, let's get into the way back machine. What's going on in June 2009? Banks are taking properties back. They are not have zero interest in lending unless you have an eight fifty credit score.

Yeah. Like, they have no money to lend. Right? Because that didn't come or, you know, their lendability. So, like, that's out.

I said, well, let's wholesale. Like, we'll we're gonna figure this out. And, got extremely focused. Like, focus like like you've never seen focus. Mhmm.

Real estate was the first thing I thought about. In the morning, it was I went out driving for dollars all day. I came back and brought my wife a list. You know? My brother actually moved up there with me, so the three of us were doing this together.

It was the last thing I thought about. Like, we were very focused and got our first deal within a couple of weeks.

Steve: Okay.

David: So we got really good at lead gen. Right? We did old school. Door knocking, bandit signs, yellow letters, Chris Chico's postcard, which I told Chris Chico, I've never figured out how to make that stupid postcard template that he has work, but we figured something out. But yeah.

So we we we were broke. Like, we had $5,000. Like, we we weren't even good enough to be considered broke. We we were half of broke, but we had to figure out a way to do it. Like, we had to be resourceful and kinda bootstrap our way into doing it.

So, like, we would buy blank band of tines. We'd drive all the way to Birmingham to buy them from a supplier, come back, and I would handwrite them all week. And we'd go out every Friday night and put out a 100 band of tines every single Friday night. And then during the day, we're driving for dollars, and we were doing whatever we could to

Steve: You're forcing it.

David: We we we I

Steve: was forced.

David: Yeah. Like, you can do that. Like, if somebody, you know, held a gun to your head and or you're gonna get your dog today, if you don't go find a deal today, I will leave here. I will go find a deal, and I will be back by 05:00. We will have a deal.

Right? You can you can go you can go do it. You can go force it.

Steve: Yeah. So but that was the beginning of you starting to build your portfolio.

David: So what happened is we're generating a lot of leads. We're throwing out a huge net. We're bringing it in. And, again, not every seller can take a cash offer. Right?

So here's one of the things we learned, which kinda leads directly into into the the buying properties. So what was the thing that we were marketing in in Florida? Well, I came up in in, you know, the list I was pulling, I was trying to do the same thing preforeclosure. Well, remember, $2.17. Right?

The real price, I woulda had to wholesale that buy. That was 70 to sell it for 90. Right? Well, now we're in the middle of the recession. Trying to wholesale like a normal a normal property is a is a struggle because they owe more than you can wholesale for.

Steve: Right.

David: So that's beating your head against the wall. So I remembered something. I said you know, again, because I'm always thinking, like, there's always a way. Right? There's always a way to to fix fix whatever your problem is.

I said, so I can't I gotta be careful who I'm marketing to. Who do I wanna mark to? I said, you know what? I remember somebody at a at a RIA meeting talking about this. And I'll ask you, do you know what you may you probably know.

Do you know what the percentage of free and clear houses are in The United States?

Steve: Like, 30%.

David: Anywhere between thirty eight and forty two. Yeah. Pretty high. Most people don't don't guess that. So I thought self

Steve: I was a realtor for some time as well.

David: Here you go. I said, so self, if we're gonna pull a list and market to anybody, why don't we at least market to a free and clear person?

Steve: Equity.

David: Well, because they can take it wasn't even equity. It's they can take whatever offer I can give. They I'm not saying they want it, but I can at least take the and it's not like, oh, I can't do that. Right? Because even back then, like, nobody would even want to sub to something that was 30,000 in the whole.

God, if we'd known, we would have bought them all. Right? But you don't know what you know. So I said to myself, okay. So we're gonna start we're gonna start marketing to free and clear properties.

So here's where here's where everything changed for me. So we start going out on all of these these appointments. Right? Going to talk to the seller and, say, okay. Well, you know, here here's what I could pay you.

Here's what your house qualifies for a cash offer. Okay? Well, can't take that. Okay. Well, because, you know, when the Rapport building and the information gathering, we're we're getting enough information, and I know that you own the house free and clear.

I'd be like, well, Steve, like, that's, you know, that's really the best that I can do. I'm like, but you you said you really need to sell because you're moving to Florida. Yeah. I I am. Like, well, Yes.

You question. Do you need all the money at once? No. Well, man, I really prefer to buy these these like, listen. I'd rather buy cash and be done with it.

Right? But I might have a way that we can make this work. If you don't need all the money at once let me do this. Let Let me run back to my office. Let me work up a couple couple different ways that we could do this.

Can I give you a call? Or if you you can follow me to the office, and we can we can try to figure this out. But I know I know you said you really wanna move and, you know, your your cat has psoriasis and you need to get to Florida. I think we might be able to work something out. You got give give me, like, an hour.

Let me let me work some stuff up, and I'll I'll give you a call or I can come back over. How's that how's that sound? Cool. Great. So so what happened was on any out of ten ten calls, what's a good number?

Getting one contract out of 10. Right? 10 good leads. Yeah. Right?

That's good. Well, what do you do with the other nine?

Steve: You have to come up with a different strategy.

David: Need a different strategy. Right? Well, let's let's assume I'm I'm calling 10 people who own free and clear. You know, they they may not for whatever reason, they may not want my cash offer. Right?

Yeah. Sometimes it's pride, vanity, whatever. Right? There's a lot of reasons why people do or don't take offers. But now I have something where I can pitch a second like that.

Now I get a second pitch. Mhmm. You get

Steve: a second bite of the apple.

David: Second bite. Perfect. Right? So and and the way I do it, like, it's the running game of football. I wanna slow down.

Right? Because the way I when I teach it to people, the way I explain it, this is all very easy for us. Like, we can all talk in, like, very highball. Like, oh, we're gonna do right we're gonna wrap wrap around, and we're gonna do all these different crazy things. But to your seller, this is the first time they've ever thought about it.

Right? Yeah. They typically they only sell two or three houses in their lifetime. So we you gotta grind it out. So when I say it, like, like, I need to be able to see the thought bubbles connecting above your head when I'm like and that's gotta be in super simple terms.

Right? Like and that's like that's like the defense mechanism because also I get very nervous. So I'm always like let me think. Because it's giving me a chance to calm down too. Right?

Need all the money at once. So here's what would happen. Here's how we started building the portfolio. So we're talking to these people, and sometimes it's literally a woman who has a rental, and she's leaving town, like, or, like, whatever the situation was. And and there are two big packages that that made up the bulk of our portfolio.

But, I would go back, and I would bring them I would make them an offer. And we did buy some substitutes. Right? But the bulk of them were straight owner financing. And, I would come back and just like with my guy, Joe, three offers.

But I took that understanding that that knowledge that I got out of that course, and I twisted it a little bit and adjusted it for what I was doing. I took what was useful and So so now I'm making them three offers, and I'm gonna tell you exactly how to do this. So so you get some value and you can go do this on your own because you can implement this into your wholesale company, anybody's wholesale company tomorrow. So, the first offer is exactly what they're asking, 100% financed. So you want seventy, hundred and seventy, whatever.

Pick your number. I'm gonna give it all to you, you know, zero, you know, zero down, 5% interest for twenty years. Right? However you wanna work out the math. Middle offer or the let's say the bottom offer is gonna be my wholesale cash offer because that's still my offer.

And in the middle, something in between, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000. I don't like to put a lot of money down. I like to be in deal because I was broke. Right? Like, let's not forget.

Like, I'll tell you a story about my first two that I bought. I had to borrow the the $4,000 for two houses. 2,000 and 2,000. 2,500, 1,000. I'm gonna give you a little a little bit of money down, and maybe instead of $1.70, you know, I'm gonna give you $1.65 $1.55.

Right? So I'm gonna drop my price, you know, to give to get. I'm gonna give you a little bit of money, but my price is gonna come down. Maybe my interest rate goes down a percentage. So on the top one, it's, hey.

You want I'll give you one seven. Whatever the numbers work out. It'll be. Hey. 170,000.

Seller will finance the full purchase price to the buyer at 5% interest over twenty years for an approximate payment of, you know, $1,200 for a total payout, 235,000 in bold. Mhmm. Because that's what I want them to see. Yeah. Second one will be, you know, let's just say $5,000 down, seller will finance.

Let's say we're gonna do a 155 purchase price. Seller will finance 150,000 to the buyer at 4% interest over fifteen years for a for approximate payment and a total payment, again, bold, or my third offer, which is cash. So when I'm presenting it alright, Steve. So I come up with a couple different ways to do this. I think you're gonna like it.

I know you were looking for $1.70, but I found a way to get you $2.40. Would I don't know if you're gonna be interested in that. So here's what that one is. Then, I've got one where we're gonna give you a little bit of money upfront because you may need some moving money. Or, of course, you know, I've got my cash off which we can close, and and we can be done with this, whichever whichever one of those work for you.

