Collective Genius with Jason Medley

[Recorded introduction: Welcome to the flipnerd.com podcast, this is your host, Mike Hambright, and on this show I will introduce you to VIPs in 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.]

Mike: Hey, it’s Mike Hambright, welcome back to another exciting FlipNerd VIP show. Today I have with me Jason Medley, who is the founder of a really cool group called Collective Genius; has a lot of gurus and just big-name folks, really high level real estate investors.

And he really has his ear to the ground with real estate investing community because of his relationships with some of the top guys across the country.

Before we get started with our interview with Jason, let’s take a moment to recognize our 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: Jason, good to have you on.

Jason: Good to be here my friend, looking forward to it . . .

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Jason: Let’s rock the house!

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Jason: Let’s rock the house!

Mike: So hey, it’s good to meet you, you came highly recommended from a few other guests we’ve had. So we haven’t actually met before but I can already tell we click a little bit, so I’m excited to learn a little bit about you and what you’ve got going on.

Why don’t you tell us a little bit of more about yourself?

Jason: Okay. You know, since we’re talking about real estate, I’ll just kind of give you guys my background in short. I’ve been in the real estate finance business for about 14 years, now. I started back in 2000, I was a mortgage broker. And that’s really when I kind of stepped into entrepreneurship, was back in 2000.

I started working on my own and did really well, thought I was cool, was crushing it, doing 75 to 100 loans a month, had 17 loan officers, three processors. Just that I was knocking it out of the park.

Then the market changed. And that taught me very valuable lesson, in which I think we should absolutely cover on today, and that is when the market changed and the market crashed, I’m in Tampa, which is obviously, you know, Florida, California . . .

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Jason: Those parts hit hard. When the market changed it taught me a valuable lesson, it helped me realize that I was not a good marketer. My livelihood was dependent upon market forces versus my ability to lead generator.

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: And so that was a very valuable lesson and I became a student of marketing at the time, but through that, kind of went through, you know, doing loans over to flipping short sales. And then as the market began to eradicate what we call dry funding, meaning, if you’re flipping a house the same day you bought it, you could use your end buyers.

As that got a eradicated, I saw an opportunity, and that’s when what’s called transactional funding, was doing. And for about five years that was a really, really big substantial business, I surely enjoyed it. We were lending $75 to $85 million bucks year at two point, which was lovely.

Mike: Take a real fast second and just tell people what transactional funding, for those that don’t know.

Jason: Sure. A quick example, it’s predominate in short sales, so let’s say you’re negotiating with a bank to buy property for $400,000 and that negotiation takes six months. Well, while you’re negotiating to buy it at 400, you find someone who’s willing to buy it from you for 500.

And with transactional funding, when you listen closely to what it is, transactional funding, it means the underwriting guidelines are driven strictly by the transaction. And we didn’t care of you were from Yale, or jail, or had a paycheck, or were unemployed.
If you were buying something for 400 grand and reselling it the same day for 500 grand, you needed that money, that $400,000 for a couple of hours, all right?

And so we had a company called iVisionary Transactional Funding; we would lend that $400,000 to investors for just a couple of hours, until you could resell for the higher price. And so again, the lending decision was strictly based on the fact that you had that you had it resold at a higher price, you know?

Mike: It’s effectively the equivalent of hard money, but just a micro, you know, real short-term.

Jason: Yes, yeah, usually just one day. And so through that, lending really, really, I guess, connected with a lot of high level caliber investors because I would identify, this guy’s coming to me for four deals a month, this guy’s coming for seven deals a month.

And then in addition, the way I grew that transactional funding business is, I would fly out, I’d get on a plane and fly to big educational events the kind of team up with folks who were teaching how to flip these, or how to structure these types of deals.

Mike: Right.

Jason: And so you teach them, I’ll fund them, right?

Mike: Right.

Jason: So I just got very connected to a lot of high-caliber investors, high-caliber educators – also people who were both. And from there I started what is now, really my sole focus, which is the Collective Genius mastermind. And it’s a mastermind. I’ve got about 64, 65 of the top, and I should say, top elite members from across the country.

Guys that flip anywhere from typically 50 up to 600 deals a year, I’ve got guys that run funds from, you know, $15 to $130 million bucks a year on the fund side. Just a real high-caliber group, and we get together about once a quarter and we share everything that is working, and we also share our problems.

We help each other overcome those problems. I [can have] Board of Directors, if you will, of the who’s who in the real estate investing space.

