The Real Estate Natural

Mike: Welcome to the FlipNerd.com podcast. This is your host, Mike Hambright. And on this show, I will introduce you to VIPs in the real estate investing industry, as well as other interesting entrepreneurs, whose stories and experiences can help you take your business to the next level. We have three new shows each week, which are available in the iTunes Store or by visiting FlipNerd.com. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Hey, it’s Mike Hambright from FlipNerd.com. And I’m back with another exciting episode of the VIP Flip Show. Today, I have with me Andy MacFarlane, who’s a real estate investor. And he loves to share his knowledge with others. He’s a high-volume guy, has a lot to teach other people. Before we get started with Andy, though, let’s take a moment to recognize our featured sponsors.

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Please note, the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions as real estate investing can be risky.

Mike: Hey, Andy, welcome to the show.

Andy: Hey, thanks for having me, Mike.

Mike: Yeah. I was telling you, before everybody could see it; you’ve got the best backdrop that I think anybody’s ever had. It looks like you’re in a large library there. It makes you look very intelligent with all the books.

Andy: Thank you. I’d love to say I’d read all the books, but that wouldn’t be true.

Mike: That’s all right. But you’re busy doing deals.

Andy: Yeah, busy doing deals. I got people helping me do deals, but I love it. I love real estate and love doing real estate deals. And just everything about it, you know?

Mike: Yeah. For those who don’t know you, tell us a little bit about the market where you operate in. I know you’re moving into a few different states. But just kind of your background as a real estate investor.

Andy: Yeah, sure. So, I’ve been a real estate investor for about 12 years now, full-time for about ten. I got fired from my last W-2 job, so that’s a story that we may get into. But I really liked the wholesale model. I always figured the quick nickel was better than the slow dime, right? You never go broke taking a profit.

So, I kind of do a lot more wholesaling. Last year, I did almost 100 wholesale deals in Salt Lake City, Utah; the northern Utah area is my primary market. And I did about 15 or so retail flips. And I do have rental properties and I do a little bit of private lending. But primarily, I’m a wholesaler. Yeah.

Mike: And your private lending, you’re referring to hard money; you lend to other investors?

Andy: Yeah, lend to other investors. Mostly people that I know. I’ll wholesale a deal and I’ll also lend them the money on it through my self-directed IRA or just private funds that I have. But I don’t advertise that. I’m kind of a reluctant, private lender.

Mike: Yeah. It’s interesting because I think a lot about it. I could be a decent-sized hard moneylender just by hanging a shingle out just because of the network I have. But it just comes back to the opportunity cost.

Will your real estate investing business suffer because you’re now spending some of your time doing that? Because you probably already are the guy that’s spinning plates and you’re always afraid one of them is going to drop?

Andy: Yeah and I’ve thought of that, too. Focus is extremely important. And when you’re doing all these different types of things, especially with the lending, I haven’t wanted to scale that, because I want to stay focused on my primary business, which is wholesaling. Yeah, I’m the same way.

Mike: So, tell us a little about how you’re moving into…I’m always amazed by people that are moving into operating and buying deals in other markets. So, my model has always been, I look at every house that we buy. Even though I’m not the one out buying, I have a team wrapped around this, but I approve every deal.

And I primarily rehab, too, so I want to make sure that I know what we’re getting into. But there are also folks that are buying all over the country, sight unseen. And that’s not the way that I learned. It just doesn’t compute for me, but I’m always enamored by it. So, talk a little bit about how you’re able to do that?

Andy: Yeah, so wholesaling…what it really stemmed from was I started out being me, just the one-man team. And doing a couple of deals a month. And then I decided I didn’t want to take all the phone calls anymore. Because I didn’t want to take the phone calls, I wasn’t sending out the marketing.

So, as soon as I got somebody to help me take all the phone calls, then I said “Great, well I’m just going to dump more marketing out there to get more phone calls.” So, they started getting more phone calls.

And I didn’t want to do all the marketing nuts and bolts anymore, so I had somebody help me with that. Then the guy I had helping me take the phone calls was inundated with that and processing, running CMAs and all that stuff. So, we had somebody sort of answer the phone calls. And it just kind of blew up from there.

And then, to how we got started in other states, it just turned into Utah and we kind of maxed out our market a little bit. It doesn’t mean you can’t go deeper in different channels, but from a direct-mail standpoint and Internet, pay-per-click standpoint and things, we just couldn’t go any bigger because Utah just wasn’t that big. So, we said, “Well, California’s a pretty big state.”