And which one do you think they pick?

Steve: Middle one.

David: Doesn't matter. I don't care because I wrote them all. Right. But you know what I do say every time?

Steve: That's exactly

David: what I was That's what everybody picks. Yeah. Because I I want them to to feel good. I don't want them to them to have buyer's remorse or seller's remorse the minute they leave. Right.

Right? I wanna anchor them again to, hey. This is a good idea, and what you did was the right thing. Mhmm. Right?

So that's how we started buying a lot of properties. A lot of properties.

Steve: And that was predominantly marketing to people free and clear?

David: Free and clear plus what we would get on bandit signs. Like, you know, before you go out on an appointment, you know you know what the situation is. Right? So, I mean, the dream world is every person we talked to was free and clear. But we did market to every free and clear buyer or owner in Chattanooga.

And here's what happens in sales. Sure you talk about this in your course. Gotta get up to the plate every day and take swings. Yeah. Every single day.

So one day, I get this call. I got two calls like this in my career. Two of them. I got this call, and this guy says, hey. Got your postcard.

I wanna sell. I've got 27 doors I wanna sell. What's your initial thought? Like, your brain goes in that. I can't do anything.

What am I doing? This is I

Steve: don't have

David: I don't have the band. I Yeah. Right? I can't do this. I'm like, alright.

His name was Tommy. Alright, Tommy. What are you asking? 1,100,000.0. What why am I on this call?

Right? Yeah. I'm like, alright. Can you you Tommy, I mean, I'm I'm gonna need, like, all the rents. I'm gonna need a lot of information.

Can you email it to me? Yep. I have it on a spreadsheet. I'll email it right now. Okay.

Cool, man. Let me take a look at it, and, and we'll go from there. But, man, I I you're looking for a 1.1 cash? That'd be great. I'm like, I gotta be honest with you.

You know? From the way you're describing it, it doesn't sound like I've got you know, that I can pay 1,100,000.0. You know? Would you be open to financing? Yes.

Absolutely. Oh, k. We'll send them over. Let me take a look. Oh, now Davey boy's attention has changed.

Right? So I still don't know what, though. Right? Like, I have no idea, like, what he's talking about. So he sends me the this list.

It is 27 doors. You know? I don't know how many properties, duplexes, an eight unit, a six unit, some vacant land. So I get in my car and I run around, and over two days, I drive by all these properties. I'm like, they're not great, but they're cash flowing.

Mhmm. So, so I called him. I said, hey. You wanna come by the office? Bring your wife.

And, sitting there, we're talking to him, and he's an old guy. I'm like, so tell me, man, yeah, they're making money. Like, they're rented. What why are you selling it? Like, why would you why why would you wanna sell them?

Well, he said, I I I survived about with cancer, brain cancer. He's like, and I've been diagnosed a second time. He said, and he's he's like, you know, they they've given me less than six months. You know, my wife has never managed the properties, and, you know, I need to sell them to somebody reliable that I know will make a payment to her every single month. Okay.

Okay, man. Let's do this. Is there a time where we can take a day or two and, like, go visit these properties? And here's the deal we struck. We gave him 100% of what he was asking for at 4% interest on a 17 term, zero money down, and we actually got $10,000 of closing.

So that's the grand slam deal. Mhmm. Right? I remember I do remember this. I'm in my old beat up work truck.

I had a Ford Ranger, my dad's Ford Ranger. I'm driving to the title company in painted jeans, like a T shirt, and I'm like, I should be dressed better to go buy a million dollars worth of houses. Right? Like, I feel like I should be dressed better. But, again, this goes back to where we started.

What was my what was my seller's problem? What was their issue? What was the pain that I could solve? Well, I I had that. Like, I had that in the bad belt that I you know, we could, you know, we could we could solve.

Yeah. We we could solve that problem. So we still have those properties today. They have easily quadrupled in value. Mhmm.

Easily. They're right by the university. I've got they've they've done great great for us. Yeah. So so that was that's and we had a couple other deals like that.

Steve: That was one of them.

David: That was one. You want the other one?

Steve: The other one.

David: Very similar. This one was actually before. I'm at this house, the very first house that we bought, it's up to, and, it had, like, this little I remember there's a driveway and had, like, this rock wall. And I remember I'm out there taking a call, and I'm walking back and forth on the rock wall taking taking this call. And, this guy's name was Winston.

Mhmm. And he calls me, and he's like, hey. I've got a bunch of properties I need to sell. Some of them I took back from somebody that I owner financed, and you're a wholesaler. Right?

I'm like, yep. He's like, can you help me sell them? Like

Steve: He reached out to you as a wholesaler.

David: He knew I was a wholesaler. He knew. Like, this guy, he had had over a 100 properties at one point. Okay. Very savvy guy.

Oh, great, like, old school, southern, overalls. He worked for DuPont. He was an engineer. But he he bootstrapped his way up and had had over a 100 properties at one point. And he had owner financed some to somebody, this shyster in town who screwed him and he had to foreclose on.

He had a lot of issues. Mhmm. But he had a bunch of vacant properties. And he said, hey. I need to sell these.

I'm just looking to cash out. Okay. So I can do that. Are you are you interested in financing any of them to me? Yeah.

Maybe. Let's deal with these first couple first. I said, okay. Well, I'm going to sell them to somebody else. Right?

Like, I I mean, I'll just bring a buyer. So So we did that very quickly. We sold them, and we did fine. He did he got everything that he I mean, I literally just what do you want? I will I have the worst the worst negotiator ever.

Right?

Steve: We call it the RJ RJ Bates.

David: Yeah. Like, what? Taking. He was he was straight with me. I was straight with him.

Like, we actually became great friends. So I bought the first package of properties from him, a couple of duplexes. Back, I think six houses, six six structure or buildings, whatever, the first time. And he actually I did the same thing. I made him the offer and, with financing.

And he told he actually told me, no. This one, you're paying too much. You need to come down 10,000. This one over here needs to go up 5. This one's in my daughter's name.

Can you put it up 20 to balance it out? So very, very, very straight shooter. We bought a package from him, and then we bought another package, and then we helped him with some foreclosures. And his story, cancer survivor. Same eerily the same story.

His wife is the daintiest southern belle woman that you've ever met, miss Dorothy, and, we love her. And his his daughter actually had MS, and she was recently divorced. So neither one of them were gonna manage any of these properties. Like, they they had no ability to to do that. And me and Winston over a couple months became friends.

He was at the office quite a bit. Really cool guy. Had a lot of experience. Very knowledgeable. Just like, I remember one time he took us to one of his properties, and he's like, my brother and I were changing a Fluidmaster.

It's a dumbest story, but he's like, boy, what are you doing? You know, you could just hit this button and pull this part out and put that part in and boom, and you're done. You don't need to be taking the whole thing apart and doing all that kind of stuff. Like, just just a good guy, and we learn so much from him. And it's always fascinating.

Like, I would encourage people, like, talk to old time investors. They got so much knowledge that, you know

Steve: They know so much.

David: And just because they don't know the fanciest PPC nonsense out there, they're so smart, and and you can learn so much from them. But, but, anyways, so we bought, I don't know, like, 15 or 16 duplexes and single families and things from him too. And and that's, you know, probably 40% of our whole portfolio was those

Steve: two people. So it sounds like a good the takeaways here was really you weren't necessarily going after a portfolio. It was just in the process of marketing

David: That's just answering phone.

Steve: Deals

David: Answer on the phone.

Steve: Solving sellers' problems is is how you're able to do that.

David: Yeah. And, you know, but yes. Both of them, we we still talk to them. Like, the the one the girl that MS, she still kept a couple properties, and every so often, she'll be like, hey. Can you she's so sweet.

Can you you know, I need to write a letter to throw these tenants out. Can you help me? Like, we still, like, do what we can to help them, and they're good family friends.

Steve: And then somewhere along the way, people were putting me on to your dispositions course. Yeah. Yeah. Right? So, we have a dispositions course.

It was really more focused on the sales component is actual disposition process. But what talk to me about what you what someone would learn inside your dispositions course.

David: Yeah. So, again, you know, it's weird. All the things in my life, I never had any intention to to do the thing that that you you end up doing and being kind of successful at. So, for a long time, I did have some partners, and my side of the business was the disposition side. My partners handle marketing and and acquisition.

So I was the the dispo all the way through to the end of transactions. And I feel like I'm a little bit of a problem solver and pretty good at figuring stuff out. So I just I got pretty good at at doing dispositions. And

Steve: I would also add to that. You seem to be really good at creating relationships.

David: Thank you. Thank you. Where this came about was being in the cartel with investor lift. Right? I just kinda became that person that was like, Robert, we're always having an office hours, and we're talking about dispositions.

