Real estate veteran Jon Burgher shares how he's generating passive income from properties across 17 states using lease options and seller financing instead of traditional landlording. With 30+ years of experience, Burgher explains his system for creating 'mailbox money' through tenant-buyers who pay option fees and handle maintenance, while he retains ownership and collects monthly payments without typical landlord headaches.
Use lease options with 5-year terms to help tenant-buyers who can't qualify for traditional mortgages today but want homeownership
Structure deals so tenant-buyers handle all maintenance and repairs, eliminating typical landlord expenses and headaches
Collect average $15,000 option fees upfront for skin in the game, then convert to seller financing when they exercise the option
1:23:07Casey Ryan from We Buy Any House reveals how he generated $6 million in profit with just 12 employees by leveraging AI automation, data enrichment, and strategic focus. He shares his journey building custom AI tools for call analysis, lead scoring, and CRM automation, plus why he's selling his rental property portfolio to focus on his core wholesaling business.
1:12:00James Harkless of Property Leads shares how his company generates high-quality motivated seller leads for real estate investors, with 1 in 4 homeowners reaching out before selling. He discusses his journey from construction to building a successful pay-per-lead business, innovative features like live transfers, and quality control methods that achieve 25% title transfer rates.
Get a free AI-powered review of your sales calls. See exactly where you're losing deals and how to fix it.
Get notified when new episodes drop, plus a free AI call review.
Create detailed buy-sell agreements with clear expectations and duties defined before entering any partnership
Target properties in cities with minimum 20,000 population that are steady or growing, preferably with a Walmart presence
”“I don't believe that becoming a millionaire, honestly, is true wealth. I believe that if you could have enough mailbox money coming in to take care of that monthly nut and you have your time back, that's wealth.”
”“Don't be a landlord. If you let's say you got a thousand dollars worth of rent. 40 to 50% of that is expenses. It's gone. So now let's say you got 50% left. Now you gotta pay your debt service. What's left? Very little, if any.”
”“Our whole idea behind it is they are a tenant buyer. They are, a kind of a pre owner status of the house. Hot water heater goes out, they replace it, not me. Broken window, they fix it, not me. Their home.”
”“Proper paperwork. Having a damn good attorney that knows what they're talking about to give you the proper paperwork so that you're covering your butt.”
20575 words
Jon Burgher: I don't believe that becoming a millionaire, honestly, is true wealth. I believe that if you could have enough mailbox money coming in to take care of that monthly nut and you have your time back, that's wealth. At my age, I've had all the toys, you know, we've had the boats, the motor homes, all this kind of stuff. It was fun, but when it really gets down to it, it's all about family, which in my mindset Mhmm. Over the years, I was all about had to have all the shiny object stuff and that kinda not anymore.
Now it's all about time with the family.
Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Disruptors. Today, we have John Berger, another big player, if you can believe it, in the Phoenix market. And, he's here to talk about how he's getting mailbox money from properties in 15 different states. Now, guys, I am on a mission to create a 100 millionaires.
The information on this show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. If you'll take consistent action, you'll become one. And, guys, if you get value out of this show, please hit that subscribe button. That way we can help more people become millionaires. Ready?
Jon: Ready.
Steve: Alright. So, this has been a long time coming.
Jon: Yes. It has.
Steve: So how tell me about what your life like what your life was like right before you got into real estate.
Jon: Perfect. First of all, I wanna thank you, Steve. You know, you've been doing this a long time also. We started following you back in '19 when I finally opened up an actual shop, and we've been to most of your meetups, been to most of your watch all your podcasts, that kind of stuff. So thank you to for what you do for the industry and what you're trying to do with three millionaires.
Steve: Oh, I appreciate that. Appreciate that.
Jon: Yeah. So I was in the jewelry business, for years and work in retail, but we had a family friend, by the name of Dale Hillard. You may know him. He was part of the real estate board for years and years and years.
Steve: Is that West USA?
Jon: Yeah. He was with West USA, John Hall prior to that. So he's my mentor.
Steve: Okay.
Jon: So if you don't wanna dig deep, so that's who mentored me. But he was a family friend. I told him I wanted to buy a rental property, start getting passive income. And, in the jewelry business, I got tired of working the the fifty hours or sixty hours a week. So he brought me a deal one time, and it was a little triplex over in Mesa.
It was seller finance. So Dale's the one who taught me how to do all the creative stuff. So we do sub two wraps. We do seller finance. We do hybrids.
We'll take down deals with cash, but not our money. We use private money,
Steve: that
Jon: kind of stuff. But he brought me this deal, and and it was an elderly couple that wanted to get rid of it. They gave it to me on seller finance. We paid paid them about $61,000 for it. Dale taught me the ninja move of putting you get first right of refusal in the loan.
Mhmm. And so two or three years later, that couple came to me and said, you know what? We need our money. Mhmm. So we took a $20,000 decrease on it, paid them out, and sat on a little bit longer.
And then he taught me another trick, and that was about five years later. We did a refi with a cash out on it. As you know, the cash out money is not taxable. Right. So we turned around, put that money in our pocket.
And then many years later, we did sell that property for about $214,000. So from there, Dell or I started buying up more and more rental properties. My wife and I still work in the, the jewelry business. And then it got to the point that, I ran out of some capital. We were buying them mostly creatively, but you still gotta have capital to run everything.
Right. And so I Dale found some more properties. And I said, Dale, I just don't have the money to do it right now. He says, you know what? You're making too much money.
I wanna partner with you. So Dale and I actually partnered with with my mentor.
Steve: You're making too much money. Uh-huh. Why wasn't he making too much money?
Jon: Like because he was selling me everything at the time. Right.
Steve: So I don't know. You buying everything, and he wasn't buying any.
Jon: He's not a landlord. Okay. So he's great and taught me all the structuring of the deals Right. And how to do all the creative stuff right.
Steve: So he knew how to source deals and understand understood deal making. Yes. But he didn't wanna do the deal making himself.
Jon: No. He, like, he did the deal making. So we did it together because he taught me.
Steve: Right.
Jon: What he didn't wanna do was be a landlord.
Steve: Okay.
Jon: He knew nothing about doing land or he just simply didn't wanna do it. He didn't teach me. Mhmm. So but we got to a certain point that he brought me another deal. And then at that point, we partnered.
Mhmm. At one point in time, we had over a 120 some rentals just in Mesa. Wow. So and that was you know, like I say, I started in '93, so this was in the early nineties. Mhmm.
And we ran those for multiple years and kept expanding. And, it got to the point that I was able to step out of my jewelry business Yeah. Step full time into the rental business because working ninety or a hundred hours a week was a grind. And I'm glad I did it Mhmm. But it was a grind.
Steve: Oh, I'm thinking here '93. So this is before Chris Eiman got into the business. Yes. It was. Trying to think exactly when Doug Hopkins got in the business.
So you might be Go after that. You might be, like, the OG then.
Jon: Yeah. I've been around the world.
Steve: In the Phoenix market. See, I don't know when Burley started. Probably around the same time.
Jon: Burley Burley started before I did. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: So, like, that's it. That that's right.
Jon: Yeah. That's right.
Steve: So wow. So, yeah, you've you've seen A lot. A lot. So we're gonna definitely talk about some stories of things that you've seen.
Jon: Absolutely.
Steve: So you partner with with your mentor, and then what happens is just start buying more deals?
Jon: Like, it was crazy. Yeah. Just kept buying. Yeah. Just kept buying and buying and buying.
And it was it was a great partnership. You don't get made partnerships like this because Dale was a full time broker at the time. Mhmm. He wasn't after the money. He strictly won the appreciation of the properties.
So the way we ran the business was I ran the day to day. I did all the property management. I learned how to do all the maintenance, whether it be drywall, electric, plumbing. I was doing it all at the time, and he didn't take any profits on the month to month or day to day basis. Mhmm.
I did, but I was paid on type of commission type basis. So as long as they were rented, I got a good per commission out of that. But, you know, just to tell you one story, we we had one nightmare where we had a property.
Steve: It was a
Jon: couple brothers that lived in that property. Mhmm. And they've been there for two or three years doing really good. They paid the rent on time and so forth. And then, the they quit paying.
So I we as that was in a fourplex. On fourplexes, you had to go to the door to collect the money. They won't send you the money. Mhmm. So once a month, we go around, we collect money, and we found out the electricity was off.
We finally got them out of the apartment. And when we went in there, the ceilings were so black from the, the candlestick that they were burning every single day and night to live in there that we'd literally had to redo that entire apartment. And it's like, you know what? This is getting too much.
Steve: Because they weren't paying electricity?
Jon: Because they weren't paying electric. Yeah. That was their light. And it was it was nasty. Nasty nasty.
Yeah. So but, yeah, it's just one of those things. Property management was a grind. I had to learn that from the ground up. Mhmm.
It's not easy, but we did it. And then it got to the point that, in o June, something like that, when the market was going crazy and California was coming in, we had a broker out of California come to us and say, do you wanna sell? And Dale hit me up, and we had we had just bought another eight fourplexes in a row Mhmm. In Mesa, which is kinda like a multifamily. The problem was is we couldn't keep them rented.
The appreciation was great.
Steve: Is this somewhere around Ingram?
Jon: Kind of. Alright. Somewhere yeah. They weren't very, yeah. Yeah.
Steve: Because Ingram is I mean, like, I've sold multiple there. Yeah. And, like, I, I remember it wasn't myself, but a colleague of mine was like, hey. I went to go show properties in here. And, yeah, the whole street is locked down, you know, because there's a a SWAT situation.
Jon: Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't Ingram, but it was a similar neighborhood.
Steve: Gotcha.
Jon: Similar neighborhood.
Steve: Okay.
Jon: But so we end up selling one, and that broker came back to us and said, do you have any more? And at the time, Dale and I were looking at possibly getting into some mini storages and something a little bit different. Mhmm. And less labor intensive, especially for me. And we've been doing this for, you know, seven, eight years at the time.
Mhmm. And so that broker came in, and within ninety days, we had sold off the entire portfolio that Dale and I had. Entire portfolio? The entire portfolio. Michelle and I, my wife, we still had our portfolio going.
We didn't sell that. But Dale and I, we sold everything.
Steve: Fantastic timing.
Jon: Oh, it was great timing. Killer on appreciation. Yeah. Killer on appreciation. And like I say, we're gonna put it into mini storage.
That really didn't happen. But Dale had a a deal come through, and it was a bunch of land up in Cave Creek. And at that time, everybody was building. You know, go build a million dollar homes.