Mike: Yeah, yeah, that’s great. I mean, I don’t know if you know, our tagline includes the word mastermind for FlipNerd, and it’s a very different level. I mean there’s no doubt that if you read, you know, Napoleon Hill, “Think and Grow Rich,” some of those books, they’ll tell you that the ideal mastermind size is probably no more than 10 people. That doesn’t mean there’s not benefits to having a group of thousands or 10,000 people.

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Probably, you share your information on a different level of intimacy. What I’m doing there is, you know, it’s very different from what you’re doing there, but I’m just trying to share people like you with the world and people that follows and stuff like that, to learn from it. And that’ll come back around to you in some way, and probably to me too, so.

Jason: Hey, man.

Mike: Word gets thrown around a lot, but I think it’s just the tone of sharing information to help everybody win.

Jason: Yeah, and it’s one thing to share, it’s a whole other thing . .
. we were jabbering for a few minutes before we jumped on here, it’s the connections, really, that . . .

Mike: Right.

Jason: You know, the cake would be the sharing of information, the icing though are the connections that people make.

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about Collective Genius and how that ‘ works. I know you don’t want to probably drop any names, so I won’t ask you to, but tell us about how it works and how you’re structured and how everybody wins in that group.

Jason: Sure. You know, like I said, we get together once a quarter. It’s an invitation application only type mastermind. It is, again, strictly for, like I said, people who are typically do between 50 to 600 deal a year, or if you run a large fund, or you’re a tax strategist, you know, if you work for people that have money, because we do have some service of providers.

But key there, it’s invitation application only; if, you know, it’s something you want to check out, you’re more than welcome to go and learn more about it at the collectivegenius.com, but I actually don’t mind, you know, really kind of elaborating.
When I talk about the connections, I think the best thing to do rather than talk about the information we share would be to kind of elaborate on how . . . it’s really the business that’s get done inside the group, not just the sharing of information.

Mike: Right, right.

Jason: And you know, if I were to kind of give you an example of that I would say, you know, I’ve got guys in my group who, like right now and a perfect example would be Phoenix, Arizona. The market is starting to really get soft in Phoenix, okay?

And you would think how in the world would some guys in Phoenix hook up with some guys in Cleveland and start doing business together? Perfect example of that would be my group, Mike Lowry, he’s probably done 200 deals a year for the last three or four years out of Phoenix, just the beast.
Comes in, meets a guy named Joe Lieber out of Cleveland, right? And we call him the ghettologist because he’s got about 150 rentals.

One hundred fifty rentals, probably all under worth 40 grand. But the guy makes a ton of cash flow, and you think, “How in the world do some guys from Phoenix and Cleveland end up cooking up?” right?

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: And so after having made a fortune in Phoenix, Mike and his partner fly out to Cleveland, and in between a very short period of time of our meeting, which is about 90 days, they had closed on 6 deals with Joe, had another 21 under contract, and were shooting to buy 100 deals from Joe.

Mike: Wow.

Jason: How do those connections end up from a monetization standpoint? You’ve got 100 deals, you know, throwing off some serious cash from Mike Lowry out of Phoenix. And then with Joe, who also owns the brokerage in addition to his rentals, he’s going to run almost 100 transactions through just one connection inside of the Collective Genius.

So that I think, you know, giving an example of how connections work is probably better than, you know, “Hey, we share information.”

Mike: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I think, you know, whenever you’re tied to a bunch of guys like that, or I shouldn’t say guys, there’s probably some, maybe some females in there, but a group of people like that that are smart as hell, willing to . . .

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Open up and share anything, you pretty much have your ear to the ground of what’s going on in the market. And so what’s the collective genius that’s come out of your group as to the phenomenon that’s going on right now? I know it’s different in every market, but there’s some markets that are pretty tight right now in terms of on the buy-side.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, there’s definitely some markets that are pretty tight on the buy side, and my, if I were to give you my best description of what’s going on is, is we’ve been in a, for lack of a better term, an analytical, sterile market, analytical sterile market, from an investor standpoint.

What I mean by that, when I say analytical, if you’ve gotten in the game in the last five to seven years, all you had to do was analyze deals and make an offer. If you’re going to the auction, or you are picking deals off MLS, or you’re slapping them up off of HUD Home store, or auction.com, all you really having to do is analyze a deal and make an offer.
And then so it’s analytical in that respect, it’s sterile in respect that there’s usually not a human being on the other side. There’s not a homeowner, it’s a bank, right, or an entity giving you an answer.

Mike: Right.

Jason: Okay? And so the danger in that that I see right now is, as these markets [are frothy] and a lot of them are, right now if you’re playing in that space, an analytical, sterile space, you’re often competing against other people, not to see who will make the most, but to see who’s willing to make the least amount of money.