And that became, hey. Will you fly out here and teach our team how you do it? K. I don't really love that, but okay. So I I started I I did this little short course, you know, for investors, and we did it over Zoom.

And then what happened was and that was, like, for owners of wholesale companies. I'm gonna teach you some stuff about Dyspo. And then that became, well, can we come to your office and learn? Mhmm. But you obviously, you get that.

Right?

Steve: Yeah.

David: I'm like, it's not that exciting. It's just an office. But sure. And people paid, like, $4,000. We held this event called Dispo Exposed.

It was Disposition Expo, Dispo, Secrets Exposed, like, kind of a little play on words. Mhmm. So I'm like, okay. So we had a we had a room full of people for that. And here's what I discovered.

People didn't want me like, you didn't want me to teach you. You just wanted me to teach your people. Mhmm. Right? And they would ask me that, like, hey.

When you're trading your dispo people, can you just record it? I'm like, it's me standing in front of a whiteboard as you know? So so here's what I did. I I brought my video guy up, and we spent a a couple weeks laying this out, like, the whole process. And we recorded I stepped back, and I said, okay.

You, the wholesale owner, you're gonna basically hire somebody in off the street. Maybe they sold cars. Maybe they sold Herbalife. Like, I don't know. But they probably don't know anything about real estate.

Right? So let's start the course at the most fundamental thing. What is wholesaling? Right? Like, I don't know if you've watched it, but what is wholesaling?

And then, like, let's talk about, like, the timeline of a deal. Right? Let's start super broad, and then we're gonna stack on top of that and get very, very specific. You know, how to build out ad copy and how to do, you know, all of the different things that we do in dispo and that we do in our team. So that became dispo team training.

So that became the course that we sold just a ton of. And, yeah, it's helped a lot of companies.

Steve: Yeah. So, at some point, we're gonna be talking about your transaction coordination.

David: That that company.

Steve: Yeah. The other company. But before we do that Yeah. You mentioned that there were some struggles where someone gets left out.

David: Yeah.

Steve: Right? Someone gets squeezed out when you're working a full time job. Yeah. And you're launching a business.

David: Yeah.

Steve: So it seems you know, it kinda seems like you you know, it's you're able to work through it, but it was a challenging time in your life.

David: Yeah. Yeah. And and I still have those challenges. So my superpower, if there's anything, I think the biggest one is that I'm incredibly focused. Mhmm.

It's just good and bad. You know? It's good and bad. You know, I've had people come into my offices. I remember this one.

Maybe a year and a half ago, he came in. He was sitting on the couch. He's like, oh, I wanna come in and meet you. We're just a local investor. I'm like, okay.

Cool. And we're talking and just I'm giving some advice, and he says, man, someday I hope I can I can be just like you? I'm like, woah. Woah. Woah.

Woah. Woah. You don't wanna be like me. Dude, this this is terrible. This is a squirrel's nest up here.

Mhmm. Like, yeah, it's great to be successful. I don't think people oftentimes realize the sacrifice that it takes. You know? The you know, when we went back to when we were just starting like, when I say it was the only thing we did, it was the only thing we did.

Like, you know, my kids were with me. Thank god it was summer. They were they thought it was cool to jump out of the back of the Jeep and run up and put a post it sign on a vacant house. Right? Like, they thought it was cool to get out and put up a sign.

My god. My kids thought they're not banana heads at the time. I love them. But, like, they were in for the journey, but, like, they were along, but, like, the journey was happening. Mhmm.

And, you know, it didn't come without sacrifices. And at the time, you get I made the excuse like, oh, I'm so focused on like, I've gotta build this thing, and I'm gonna do like, I'm gonna I'm building well, hustle and grind, and, you know, you trick yourself or I trick myself like, oh, I'm doing it for them, which is cool. If my airplane doesn't make it home, they are good. Right? Like, thank god they're good.

But, you know, like, I definitely have regrets over that. Like, you know, I miss some some years where, obviously, I was there, but didn't I didn't do all of the things that I wish I'd have done as a great dad. You know? Things that, like, my dad was very focused and, like, I can think of, like, three times and as a kid where we went outside and played ball. Right?

You're so dedicated to your kids. Gotta see you posted all the time. Like, I wasn't that kind of great dad. I mean, I was a good guy, good provider and all those things, but I don't think I did it's painful to say. But, you know, I don't I don't think I was the best dad.

Right?

Steve: Well, the reason why I'm asking you to talk about this Yeah. Is because we see all the successes. Right? We have the best operators come on to the show. Yeah.

David: We don't

Steve: spend a lot of time talking about the sacrifice necessary. So, like Yeah. Social media, everything just looks great.

David: Oh.

Steve: Right? We got It

David: should be.

Steve: Cars. We got the watches.

David: The watches, the Lambos. Right?

Steve: Vacations. Yeah. Right? But that's, like, the end product. Even then, even that end product might even be real.

Right?

David: Yeah.

Steve: So that's a whole different conversation. Right?

David: Conversation.

Steve: But let's just talk about, you know, to get to where you are today Yeah. David didn't pay the price. David's family paid the price.

David: 100%.

Steve: So let's talk about some of those lessons learned along the way because you said you got some regrets.

David: Yeah. And I don't know, you know, to say I would go back in time and do it different. I don't know that I had the skill set to do it. I don't know I don't know how I would have done a different maybe more time blocking. Like, I I don't I don't know I don't know that I was equipped to do it different like I am now.

Right? Now and let me preface this. Like, even though I worked a lot, especially once we got to Chattanooga, I I I did try to make sure that the time we spent together was peak quality time. Right? So, like, my wife again, god bless her for being on this journey with me and dealing with all my craziness.

But, you know, we work, work, work, work, work, work, but then we're going to Europe for ten days. And I'm gonna be as present as I possibly can. Obviously, you're still running a company, and that used to really bother her. We'd be on a cruise, and I'd be taking emails. And

Steve: My wife understands that.

David: She understands now. The first couple years I was

Steve: like, my wife my wife would recognize and understand what you're talking about.

David: Yeah. No, dude. This is a real thing. Like, I've talked to a lot of high level people, and, you know, and some of them are better. Right?

I I'm I'm obviously not the don't this is why I told that kid don't strive to be like me because there are so many things I wish I could have done better or read a book or figured out something, a better way to do it, but it was a way that I dealt with it. Yeah. You know? And So

Steve: I wanna ask you in two different Yep. Parts here. First, what are the regrets?

David: Yeah.

Steve: And then what you know now, what would you do differently? So start with the regrets.

David: So the regrets are that, you know, I don't feel like I was the best dad and husband. Right? Like, I could have been there more. You know, they're the way my my brain works, just it works like it works. So I'm always very focused on what what's, you know, what's happening today, and what are the next four things, and I need to be thinking about that.

And

Steve: What are the problems that need to be need to be solved right now?

David: Right. And then what's what are the future things? And, you know, you're always gaming things out. And where that affects me is I'm walking into Walmart with my wife, and I'm thinking I'm thinking I'm thinking I need to grab her hand. I need to grab hold of my wife.

You like you like, I have to and, again, I don't, you know, I don't think that any of this is a good trait. So, like, this is the terrible trait. Oh, okay. I need to do this. Right?

Like, I have to do this. I have to go home early tonight. I've worked late for three nights. I need to go home, and at least we just sit there. We watch TV.

Like, we do something together. So that's where I've gotten a little bit better. So the regrets yeah, that's it. You know, could I have done more? Of course.

Like, you can always do more. I don't know what that sacrifice would have done, though. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what would but I you know, you're you're looking to go back in time and change the cookie recipe.

Mhmm. You know, what's going to come out? You know, you may get gingerbread instead of peanut butter. Right? Like, I don't know.

Like, I don't know what that that change would be. Are they specific? So that's a regret. Like, I have a couple of regrets in life. That's one of them.

Steve: Are there any specific instances? I I know I'm trying to remember. There's a person that was on the show. Was talking like he was running a Ria. Mhmm.

Right? And, like

David: Zach Childress?

Steve: No. It wasn't Zach. Okay. It was someone on the show. And, I remember he was saying, like, he was at a meetup.

His wife was calling him, and he didn't take the call. Yes. And he found out

David: It's a I know what you mean.

Steve: Right? Yes. But he found out, like, their son needed to go to the ER that night. Yeah. And he wasn't there because he was at the RIA.

David: Yeah. I don't know if there's anything that drastic. I just think, you know, not being there and and, you know, obviously, we're there. We all live in the same house, but not, you know, be as engaged in the the day to day stuff. Mhmm.

Right? And a little bit of that's my personality. I'm very like, tell me what's wrong. We'll fix it. You know?