Steve: Everybody know,
Jon: let's do spec houses. Yeah. So what did Dale and I do? We went and did spec houses. Oh, so
Steve: you went back into
Jon: Freaking hated it.
Steve: So you got back into speculating.
Jon: Yep. Got into speculating. I hated it. That was yeah. It's I wish I would've stayed in the rental properties.
Yeah. But we got in. We started building million dollar homes. We built a mill a big gated community. But the funny part of this one was is he calls me.
He's so excited about it. And it's like, okay. Great. John, go take a look at it. He says there's already a mobile on it.
Or I'm sorry. There's already a house on it, and we'll just build a few more houses and make a gate and so forth. So I get up there, and it's a freaking mobile. Mhmm. It's like you can't build a million dollar home next to a mobile.
And it was a working horse ranch, so we had three huge barns on it. So we had to tear these barns down and get the mobile off of there and then subdivide it. And then we started building lots and so or building houses. And that went really good for a while other than I hated it. But you got out clean?
Almost. We did get caught in o eight. We got caught with two lots. Mhmm. But we short sold those off, threw some inside stuff, and so we didn't get hurt on it.
Steve: That's good.
Jon: So, yeah, that that was a good thing. Yeah. And then at that point, I fell into assisted living. Mhmm. Because in Phoenix, you couldn't buy a house and make it Well, hang on.
Steve: So we'll get to assisted living. So, so you start off buying a bunch of properties. I mean, it sounds like it was kind of, like, a good experience from the get go. Mhmm. Right?
So you're buying this property. It's a good deal. Buy more. Buy more. And you're just stacking these properties up over time.
Oh, yeah. And it wasn't really until you basically got to a point where it seemed like you're at a breaking point where you finally shut down your other business, the jewelry business.
Jon: I got out of that probably let's see. I got out of jewelry business in '99.
Steve: Okay. So
Jon: I started in '93. I got out of jewelry business in '99.
Steve: And so this whole time you're buying these properties, I mean, are you just taking the cash flow and then using that to proceeds to buy the next property? Like, you've been selling these. Mhmm. So you're just taking the cash flow or the money that you're making as a jeweler to just keep acquiring assets.
Jon: Well, because we were buying them mostly creative, there wasn't much money to put into them. Right. So there wasn't a lot of down payments. We did a lot of carrybacks with the sellers, that kind of stuff. And so the cash flow, we were I was living off the cash flow, basically.
Mhmm. Dale didn't take any of it. Yeah. If we need additional money or, we used his credit report Mhmm. At that point in time if we need to go get credit, but very little cash out of pocket to do these things.
Steve: So this I mean, it starts off like it's a it's a wonderful story. Right? And then you partner up. That sounds like it's also a wonderful story Great story. Which is not common.
Nope. Right? I mean, even in the last couple of months, I've heard multiples breakups. Yeah. Right?
And this is the season for breakups. This is the season for divorces. Right? But I've heard multiple breakups recently. Right?
And so, like, what were the things that made that a great partnership? Like, how did you guys ensure that was a good partnership?
Jon: Great question. So Dale put together a buy sale agreement. Mhmm. Are you familiar with
Steve: what that is? Not maybe in those words.
Jon: Okay. So, basically, we put the whole deal together of what my duties were and what his duties were. Mhmm. What he was going to teach me, be be my mentor, and that was the deal structures and so forth. And so it worked very well.
He stayed out of the day to day business. I ran the day to day. If I had problems, I might call him, but we learned with hard knocks and got through all
Steve: that.
Jon: Yeah. But that was all written out in an agreement of what we're gonna
Steve: be doing for each of us.
Jon: Expectations were crystal clear. Absolutely, they were. Mhmm. A buy sell agreement is basically if I decide I want out and I go to Dale and say, Dale, I want out of this business, then he gets to decide if he's gonna buy me out or if I have to buy him out. Mhmm.
And in our contract, it says what the buyout looks like. If we have to go get appraisals for the properties we already own, that kind of stuff, unless we agree upon our prices. So it was all crystal clear. Yeah. And that made it really nice.
We agreed upon everything. It was just a great, great, great working relationship.
Steve: On paper before you started.
Jon: Oh, absolutely. It was all on paper. Yeah. All on paper.
Steve: One of the terms I like is, like, alright, John. I'm gonna I'm gonna make you an offer. Right? And if I make you an offer, you reserve the right to just, like, alright, so I'll just buy you at that price. So I have to be smart with my offer.
Yeah. Right? I don't wanna hit you too low because if I hit you too low, you're like, you know what, Steve? I'll just buy you out at
Jon: that price. Exactly. Exactly.
Steve: Did you guys have anything like that?
Jon: No. Well, yes and no. So we had it set up with, what the values were of the properties. Mhmm. And if we didn't agree at that on those prices, then we go out and get an outside appraisal, on them, and then that would be the price.
We set up what would happen if we didn't have that much cash, what the loan terms would be. We'd have to do a seller carry to one or the other, what the interest rates would be. I mean, it was all laid out.
Steve: Gotcha. Yeah.
Jon: Okay. Everything was was cut and dry.
Steve: How much of it do you think was setting expectations? How much was it just being good people?
Jon: I think it was probably a combination. Of course, Dale being so much older than I was at the time, had that expertise behind him, and I'm sure he had already had partnerships that had gone south maybe. And so he knew how to set it up. I didn't. I was a young, dumb kid.
I was just following his lead at that time. Right. You know? And that that's the way we did it.
Steve: Okay. So partnership, entirely fruitful because you buy a bunch of properties and then you just sold them to a bunch of Californians Mhmm. At peak market prices. At peak.
Jon: Yep.
Steve: Right? And then after that, you get into developments, you get out of that unscathed, Then what?
Jon: So at that point in time, Dale and I separated. Mhmm. K? And I fell into assisted living homes. I want to build up my portfolio again.
Michelle and I still had some of ours, but we'd also sold some of them. Mhmm. So the the passive cash flow wasn't coming in like it was before. Well, in Arizona, the the price had gone through the roof Mhmm. That nothing cash flowed.
And for some reason, assisted living's due, and we fell into that arena. We end up I had enough money. I was able to buy a company. Mhmm. Found out that one house wasn't gonna do it.
It was a 10 bed house. So we started buying up more houses and more houses, and my wife and I would run the the administration side of it. We didn't do the day to day business, and we ran that for almost nine years. Yeah. But it was building up the portfolio again.
They cash flowed, but then we also had a business on top of it. Right. So that was a whole another story. And thank god we had a great general manager, and each of our houses had managers in them, but we had to to manage that. But it was a matter of building up that portfolio again.
You still have those? No. No. It got to the point that our general manager had to step out with back surgery. All the calls from the managers started coming to my wife.
My wife says, I'm done. We're out. Yeah. And, so we sold all that, did a $10.31 exchange.
Steve: For the properties and the business?
Jon: And the business separately.
Steve: Okay.
Jon: But it went to the same owner. Right. But we sold them separately. I did the ten thirty one exchange on the real estate, and we bought another huge portfolio in Tucson Mhmm. That were all rentals at the time, and I had to deal with a rental, property management company.
Mhmm. But I did it in Tucson because I'm one of those hands on people that if I would have done it in Phoenix, I'd be out there every day doing something. Yeah. At least in Tucson, I had to drive two hours to get to it. Mhmm.
So that's the reason why we bought in Tucson.
Steve: Yeah. So it's far enough away. It's It's
Jon: far enough away. Didn't have to be there every day.
Steve: Yeah. I think a lot of parents here, like, send a kiss to U of A or NAU for that specific reason.
Jon: Yeah. Exactly. You're you're you're
Steve: you're close enough.
Jon: Close enough but far enough.
Steve: But far enough. Yep.
Jon: Yep. Yep.
Steve: Yep. Okay. So so I haven't heard a single challenge yet, but you've been doing this for thirty some years.
Jon: The challenge was the building. I didn't like the development side of it.
Steve: What did you like about the building?
Jon: Dealing with contractors, dealing with general contractors, the timeliness. They'd never show up on time.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: You could never get supplies properly. There was always delays. And the base thing was you had a lot of money tied up for a long period of time until you got that thing erected and sold that I didn't like the money turn.
Steve: Well and also subject to market.
Jon: Oh, yeah. Big subject to market. And we, knock on wood, we got lucky with just lots of not homes. Mhmm.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. So then, what are some of the craziest stories? Right? You've been doing this for some time now.
What are some of the thing craziest things you've seen in this journey? Craziest things? I'm just talking about, like, in this industry, right, like, a different perspective. Because we've had some other guys, right, that have been doing this for a long time. And, like, you know, when we first started this podcast in '18, right, the thing was always like, what are you gonna do when the market changes?
Right?
Jon: Because
Steve: because we were always like, when's the market gonna change? Like Yeah. This party can't last forever. So even starting from 2018, all the question was the question was asked. Like, what are you gonna do with market changes?
Everyone's like, oh, we'll be fine. This, this, and that. Right? Uh-huh. And we've seen how just a little hiccup Yep.
Has devastated Oh, yeah. A lot of businesses. Right? But that's just a recent one. But you went through o six Yep.
And you went through I think there was whatever what what happened in the nineties?
Jon: Nineties. Yep. There was one in there.
Steve: Right? So, like, you've seen it all. Or the sorry. The .com. Right?
So there's .com. Yeah. There's the o oh, it's o eight. So, like, what are some of the craziest things you've seen in in this in the real estate?
Jon: I guess I don't look at it as craziness. Mhmm. I look at it that the market's gonna change no matter what.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: It's a matter of of being able to pivot and being able to do what needs to be done when the market does pivot. Mhmm. That's one thing about what we do today is if the market changes, it doesn't matter if it's up or down. We can still make money with what we do.
Steve: Right. So then how do you protect yourself? As far as Market conditions, market risk. Right?
Jon: Market risk, but it's it's the way we structure our deals, and it's the way we're doing deals
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: Which we haven't even got to yet.
Steve: Right.
Jon: When we got out of the assisted living and started with the portfolio in Tucson, I found out I didn't wanna be a landlord, and I didn't want to manage a property manager. Mhmm. That's a lot of work too. And, usually, that property manager doesn't have your best interest in mind. No?
And so so when I when I was in the assisted living business, I actually learned how to to actually do lease options Mhmm. And do them the right way. So at that point in time because I was buying homes with lease options, personally. So I took all my rental properties and started turning all the rentals into lease options Mhmm. And started doing that.