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: If you think about it, right?

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: In that type of environment. And so I think about those markets, the writing’s on the wall, you know? Statistics are going to show you markets are starting to slow down. One of the things I’ve learned from having insights to, you know, like, 64, 65 different markets across the country through my members, is there are certain markets that when they catch cold, if they decide to sneeze, the rest of the country’s going the [inaudible 00:12:34]. And that’s typically Arizona, meaning Phoenix and then some places in Southern California.

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: And those markets are already starting to slow down, and I see it, you know, it’s going to come graduate across the country. So the question is, if you’re full- time investor, I mean that’s what you do, it’s not like you’re going to find something else, so how do you react to it?

Mike: Right.

Jason: Right? What do you do?

Mike: Tell us, man, tell us.

Jason: Well let me first tell you, that I think, when you start to feel that pinch, I think there’s going to be a timeframe that you should be prepared for. And what I mean by that is, I think a couple of things are going to happen. You know, right now the markets are hot, and when the buyers start to fade, which they are, a lot are already across the country in many markets from the retail side.

If you’re a rehabber, you know, [retailer], the first-time homebuyer, or whatever it may be. When you start to feel that pinch there’s going to be a while before the sellers, the banks, everybody else says, “Oh, yeah, we’re willing to take a cheaper price,” right?
So they’re going to be a little bit unreasonable, it’s going to be harder to get deals; and then as it gets harder to get deals, you’re going to realize, “If my deals are tight here, where do I go and get the deals?” And we’re going to have to go back and get old school and go seller direct, right? Distressed situations, distressed homeowners.

Mike: Yes.

Jason: And so you’re going to have a period where sellers, and I want to specify a lot of the institutions will hold and want more than you’re willing to pay. And then you’re going to have a period of time where a lot of investors who’ve been focused in a analytical, sterile environment will say, “What am I going to do for leads? Because I can buy these and make any money,” right?

Mike: Right.

Jason: And so they’re going to try and switch over to doing lead generation, all right? So what will happen is, the guys who are crushing it, doing lead gen, which is, you know, the main focus there is direct mail, is that environment’s going to get more crowded and you’re going to have more people going after the same deal.

And for a while, while those two dynamics are happening with the seller, and then more competitive in the seller direct market, it’s going to hurt a little bit, right? But I think what will happen is, sellers will come back to earth.

And then what will happen is, there are going to be a lot of investors who’ve been in that analytical, sterile environment, just buying by placing bids at auction, or off HUD Home store, they will not be able to transition into what it’s going to take to be successful in the foregoing marketplace, which is . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: You’re going to have to become a marketer.

Mike: It’s a hustle. It’s a hustle business, right?

Jason: Well, you’re going to have to become a marketer, all right? And then once you become a marketer, which means you can convert leads, or generate leads, then you’ve got to convert those . . .

Mike: Right.

Jason: Leads, which means you or your organization is going to have to be sales driven, right? Like, you just mentioned, you interviewed one of my members, Todd Toback, he runs a sales organization, a marketing and sales organization. The vehicle, the conduit that he uses are houses, right? But I can tell you right now, that guy would tell you, “I run a marketing and sales organization.” If you said that to most investors, they would look at you…

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: Cross eyed, right? And I’m telling you, the people who are successful now and are going to be successful in the future . . . you ever read the book “Who Moved My Cheese?”

Mike: Oh, yeah.

Jason: That’s coming

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: It’s coming

Mike: Yes.

Jason: There’s no doubt about it. The easy days of strolling over the computer in your underwear and flip-flops, and just picking out deals off MLS, or you know, shooting a bid down to the auction – I’m not saying it’s over, I’m not saying that that should be a vehicle that you throw away. But I’m telling you, it’s just going to keep compressing and compressing and compressing.

Mike: Right.

Jason: And then you have a choice, you’ve got to go generate your own leads. Bottom line.

Mike: How big of a role do you think the hedge funds have been playing in this? It depends a lot on the market.

Jason: Yeah, depending on your market, which quite honestly, in most major metropolitan areas across the country that had decent cap rates, they’ve been there, right?

Mike: Yeah, yes.

Jason: And I mean, I’ve seen guys just get crushed. And that’s a perfect example of what we’re talking about. You should not have one source of leads, okay? I know guys who, you know, they’re cruising for five years, they’re buying down at the auction, things are easy greasy, no problem, the hedge funds show up and pay highest and best for everything, and they are on their heels with smoke coming off. Like, “What am I going to do?” Right?
So I think the hedge funds have affected a lot of investors in bad ways. I also know that if you are able to create relationships with those folks and provide them with off-market deals, it’s been beautiful . . .