Like, I told you, we were like, if we're on an if we're on a plane and the plane's going down, I'm like, okay. I'm gonna be the guy that gets up and goes to the front and says, let's figure this out. I'm not the guy that's gonna hold your hand and go, oh, it's gonna be okay, because that's just not it's not the way my brain works. Right? Again, it's a squirrel's nest up there.

I don't recommend it for anybody. Yeah. You know, could I have spent more time with them, you know, not, you know, get impatient and be like, okay. We're just sitting here, not doing anything, watching a movie. Like, there's something else I could be doing.

Right? Like, that's the kind of you know, the

Steve: The restlessness.

David: The restlessness. Like, oh, okay. This is awesome, but there's something else I could be doing. There's something I could be doing for the business. Or so how can I be moving that forward?

And I think that's where it kinda manifested itself the most. Yeah.

Steve: And I know, like, I've had the same exact situations. Like, my my friend, my best friend, I was telling him about this. Like, after three days in Hawaii with my my parents, her parents, our kids

David: Yeah.

Steve: After three days, like, I'm ready to go home. He's like, you need you need to see a therapist.

David: No. No. No. 100%. Like and and I we we joke about that, but the I think the things and this is my opinion.

I'm obviously not a not a psychologist, but I think the things in our brain, the way our brain is wired, the things that make us successful, like, you there is no balance. Right? We you've we've yeah. I know you've had that discussion before, but

Steve: We do our best.

David: We do our we we get better as we get older. But in the beginning, in that hustle and grind period, like, the the thing that allows you to shut off all of the other things and focus on, you know, moving forward and, you know, whatever success is and and whatever the goal is. Like, unfortunately, it blocks out everything. Mhmm. You know?

All of, you know, the family stuff and, you know, and I'm incredible. Even sometimes with my team, I'm very guilty of that. I'm like, just get to the just tell me the punch line. Like like, I need you know? You know?

They're or even they'll come in sometimes. They're like, hey. I'm like, just get just tell me tell me what part do you what's your question? What part do you need help with? Right?

Steve: It's funny, though. You're talking about the plane situation because, I was chaperoning for my daughter. We're going to science camp. Right? So we're gone for two that two days.

Yeah. Right? And on the way back, like, one of the kids got motion sickness, so he's just in the in in the the bathroom on the bus just Yeah. Losing it. Right?

I also know I have motion sickness. So I know staying back there is actually making

David: it worse. Right.

Steve: Right? So

David: Go to the middle, like, maybe the middle of the bus. Right?

Steve: Yeah. So all the all the other parents and the teachers, they're just kinda, like, doing nothing. I was like, okay. Well, this is not

David: And you can all you can hear is throughout the bus. Right?

Steve: So I take it upon myself, go to the front. It's like, hey. It's like, do you guys have a garbage can garbage can up here? I was like, okay. They do.

I go back. Like, I tell, and I I tell the dad of the kids, like, alright. Hey. Here's the garbage can. Here's the seat right next to the bus driver.

Just stare out at the front. This is gonna suck, but it's gonna suck less. Just staying

David: in the back. Something, man.

Steve: Yeah. And the other thing, you know, you're talking about staying so focused. So, I went out to Vegas, for, our anniversary myself and my wife. We we went to Vegas. We actually had dinner with, Ryan Pineda and his wife.

David: Love Ryan.

Steve: And and it was a great, great conversation. And I kinda chuckled at one part because Ryan's wife was like, Ryan is so focused on whatever he's focused on that when they're walking around in public, he just, like, bumps into people. He's just not even aware of what's going on

David: Yeah.

Steve: Because he's so focused. And some people look like, man, that's awesome. Other people are like, dude, what are you doing?

David: Yeah. Like

Steve: That's that trap. That's that's that

David: Dude, for the last two weeks, I wake up, like, three times a night thinking about work. Like, oh, you know, I'm gonna be like, oh, I need to write this down. I need to you know, I I I need to send myself an email. You know? Because it just it just it just doesn't shut off.

Mhmm. It ain't healthy. It's not good. Like, I recognize it's not

Steve: good. Yeah.

David: But, you know, it's the thing that got us where we are.

Steve: And And then somewhere along the way, you had this brilliant idea.

David: Yeah.

Steve: Let's start doing transaction coordinating for other people. Yeah. Of all the things, that doesn't sound terribly exciting for me personally. Sorry. No judgment.

No. Listen. Or a little bit of judgment, but that is a judgment. Yeah. Transaction coordinating, is that the thing that I'm, like, super excited about?

David: No. As nor should you be.

Steve: So where did this idea come from?

David: So it's so as we were scaling up our you know, any I think any idea or any business comes there's a lot of nuggets that kind of shoot into your brain, and then at some point, they kind of all congregate, and you're like, oh, I have this idea. I should do this. Well, so one of them was as we scaled up our nationwide wholesaling company, you know, we had a couple of coordinators. Well, first off, the struggle that I had alright. Let me just back up a little bit.

The struggle that I had when I was first starting, even before we went nationwide or went to multiple cities was I was literally working again eighteen hours a day because I have to do everything. Right? Because I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm the business guy, and I don't wanna hire VAs. And I gotta

Steve: That's the thing we were joking about before the show about how he needs therapy. Yes. I can't let go.

David: So much. So much therapy. But, but I'm at least self aware.

Steve: Yeah.

David: So, again, I'm working eighteen hours a day, and I'm juggling everything that possibly can be from marketing to acquisitions to dispo. Like, I you know, I'm doing all of the things. And, you know, at some point, I brought somebody in to help me with dispositions. Then I I said, well, maybe I can hire somebody to help me with transactions. I don't really know that I need that.

Mhmm. But let me try it. Well, so the first one wasn't great, but the second one I got was pretty good, and she's still with me. All of a sudden, I'm, you know, I'm disbowing, and I'm selling deals. And, you know, in the normal course of your day, dispositions for me, I'm selling my deal.

Okay. Now let me call the title company. Let me make copies of the contract. Let me get the MD. Let me let me do all of those things.

Oh, now I need stuff. You know, all of the things that that that go on. Well, now I'm just selling deals. I'm selling a deal. And when I get done with my deal, I'm like, here you go.

And I go sell my next deal, and I sell my next deal, and I sell my and now I'm doing, like, eight deals a month instead of five.

Steve: Awesome. Sounds like a high income activity.

David: Yeah. You think? And, all of a sudden, I'm like, I opened my checkbook and I'm like, or my my online banking. I'm like, where did this $28,000 come from? He's like, yeah, dummy.

That was that closing from four weeks ago. I'm like, oh my god. This is the greatest thing ever. Money just magically appears in my in my account, and I didn't have to do any of it. Mhmm.

And now I'm doing more deals and making more money and dealing with way less headaches. Yeah. Like, how is this not the greatest thing? Why did I not do this five years ago? So that as we started scaling up, now we have two coordinators.

Now we have three. Now we're an investor lift, and I'm talking about dispositions. And now people are calling me like, hey. I have this really weird deal. I don't know how to close it.

Oh, well, you should do this because I've been doing it for twenty years or eighteen years at the time. So I sort of became that go to guy for everything second half of the business, dispositions and transactions. And It's a

Steve: great blue ocean to be in.

David: It because it's pretty wide open. It's me and Jamille and Tony Mott. Right? Like it. There's three three of us swimming around in it.

And, so we started doing that, and then COVID hit. And we had we've gotten this new office, and I was I was gonna have part of it be, like, open workspace, which was the, again, the dumbest idea in the middle of a pandemic.

Steve: We were fell for the same thing.

David: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so we're kinda going along a little ways, and then all of a sudden, everybody's real estate got crazy.

They had let a bunch of people go. But now I've got some other cartel people, some investor people, my friends. Hey. You have an extra person. Can you help with some of these transactions?

I'm like like, well, yeah. I guess so. So we were we would do some transactions, and I I called a couple of them one time, Robert Wensley, a couple of the cartel guys, and I'm like, cartel is that highest level of investor lift. I'm like, and I'm kinda thinking about starting a transaction coordination company. They're like, well, that's stupid.

That's not gonna work. I'm like, you know, I think it will. I think it will. I think I kinda think it will. I've I've mapped it out on the whiteboard.

It's gonna work. And I'm like, you know, I I think I can do it. We're obviously good at it. We do it at a very high level. We're already wholesaling across the country.

Like, I think I can start a company where we'll help investors and wholesalers close their deal no matter what state they're in, all transaction types. That's stupid, never gonna work. It's dumb. Okay. Well, we're gonna try it.

Yeah. We're gonna try it. We're gonna try this. So, we, we launched it in October 2021, and, it's been really good since then. It's, it's actually really taken off.

And, you know, what our clients realize is the exact same thing that I realized. Oh my god. There's only so much time in the day that I can be doing this. You know, I need to outsource this or hire somebody. Like, you can 100% hire somebody and do everything we're doing.