And that made a big difference because now you don't have the maintenance issues, you don't have the vacancy issues, none of that stuff because you're getting a nice option fee upfront. Usually, our average right now is $15,000. Mhmm. So they have skin in the game. And because of that, they take care of that property.
So, like, if the market were to dip today, the way we have our our our office set up, we have three different buckets that we put property in. The first thing we always look at is taking that property down, put it in the company portfolio. But the other cool thing about what happens in our office is if I don't take it down to still a good property because I don't need to take everything down anymore, I give it to any of my people, and I help them build their own portfolio. And it's all about with zero money out of your own pocket. Can you buy a property with zero money?
You sure can. Right. K? So we teach that. At the same time, if we're not doing that, we do a ton of novations.
Mhmm. Well, that works too, you know, up or down. But if the market's down, I'm buying like crazy.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: The market's up. A lot of novations are happening. Yeah. We do very little wholesale stuff. There will be occasion that there's a wholesale deal, but not very often.
Gotcha. And I just don't care for wholesale. The assignments aren't big enough. Mhmm. And it's too difficult to do.
Steve: Yeah. And then, we got to recently reconnect.
Jon: We did?
Steve: Mhmm. We're, at Auggie Pena's event, and he's talking about how he's buying rental properties. So he has his meetup. It's every month. So I run into you there and then also run into Kirsten.
Yep. Right? And, she's pushing you out of out of your comfort zone.
Jon: Very much so.
Steve: Right.
Jon: I was getting ready to retire.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: And, the last two years, I had semi retired and was only in the office a couple days a week. Right. Then we hire Kirsten. And now I'm in the office all the time and working after hours. So she's driving me, which is great.
I love it. I love this business, and I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't. Mhmm.
Steve: But yeah. So what is she pushing you to do?
Jon: So she's pushing our office, and she's brought our office to a whole another level. But at the same time, she has taken me out of my comfort zone of training. So we've trained a lot of people. You know, I've got thirty years experience. So we had a lot of people who would come in our office, and, I would train all of them for free.
And I enjoyed doing that, at the same time, just the staff. But now about six months ago, her and another gentleman convinced me to take all my knowledge, put it into a course so that I could share with other investors and get them up to where they wanna be so they have passive income and can live off the mailbox money and take care of that monthly nut. And that's the biggest thing. So, yeah, she's pushing me into a course, pushing me into podcasts like this.
Steve: Right.
Jon: That's, that's
Steve: what I'm saying because, like, you know, we've known each other for multiple years.
Jon: A lot of years.
Steve: Used to come to my events. Right? But this is the first time where, like, podcasting is on the table. Yeah. Right?
And so it's great because you need those people. Right? Like, we have a few of those inside my organization who are pushing me to do things that I wouldn't necessarily do on my own. Yeah. I guess a good idea.
Yeah.
Jon: But it's like, yeah.
Steve: You know, we can maybe do that later. Right. Right? Like, that's number four or five on the list. Let's focus on here.
It's like, no. That's number one on the list. Yeah. Right? So and we shout out to Kirsten, right, for for making this happen.
Absolutely. She's awesome. Yeah. And then the other part is, you know, I I don't know how comfortable you bring feel talking about this, but, like, you had other partnerships that did not work out so well. This is true.
Right? So let's talk about some lessons learned from partnerships that did not go well. Because, again, not to say that this is a reason for you, but this market is bringing up by a lot of divorces. And, look, I started real estate in o seven, and I'm traumatized in a certain way. I've got some scar tissue from watching how many actual divorces that occurred, right, from the realtor world
Jon: Yeah.
Steve: From the contractor world. I didn't really know the real estate investing world at that time. But, man, a lot of realtors and contractors got divorced that time.
Jon: Yep. Right?
Steve: And so looking at, lessons that you learn in partnerships from a recent one, what are some lessons that everyone here can take?
Jon: Absolutely. So I met my partner at a meetup. Mhmm.
Speaker 2: I'm filming this video for the man himself, mister Ian Ross. The guy crush is the guy's the best person in sales I've ever seen. I've invested elsewhere and haven't got the same results. I've gone from being a seller, making 5 k a month, to being a hybrid role, making 11 k a month, to now be four months down the line from 5 k to on a closing opportunity, inbound, full calendar with the best opportunity, the best offer in my space. OTE is around 20 k a month from month two.
So I've gone from 5 k to 20 k. If that's not a a return on your investment, I don't know what it is, man. If you're a salesperson and you don't invest in sales training, you're gonna get left behind because your job is to be better at sales, and sales training directly makes you more money.
Steve: My name
Jon: is Lance McCann. I have recently switched in sessions with me and lost. Those conversations with me has made me $50,000 in the past two deals that I've had. I was able to renegotiate go back and renegotiate the original purchase price on one deal, and I saved $40,000 and I got another $10,000 off my other deals. Call Ian, give me a chance.
You won't regret it.
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Jon: at a meetup. Mhmm. We had talked for a long period of time. He wanted to learn how to do creative stuff, get that passive income, things like that. He didn't understand, sub two wraps and and seller finance stuff, but he'd been in the wholesaling industry.
Mhmm. Well, we had I'd finally started an office where I was hiring people to come do this with me, and I was getting a lot of wholesale deals. I'm not a wholesaler. I knew nothing about it. I'm a buy and hold guy, landlord scenarios at the time, and he knew it.
So as we got to talk on him, we went, you know what? Why don't you come over? I started this new office. It's just getting going. I've been open, like, three months, two or three months, something like that, not very long.
And he came over and I says, would you be interested in partnering?
Steve: And What's your idea?
Jon: It was my well, he was looking for a partner. Mhmm. And he he had two other offers at the same time. And so it was my idea. Mhmm.
I know that, some other people in our in our industry right here in town was mentoring him. Mhmm. So he had good mentorship. And he had done a lot of numbers, some big dollars in a short period of time.
Steve: Right.
Jon: And most guys don't do that. Yeah. He was very outgoing where I'm not. So we we complemented each other. So we put together a little contract that we would do a six month engagement period.
Mhmm. And during that six month, we built, a pretty good, operation going. And so at the end of the six months, we went, okay. Let's get married.
Steve: So that was the trial period.
Jon: That was a trial period.
Steve: Yep. Yep. And then you held up your end. He held up his end.
Jon: He did. So then we turned around, and everything was going great then. Mhmm. We put the contract together. We did a buy sale agreement.
In fact, I used some of Dale's language in that buy sale. I had an attorney look it over, and we it took off and started really growing at that point in time. My partner we had it set up that if one of us, you know, were to pass away, what happened? What do our wives get? What do our kids get?
So all that was in the contract. Yeah. But there was a time when, to me, he wasn't pulling his weight. Mhmm. And he was relying too much on me.
In our agreement, it said that, you know, what he needed to do, and he wasn't doing it. But it was a buy sell agreement, so I had to be very, very careful.
Steve: Why what what do you need to be careful about?
Jon: Because if I go to him and say, I want out, then at that point, it's his decision whether to buy me out or take it over. Right. Well, the whole concept of the business and the whole operation was on me. I had put the whole thing together. I brought him in for a wholesaling side of it.
He tried to turn our company into a wholesale business, and it really wasn't a wholesale. It was still buy and hold. It took me about a year to convince him how much money you can make on a buy and hold scenario. And by then, we're already starting doing lease options. Mhmm.
So, I mean, we were getting 10 to $15,000 on an option fee when you're getting the same thing on a wholesale deal. But now I'm getting the monthly cash flow every single month on top of that. Right. You know, plus all the appreciation, depreciation, principal pay down, all that stuff that's additional. So I finally convinced him that, oh, yeah.
This does work because he started seeing what was happening with the properties we were buying. Mhmm. And all this time, Michelle and I, we had our own portfolio. So when I started up with a partner, I actually started a whole new portfolio.
Steve: Right.
Jon: And I couldn't touch that, you know, as far as buy and sell. Everything had to go into the new portfolio, which was fine. It got to the point that he wasn't pulling his weight. And at that point, things were going south in the office. He wasn't showing up in the office.
Things just weren't very good. Mhmm. And he finally he walked out of a meeting one day, and we're getting ready to talk to an attorney on something. And I walked outside, and I says, you know, you you need to stay here for this meeting. It's like, no.
I don't. I'm not staying. I don't want anything to do with this. Why don't you just take it over? That's all I needed right then and there.
Steve: The buy sell?
Jon: Yep. The buy sell agreement. And so at that point, perfect. I already knew I wanted all of it because I already structured all of it. He didn't structure any of the buy hold stuff because he was doing all the wholesale stuff.
Right. But they gave me the opportunity, and we were able to separate. Mhmm. We had to hire another attorney, to actually implement the buy and hold or buy and sell agreement. Right.
And we did so. And, we parted as friends. Mhmm. And he got what he wanted. I got what I needed.
Mhmm. But it it's really sour me on partnerships big time. And I I would never do another one.
Steve: Yeah. And
Jon: I don't ever advise it after having that one. With Dale, it was great. Mhmm. But after that partnership, not so great.
Steve: So, hypothetically, if you were to do a partnership Uh-huh. Again let's say you and me, we have a great podcast. Like, hey. We're gonna do some business together. Sure.
What are some stipulations or things you wanna see now to protect yourself?
Jon: I would say drill down harder on what each of our duties are Mhmm. And what's expected of each other Yeah. So you can take advantage of each other Mhmm. And, you know, work off the short short tails of the other person.
Steve: Right.
Jon: That's the biggest thing.
Steve: Yeah. So even clear expectations.
Jon: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Steve: It's almost like, you know, we have when we bring on a salesperson, it's like, here are the expectations. Yeah. Here are the activities we expect you to do every single day. Yeah. And by the end of the week, we wanna see this much talk time, this many conversations.
Here's how many people you met with. Yeah. Here's how much revenue you brought to the company. Would you say you would go to that much detail?
Jon: Probably not quite that much detail, but I come close. Yeah. I come close.
Steve: Right.
Jon: Because that's what really made the friction between me and that partner Mhmm. Was he thought he was pulling his weight Mhmm. And he really wasn't. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes you get in your own head and you get tunnel vision.
It's like, okay. Well, maybe he really is. Mhmm. So then I started checking with some of the other people that were in the office, and they're all going they all agreed with me that, no. He's not.
And it's like, okay. But, yeah, I'd wanted that nailed down.