So, about three and a half months ago, we dipped our toe into California. So, we’ve been there for about three and a half months going through a learning curve there. And we’ve also tried out smaller markets. So, we started in New Mexico a couple of weeks ago as well.

We’re just trying to see if we can see a difference between bigger markets, more competitive markets versus smaller markets. Just trying to scale this thing because we’ve got an office and a team in Utah. We can scale it. We know we can scale it across the country if we want to.

Mike: Yeah. So, how do you evaluate looking at the home? That’s where I struggle. How do you not look at a house and how do you consider repairs on things that are pretty much impossible to do over the phone? You could make assumptions, but can you talk a little bit about how you do that or do you ultimately have somebody go look at them?

Andy: Yeah, it’s been a bit of a learning curve, but in California, for example, I’ve got a strategic partner on the ground there who’s been doing it there for a while in certain areas. But we started going outside of his area. And he takes all the hot leads.

But he doesn’t even go see them all. We run the comparables and we see what we think it’s worth and we ask them to fill out the repairs. And he’ll lock them up on the phone sometimes and sometimes, he’ll actually go verify the repairs. But the buyers will do that.

So, when we’re getting rid of these properties, the buyers will actually go to look at the properties. They’ll inspect them and they’ll kind of do their own inspections and tell you what they’ll pay. So, we found it’s not really necessary to go to the houses, really.

Mike: Yeah. So, what do you do if the repairs are more than what you estimated and you can’t sell it? Do you just go back and renegotiate or do you terminate the contract sometime? Do you always have that built in? Because there’s inherently more risk if you haven’t seen the property.

Andy: Yeah, absolutely. We definitely build it in to every contract that we have an inspection period or our buyers have an inspection period. We actually don’t go back and terminate many. We’ll go back and renegotiate if we need to. But I’d say 95% of the time, we’re closing on them or we’re wholesaling them. Either assigning them or double closing in some instances. We don’t go back and we don’t have to cancel very often, really. So, it’s been pretty good.

Mike: And so, one of my questions was going to be how do you make sure you don’t leave too much money on the table? Maybe you overestimated the repairs on the assumptions you made and somebody is willing to pay you more. So, do you have a set asking price? Or do you just kind of leave it open-ended and say, “We’re going to take the best offer we get in the next three days,” or something to that effect?

Andy: You know, it’s a little different. In Utah, it’s different than California is right now. In California, it’s more of…sending someone out there and say, “Hey, what are you guys going to pay for this?” In Utah, we know the market really well and we’ll see these properties in Utah, because I’ve got an outside sales lady that goes out. And she goes and get on site and closes them with the seller. She gets and signs the contract in-person.

So, in Utah, it’s more of a, “Well, we know where it’s going to sell at, we know where our market is.” And we’ll kind of get right there and maybe push it a little bit sometimes. We’ve got a big buyers list and we e-mail it out to them. And we generally can get pretty close. We don’t have people bid against each other. It’s the first person that puts the money in escrow. It’s their deal.

Mike: Okay. So, in California or where you’re kind of outside your market, are you setting a set asking price?

Andy: I’m not sure exactly how he’s doing it. My partner on the ground there has a group of buyers. And I think he sends it to two or three of them and says, “Where are you at on this,” and kind of takes the best one.

Mike: Even in my market here, we’ve always kind of set a price. This is what we want to sell for it. Once in a while, somebody will be so afraid that they’re going to lose the deal that they’ll offer more than we’re asking. And we don’t pit people against each other.

But there are some guys here, some folks here that basically have more of an auction style. “We’re going to meet at the house at this time and whoever gives us the best offer is going to get it.” And so, I think you can appreciate that. It’s a little more free-market than just setting a price, I guess.

Andy: Absolutely I can appreciate that and I’ve thought about that a few times, too. You can definitely push the price. But I also think there’s a tradeoff and that people start thinking it’s not a wholesale deal anymore. It’s not a deal. And when they get your e-mails, they just kind of ignore it.

So, it’s a fine line. But I think you can definitely make more in the short run. Maybe in the long run, too.

Mike: Yeah. It was great that-we have some in the background on you to hear a little bit about that you were kind of born as an entrepreneur. And some of the stuff we have on our research here on you is talking about paper routes and blow pops and stuff like that.