Like Mhmm. Like, I will lay out exactly what we do, but it's a lot of stuff. Right? And, again, still, now you're interviewing, now you're hiring, now you're training, now you're managing a position that you probably don't know a whole lot about in the first place, or you can just let us help you do it. Mhmm.

Yeah.

Steve: And you were one of the first people I called.

David: You do. Yes. Right. Honestly, again, your number pops up on my phone. I'm like, what have I what in the universe have I done to be to be getting this call?

Oh my goodness. Who have I made mad?

Steve: Yeah. But you're one of the first people call because if we let our TC go Yeah. It's like, hey. Are you in are you in the market for a good TC? Mhmm.

Because if if you are Yeah. I got one that we just let go. And

David: would have loved to. But Right. For us, we do something that's a little bit unique is all of our coordinators work in office. Like, we I'm again, I'm that old guy. Right?

I believe in kind of people being around the campfire and being all in an office. I think they're more productive. So Oh,

Steve: I'm totally with you on that. I mean, you can see here, like, we have one office. I I believe in in office culture.

David: I do too.

Steve: And then but the second part of that conversation was like, hey. Will you be available to service us

David: Sure. When

Steve: we need your sir services?

David: 100%.

Steve: So, obviously, we wouldn't have you here if we didn't believe in what you guys have to do. Thank you. And then very, very recently, you guys crossed a $100,000,000 in transactions.

David: Yeah. Within the last somewhere in the last seven or eight days, we we yeah. That was a big milestone. We've been watching that for a long time. We we track everything.

We believe KPIs are very important. And, yeah, a 100,000,000 in enclosed transactions for our clients. No pretty I was a little emotional. I did a little video. I had actually, I haven't even posted it on Monday.

Monday with my team, we brought them breakfast and brought them all around, and we kinda read off the statistics. And, like, that's a big number. I'm so proud of them.

Steve: That's a milestone.

David: They are, you know, they are amazing, and that's what you want, you know, in a in a good transaction coordinator. Right? Like, I have the ability to like, let's, like, let's just regroup for a second. First of all, it's amazing to be here. Right?

First of all, to be here. You guys who aren't here, sorry. It's really cool. But, you know, to be able to just leave my my office and know that I've got an amazing team that's handling everything. Right?

Mhmm. Like, they do everything. When I say we, like, I'm the only owner, but it's my team. They are freaking awesome. I put them up against any team of any of the you know, throughout the country.

But, you know, because of them, you know, I'm able to be here and do this. And that's how our clients feel because somebody is behind the scenes making sure that their deals are getting closed. You know, they're able to go out and do what they wanna do, whether it's sit on the beach or do more deals.

Steve: It was a nationwide Nationwide. Transaction coordination company.

David: Yes. Yeah. And we were very intentional about it. We knew from the very beginning when we started that was what who we wanted to be. Right?

So, you know, I'm not a part time realtor that's kinda doing this on the side, doing 10 customers. Like like and there are a lot of them, and they're good. Like, you know, if you're just working, you know, in Fort Lauderdale and there's a local girl, you know, that's that's probably a fine solution. I think we're better and we're gonna be cheaper. I know we're better and we're going to be cheaper, but, yeah, we went out with the intention of, I wanna make sure if I'm the client.

Right? And I was the first client. Are you old enough to remember the HairClub for Men commercial? Yeah. Nobody ever remembers this.

Like, I feel like we should chop in that from YouTube. Right? So the HairClub for Men, this this guy would get on, and he would talk about, you know, hair implants. Right? Awesome.

I'm gonna need some too at some point at some point. But he would say, hey. Not only am I the owner, but I'm also a client.

Steve: Yeah.

David: We are these things that just stick in your mind. So when I created the company, like, I created it for me. And I'm a little bit of a dick. Like, I want stuff to be the way stuff's supposed to be because, like, I'm you. Like, I'm very good at putting myself in your position.

And what what do you expect and what high level of service are you gonna demand when you come to me? Right? Like like, I want it to be less than I demand because I demand very we're very customer focused.

Steve: Mhmm.

David: So that's how I look at the company. When I built it, like, what would I want? Right? And I've been lied to by every title company for twenty years. Like, we're gonna create this portal for you, and you're gonna be able to log in anytime and see your deal.

Well, with us, you can. Right? So, anyways, so it's just designed for me and, honestly, for my friends who all told me I was crazy. Mhmm. And, and they all love it now.

Steve: So who's the avatar?

David: So for us, we are not the we're not looking for newbies. We're not in the zero to one crowd. We we actually have a lot of clients that do start with us, and they haven't done their first deal. But our our avatar is somebody who's doing two to three deals Mhmm. Per month and is looking to scale up.

And here's what we tell them. At two to three deals, I will show you how this can be free, like free. I will teach you how to how to pass this charge on to your end buyer by by adding an administrative fee to your assignment or your end contract. And if you start doing more deals, you can turn this into a profit center. So not only are you getting rid of your biggest headache, like, the biggest I it is the biggest headache.

Right? The other big headache is trying to figure out PPC. Don't get into that mess. But you can take transactions completely off your plate, never deal with it again, and then start making money. I have guys that are doing consistently 15 deals a month.

We're making an additional 50,000 a year in revenue. Yeah. Pretty cool. Right? It's really cool.

Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Steve: Oh, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. And then you guys take it from dispo to close?

David: Here's here's no. We will take it from the moment that you go out and you have your contract with missus Smith. Right? So you, missus Smith, contracted. Hey, missus Smith.

Congratulations. We're now under contract. Here's the next step. Somebody from our transactions team is gonna reach out to you in the next twenty four hours, and they will handle everything from here to closing. Mhmm.

My team. Hey, mister Smith. I'm working with Steve, on your deal over 123 Main Street. Mister Smith, I'm gonna be your point of contact from here all the way to closing. So if you need anything, you can call me.

Here's Here's what we're gonna do. I need to collect some paperwork and some information for the title companies. We can get you paid just as quickly as possible. Do you have just a minute? Mhmm.

Great. And now we're gonna start to collect. We call it a seller information sheet. And for us, it's about four four or five pages long. And after doing 2,000 files, we know what the title company is gonna want.

Right? Whether it's debt, divorce, bankruptcy, taxes, whatever. Right? So based on the type of deal Mhmm. We know, oh, there's a different checklist for bankruptcy, dead people, whatever it is.

So we're gonna collect all of that information. So that's how we compress time and help you do more deals and, make more money because instead of you doing all of this at the end after you've got your buyer, we're sort of behind the curtain. Right? You're just doing your business, getting deals, getting getting them sold, sending them over to us. By the time you have your buyer, I've already got everything collected from her.

Mhmm. Right? And I have to assume that you give me your missus Smith's contract on Tuesday. I talked to her Wednesday. I assume Thursday, you've got a buyer.

Mhmm. Like, we have to be fast. Yeah. So that as soon as you give me your buyer, I'm gonna call your buyer. Go, hey, Joe.

Working with Steve. 123 Main Street. Hey, man. Looks like you're closing this in your LLC. Yeah.

Awesome, dude. I need your articles on corporation, your LLC docs, and you're closing this with RCN Capital. My boy, Tim. Awesome. I need your who's your contact over there so that I can get that over to the title company.

We'll get your deed of trust done. Let's get this thing closed out so you can get in there and start rehabbing it. Boom. That's what we're doing. So we're taking all of those contracts.

Once you've got them signed, give them to us. We will take it from there all the way to closing. If we need to go back and collect some information from somebody Yeah. No problem. But I just want the call to you to be, hey.

So you know, we're we're scheduled to close this on Tuesday.

Steve: Yeah. So I have to imagine 2,000 transactions in the last eighteen months, more or less. A lot of transactions. It was more than a 100 transactions a month.

David: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We we

Steve: you guys have streamlined the intake with the seller

David: Oh, yes.

Steve: Intake with the buyer Yeah. And managing escrow Yeah. Where they're closing where they're closing on time. Yeah.

David: It's a lot of it's a lot of moving parts.

Steve: So I got a good referral for you, I think.

David: Okay.

Steve: I think you gotta talk to RJ RJ Bates.

David: Yeah. Yeah. I've talked to RJ, and we were getting ready to start with him and and his students, and then he started doing the TV show.

Steve: Yeah. Alright. Well, I will I will make sure he talks to you because his number one frustration is title in escrow.

David: Yeah. I've talked to RJ. He he's the guy who doesn't wanna let it out of office. Yeah. You know?

Steve: Alright. So if any if you, you know, if this resonates with you guys, go check out realestatedisruptorstc.com. Yeah.

David: If you

Steve: wanna work with David, realestatedisruptorstc.com. So what does your life look like right now? Because you're never talking. Like, you get to travel. Just like, what does your life look like right now?