Steve: Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the biggest challenges. Like, because even if he was holding his weight, it might not feel Right. Right? Because, like, you can see two, genuine, honest individuals both think they're thinking they're carrying their weight.
Yes. But the appearance may not Right. Show up that way because they have different responsibilities. Yes. Right?
So it's tough. And, like, you know, it's, unfortunately, I think a lot more fail than survive. I agree. But, you know, it's just one of those things that, you know, if you do it, it makes sense, to do it. And then, you know, there's a great book.
Jake McKinney, shared this with me. I I have it written down somewhere. But there's a great book on, like, if you're ever gonna do a partnership, like, do all these exercises. Right? Makes sense.
Right? And it's not just the the engagement component, but, like, it's like, here are all the things to make sure they're on alignment. Because, like, for myself, I can speak of is, like, the just the vision can change.
Jon: Oh, yes.
Steve: Right? And, like, the vision could be the same on day one. Yep. It could be the same after year one, year two, year three. But then year four, it starts to Yep.
Become divergent. And, like, after year five, it's like, why are you into that? Why into this? Right. Right?
And, look, that could be totally at fault as well. You know? I got into, like, the whole crypto world for a bit. Right? It's like, Steve, like, you're taking your eye off the ball.
Yeah. Right? So, like, it can go the vision can change
Jon: Yes.
Steve: From either person Yeah. And it's not necessarily anybody's fault. Yeah. So, alright. So you're you've got mailbox money.
Jon: Mailbox money.
Steve: Alright. So before we start on this, right, you should know, my one gripe about Rich Dad Poor Dad is the promise is the promise of mailbox money. K. You know what I'm talking about? No.
Right? So you read Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is how many of them. How many of us
Jon: got into
Steve: Including me. The business. Right? And Sharon Lechter sat in that seat, right, just a few months ago. So it changes our mindset.
It's almost like the getting red pilled in the matrix. Like, just you see this whole other world that you didn't know existed. Yep. Right? And he's like, oh, if I just buy rental properties, I'm just gonna get mailbox money, and life's gonna be awesome.
K? But it's not necessarily Nope. That
Jon: easy. Nope. Right? It's not.
Steve: So with that context, talk to me about you're the mailbox guy. Mhmm. So talk to me about mailbox money.
Jon: So bottom line is is I don't be a landlord. Alright. K? Landlord, you have a lot of expenses. Mhmm.
And a lot of people look at that or read that book just like you said. Mhmm. The problem is is if you let's say you got a thousand dollars worth of rent. 40 to 50% of that is expenses. It's gone.
Mhmm. So now let's say you got 50% left. Now you gotta pay your debt service. What's left? Very little, if any.
Steve: Well, I mean, if you have to go into debt service or have to go into expenses and the rest is going to debt service, you're not looking pretty good.
Jon: You're not looking so good. Yeah. Okay? And then all of a sudden, even if you're saving for capital improvements and you're at least supposed to be, and then you have an AC go out or you have a roof problem or something like that and you have a big capital expense. Mhmm.
How many months does it take you to recoup if you haven't put away for it? And even to put away for a 10 or $15,000 roof, it takes a long time.
Steve: Mhmm. Because
Jon: you're only taking 10% for capital improvements. Right. So you lose it all. Okay? So don't be a landlord.
Okay? I learned that the hard way.
Steve: Well, I mean, you look at one of the lists that we call. Tire landlords. Tire landlords.
Jon: Absolutely. Yeah. We still call them. But it's but I don't do multifamily. Mhmm.
I only do single families. Okay? But being the landlord, there's too many expenses. So what we've come up with is the lease with the option to purchase. We help people get into houses that maybe can't get a mortgage today for whatever reason.
K? You got the people who wanna be and and want their houses and can qualify.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: You have renters that don't know any better, and you have this middle ground of people that want their own houses and want their want the ownership, but they can't get there. Those are the people that we go after. Mhmm. K? Our whole idea behind it is they are a tenant buyer.
They are, a kind of a pre owner status of the house. So now the way we set everything up, we typically do a five year lease. And at the end of that lease, we let them do the option. Mhmm. K?
During that five years and the reason why we do it so long is usually it's a credit issue or they're brand new on the job. They just moved in the area. Mhmm. Well, you gotta get them through the safe act or slash Dodd Frank, k, which is a government law, especially as a professional investor that I have to put them through or I can go to jail.
Steve: You have to oblige. K.
Jon: Yeah. So to get them to that point, it's gonna take usually three years, k, to fix their credit, to get them on the job with the way they need to, get them stabilized, that kind of thing.
Steve: And down payment?
Jon: Well, yes and no. Okay. So that's the other twist that we do at the end.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: And so to get there, we want three years to get them there. Mhmm. Then my underwriter that writes for us, he wants to see two years consistent. Meaning, they gotta be on the same job or same profession for two years. Mhmm.
He wants to see their credit be stable for two years, so no charge off collections or derogatories. Mhmm. K. He wants to see some type of credit. It could be just a cell phone bill, utility bills, that kind of stuff would work.
But then they also have to have two years of consistent income, to support the mortgage. Right. At that point, he'll go ahead and approve them. So that's a whole another process that we put him through when we get to that option time. Then we turn around and turn it into seller financing.
So I become the bank for them. K? So there really is no down payment. Mhmm. I've already taken their option fee upfront Mhmm.
Because they have skin in the game. So I apply that to a down payment or whatever we need to do. I really don't I'm not looking for that Mhmm. Because I want the mailbox money. Because I'm not a landlord, I don't have all these other expenses.
Inside the lease, it talks about that they are tenant buyers. They will take care of that house just like it's their own. Hot water heater goes out, they replace it, not me. K? Broken window, they fix it, not me.
Plumbing backs up, they fix it, not me. Their home. Okay. So their home. You also don't have the turnover because they put down $15.
That's our average. We get anywhere from a anywhere from about 12 to about 20. So our average is around 15. So they have skin in the game. They don't wanna lose that option fee.
Okay? Right. So it takes a very special person to have that kind of cash available to even do it. So slightly different wrinkle,
Steve: right, is that you do a lease option, and then you're you're doing a seller finance. Afterwards. Typically, what we hear is a lease option, and then they just go get a mortgage.
Jon: They they they can do that. They don't have to do it with me?
Steve: To do that. But I'm saying, like, the what I typically hear is a lease option, and then you have the option to or not the option. Then at that point, you would just go buy with or you get, Fannie Mae
Jon: Exactly. You exercise the option. You go get a broker. You go get a a traditional mortgage.
Steve: But you want even more mailbox money.
Jon: I want more mailbox money. So I turned into seller financing. They don't have all the garbage fees that a bank will charge. They don't have the origination fees the banks charge. You know, there's discount points.
Sometimes you'll pay. So they don't have any of that. They will have some other closing costs, which will be the title work, any prepaids on insurance, prepaids on taxes, stuff like that. But that's the only additional that they have. We try to keep the payment the same as the rent payment or lease payment was.
So we try to continue on, so it's about normal for them. And they've taken this house over the last five years and made it their own. Right. So one thing I don't do is I don't do rehabs. I'll go in and do the safety stuff, whether it's a g f GFCI or smoke detector, stuff like that.
But if it needs paint, carpeting like that, I don't do it. It has the houses I buy have to be basically rent ready or move in ready for a renter.
Steve: So you're not like Zach Hughes where you're doing a complete remodel. You know what I'm talking about?
Jon: I know. Yep. Know Zach very well. I mean,
Steve: he just does a complete remodel, so he doesn't have to touch anything again for, like, twenty years.
Jon: Yep. And he does it as rentals. Right. Yeah. I don't do any of that.
So we have them go in and make it their own if they want. If it does need a lot of work, let's say it does need a lot of carpet and paint and stuff like that, we might give them a grant. What I mean by that is is we may take $510,000 off of the purchase price when they exercise their option, and they'll get that as a a discount at the end. Mhmm. So then they're making it their own.
It's not money out of my pocket to do it. And the idea is is I had one property that we we went in, we painted it, we put carpet down, we did it as a lease option. This tenant came in, the tenant buyer, and didn't like the colors I had. They went in and ripped all the carpet out, repainted everything. I I wasted $10,000.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: So I quit doing that, and now I give them the grants to go do what they wanna do. Gotcha. And they get it at the end. But we turned it into seller finance. You know, I'm not looking at closing out of these properties.
They all sit in a trust, for a family trust. It's gonna be generational wealth for my three daughters. They can do what they want to with the properties afterwards. If they wanna continue to live off the the passive income from mailbox money, great. Now the key to the portfolios we have, I have two of them.
On average, they average $600 positive cash flow a month. That's after the debt service, taxes, insurance. That's basically all I have. Mhmm. K.
We don't really have vacancies because once they're a lot of times what happens is we will buy something, get it under contract for whether it'd be creative or whether it'd just be a cash deal, and I'm bringing in a private money investor for that and giving them, you know, 10% interest and giving them a promissory note and a deed of trust to secure them. At that point, we're turning around and, setting it up so that we can sell it off. We do a pre marketing on it. Mhmm. And during that premarketing, a lot of times, we will find the tenant buyer.
They will give us that option fee upfront. The minute we close on it, they're moving in. Mhmm. There's no downtime. And then they're in there for another, you know, four or five years.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: And then they exercise their option. Is everybody gonna exercise their option? No. So then what happens? Well, they leave, but we got that $15,000.
So do I really have any down money? No. It's not gonna take me that much to get it rehabbed because I don't even rehab them. I might have to send a cleaning crew in or something like that. Yeah.
Big deal. Okay. So I might be into it 2 or $3,000, but I got 15,000. Then we turn around. We'll raise the pricing.
We'll raise the rents. We'll resell it again, and we get another $15,000. So do I really have a a vacancy rate that you gotta take out? No. And I really don't have a maintenance fee either because we don't put that much into them.
Steve: What is your, the when they're lost my train of thought there. So, you have what you're talking about here, for them to be able to buy the property later on, when is the strike price set for the purchase price? When is it set? And then, yeah, I guess, when is it set, and what do you set it for?
Jon: Sure. So we used to set it. We used to do a five year out, and we used to do 3% appreciation over the five years each year. 3%. That was the the buy price.
Mhmm. Then, of course, COVID hit and everything else, and appreciation went through the roof in Arizona. Mhmm. We lost a lot of money that's left it on the table Mhmm. Because of the appreciation.
And then Sean Terry Mhmm. Came up with the idea. We're gonna take this and or appraise value whichever is higher Mhmm. On the options. So we started changing all of our paperwork, goes to Sean.