And it’s crazy. I’ve never had this conversation with anybody other than family members. But when I was five, I was going to some sort of crafts store, like Benjamin Franklin or something. We were playing marbles and I was like, “Okay, well I’m going to start buying marbles at Benjamin Franklin and kind of marking them up and selling them to kids on the playground who always seem to have some milk money or something in their pocket.”

So, I have lots of stories from lemonade stands, paper routes and stuff like that. But I read some of your background before we talked today. And I was like, “Man, we’re cut from the same cloth.” So, talk a little bit about how your thoughts on kind of being born as an entrepreneur versus, in all honesty, a lot of folks just find their way there. I’m not sure that they started out doing stuff as a child. So, tell us some of your stories.

Andy: Yeah, I never knew I was an entrepreneur. I had no idea what that was or what that meant. My parents are both working professionals. Like Rich Dad, Poor Dad style. They’re definitely the well educated, “Go to school, get a job.”

When I was fired from my last job, my dad begged me to go back and just say, “Please get your job back, Andy. You don’t want that on your resume,” is what he told me.

But my mom told me from an early age, I was always interested in money and I was always asking people what they made. Just this little kid always saying, “What do you make?” And the person cutting the hair, “Hey, what do you make?

And I didn’t know this, I was so young. My mom told me I was always asking people and I was always interested in money.

So, I’m an Army brat. I grew up all across the country. I was born in Georgia. I’ve lived in New York, Kansas, Virginia, Germany.

And I remember when I lived in New York we rode the school bus from the base to off-base to school. And if you know anything about the military, you can buy things at the commissary, it’s called a commissary and it’s tax-free, right?

So, I would buy bulk candy, tax-free from the commissary. And I would put it in a fanny pack, what a nerd I was, right?

Mike: Those are cool, man. They’re coming back.

Andy: They are coming back; the ’80s is coming back. So, I would put the candy in my fanny pack, I would go to school and I would sell my tax-free candy that I bought in bulk to kids. Blow pop for a nickel or for a quarter or whatever it was.

And I was just so excited that I would buy it for $3 and I’d come back with $7 and it was just so exciting to me. And I had a paper route, too, when I was living in New York. I would go deliver the papers and one day, I kind of got sick of it. Actually having to go do it for whatever reason. And a neighbor friend of mine, he wanted to help me with the paper route and he was really money-hungry.

So, I had this idea, and I didn’t even know what it was. But I’m like, “Hey, I know I’m getting paid this much to do this. I could pay him less than that and he could go do it and I can make the spread.” Now, I didn’t know it was called “subletting, “I didn’t know anything about spreads. It just dawned me that I didn’t have to do this work, I can have somebody else do it and I can get paid. So, I’d sublet my paper route at 10 years old.

Mike: That is awesome. I had a paper route for a long time and I never figured that part out.

Andy: And the collections…I had to go collect for my own customers. And they’d give me tips and it was just amazing. Really hoping they’d give me more money. I was always fascinated by money.

Mike: They were giving you tips and you weren’t actually doing the work.

Andy: Yeah. I did it sometimes…but I never knew what to do with the money. Investing was like…until I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and had that paradigm shift, I knew I liked money. I just didn’t know what to do with it. Money, making money was just foreign to me.

But when I learned that idea, it really was like, “Whoa, that blew my mind.”

Mike: That’s awesome. I haven’t shared stories like that with someone before, but we’ve got some of the same types of stories, which I think is awesome. I don’t know where that came from either in terms of from my family, necessarily. It’s just something that I’ve always had.

I always walk into…even from a young age, I would walk into a fast food restaurant and say, “Their business would be better if they just did this.” I’d start trying to figure out how they should operate their national chain better and stuff. So, I’ve just always thought about that. I don’t know.

Andy: I don’t know if you want me to keep going with this, but one of my favorite stories…my last W-2 job, I was working on a loading dock. And I remember, I was really good friends with one of my dock supervisors. And he was an older guy, made a lot more money than me.

And he was walking around the dock and he was just joking with me, “Hey, Andy, you don’t happen to know anybody with $5,000 to do a loan, do you?” And I was doing real estate at the time while I was still working on the dock. And I was like, “Yeah, maybe, why?”