David: Well, let me from from everybody in my office, they think it's great. They're like, you get to travel, and you're going to all these cool places, And that is true. Like, I actually, you know, we've we've shut down all of the other businesses in our company. We've stopped our wholesaling. I've outsourced all of the, properties to a property manager.

I don't have any rehabs going. Like, we are we are and the reason that we did that is because we wanted to be make sure we are focused on this business and you, the client, and making sure that 100% every person who walks in our office is focused on getting your deals closed. Right? I don't want any distractions, right, because distractions will kill you. So, so my life is pretty good.

I've got a great team. You know? They are amazing. Sometimes I feel like a little bit like a five year old. Like, they're like, okay.

You need to go get on this Zoom. And then, you know, they'll come pull me. Okay. You need to go get on this phone. So I do a lot of sales.

Like, that's the thing that I do. But I do get to travel to be in a really cool place like this, y'all. It's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, I was in Puerto Rico with Robert Wensley and Terry Norton three weeks ago, and then I was in Oklahoma City. Then I was up in Cleveland, Ohio last weekend and then here. Then I go back to Nashville Sunday for my Cambrights investor fuel. So, yeah, I get I get to do a lot of cool stuff.

Steve: You talk you talk about me, you know, being the kid. Right? I can totally sympathize. Understand that because, like, I got a drawer full of, like, snacks in my office. Yeah.

And there'll be times where, like, hey, Steve. We need you to go do this. And it's, like, the simple, most mundane thing. Yeah. But that's the reality.

Like, I needed I needed to be treat like like, you go do this, you go do that because we were going a 100 miles an hour.

David: Yeah. See, so another funny story that and I well, I'm probably going so long. I told you I have too many stories. But so in real estate world, they're always like, you need to get, you know, to you need to be the CEO and kind of remove yourself from the day to day. Mhmm.

Sounds awesome. Sounds really good until it's Monday morning, and everybody's going into the conference room for a meeting. And I grab my bottle of water and my phone and my pad, and I'm walking in there. And my my VP of operations, Heather looks at me, and she's like, well, where where are you going? Like, I'm going to the meeting.

Oh, this one's not for you. And, man, like, when that happens to you, I'm like, I felt like Charlie Brown. What am I supposed to do? Yeah. She's like, well, just go back to your office and do what you do.

Okay. Alright. Like, they think it's funny. Like, now it's you know, they send me memes like, happy you're not here. Like, we're getting a lot of stuff done.

Like, you know, we were talking about CRMs earlier. Like, I cannot even get into the backside of our CRM. They're like, you don't need that. Just go go do Talky.

Steve: His his login has been revoked.

David: Yes. I have to request, like, we have a two factor authentication to get into it. And, every time I send it, I get the email or a text message. What do you need? Well, I need to know how many deals we've done in Arizona.

I'll get that for you. Yeah. Just go you do the talky thing. You go do the thing you do.

Steve: Well, you know, for the longest time, someone asked me, like, hey. Like, what do you do in Salesforce about this or that? I was like, I don't have a login.

David: I don't know. I don't know. Like, I you know, I haven't been to the backside of FreedomSoft, and I don't even know how long. You know? InvestorLift, you know, love it.

Greatest thing ever. Mhmm. You know? Artemis mode, I'm like, oh, yeah. It's cool.

Like, I don't know.

Steve: So you talk about they think it's funny.

David: Oh, they clown me like there's no tomorrow.

Steve: My team thinks it's funny too, right, with me. However, Eric Brewer, right, has talked about this where you kinda go through a bit of identity crisis You

David: do. Yeah.

Steve: When this happens. Right? Because, like, this is the goal. It

David: is the goal.

Steve: We've read the book, read entrepreneurial myth, you go to masterminds, and you look up, like, man, that'd be that'd be so cool when one day I'm sitting in the owner's box.

David: Yeah. It's awesome.

Steve: And then one day you do sit in the owner's box, and it's not it's not a victor a victorious feeling, at least not initially.

David: Mm-mm. No. And, again, it goes back to that squirrel's nest that we've got in our brain, and and now we've spent ten years or five years or fifteen years conditioning. I gotta be doing the thing. I gotta be doing the thing.

I like

Steve: I'm not working. I'm not valuable.

David: Dude, your your self worth mine, 100% is wrapped up in you know, when we stopped wholesaling, dude, I didn't like, I had I struggled for a couple weeks because I've done it for fourteen years. Fourteen years is a long time to be a wholesaler. And I'm like, I don't like, who am I? Like, if you said, well, how would you identify? Right?

Like, my pronoun is wholesaler. Like, I don't know. I'm a wholesaler, man. I've been doing it for fourteen years. Yeah.

But you do all these other things. I but but I'm a wholesaler. Yeah. And so when you yeah. When you stop doing and then I transitioned then also to this where you don't need to be in the meeting rooms and you know?

Yeah. It's it's so one, I'm so grateful and proud of my team. Like, I I can't even tell you how much I love them. Like, I was on a trip. I think I was in Puerto Rico, and we're switching over to a new payroll system for for q four.

And I had nothing to do with it, and I just keep seeing these things come across. Gusto, you've put in this person. Gusto, like, this is, like, things are happening and you're not involved in the day to day. Mhmm. It's awesome, but a little part of you is like, it tears a little piece of your heart away.

Right? Like, this that's just real talk. That's just how it happens. Yeah. At least for me.

Steve: Yeah. So this identity crisis, this existential crisis Yeah. Is a real thing. I mean, as a matter of fact, we have Aaron back there. And, you know, he's like, oh, you know, like, I work for Steve.

You know, he's a podcaster. I was like, woah. Woah.

David: I am You're an influencer too.

Steve: Not a podcaster. Right? Like, I I own a wholesale business. I'm an educator. I was like, yeah.

But, you know

David: You do the podcast.

Steve: You're a podcaster. I was like, right? And then we look. It's like, oh, so we're doing real estate disruptors on Wednesdays, Part of the disruption on Thursdays. Yeah.

Certainty talks on Fridays. Like Guess I am. Damn. I am a podcaster.

David: Yeah. You know what's interesting? And and this is how I've looked at a lot of things that I've learned over the years. Land trust. Let's talk about land trust.

So in the beginning, you're like, this is really cool. It's very simple, and I get it. And then you learn more about it. You're like, oh my god. It's so complicated.

And then you learn a little bit more, and you're like, it gets simple. Well, that's kind of how our careers go. Right? Like, wholesaling. It's very simple, and then you learn all these other things, and it gets very complicated.

And then at the end, you know, it's maybe like the stat the stages of life. Right? The crawl walk. You know? But, yeah, at the end, you've now you've mastered it and you've kinda simplified it down to what's the thing that I need to spend my time doing the most on.

Me talk you know, to us doing our thing. And that's, like, the thing that we do. That's the highest and best use literally the highest and best use of our time. Right. You know, there are things in my company that I cannot do.

Right? I tell people, like, yeah. I own a transaction company, the best transactions company. Do I like doing trans? Absolutely not.

That's why I built it. That's why I hired the baddest ass team of transaction coordinators ever because I don't ever wanna do that again. Mhmm. Like, I can do it, but it's not the thing that I'm the best at.

Steve: Well and, you know, the team before you came on with the show, they're like, hey. Like, how comfortable do you feel like promoting David's transaction coordination company? It's like, I feel totally comfortable with it. They're like, what you were gonna do? I was like, I don't know where this rumor came from.

I don't know if it's totally clear. I have zero interest.

David: Yeah. Right? It's there's there's been some ups and downs. There's some learning curve, like anything.

Steve: But, you know, we do the education side.

David: Yeah.

Steve: So if I teach David how to sell Yep. And it doesn't work, it's because David's not working well.

David: Yeah. I see where you're going.

Steve: It's not because my training is insufficient. Yeah. Right? We have plenty of successful people that have gone

David: through a program. Right?

Steve: But if I sell a lead service and a lead doesn't work, hey, Steve. Your leads sucks. Like, no. Those leads are pretty good, but now we're having this confrontational conversation.

David: We've seen this play out on Facebook. Right? Yeah. Like, a lot.

Steve: Right. Their leads, I was like, well, like, do the leads suck because I'm making a lot of money on these leads. Yeah. Right? And then or or a service, like, VA service, whatever.

Like, hey. You know, this this this other service that offers doesn't work. It's like Yeah. Again, it's like, is it us? Is it you?

But it's it's not a win win situation. Right? Someone's gonna be upset, and there's nothing you can do to make them happy. So that's why I I prefer the education side. Yeah.

Because sales, it just works.

David: It just works, man.

Steve: Right?

David: There's plenty of case studies out there that it works. Right?