Mhmm. And, the, now it's this set price as a minimum and or appraised value, whichever is higher. Mhmm. So far, we've never had to go get an appraisal. We settle on a price, and we just take care of it for them.
Steve: Got it. So simple.
Jon: Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: A complicated problem or an expensive problem
Jon: Could be. Yeah.
Steve: With a simple fix.
Jon: Yeah. Yeah. We had one house here in San Tan Valley that I've owned since '19. Mhmm. And it was on a a lease option scenario.
And these people during COVID and because of what happened with appreciation in Arizona, I woulda lost about $250,000 if they woulda exercised their option.
Steve: But they didn't.
Jon: They didn't. They end up moving out. Why?
Steve: It doesn't matter.
Jon: I I it's one of those things you don't ask questions. It's it's their deal.
Steve: Yeah. They had
Jon: a life event and couldn't do it anymore, and they moved out.
Steve: Gotcha. Now what you're saying, it sounds pretty easy the way you're explaining it. So what are the challenges in doing
Jon: what you're talking about? Proper paperwork.
Steve: Okay. What does that mean?
Jon: Having a damn good attorney Mhmm. That knows what they're talking about to give you the proper paperwork so that you're covering your butt. And that's gonna be whether you're doing the creative stuff or if you're doing the lease option, the seller finance stuff, making sure you get the right paperwork in place.
Steve: What happens if you have the wrong paperwork?
Jon: I haven't had to run into that yet, so I don't want to.
Steve: Have you heard any nightmare stories?
Jon: I've heard nightmare stories, and usually, it's all about the paperwork.
Steve: What are some of those nightmare? Because I for everyone here, right, like, don't just download the PDF. Right?
Jon: No. Do not. So one thing that's happened is, we we use the guy right here in town. Mhmm. Okay?
Sean St. Clair. Mhmm. K. He writes most of our paperwork.
At the same time, he will give me documentation that will typically work around the country. But then he says, we'll go check with this attorney. Check with this attorney. Check with this attorney. So we go around.
We check with these attorneys to double check if Sean's paperwork is gonna work or not, or do we need additional stuff in that for that state or county even?
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: Now we just ran into a situation in, Saginaw, Michigan. I don't mind Michigan, but Saginaw, you do not wanna own in Saginaw. Mhmm. And I did know that. Mhmm.
Bad due diligence. Bad story.
Steve: What's wrong with Saginaw?
Jon: So we bought we I actually own two houses there right now. Well, one. We sold one. We had a tenant that found out that the city of Saginaw is has got it out for landlords. It is not landlord friendly, and we didn't know that.
Mhmm. And so she started pushing the issue, and she had the house inspected. And they want you to if it has a screen outside and it has a little rip in it, you have to replace that screen for the city. It's like, no. According to our lease, our tenant buyer does because they probably damaged it.
Segata says, nope. You're the owner. You have to do it. And it's like, okay. This these are the areas we don't wanna play in.
Just like you don't wanna play in California or Washington. You know? We get out of there. So we sold that house. The other one's on the market.
We should have an offer next week, and it'll be gone.
Steve: Yeah. And Sean Sinclair is a good, good guy. I met him, I wanna say, before, you know, he's this famous person now. Right? Yeah.
I met him. I was just a broker. Right? He was just a lawyer.
Jon: Yeah. But we were speaking on
Steve: a panel. It was funny. Like, I think I wanna say it was, like, a women's, real estate thing, but, like, two of the people in the panel were were guys. That's where I met him. And, like, yeah, super, super smart guy.
Jon: Yes. He is.
Steve: So that's a not to sound insensitive. Right? More of a minor nightmare situation. What What are some really bad situations if your paperwork's not good?
Jon: Yeah. I honestly, I've never run into them.
Steve: Right. But you must have heard other people run into
Jon: them. Well, so I've heard people when they're doing the sub two stuff wrong, about getting the due on sale clause pulled on them, and they're gonna have to refinance or do something. Mhmm. There's other ways around that. I mean, you turn into a contract for deed.
You can go back and do a lease with an option. But if you don't have all those proper disclosures Mhmm. To your seller and let them know that if if the due on sale does happen, then you need to help us work through this. Whether we can work through it with your, mortgage company or not, that's a different story. If not, then as a owner, where I stand, I need to be able to be financially able to go in and take out that mortgage if I have to.
So I have heard things like that Mhmm. But very few. And usually, it's because people don't know what they're doing with the sub twos, and they'll cancel insurance. And so it gets called. The seller calls the the mortgage company for some stupid reason and gets it called.
I mean, it's it's always stupid stuff.
Steve: So what are you doing to prevent that from happening?
Jon: Most of it so our insurance, we actually use a master policy instead of individuals. We used to use two separate policies, left the people that, the sellers on the the actual policies. Now we don't. We pull them off and put them on the master policy, that kind of stuff. Obviously, we get all the mailings and so forth.
We get the online access so that we can monitor everything.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: And we make sure if there's any issues, we're basically the management company on it. Yeah. Sometimes we'll take the deed. Sometimes we don't take the deed. Mhmm.
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There was something else I was gonna ask there. So another thing that I've seen, I was I I would argue a less positive side of our industry, is you see these guys from time to time like, oh, we're gonna do these these options. And if they don't pay it, it's no big deal. We're just gonna take their money. But there's almost like a predatory element too.
But you wanna, like, enlighten people, like, what we're talking about here and, like, the, I don't know, the downside.
Jon: Well, let let me back up just a second here too because even on, sub two's type stuff, a lot of stuff in the industry right now is we're just gonna do a sub two, but where's the protection for the seller? Right. K. I I do it the old school way, the way Dale taught me. Mhmm.
And that's truly to do a wrap. Mhmm. K. They weren't called sub twos then. They were just gonna do a wrap around the mortgage.
Mhmm. You know? And so the seller gets a deed of trust and a promissory note from me. So if I quit making that payment, she can come foreclose on me. Right.
Okay? And that's the biggest thing there. And our promissory nodes are pretty steep. If I don't make a payment within forty five days, they get the deed. Mhmm.
Okay? And I'm gonna give them back the deed, and then they can do whatever they want to. So I'm not gonna put them in a situation that they have to foreclose. Mhmm. But that's me.
K? On a lease option type basis, what's happened what I've heard happen is people are getting these option fees Mhmm. And then the people don't perform or can't exercise that option, and they're kicking them out and keeping the the fees. Right. I don't do that.
In our contracts, it has written right in there that if you have a life event and you cannot exercise that option, I will roll that lease for another year Mhmm. And another year and another year until you can exercise that option, and we'll help you get there. So there is some predatory stuff there, I guess, in my mind.
Steve: Yeah. We
Jon: don't play that game.
Steve: Yeah. Because, like, I know I know what I was gonna ask was the the underwriting component. Right? Because, like, the way you describe your underwriting, your underwriting is kinda like if you're a bank. If you're a regular bank
Jon: That when we get to the seller financing, it is 100% done through, an underwriter. Right. It's outside our office.
Steve: But the some of the predatory stuff is, like, they'll take the deposit from someone that they know. In two years, this person doesn't have a chance Right. To get their life in order. Yeah. Right?
Jon: And that's why we roll it for a year after year after year, and that's the other reason why we do five years. Mhmm. Some states don't want you doing five years. They'll let you do three years.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: Okay. We'll do three years. But at the same token, we will roll it. We're not gonna kick them out just because they can't exercise their option. I know there's some other, competitors out there that, at the end of the option, if you can't exercise it, see you.
Steve: Mhmm. We
Jon: don't play that game.
Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, like, the the higher purpose, right, of doing all this, like, if you're doing it right, you're doing pretty well. And now you can bless others
Jon: Absolutely. If you're doing it right. Absolutely. Yeah. I wanna see them get into that house.
That's what they really want. And that's supposedly the American dream.
Steve: It is American dream.
Jon: You know? It's like and a lot of people can't have that. And if I can help them do that, that's very gratifying. Very gratifying. And so
Steve: we talked about what you're doing with these properties. Right? And then how, parts of, like, how you're getting the passive income. How are you buying these properties? Like, where are where are these properties coming from?
Jon: We do a lot of pay per click. Mhmm. Lot of pay per click. I've got five acquisitions right now Mhmm. That they're just taking calls day in and day out.
But it's there's all, coming in from pay per click. We've tried text messaging, Ringless voice mail, emails. We've tried, several different, virtual assistant, cold callers. Pay per click is the only way to go.
Steve: Alright. So you're just doing Google PPC?
Jon: Yep.
Steve: And how many different markets?
Jon: We are in three full states and 20 cities. Mhmm. So most of it's East Coast and Midwest.
Steve: What states, if you don't mind me asking?
Jon: So our biggest states are Ohio, Indiana, Georgia. Mhmm. Those are the biggest ones we own in. We do own in New Mexico, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Pennsylvania. Mhmm.
I can't even name all of them. There's 15. But we try to stay in those areas. And the areas that give us the better cash flow Mhmm. We'll that's where we're actually marketing to.
Steve: Alright. Because you're buying to buy.
Jon: Buying to buy. Yeah. So our marketing goes out the way. Now we do have two different campaigns. One campaign is strictly for buy and hold stuff Mhmm.
Because it's not gonna be the $3.04, $500,000 homes. They don't cash flow no matter what market trend. Right. But so that is, also one is strictly for buy and hold. The other campaign, we do go after a little bit Better House for the assignments, when we do innovations.
Alright. But both produce both either way. Mhmm. So it's perfectly fine. But we we the first so we have a calculator that we use, that we put together that when our acquisitions are on the telephone, they are literally running formulas to find out if it fits in this bucket, which is gonna be your creative, which is you're gonna be your sub two, your seller finance, your hybrids, whatever that might be, or even a cash offer.
Mhmm. Does it cash flow? If it cash flows, we want that property as long as it goes through inspections. Mhmm. If it doesn't fit in this bucket while they're on the telephone, they're gonna move straight to novation.
And I would say it's gonna be one or the other because we only do about maybe 10% wholesale. So everything is up in these other two buckets. Mhmm. One or the other.
Steve: Okay. So, I thought you might have been looking for might be getting deals from realtors or wholesalers, but you're just sourcing your deals yourself.
Jon: Most of them are. A good friend of ours, Vic, calls me today, has a deal right here in Mesa.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: And I told him, yep. I'm I'm I'm a buyer. It works for my formulas, and he's shopping around a little bit and supposed to call me this afternoon. So I do get it from other wholesalers. Mhmm.