And he told me a little bit about his situation where he borrowed from his 401k and needed to pay it back in a certain amount of time. And I said, “I can do a loan for you.” He’s like, “Really?” I said, “Yeah,” and I got around to what collateral he had. He owned a Jeep free and clear.

So, I did a title loan. I didn’t even know what a title loan was. But I did a title loan for the guy. Loaned him $5,000 against…I took the title to his Jeep and everything. And I thought it was so cool that I think loaned him $5,000 and I think he paid me back $5,800. I made $800 in four weeks. I was like, “I’m working on the dock for $100 a day,” and that was out there working for me. It blew my mind. It totally blew my mind.

Mike: There’s some folks I’ve had on the show lately, a couple different people that talk a lot about kind of the new…you could call it a bunch of different things, but kind of the new way to become a millionaire in America. And a lot of it is, it’s hustle-type work. It’s real estate investing, it’s owning assets. It’s lending to others and doing title loans or other things like that.

And it doesn’t require a lot of formal education or things like that. Even though some people have it. But real estate investing, for me, I can’t imagine not being a real estate investor now. I can’t imagine ever working for anybody else again. It’s just things like those experiences that you live through and you’re like, “I could never go work for anybody else again. One, because I wouldn’t have the freedoms and two, because, quite frankly, nobody is willing to pay me what I know I’m worth.”

Andy: I say the same thing all the time. I’m just like, “I don’t know what else I’m qualified to do.” I know I’m saying that jokingly, but truly, I’m like, “I love it.” And like you said, you can make great money at it. For what we do, it blows people’s minds.

Mike: Yeah. And I know we’re the same way and that we like to teach other people how to do what we do and things. Talk a little bit about what you do and why you do it. There’s always the naysayers out there that say–and I don’t know if you have any mentoring-type programs that people pay for. There’s always people that…I’ve seen a lot of it lately and it kind of hits home because I’m moving more into that space of mentoring and coaching others and teaching other people how to do what I do.

And you always get the people out that start saying, “They’re not a real investor anymore because you know what they say,” whatever the saying is. “If you can’t do it, teach it,” or whatever. It’s like–

Andy: “Those who can’t do, teach.”

Mike: Something like that, which is stupid. But at any rate, just talk a little bit about why you do it, the satisfaction you get and maybe some of the passion you have around that stuff?

Andy: Yeah. I love helping people. So, I do have a couple, I guess you’d say “coaching students.” They’re local, because I have a specific local knowledge in Utah that I could really help take someone to the next level. So, I do have a few people…they pay me to do that. I don’t really advertise that. I don’t have my shingle out there saying, “Hey, I’m a coach. I’m trying to do that for people.” I do it on a specific basis.

But my time is worth something, so I have to charge. I can’t do it for everybody, but I do love sharing stuff with people. In fact, recently, I started a project ILoveRealEstateStories.com.

Basically, what ILoveRealEstateStories.com is all about is I am a guy that’s out there boots on the ground currently doing deals right now. In fact, two hours from now, I’m going out to look at a house that with my project manager, we’re going to be buying that house. I mean, I am actively in the market right now. I’m actively there.

So, ILoveRealEstateStories.com is going to show videos of projects that I’m doing. Not all the projects I’m doing, but some of them, from beginning to end. And one of them that I know we’re editing right now. It’s totally done, the deal is totally done, it was a $55,000 wholesale deal.

And I recorded video; I did a selfie of myself driving to this property saying, “Hey, here is this situation. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I’m going to check it out right now.” To when showing the house when I first pulled up, to recording walking around the house, the audio and the visual of that. To negotiations with the seller, to the very end, close escrow, $55,000 profit on that, right? Beginning to end, the whole thing. I’ve got it all recorded. And that was a real deal I did this year, along with some flip deals I’ve done and other things.

But I think people want to see that. They want to see boots on the ground, like, “How does it really happen?” Like Flip This House, they have a lot of made-up drama and things.

Mike: You don’t throw hammers through windows when you get upset? And doughnuts in the front yard? It’s like, “Who does that?”

Andy: Yeah, one of those Flip This House people were here in Utah. And they started out being legitimate. And then as it went on, I think it was the second series they did, it was totally manufactured. Even to the point where they’re buying at a foreclosure auction, but the foreclosure auction wasn’t a real foreclosure auction. So, I know here in Utah, it wasn’t a real one.