Steve: Right. And so yeah. Like, when they're like, say, do you wanna you feel comfortable endorsing him because you were gonna do it? I was like, never Never gonna do that.

David: Yeah. We briefly talked about it out there. You know, we are we are so incredibly customer focused, because, again, you know, when anything comes up, I immediately put myself in the shoes of the client. Well, did we did we make sure that we did everything that we should have done? Right?

Like like, if we're 20% at fault, we're at fault. Right? So let's not do that. Let's train our people and be better. It's okay to have a mistake once.

We never never repeat the same the same mistake twice. But, you know, I understand that for somebody to hire us, they are putting an immense amount of trust in us. Mhmm. Right? Because your deal is worth $40.50, $60,000.

Our biggest deal was $476,000. A single deal, an assignment deal, or is it well, they double closed it out of Austin. If that $476,000 went bad, how bad do you think it's gonna be? You could not find a good thing on the Internet about easy Aria closings when that guy would have been done because I know what I would have done. I would have had a scorched earth policy of the guy who screwed me out of that.

Steve: You might even drive by your own.

David: Dude, I am I always tell people in the game of screw your ass, like, I don't lose. Like, that's the that's the ends of the earth that I will go to.

Steve: Yeah.

David: So, you know, we we take that responsibility really serious. And, you know, we don't you know, we work with title companies all over the country. Like, we have personally vetted them. Like, when I call them or when my team calls them and says, hey. Can you do an ovation?

And maybe it's an area where we didn't have somebody. And they're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. We can do it. Cool.

Can you send me a HUD? Mhmm. Because if I don't do that and I send your deal up there because some secretary told me that you could do innovation, and this happens to people all the time. Right? This is what happens all the time when you have a good coordinator.

And you send them that deal, and, oh, and they don't understand how to juggle the listing agent, the buying agent, and all the people that are involved in innovation, which is more than normal. And that deal a week before closing, they call you and, like, oh, like, our underwriter just said we can't do this.

Steve: Yeah.

David: Well, I'm not making that call to the client to say I mean, I am, but we are not gonna make that call. Right? We are never gonna say

Steve: Bumper's in place to make sure we

David: don't have to make that call. I cannot I would rather poke myself in the eye with a fork than let somebody down because now, especially in innovation. Right? You've had Brewer on here. Like, it's not investors that you're dealing with.

I give it to an investor, be like, alright. Cool, man. Let's just change title companies. Whatever we gotta do. You're dealing with a retail buyer and a retail agent.

First thing they all think of is scam, crazy thing. Like, we're gonna pull out of the deal. And now you're $60.80, a $100,000 deal is up in smoke.

Steve: Yeah.

David: Who are you gonna blame? This guy. Right. Again, you would not be able to find one good thing by the time I was done about me online after after I was done because I would be in every group telling the world about

Steve: it. Right.

David: So, you know, we have to hold our team to an incredibly high standard.

Steve: What is your why?

David: Man, you know, I'm gonna tell you, you know, I I a lot of people, their why is like, oh, I wanna build and I'm not diminishing anybody. It's like, I wanna build an orphanage in South Africa, or I wanna do I wanna save the whales, or I wanna do whatever. I don't honestly, I think that's a bunch of crap when people say that. I think they're saying that because they they think that's what people wanna hear. I think your why is, first of all, like, it has to be for you first.

Mhmm. Because here's the reality. You know, this is a lot of work. Like, being a whether you're starting a muffin shop or a sign shop or a wholesaling company, it's a lot of work, and especially real estate where there's no, like, blueprint. Right?

There's very few franchises Yeah. For what we do because it it's so goofy, and everything we do can be a little bit wacky. So, you know, your why has been you you wanna do this and make money, I would hope. You know, I think there are some secondary whys, like you enjoy helping people. I guess I wanted to be rich, man.

I wanna make a lot of money. I think I always knew, and I I get how that sounds, and that will be the sound bite. Right?

Steve: We'll make sure that's the sound bite. That's gonna be the that's gonna be the intro into today.

David: Yeah. I wanted to make a lot of money. Right? That's why I got in this business. So but I you know, as an entrepreneur, and I've had this conversation with other people too.

Like, from the time I was a kid and I had all these different jobs growing up, I knew that I was gonna do something. Mhmm. Right? When I was running the hardware stores, and I'm I'm gonna be the manager. And then I'm the manager, I'm like, you know, I think I could be district manager or vice president, or why couldn't I be president?

I make good decision. I I could do this. Right? Like, I always knew there was something, right, that that I was going to do, and I found that's a commonality between a lot of a lot of investors who come from some type of corporate background. But so there was that.

Right? There was some drive. Like, I wanted to see what I could accomplish. What's the next, you know, hill that I could hill that I could conquer. Right?

We conquered wholesaling. We conquered rehabbing. You know, we had a pretty successful course. Now we're we're gonna do this. What happens after this?

I don't know. But I think they're they're drivers. You know, probably the, you know, the other regret, the biggest regret that I've got in my life is my dad, before he passed away, I wasn't able to take we're from New England, so he's a big Patriots fan. And, you know, I wasn't able to take him to a Super Bowl. That was that's kind of a it's kind of a big regret.

So, you know, a driver for me is, jeez, would my, you know, with my dad have been proud of of the thing the things that we do and the things that we've accomplished. Yeah. You know? Like, my mom, I'm like, hey. So we had, like, the vice president of First American, you know, national title insurance come into the office the other day.

She's like, oh, that's great. She's 78. She has no idea that, like, it's kind of a big deal. Yeah. I'm gonna show her this podcast.

I'm like, it's a big deal. Right? You know? So I don't know. Maybe, again, lots of therapy could be involved here, right, to try to figure all that out.

You know, I I wanted to be successful. I just knew that there was there was something that I could do, and luckily, real estate resonated and was the thing.

Steve: Yeah. I totally get that. What's your biggest struggle right now?

David: Biggest struggle, honestly, just getting the message out about who we are and how we can help investors.

Steve: Yep. So, obviously, podcasting, going getting all over the place. Are you in family mastermind?

David: I am the greatest mastermind. I love it. Love it. Love it. Like, you know, we're

Steve: gonna be doing part in this virtual live on

David: Monday. That. I saw that. That's very cool. It's

Steve: gonna be insane.

David: I know. Like, are they gonna be broadcasting it live too?

Steve: We're not gonna be broadcasting it live, but man is gonna be going out there and making sure the screens Yeah. Just like it does

David: Oh, that's cool.

Steve: During the show. That's That's that's the vision. We're setting stupid high standards.

David: No, dude. I think it's really cool. I think it it elevates it to a to a whole new level. Yeah. And every year, Matt, god, it comes up with crazy stuff.

So so family mastermind is a mastermind of, coaches and influencers and service providers in the real estate industry. Right?

Steve: Called the guru's ball.

David: Okay. So when I had first heard about it, it was back when he did the public version. Mhmm. And, I had some friends that were going, Nick Perry and some other guys. I'm like, oh, Ricardo.

Oh, you gotta come. I'm like because I just started coaching. I'm like, oh, god. Guru. It's gonna be all these gurus and coaches.

I'm like, blow hearts. It's gonna alright. It's Maybe

Steve: a little bit pissing contest.

David: Yeah. Right? It's gonna be this. Right? You know?

So I go down there and, again, like my first Rio, sitting in the back, but I was just blown away at how nice and genuine and giving all of these guys were. Right? Because, again, I come from the world, oh, you know, this guy is just in it for the money and, you know, and the reality is I had no idea how hard any of this is. Mhmm. No idea.

Like like, oh, I'm gonna do a little coaching. I'm gonna do this thing and or I'm gonna launch this company, and then you realize, oh my god. It takes a freaking village to produce this stuff. Right? The content guy, you know, the the the sales guy, the CRM guy, the the website guy, the like, know, and then you've got the staff of $200,000 a year support people that it takes to to really get it all.

And I don't think people have any appreciation for how much work goes into all of this stuff and especially, like, the free content. Like, if you guys I feel like I should take my camera out and, like, zoom and show you what this room looks like and the freaking money that was spent here on all these cameras is insane.

Steve: It was not cheap. How do you measure success?

David: Man, I don't know. You know, I was telling someone the other day, I I feel like I leave the office every day. And, again, because I have this squirreled up view of reality, it's never the success. Right? It's never the thing that went good during the day.

It's, you know, what could we have done better? You know, what could we tweak? You know? Know? And it feels like every day is just these as an entrepreneur, and this has always been the way.

Every day is just this little silly little little series of battles, right, that you're always trying to overcome to to inch forward a little bit. Success, I I you know, you always have to do some maybe it's a number. Right? When we get to 700 clients, that'll be that'll be success. Right?