We get a little bit from other realtors. If they understand, a lot of realtors don't understand what we do. I wish they did, because we'll pay realtors commissions all day long. If they get a deal that is doesn't have any equity in it. Yeah.
It doesn't pencil. They can't the seller can't pay the commissions and so forth. If I can get it to pencil and make a cash flow Yeah. And still pay your commissions, we'll do it all day long.
Steve: So how are you paying your acquisition guys if you're buying to keep?
Jon: We pay them a flat fee. Mhmm. So most of our guys are earning I'll I'll say, I don't care. It's 10% Mhmm. Is what they make on a net deal through the house, whether it's an assignment.
So because we have a $15,000 option fee, they get 10% of that, so they get a flat $1,500
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: For every deal. So if anything else close pretty damn quick.
Steve: Well, it's a it's a little easier when you're the buyer. I'm the buyer.
Jon: Yeah. As long as we get through inspections and we get title Mhmm.
Steve: I'll close. So Indiana, which makes sense. Ohio makes sense. Georgia, I'm kinda surprised by. Because I I look at Georgia, at least Atlanta, a lot like Phoenix.
Like We're out
Jon: of Atlanta. There's not much in Atlanta. No. There that does the cash flow. Yeah.
You gotta be on the outskirts.
Steve: Gotcha.
Jon: Yeah. It doesn't work. So we're in smaller cities and stuff like that. Yeah. I don't owe anything in Atlanta.
Steve: Alright. So you got PBC. You got the acquisition guys. They're locking up. They're obviously trained by you about how to have a conversation about going creative.
Yep. From there, the the I mean, you don't have a transaction coordinator. Or you have a TC, but you don't have really a dispo unless you go in Novation.
Jon: Oh, no. We we do have a full dispo.
Steve: For stuff that you keep? Yeah. How does that work?
Jon: So what happens from there is when we when the acquisitions gets locked up Mhmm. They will do a live transfer typically to Kirsten. Mhmm. Okay. She's our dispo manager slash TC.
I used to have another TC person, but now Kirsten's taking it over also. Because she's got twenty years in, title and escrow.
Steve: And she has a dynamic personality.
Jon: Yes. She does. She has
Steve: a she has a she has a personality unlike a lot of escrow officers.
Jon: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So she does a live transfer, and we'll let the seller know what's gonna happen, step one, two, three, all the way through to close. Mhmm.
In the meantime, we have another dispo person that will take that property, and she puts it up as pre advertising. So we're trying to find that tenant buyer before we ever get it closed. And I kinda alluded on that earlier. So she's working deals. She's working, with the clients that are calling in, prequalifying them.
If they're really good, they're she's sending out applications. And if we find somebody that really wants it and put down the, the option fee Mhmm. Then we're doing it. So it does go through that distance.
Steve: So it's almost like, not quite a leasing manager, but
Jon: Kinda that's kinda what she is.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Where is she finding potential buyer tenants?
Jon: So we use a software called Inago. Mhmm. And it's for, landlords. And on there, they put out a marketing deal that goes out to multiple websites. Mhmm.
So that's one avenue. The other is through Zillow, but we post directly to Zillow instead of going through Inago. Mhmm. And then we put out a lot of Facebook. So, like, in this market, Facebook doesn't work in Phoenix.
Zillow does. But then you go to Tucson, and Facebook is great down there. But Zillow sucks. So you gotta find what's happy in that market. Right.
So we'll we'll do a test market on it, and we'll put it up for three, four, five days, see how many hits we get. If we don't get any hits, it's probably not a property we want. Right? Because we are in so many different markets, so many different cities that we don't know every single market. There's some criteria we do look at.
Yeah. I want a city that's a minimum of 20,000 in population. It's gotta be staying steady or growing. Okay? And, typically, we will look for a Walmart.
Walmarts are there for a reason. Yeah. You know? So if we're in those cities, then we're we're pretty safe. Mhmm.
And I haven't had any problem without with those criterias.
Steve: Got it. Do you find yourself buying more in the, outskirts, or do you find yourself buying I mean, obviously, we talked about, Georgia, but, like, in the in Indiana and Ohio, do you find yourself buying more in the outskirts, or are you buying in the metro as well?
Jon: It seems to be the outskirts. Gotcha.
Steve: Yeah. Because that's where there's less demand and you get to pick your price Yep. And then, and so on. So, how does a how does a leasing manager get compensated? Is it much like a dispo manager?
Jon: Similar. Yeah. She's paid on a flat fee for everyone that she rents out. Gotcha. It comes down to.
Yep.
Steve: Okay. So now we got all those pieces in place. Now it's not quite property management, but someone needs to talk to the tenant buyer
Jon: Yep. Who's doing that. So I have a great assistant and, our, I call her my administrative assistant. So she does almost everything in the office that nobody else does. That's what it comes down to.
She deals with all the tenant buyers. She deals with all the lease collections. She makes sure all the mortgages are paid and that kind of stuff unless we use a servicing company, which we do right here in town. Not all of them are through a servicing company because it depends on how you have the mortgage. Right.
At the same time, she deals all the taxes, insurance, and that kind of stuff. If notices need to go out, if if one of them doesn't get paid on time, she's sending out notices. She's dealing with the attorneys, that kind of stuff. Wow. She does handle all that side of it.
Mhmm. But it's not many hours a week that she has to do anything. Because they are tenant buyers, the rents come in, pretty religiously Mhmm. Out of the portfolio. I think this month, our rents are due on the twentieth of the month, late on the twenty third.
Mhmm. And she's already looking at notices that she has to do. She came in today and said she's gotta put, like, four notices out out of the whole portfolio, which is nothing.
Steve: Twentieth is different. It is. Why why the twentieth?
Jon: We do that because if you do it on the first, obviously, your mortgages are due on the first Mhmm. Late on the fifteenth or sixteenth. So we just back it up, and we put it on the twentieth so that we got that extra ten days to get collections done if we need to. And plus, if back in the and I learned this from the rental side of things. Right.
If you do it on the first, then you're kinda screwed. If you do it on the twentieth and they don't pay, you can usually have them out just shortly after the first here in Arizona. Mhmm. If you run their system right,
Steve: then
Jon: you can turn around and have it rented before the end of the month. Right. Where if you do it on the first, now you're screwed until the following month. So it it just backs up, and it helps you collect more money in the long run.
Steve: Yeah. These little things, experience.
Jon: It's experience. You're right. Yeah. Or somebody taught you.
Steve: Somebody taught you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what have I not asked you that you typically get get asked about in building your model?
Jon: You know, we've covered a lot of it. Mhmm. You You know, we've covered acquisitions, the scripts, the paperwork you have to have, which is huge. I mean, we have two separate contracts. One's a a wholesale contract if it works for, like, a novation type scenario, and then we have novation paperwork.
Steve: Right.
Jon: It goes with that. Or if it's a creative deal Mhmm. That's a whole different contract. Yeah. And then if you get into that, now you have to have all the disclosures, all the legal paperwork, all the letters to the mortgage company, insurance companies, to the HOAs, all that kind of stuff.
So, I mean, once you get through all that, we talked about, yeah, live transfer and then, that you gotta have the proper lease and the option. Mhmm. And then you gotta have the proper, promissory note, due to trust for your seller back here, but also when you get into selling it as a seller finance deal.
Steve: And then, you've been able to help a lot of people along the way accomplish the same
Jon: thing. Yes. We have. I I got a great story. I I love this story.
I love this kid. He came to work with me, stayed with me about thirteen months. These are people you don't wanna lose, but yet you're happy when you do lose them. Mhmm. So he came to work.
He'd had very little experience in the real estate market. He'd owned one or two rentals up in Washington, that kind of thing. Really wanted to get into it. And he came in, and he's one of those guys that he's always on YouTube trying to figure stuff out, that kind of thing. But he'd sit in my office at least thirty minutes to an hour every single day just quizzing the shit out of me.
Steve: While working for you?
Jon: While working for me, which is fine because I I love giving out information like that, which is great. And this is before I did any type of coaching or anything. This is just me training somebody because they're asking me questions.
Steve: That's to say, like, you know, if you if they don't buy your program, they can go work for you.
Jon: They can. Yeah. But back then, I didn't have a program. Yeah. K.
So he he stayed on. And within about I can't remember this for sure, but within about three, four months, because of the way we do, if I don't take it down, anybody in the office can. Mhmm. He bought his first
Steve: property. Three to four months in?
Jon: Yeah. Awesome. And so his idea was is he wanted to buy a property a month. Mhmm. And he he kept on track for that, and he end up with eight properties.
And he just left me last February. Mhmm. He had eight properties when he left. He was cash flowing probably 5 or $6,000 a month, positive cash flow, doing the lease options. Mhmm.
At the same time so he left. He was gonna go back in construction. The market our first quarter, we did not have a good first quarter. K? So he was feeling it other than he had great cash flow coming in.
So he's gonna go back into construction. He used to sell asphalt and thought he could go out and and do that again. He leaves. He gets a couple more properties under his belt, and I just got an email from him this week or through, social media. He closed on his thirteenth property.
Nice. K. And he's got some wholesaling stuff going on, and he's flying. He's doing so great. It's it's I love hearing that kind of thing, but he didn't have to go back into construction because he had enough passive income, mailbox money coming in every single month that he could basically do nothing if he wanted to.
And he's single, no kids, not married.
Steve: And if someone wanted to learn about how to do that, where would they go?
Jon: At johnburger.com. Pretty simple.
Steve: Pretty simple.
Jon: Yep. I'm all all over social media. Mhmm. We have a website up and so forth. And the whole idea was is with thirty years experience and with Kiersten and Tony, they came to me and said, hey.
You need to take this knowledge and put a put a course together. Mhmm. So we did. But what I hate about courses, there's so many people out there that just sell you a course and don't do anything with it.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: Or don't help you with it and support you. Mhmm. So in this course, you'll receive all your documents that you need. You'll receive all the scripts. You'll receive a video guide to walk you through the whole thing.
Mhmm. K? Start to finish. But on top of that, we offer six one on ones with me so you can get through your deal. I wanna get you through that entire first deal.
And if we have to go more than six, I'll go more than six. It's all about getting you through that first deal. Yeah. K? But not only that first deal, I wanna see them get enough deals to make their monthly nut so they don't have to work anymore.
Yeah. And get enough mailbox money coming in. That's the idea behind it. Mhmm. We have a community.