So, they have to keep people interested, I guess. But I think there’s a certain element of people that are interested in…What’s really going on? Like, “What deal is Mike doing right now? How did you analyze it? What did you really make on that deal? Did you make $10,000? Did you make $50,000? What did you really make?” I think people are fascinated by that.

Mike: Yeah. That’s part of…in all honestly, what I’m doing here is I think a lot of people; they have insatiable appetites for learning and hearing other people’s stories. And I think that’s some of the success we’ve had with the FlipNerd show so far. Is that people love hearing this. We’re not selling anything; we’re just kind of sharing stories.

You’re probably the same way that I am, it sounds like, in a lot of ways. Real estate investing can become a really lonely business if you let it. You’re kind of a lone wolf out there doing deals and you may be making a bunch of money. And you celebrate with your wife or partner or whatever. But it’s kind of like, “Well, there’s another one done. Let’s go do another one, I guess.”

And you just kind of get caught up in this hamster wheel of doing deals. And never really celebrating that much or sharing your successes and you may be embarrassed to tell people that you screwed up a deal. Or embarrassed to tell people that you made $55,000 on a deal. Because you don’t want to make anybody feel bad.

Andy: People can’t relate to that. They look at that and it’s just not real to them.

Mike: But I think in a lot of ways, I’ve gotten lonely and that’s why I share more of my information and try to meet other folks. And in all honesty, what I’ve told people…when I explain what I’m doing here on the show, I usually say that it’s just that. It’s a way for me to network and kind of fill the void of meeting other people and talking about the types of stuff we talk about.

Andy: It really is hard to get people to relate and it’s interesting you said that, taking your wife out to celebrate. My wife…I’ve been doing this since before we married. We’ve only been married eight years.

I come home. And she cares…I don’t want to say she doesn’t care, but she doesn’t care. There are a lot of deals and a lot of houses gone. I just tell her, “Hey, we told this one today and we made $20,000.” And she’s, “Okay, that’s great. Hey, we got a T-ball game tonight.”

It’s not that she’s ungrateful. It’s just that there’s so many deals and moving parts. And it’s just kind of like, to her, she doesn’t know one address of a rental property we own. And she can’t tell you one address of house that I’ve flipped. And she’s just kind of like, “Great, another property. That’s wonderful.” So, you want to relate to people. So, I’m glad you do this, too, so I can relate to others.

Mike: And it’s different for me because my wife works in our business. We tend to…it’s hard to draw the line sometimes with personal life versus business life. You’re taking a shower in the morning and somebody is yelling into the shower, “Did you remember to call this guy and tell him to do that?” It’s like, “Can I just take a shower first before we start talking about this?” It’s a struggle.

Andy: I never thought of that before. That is kind of a good element…I can separate those two. Because she’s just like, “Whatever. I don’t care.” She does care, but no big deal.

Mike: Well, talk a little bit about…there’s a lot of folks that are trying to get started in real estate investing or some people that run a business. You talked early on about how you started putting systems in place and having people in place where you transitioned from effectively being a one-man shop to growing to have a team handle some of the responsibilities of your business. And, let’s face it; you can’t grow unless you do those things.

So, talk a little bit about how you made the decision to start layering people in so that you could grow?

Andy: Yeah. The decision for me, especially on the wholesale side, is just the parts I didn’t like about the business. So, really, it was more about…like the phone calls from the sellers. Anybody that’s done this for long enough, they’ve gone directly to the seller. It all starts with a phone call. It’s generally 25, 30 to 1, right? You’re going to get all these people you’ve got to filter through. Some of them say, “Stop sending me stuff,” they’re offended by the mail you’re sending them or whatever. And you wonder why they even waste their time calling you.

But you get all that and it really wears on you. And a lot of people, if they do it all themselves, they’ll stop. You won’t send any more mail because you don’t want the angry phone calls or you don’t like talking to people on the phone. So, that was the first layer for me; I didn’t like taking those phone calls.

So, then I found somebody to take the phone calls for me. Which then enabled me to, “Hey, let’s send more marketing.” Because I didn’t care how many phone calls were coming in. How many leads we were getting a week. He’s answering the phone, right?

But what I like to do, I’m a people person. So, I love going out there, not just hearing real estate stories, I love hearing people’s stories. So, I’ll go in there. I would go out there to sellers and I would meet with them; I would get involved in their life and I would just get to know them and what they needed. And I would seek first to understand what they needed and then I would try to lay something on that that worked, right? Make the deal out of that. So, I never forced the deal. I kind of gave them what they needed–

Mike: You became a problem solver.