Chic, my video guy, he he jokes like, this is what success feels like. Like, is this it? He's like, dude, you're on the biggest podcast in real estate. Of course, this is what success feels like. I'm like, I know.

It's really cool. But what's and then you start

Steve: What's next?

David: What's next? That stupid trap. Right? Mhmm. What's the next thing?

Like, I don't know. Can I come back twice? Like, I don't know. Like, what's the what's the next thing? You know?

What what is it?

Steve: The next, you said, what's the next hill we're gonna

David: cover? Yeah.

Steve: So we talked about your superpower. What is the what's your single biggest victory? Like, man, like, accomplishment, the biggest one.

David: I think for sure that that 1,100,000 deal, you know, the no money down, four percent seventeen years, that's a huge account. That's a grand slam hit, but that that's certainly big. Crossing a $100,000,000, like, emotionally hit me a little bit the other day because I'm always researching everything and looking at title companies. And a lot of time looking at title companies lately, and, you know, I see them like, oh, year one, we did 25,000,000. Year two, we did 50,000,000.

Year three, 83,000,000. Year four, you know, 112,000,000. I'm like, what we did in twenty six months.

Steve: Yeah. Pretty cool. That is really cool.

David: Yeah. Yeah. It it again, not because of me. Because I have an incredible team.

Steve: So on the flip side of that Yeah. What's your biggest failure?

David: That I I when when we were going through coming out of the Arduri and coming out of that last recession that I didn't buy more properties. Yeah. Like, a 100% You

Steve: and me both.

David: Dude, I sit around with, like because Chattanooga at the time, we were the first people to wholesale on any kind of scale. So there's three or four of us that were around then. My brother, a friend of mine, Randy, another kid, Justin. So we'll sit and, like, we're the old guys in the the Rio Room, and we're like, dude, that property we sold made $4 on just sold for, like, 600,000. You know?

It it we get we're self aware enough to know that we were younger and poor, and we needed that 3,000, 10,000, 8,000. But, god, if we'd have kept more properties.

Steve: Yeah. No. I I look at those. Right? And it's like, I don't have the money today, but I'm gonna be ready for the next massive downturn.

David: And I was ready when COVID hit. I'm like,

Steve: so I.

David: Here it comes. And Buckle up. It's gonna happen.

Steve: I was so excited.

David: And then we hit this little thing in last year, and I'm like, here it comes again. It's gonna happen. Didn't happen. Yeah. I I don't know that it's gonna happen again for for another half a decade, maybe.

Steve: I don't know. I don't know when it's gonna happen. What book have you gifted more than any other?

David: More than any other, I've given away Never Split the Difference with Chris Voss a ton. I've given away a lot of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Here's a great book that taught me a lot, and it's the reason that I ended up in Chattanooga through my guy named Dave Lindahl, and it's called, Emerging Markets. And I've never seen a better, simpler explanation of market cycles in The United States, real estate, specifically market cycles, and how, you know, it's not nationwide. It's not even state level.

Sometimes it can be very local, but why one one area is is on the upswing and one area is on the downswing. And that book very fundamental to first of all, let's move it. Why we pick Chattanooga to move there? And then also when we started going nationwide with our wholesaling company, it allowed us to be able to look in and evaluate markets and say, okay. And this is a this is a thing that I ask a lot when I'm in different areas.

I was just in Oklahoma, and I said, okay. Like, let me ask you this. What do people do here? What drives the economy? What are the jobs?

Right? Like, what what's the thing here that's that's making, you know, Oklahoma City like a hot rental market. Right? Mhmm. So so it gave me a different perspective on how to how to look at markets.

So I love that book, and I've given it away a ton.

Steve: Got it. Oh, it makes total sense. Yep. So I want you to think about some last thoughts before, we wrap up.

David: These are always the tough ones.

Steve: Last thoughts. Yes. Exactly. Alright. Guys, alright.

So, it's July. Two months from now, Wren and I are doing a sales leadership boot camp. Two full days. Wren, it's kinda crazy. He's he he did 835 k, right, last month in wholesale revenue.

He is absolutely certain that by the end of the year, he'll have a million dollar a

David: month. Good.

Steve: If you wanna learn what it takes to build a business where you can do a million dollars, let's just say 800 k, right, in gross revenue, definitely check it out. Text leaders to 33777. Leaders, l e a d e r s, to 33777.

David: So how amazing is that to be able to buy your way into a room with somebody who's doing that kind of volume? Like, I'm gonna tell you, that's pretty cool. Right? Like, you know, that that's incredible that you offer that.

Steve: There's people that talk about it.

David: Then there's people that are gonna

Steve: And and they're

David: mark the card and show up and and grow their business.

Steve: Right. And he can show. He can he he has the huds Yeah. To support that. And if you guys are interested in in, in working with Dave, realestatedisruptorstc.com.

Yep. What message do you wanna leave all the listeners with?

David: So, man, being an entrepreneur is tough. I get it's I'm gonna tell you, it can be you can feel like a man or woman on an island. You really can. And what I I tell people and and I was so scared to do this in the beginning. Right?

Is is find a tribe. Find some people that are can be on the journey with you. Mhmm. Right? Because you're gonna have days that are tough.

And if you're just alone by yourself sitting at your kitchen table, looking at those three leads, you're Like, I don't know what to do here. Like, who can you call? Right? I am so lucky now that that because I've traveled all over the country, I have some great great friends in all areas of the country. And whenever something big comes up, I can call them and be like, hey, uncle Charles.

What do I do here? Hey, Nick Perry. Hey. You know? What do I what what what what's going on in your company?

How would you handle this? And conversely, they will can be able to call me, and and I could do that same thing. So, you know, find a tribe of people to be on this journey with, because trying to do it yourself is really lonely.

Steve: Yeah.

David: Right? It's it's incredibly lonely, and you will sit in that kitchen or wherever you're at thinking, this is hard. Nobody does this. It's all a bunch of lies. It's a bunch of crap.

And the reality is getting on the other side of doing that first deal and then your second deal and then your third deal is the most amazing thing ever. Like, it has allowed us to truly live a life that I wanna say I don't deserve. Right? But, like, we've been all over the world, like, all over the world and seen so many great things and different cultures. And in, like, all of it came from real estate and from wholesaling and deciding to drive back to that Ria, get out of the car, walk in there, force myself to pay my $20, and sit there and start listening to people.

So that the thing I would say is don't give up.

Steve: Yeah. So I think there's a couple of different messages here. I think the first one, finding a tribe. Absolutely. Absolutely believe that.

And the the thing is not to say that's anything special about our industry specifically, but if you're real estate and you're in the early part of your journey, your friends and family generally have no idea what the heck we're talking

David: about. The average person what is it? Two or three houses in a lifetime?

Steve: Yeah.

David: They don't understand what we're doing.

Steve: So you got you gotta find a tribe of Yeah. Other, people that are doing this. And, what was the second part you were talking about?

David: I forgot. Rewind the tape.

Steve: But yeah. I mean, I think I think having a tribe is so Yeah. So paramount. And then the relationships right? Like, being able to pick up the phone and call somebody else when you're stuck, it is absolutely lonely

David: to

Steve: read this yourself.

David: One of the great story and I will butcher this story, but it's one of the the the Navy SEALs that wrote the book. And he's like, hey. When we were in BUDS, when we were in training camp, we were doing that thing where we're up for four days straight. He's like, you know, there's six or eight people in the in the canoe or in our group. And he's like, listen.

There are some days where one of us is at the lowest of the low. Right? And you gotta tell people, hey, man. I'm having a terrible day because there's also somebody in that guy that's seeing dragons. Right?

Like, who's on a euphoric freaking high, and that guy needs to help you. Because fifteen minutes later, it can literally be reversed. Right? So that's that's the power of being in a tribe. Right?

Understanding that, hey. Hey, man. I get it. You know? We're we're entrepreneurs.

You're gonna have a tough day. I'm gonna have a tough day. Like but we've gotta be there to to support each other. And I think in general, real estate is an industry where there's a you know, if you're with decent people, like, there's a lot of help to be given. And I wish I had realized that early on and not been so nervous to go talk to people.

Steve: Yeah. I feel the exact same way. So if someone wants to get a hold of you, how would they do that?

David: Instagram, that's really easiest way for me. It's at David Olds, r e I. Yeah. I can start to say dot com, but, yeah, david olds, r e I. Yeah, Instagram.

We we post a ton of content about just what we're doing every day and real estate stuff, and I do my very best to answer all the messages.

Steve: Alright. Perfect. Thank you so much.

David: Thank you, man. I I appreciate it. It was an honor to be here. Thank you so much.

Steve: I'm glad to have you on. I appreciate having you on. Cool. See you guys next week.

Steve: Shout out to Steve Trane. Jump on the Steve Trane. We real estate disrupt