So we meet every Tuesday at 03:00 Phoenix time. They can get on, and it's open community, so they can ask any questions they have. At the same time, there's a course, there's one on ones, and there's a lot more that they can look at in on the website. Yeah.
Steve: How many people have you if you were to estimate, you've been able to help do what we're talking about here today?
Jon: Oh, jeez. Honestly, I don't even know. There's been a ton because there's been a lot through our office that have have worked for me and done this. We just had a 23 year old kid that's in acquisitions right now. Just bought his first property about three months ago.
Yeah. Zero money out of his pocket. Mhmm. You know? And he's ecstatic.
I I have another gentleman that his mom and dad are one of my private money investors. Mhmm. And he wanted to start doing it. And I helped him buy his first property in Georgia. I don't know.
I I really haven't even kept track. Mhmm. It's just it's fun doing it.
Steve: And then we've been talking a lot about, you know, you're doing the lease option, you're doing the seller carry. We haven't talked a lot about notes.
Jon: I love
Steve: notes. Yeah. So what do you do in regards to notes?
Jon: So, Eddie Speed is a friend. Mhmm. K. He's one of the major gurus when it comes to notes. Mhmm.
I don't typically buy notes. So I'm a note creator. Mhmm. K? And that's what's so cool is when you when I own that property and I buy it for x and I sell it for y, and I create that note, you're making money out of thin air.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: That's what I enjoy doing. I haven't sold any of my notes, don't need to, and don't plan to at this point in time. Mhmm. But I like creating those notes, and that's part of that seller finance deal. Yeah.
I have attended a bunch of Eddie's stuff about buying the different types of notes and so forth. I'm just not a note buyer. Rather have the real estate. I want the depreciation side of it.
Steve: So you love notes, but you don't buy them or sell them? I don't. You just love having them?
Jon: I well and I make them. I'll create them. Create them. I'm a creator.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Notes is a funny one because, like, you look at, like, was it Jimmy Napier? Right? Like, when I went through that book, it's just it's a whole different world.
Jon: Yeah. It is. And I'm not one of those guys that I wanna sit and analyze document after document after document to go buy a note. Yeah. You know?
And that's just not me.
Steve: Yeah. But, I mean, I love, like, when Eddie starts talking about notes, man, he is as giddy as a kid.
Jon: Yeah. No doubt. Yeah. No doubt. He loves it.
Steve: So you could have retired. Right? You could have. Yeah. But you didn't.
Jon: I didn't.
Steve: If you did, what would you be doing?
Jon: I'm not sure because I'm so ADD that I have to be doing something all the time. Yeah. I mean, I love riding Harleys. We just got off two trips the last two weekends. We love off roading, whether it be in the dirt or whether it be the sand.
Mhmm. So we have a cabin up north, so we spend a lot of time at the cabin. Mhmm. And that's what I was doing two or three years ago when we're really up there all the time. Yeah.
Steve: And
Jon: I was only working one or two days a week. Mhmm. My wife and I love to travel. Our kids are grown, I'm done with college, that kind of stuff, so they're on their own. We're not empty nesters yet.
But, it it's we'd be doing something. My wife owns her own company. So that's really what's holding us down right now is she doesn't wanna sell her company yet. Yeah. I keep trying to talk her into it because I just wanna be gone.
And I have a great, great staff that they can run this company without me.
Steve: Yeah. Off roading is not a cheap
Jon: hobby. No. It is not.
Steve: Yeah. There's a guy I play basketball with, and one of his three businesses is, like, he just creates custom off road vehicles. And, like, you know, we play basketball in the mornings, and, like, he just drives it. Every once in a while, I drive his truck to the gym with, like, the latest custom off road thing that he's gonna sand rail, whatever, that he just sells. Like, he tells me how much these these these things are.
I was like, man, this is a rich person's hobby. Yeah.
Jon: If you're into sand rails, you better be a quarter of 1,000,000.
Steve: Yeah. Like because, like, golf is expensive. Yes. Right? There's all sorts I mean, snowboarding.
There's all sorts of expensive hobbies. Yeah. But when you get into, like, sandrails and whatever, it's like, this is
Jon: Yeah. It's insane.
Steve: Like, you thought you were successful, and then you see what these people are dropping money on. It's a it's a whole different world.
Jon: That's a different world because if you get the sandrail, now you gotta have the half $1,000,000 coach.
Steve: Mhmm. And
Jon: then you gotta have the enclosed trailer to tow it in. Yeah. So, I mean, when you go to the dunes and you see some of these rigs sitting down there, they gotta be half half 1,000,000 to $1,000,000 when they pull all the stuff out of their trailers. Yeah. Yeah.
It gets expensive.
Steve: Yeah. But it's a good business for him because he's selling those things. Awesome. So besides, you know, the financial freedom, what else do you love about real estate?
Jon: Just the I'm a deal junkie. Mhmm. You know, I think that's what keeps driving me is just the deals. Mhmm. I love it when our guys come in, and I don't usually underwrite them.
My COO underwrites all the deals. But when it gets to the to be put in the portfolio, then I do look at every deal. I love running it through the calculator, seeing if it's really gonna cash flow, working all the the nuances out of them. Yeah. We're working a deal right now in Kokomo, Indiana that, the seller told us had a $6,000 arrears.
We get the statement. He was close. It was 7,700, but then an attorney up and added another $12,000 on for other fees. So we're trying to get a breakdown for that. But then we read on and we find $11,000 of an insurance claim.
It's like, okay. What's going on with this? And the mortgage company, all they could say is, yes. We filed the claim because of the roof and this and this and this. It's like, okay.
You got the money. Are you gonna fix the house?
Steve: Or what are
Jon: you gonna do with that money? You're not applying it anywhere.
Steve: Right.
Jon: And so having that kind of fun, I enjoy that and just doing the numbers. You know? And now that I'm coaching, just having students call me out of the blue or then they have my personal number, which that's why the the six calls probably isn't real because I'm helping them with whatever they need. Just shoot me a text. They're needing a deal.
We'll get on the phone. I'll help them through it. We my wife and I were just in Hawaii, and one of my students called or texted me and says, hey. I'm working a deal. I don't know what to put in this contract.
Can you help me? Mhmm. Yeah. I left the bar from the pool, went up to the room, got my computer, opened it up, helped him get through the contract. That's what I enjoyed doing.
Yeah. So Yeah. So deal junkie for sure. Absolutely.
Steve: What is your biggest struggle today?
Jon: Biggest struggle? This freaking election. Mhmm. It's everything's shut down right now. Mhmm.
Nobody's doing anything. They're not buying. They're not selling. It's putting a strain on the office because people aren't. We're still getting with our PPC, we get anywhere from two twenty to 300 leads a month, which keeps our acquisitions busy.
We're still getting the leads, but nobody wants to do anything. They don't wanna sign contracts, and they all say, I'll wait until after the election. I'll wait until after the election. We just I just need to get through the election. And whichever way it goes, we'll pivot whichever way we have to
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: And move forward. What, what
Steve: are they saying when they hear that? I wanna wait till after the election.
Jon: It depends on the person. You know? Oh, yes. We understand that. You know?
But we can lock it up and get you under contract now, and, you know, we can close whenever. It doesn't have to close right away. Sometimes they're just putting them on a follow-up right after the election since we're close enough now Mhmm. That it's, you know, okay. I'll follow-up with you on the sixth or seventh.
Mhmm. You know, something like that.
Steve: So, so we do ourselves training, obviously. Right?
Jon: Mhmm. Yeah. And
Steve: then we have the objection handling calls. And so what we've been pressing on is if someone says, I wanna wait until after elections, like, oh, that's interesting. You know, what? What's going on? Do you wanna wait until after election?
And wanna figure out which side of of the spectrum they're on. Right? Are they left or are they right? And then if they're right, we're just like, well, you know, like, what's gonna happen if Kamala wins?
Jon: Uh-huh. And
Steve: we wanna tell them how awful that's gonna be. Right? But if they're leaning last, like, what are you gonna do if Trump wins? Right? But either way, we're gonna push, like, the negative.
Right? Because fear sells, pain sells.
Jon: Sure.
Steve: Right? And then we're gonna bring it out as, like I mean, right now, it's looking like a coin flip.
Jon: It does.
Steve: Are you telling me you're okay with gambling with your house? And then having them kinda come to terms like, oh, yeah. It is gambling. Like, I don't wanna take the chance that there's other awful things gonna happen.
Jon: Right.
Steve: So that's what we're doing right now.
Jon: Okay. So when can I have you come train my guys?
Steve: I mean, maybe maybe Friday.
Jon: Right? There you go.
Steve: But you see, right, like, we're gonna we're gonna talk about, like, you know, what about the election you're concerned about? Right? Isolate the objection Yeah. And then, like, and then really push that button.
Jon: No. I will take that back to the guys. That's awesome.
Steve: Yeah. That's awesome. Okay. So then yeah. So the election is your biggest struggle.
So the good news is that's only two weeks. Yes. Thirteen days as of today's recording. I think by the time we release, we'll be, like, two days before the election.
Jon: Okay.
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Jon: You know what? We still have a bunch of deals coming through. And it's honestly, it it's it's really strange because even though this month, our contract numbers are down, this will be one of the biggest months, as far as income wise that we've ever had.
Steve: Mhmm. Really?
Jon: Which is crazy. Mhmm. So it's it's a night and day type scenario. We ran right up to this point Mhmm. And it kinda stopped.
But because everything flows over on your closings Right. This will be one of the biggest income months we've ever had.
Steve: What would you attribute that to?
Jon: I have no clue. I in real estate, how do you predict it?
Steve: I have
Jon: no clue.
Steve: You don't predict it?
Jon: No. I have no clue.
Steve: Every every indication in COVID was that this is gonna be bad.
Jon: Yeah. This is gonna be bad. Bad. We bought more houses in '23 than I did in '21 and '22 combined.
Steve: Yeah. Well, you're probably one of the few people still taking properties now. Right? A lot of other people decided they elected to to take the those couple years off. How are you measuring success?
Jon: Honestly, by how many people I help. Mhmm. That's that's more gratifying to me than anything. Mhmm. Money is not the issue anymore for me.
Like I say, I can retire, do whatever I want to. Watching somebody grow and start building their portfolio, start getting their mailbox money in Yeah. That's how I measure success, and that's how I measure my success. So how many people can I go out and help? And that's why I did this course.
How many people can I help get to where we are today?
Steve: Yeah. Are you measuring that anywhere?