Andy: I was a problem solver, exactly. But I really would care about these people and it showed and that’s why I did a lot of deals that way, because I loved doing that. So, I had those systems in place so people could answer the phone for me, so they could market for me. So, they could do background research for me.

Because I wasn’t even researching. I would go to the house and they would put the research in the drop box and they would have a file under, “My opportunities.” And I would go pull it up; I’d read the bio. “Mike’s inherited the house. There’s four other siblings, he lives here, they live there. Here’s the situation, here’s the comps.” And I would go there. I’d read it for two minutes and then I’d get in there, “Hey, Mike,” and I’d start to talking to you. And then I’d get the deal. Because I just loved that aspect of it.

And that that got a little bit too much, I still loved that. But then there was just too many sellers to go see. So, I finally freed myself by hiring an outside sales lady who goes and sees the people in Utah. So, now, I don’t have to go see sellers if I don’t want to.

Mike: So, would you say…you’re doing a fair amount of deals. How many deals did you say you’re doing approximately a year?

Andy: So, in Utah…I just did the math. The first four months in Utah, we averaged 8 1/2. I think we did 35 deals January through April just in Utah. In California, we’ve done six deals so far. In New Mexico, we’re going to get our first in the next couple of the days because we’ve got some hot ones coming through.

Mike: So, you’re somewhere…even at this point, before you start to grow, around maybe 100 deals a year, right?

Andy: Yeah. Utah, I’ll do 100 wholesale deals. And I’ll do about 15 to 20 flips.

Mike: And so, you have effectively one…you say “salesperson,” I refer to them as a “buyer.” But they’re a salesperson that’s doing all those deals? They’re doing that type of volume?

Andy: Yeah. Well, there’s an inside sales person who runs all the comps and sends them offers and things. And sometimes, we’ll get offers back that we didn’t have to go see them in person. So, there’s some of that that happens.

But yeah. The outside sales lady or the buyer that goes to see all the hot leads, she goes and sees all the ones that are like good situation, they have equity. We get in front of them. She goes to see them all.

Mike: I’m curious about your operation because ours are very similar. We tend to try to go see everything so we can build that relationship with people directly versus over the phone. We try to just gather basic information over the phone.

So, your person that’s on the phone that’s taking calls. Are they effectively…they’re trying to maybe close deals on the phone and try to find out what they would accept for the deal?

Andy: Yeah, kind of. She knows she’s got to take it to one of two directions. If they call in, if they’ve got equity and they’ve got motivation, she never talks numbers on the phone, but she is just setting an appointment. So, we want them to stop looking for anybody else. We want to let them know that we are their solution. And we want to find out the best time for them, but we set that appointment. Because we are going to take care of your problem, Mike. So, that is a hot lead that comes in and sets the appointment.

If they’re not quite hot, if they don’t have those motivating factors, they kind of go into a warm pile. And we do the research on it; we’ll send them an offer to get a conversation started. We kind of work it from there.

If the warm people turn into being a little more hot than they were saying they were, then we set an appointment and go close them in person. Because I’m a firm believer that you definitely can build more rapport in person, and you can feel out what the real issues area and you can resolve concerns better and get it inked up right there.

Because, let’s be honest, I had so many opportunities where there was people…there was four of us coming in. I was the third or fourth guy in. And I was leaving with the contract. Those first people that came that left without the contract, they were out of luck. Because when I got in there, if I’m going to go see the house, I’m going to get the contract, right?

So, I like our outside sales lady to be in person. So, when they’re ready to go, we resolve those concerns. “Is there anything else you’re worried about, Mike? No? Great. Let’s just get ink on the paper here,” you know?

Mike: Yeah. Cool. So, where do you see things going from here in your business in terms of going into other states? Do, you see just continually adding markets if you can continue to scale this up?

Andy: Yeah, I think so. And the last piece that I added was a guy who’s kind of a business guy who’s a friend of mine. He started some “Buy here, pay here” car dealerships and he was a former professional snowboarder. And he was just a business mind, more of a manager mind. So, he was my marketing manager, but I kind of made him CEO of the wholesale operation. So, he oversees the office, I’m not in that office. He’s there with all the people from the wholesale side. He handles all of that stuff.