Jon: Kirsten is. So and and my big offer is okay. They watch it every day for me. You know, the other thing is I don't believe that becoming a millionaire, honestly, is true wealth. No.
I believe that if you could have enough mailbox money coming in to take care of that monthly nut and you have your time back, that's wealth. Yeah. Well, I
Steve: mean, that was the freedom number. Right? Absolutely. That's the freedom number. And for sure, I think the freedom number is more important.
Jon: Mhmm.
Steve: But people don't aspire for the freedom number.
Jon: No. They want the money. They aspire for freedom. You know? At at my age, I've had all the toys.
You know? We've had the boats, the motor homes, all this kind of stuff. It was fun. But when it really gets down to it, it's all about family. And it's it it that's a that was a a big switch in my mindset over the years.
I was all about had to have all the shiny object stuff and that kinda not anymore. Now it's all about time with the family. Well, you
Steve: still gotta go through that season.
Jon: You do?
Steve: Gotta go through the
Jon: season where
Steve: you're just wasting money.
Jon: Yeah.
Steve: Right? Yep. But then once you get past that, it's like, oh, that's actually not important.
Jon: No. Not anymore.
Steve: Yeah. So I'm I'm in I'm in a coaching program myself, and, you know, the my coach is younger than me. Right? It's kinda, like, weird. But, you know, he's got some young guys in there who are doing really well.
Right? They're 22, and they're just making 6 figures a month.
Jon: Nice. Yeah. Right?
Steve: And he's saying, like, hey. You're gonna go through this thing or you're just gonna blow money.
Jon: Yep.
Steve: A, don't blow all of it. But b, it's okay. Yeah. Right? Because, like, he went through it.
Yeah. We've all gone through it.
Jon: We all do.
Steve: In some degree or another.
Jon: We all do.
Steve: What is your superpower?
Jon: Superpower? I would say that's gonna be, being the the deal engineer, the deal junkie, putting the deals together, finding out how much cash flow I can get out of every single deal Mhmm. And making them work. Yeah. That that's what I love to do.
Steve: You're like, Zach Galifianakis in the that scene in '21. You got all these equations Yeah. Going on. But that's that is when you're in your zone.
Jon: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I love it.
Steve: I mean, for me, I I love it too. Right? That and, like, oh, just do a, b, and c, and then this is done. Yeah. Right?
Like, hey. We have this problem. We don't know what to do. It's like, oh, just do this, this, and this.
Jon: Right. And it's done. Yep. Solving the issue. Yeah.
Solving the pain points of the sellers. If I can help those sellers, that's great.
Steve: What is your biggest regret?
Jon: Biggest regret? Mhmm. Selling property too soon.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: And, selling a period.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: Also, not staying in my lane. K? And I told you I mean, we had all the rentals, then we went to the developing, then we went to assisted living, then back into the the rentals to at least find a place that works and stay in your lane. I wish I would have stayed in my lane starting in '93.
Steve: Mhmm.
Jon: I'd be so much further ahead than I am today. K? Not that I'm doing bad. Right. But it just stay in your lane We'll get a lot better.
Steve: I posted something yesterday, right, about, like, how I stopped buying houses. I saw that. Best decision I made. And someone asked, like, well, you know, like, what if you just stayed in your lane? I was like, if I had just stayed in my lane, I'll probably be wondering what would have happened True.
If I didn't do these other
Jon: You're right.
Steve: Right? So, like, you're kinda screwed either way.
Jon: Well, that's the entrepreneur in this. Yeah. You always gotta try something to see if it's gonna work. But does it? You're gonna go back.
Steve: Yeah. Test these waters? Okay. Well, that's not good. So we'll go back over
Jon: here. Yep.
Steve: Yeah. But we we kinda have to keep testing the waters. That's true. Or we'll I we might go crazy. I think we might go crazy if we're not Well, here
Jon: I am testing the waters becoming a coach.
Steve: Right.
Jon: So we're testing waters again. I'm not staying in my lane. No. I am.
Steve: But Yeah. Well but you don't have to work anymore. Right? And then you got Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right?
And, like, the last one like, the first one is, like, survival, but the top is, like, fulfillment. Like Yeah. I when I got into this business, right, many, many years ago, coming close on two decades, it was for one reason and one reason only. It was
Jon: money. Money?
Steve: It was just money. Right? And it was just money for the first few years of my career Right. Until I got a taste of helping somebody. Mhmm.
And then after that, I was like, woah. That's that's way better than mine.
Jon: Yeah. Yeah. Now that I'm doing the coaching, I wish I would have started the coaching a long time ago. Mhmm. Instead of the onesie twosies that come in the office Mhmm.
I really wish I would have started it back here. And I really, really enjoy it.
Steve: Oh, it's incredibly fulfilling. Watching someone turn around, I I posted something the other day. It was actually someone else's post, and I screenshot it and just posted it as mine. Right? But, like, he talked about how, you know, he made 40 k on his first deal.
So he got into coaching or he bought he hired a coach, me. Right? And his coach and he was posting it like, you know, I hired a coach. And, like, I told my coach I was gonna do a, b, and c. And my coach just said, you know, why are you doing that?
Like, just do what worked really well. And he went to back to do what he really did really well. And, like, he's doing extremely well now. Right? But, like, the coaching advice I gave him, which he paid, you know, a pretty penny for, but I think it worked out for him, was, like, no.
Don't do anything else.
Jon: Right.
Steve: Do what What works. Made you money so that you can afford to hire me. Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah.
Jon: It's the truth. Stay in your lane.
Steve: Oh, what would you say has been your, your greatest lesson?
Jon: My greatest lesson? I think that comes from Dale. Yeah. Just being the mentor he was and the the the the partner he was was phenomenal. Mhmm.
I I can't I I can't express enough of what he's taught me over the years. Mhmm. And, you know, if anybody is out there trying to get into real estate, they need to have a coach. They need to have a mentor. Don't try to do it on your own.
Steve: Yeah. You can't do it on your own if you got all the time in the world. Oh, yeah? You get all the time in the world.
Jon: You waste a lot of money doing it too.
Steve: And all the money in the world. Yeah. Exactly. What have you done in your life that I should go check out?
Jon: That you should go check out? Mhmm. I don't know. Didn't I hear something the other day you're trying to learn to dunk?
Steve: That was, it was something along the lines. What was it? It was like, I think that's, like, that's on the bucket list. That's like, what was the context there?
Jon: But, man I can't remember. I heard I heard you say something about that thing.
Steve: Well, I have said, like, when people were like, well, I want full market value. It's like, what? I wanna dunk.
Jon: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Steve: Like, but we're talking about things that don't really matter here. Or we're being a little unrealistic. Right. Right.
Jon: Something for you. In the in business wise or just anything wise? Anything. Anything wise? I mean, I don't know what your hobbies are, but, I I mean, I love off roading.
Mhmm. And I love motorcycles. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm I'm a thrill seeker.
Steve: Yeah. On a on a Harley, though. On a Harley. Yeah. See, I think if I were were to get a motorcycle, which I don't because I have no self control, it would probably be one of those Japanese
Jon: The Crockets?
Steve: Yeah. It'd be a Takati. Yeah. Yeah. And then we go on 200 plus.
Yeah. Right? And you're gonna see, like, this red stain on the side of the road.
Jon: Yeah. You don't wanna
Steve: do that. Yeah. What book have you gifted more than any other?
Jon: Well, we were just talking about Mhmm. Rich Dad Poor Dad.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: I think any of my students or anybody comes in the office, I'm always asking them, have you ever read this? Mhmm. Do you understand what it means? Yeah. Do you understand what good debt is, what bad debt is as far as liability wise?
You know, don't go buy toys and stuff like that until you have an asset to pay for it. But you gotta have the true asset that actually has the income coming in, not a rental. That's probably the the biggest one.
Steve: Yeah.
Jon: The other book that I love is the Go Giver book. Yeah. You know, give back. And, you know, you're gonna if you're giving, it it'll all come back to you too. Absolutely.
And I actually believe in that.
Steve: You know, reaching out for it actually be studied for, like, how I was able to change so many people's lives. Right? Open so many eyes. Yes. Because that book has like, for whatever reason, it it had that impact.
Mhmm. And if we could write a book like that.
Jon: Oh, jeez. Yeah. No doubt.
Steve: What could we do?
Jon: Yeah. I made all yeah. I made all my kids read it when they were in high school. Yeah. You know, it's it's one of those things that I I truly believe that it's it's it's incredible to
Steve: read it. What I couldn't find? There's, like, rich I was was trying to find something about I think I was trying to find Think and Grow Rich for kids. I couldn't find it, so I had to buy my niece Rich Dad Poor Dad, you know, for Mhmm. For teens.
But if there was, like, a, you know, Think and Grow Rich for teens, that would've been
Jon: Yeah. That'd be cool.
Steve: That'd be great as
Jon: well. Yeah.
Steve: Alright. So, if someone wants to find out more about you, johnburger.com, and we'll we'll put the the link in in the show notes in the description. What are some last thoughts you wanna leave all the listeners
Jon: with? You know, I would say that if you're if you're gonna get into real estate, try and find out what you really wanna do. I mean, there's a progression. A lot of people start with wholesaling. It's great to turn cash.
That's really not investing. Okay? You might move to flipping. Again, that's just another job. You get your flip done.
You're gonna sell it. It's a job. You know, rentals are typically your next step, but there is that myth in there that you really don't make any money on rental properties. I found a niche doing the lease options that work. And, obviously, the best place to be is to be at the top and be the note holder.
Yeah. Right? And that's where our program takes you from start to finish. Mhmm. The biggest thing I can say is find something you love and stay in your lane and keep pushing.
Mhmm. And take action. A lot of people just don't take any action to get stuff done. They wanna do real estate, but they don't take any action.
Steve: Yeah. It's fascinating how that how that goes. And, you know, I I used to get so frustrated that people don't take action. Yeah. And then, you know, I've slowly come to realize how important the there's a lot of mental baggage we gotta deal with.
Yeah. Sometimes that has to be fixed first. It's unfortunate Yeah. That, you know, there's a lot of people held back by by baggage. But, you know, like, the this whole lack of sense of self worth Yeah.
It's a really damaging problem.
Jon: Yep. It is.
Steve: I think that's something that we could fix.
Jon: Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
Steve: So, yeah, take action, and then get to the top. Yep. Be the note holder.
Jon: Yep. Be the note holder.
Steve: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Jon: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Steve: Thank you guys for watching. See you guys next time.