So, he scales that. He’s looking at the numbers in California and New Mexico. He’s helping decide where to go. I’m an adviser to that; I’m in on some of the meetings. But he kind of pushes that. So, wholesale is going to grow.

Mike: Okay. So, what are you doing, man? Just hanging out sitting in libraries?

Andy: Sitting in libraries, FlipNerd-ing it up.

Mike: Hey, there you go.

Andy: I’m definitely an adviser to that because that’s a growing business. And as that’s scaling, I’m definitely there. My retail business, I’ve got two project managers, so I’m kind of a little bit involved in there.

But I’m kind of pushing towards this iloverealestatestories. More of helping people because I’ve been doing this for 12 years, I’ve gotten a lot of knowledge with that. And I enjoy talking to people, sharing the stories and helping them be successful.

There was one guy…a story that I’m going to tell as well, an interview I did with a local investor. I found him on Bigger Pockets. And I don’t post on Bigger Pockets very often. But he was extremely frustrated. And I posted and said, “Look, man, you can call me.” He was in my market. Because some other investor in his market had said, “I got this town on lockdown. You can’t do any deals. You shouldn’t even try.” And he had never done a deal. So, I posted and said, “Look, call me.”

So, he called me. And he went from just me giving him some advice and meeting with him and talking to him on the phone. In his first 12 months in real estate, he did $130,000 gross in wholesale fees. $130,000. Which I thought that was so cool.

He didn’t pay me. We’re friends. But that was satisfying to me, to be able to help him achieve that level of success. He did it, but I helped mentor him a little bit on there. That was cool to me. So, I thought, “There’s something to that.” I like sharing these stories, kind of like you’re doing. So, I thought, “I need to do more of that.”

Mike: Yeah, it’s fulfilling. Even if you don’t make money from it. I mean, I have a guy that I mentor. I go through a goal-planning exercise with everybody that I mentor. Obviously, as a franchised system, we have a very structured program. And kind of laid out, “How much money do you want to make a year?” And he wanted to just basically replace his income, which was $80,000 a year or something.

Now, this is rare. I don’t like to drop success stories and act like that’s how every deal works. But he made more money on his very first deal that he did than he did in his whole year in his previous job.

Andy: Seriously?

Mike: And he told me that and I was like, “Oh, man. That is just awesome.”

Andy: Retail? Was it a retail flip?

Mike: Yeah, it was a rehab deal. But still, just the fact that when he bought it…when I heard everything, we kind of walked through it; I knew how much money he was going to make on it. It had a fire and he picked it up for nothing. It was just an awesome situation, and that stuff is satisfying.

Andy: Extremely. It’s so cool to be able to take somebody that’s not in their realm; it’s not in their paradigm, to then say they can do this, too. And this guy, he was a cook at a steakhouse. And he quit his job finally after he was making more money than that.

And these guys were like, “Oh, you’re going to go try to do that real estate thing? It’s not going to work.” Because he was in this bubble of people telling them, from their paradigm, that it didn’t work. Well, now, it did work, right? And it’s worked for him and he’s just got this whole new world out there and it’s really cool.

Mike: Awesome. Well, Andy, so if folks want to learn more about you and kind of follow along with some of the stories, tell us the website again? Iloverealestatestories, but tell us how they get there and how they learn more?

Andy: Yeah. Just www.ILoveRealEstateStories.com. And we’re putting videos up there. That $55,000 wholesale deal is going to be on there. Tyler is the kid’s name that did $130,000 gross in his first year. He’ll be on there.

I bought a firehouse. That’s going to be on there. I actually bought one of Tyler’s deals. I paid him a $45,000 wholesale fee. His biggest wholesale fee, I bought it from him. I’ve got video of me buying it from him, him buying it from the seller and my whole rehab. It’s still not completed yet, so I don’t know if I’m going to make money on that or not.

I had a sewer collapse. It was a nasty mold house. But I’m going to be telling a story, so if you want to see those cool video stories, iloverealestatestories.com.

Mike: Awesome. Well, Andy, thanks for being on the show. I appreciate your time today.

Andy: Thanks for having me, Mike.

Mike: All right. And we’ll see you around. Talk to you soon, okay?

Andy: All right, see you.

Mike: Take care.

Thanks for joining us on today’s FlipNerd.com podcast. To listen to more of our shows and hear from incredible guests, please access all of our podcasts in the iTunes Store. You can also watch the video versions of our shows by visiting us at FlipNerd.com.