Mike: Right.

Jason: For some other people. But the hedge funds are exiting the building in a lot of the major markets now.

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: They’re heading to a lot of the markets that can still deliver a decent cap rate; a lot of Midwestern markets that aren’t sexy, like the Ohios, and the Indianas, and the Louisianas.

Mike: Right.

Jason: You know, that don’t get a lot of buzz in the paper. But I think, you know, I think it depends on what side of the coin you’re on how it’s affected you . . .

Mike: Absolutely.

Jason: As far as hedge funds being in your marketplace.

Mike: Absolutely, absolutely. So tell us some more about Collective Genius, in terms of how do you . . . I know you’ve built up an elite group of folks here.

Jason: Sure.

Mike: How do you keep that interesting, and how do people continue to the value out of it year after year after year?

Jason: Sure. Keeping it interesting is easy – it’s because of the market that I play in. I mean if . . .

Mike: Yeah . . .

Jason: You’ve been investing for any period of time, how often does the real estate market change? I mean in my opinion, every six months it’s something, right?

Mike: Yes.

Jason: You know, it doesn’t matter, every six months something’s happening that changes how we do business, right? And those changes are what facilitate the value, because when you are trying to figure out what happens next, “Oh, the hedge funds came to town. What do I do?”

Mike: Right.

Jason: Well if you’ve got a guy in the market where the hedge funds have already been in his market for nine months, and you can just say, “Hey, how did you handle this? What are you doing now to continue to do big volume and make a lot of money?”

He says, “Oh, that’s no problem. Let me tell you exactly what I’ve done, and better yet, I’ve already done it and systematized it. Let me just give you everything so you don’t have to stress about it,” that’s how I provide value. But my members are the ones that provide value. I’ll be very…

Mike: Sure, sure.

Jason: I consider myself blessed from a leadership perspective, in really knowing how to move the chess pieces and connect the dots, but I provide very little of the content, if you will, myself.

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: The way they give value year after year is, it’s pretty simple. You know, we talk about return on investment; my membership, you come to check out the first meeting for free, but if you’re a fit for the group and we’re a fit for you, it is an annual membership of 15 grand.

It’s pretty simple, the way you get value is, you look at it after your membership and you say, “I spent 15, and I made a couple hundred for my connections or the knowledge I got. Does it make sense?” If that’s the case, obviously it does.

You know, if I were to give you specific examples of what that looks like; a guy who you just said you recently interviewed is one of my members, Matt Terrio.
He’s a guy who came in inside of immediately inked deals with several of my other members. He does something similar to what you do; he’s got a big podcast, he has buyers for turnkey real estate coming out of his ears, not enough product.

Well there’s seven guys in my group that the turnkey real estate in markets he’s interested in, I make those introductions, we hang out for three days, they get connected, they draw up contracts, and now before you know it, deals are going back. Buyers and properties are going back and forth, and money’s being made.

Mike: Yes.

Jason: You know, it’s pretty simple, you know? The value is always there because these guys make a lot of money together.

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Jason: Mike Zlotnick, a guy who runs a fund in my group, literally last week another guy, out of Georgia, [inaudible 00:20:54] put a quarter million dollars in his fund . . .

Mike: Wow.

Jason: You know? It’s just, you know, a guy like myself, I’m getting ready to invest a chunk of change in one of my member’s funds that does distressed notes, Tom Dunkel [SP] and Joe Down [SP].

You and I were talking before we got on the phone, you know, if you want to look at value, it comes down to ROI, and is pretty simple. You invest this much – if you’ve made that times 20 or that times 30, it makes sense.

Mike: Absolutely, absolutely. So with a background in the mortgage side . .
.

Jason: Yes.

Mike: Transactional funding, what do you see, I mean it’s funny ’cause you, coming out of 2008, 2009, you kind of thought, “Man, we’re never going back to this again.” But it feels like we’re back there again, doesn’t it? Sloppy money, silly money coming in from, you know, other states that don’t understand what’s going on in your market, maybe, if you’re outside of California.

I mean, does it feeling like the banks are loosen up? I’ve had, you know, lenders offering me more money than I could ever use and I just have to say, “That’s awesome, but I just don’t need it. I don’t want to tell you I need it and I can’t use it.” Does it feel like we’ve just come almost full circle?

Jason: I tell you, you know, people have a short-term memory.

Jason: Yeah.

Jason: Again, I mean, I’m on the paper side of the business; I don’t do hard assets, I don’t flip houses – I only carry notes, hard money, investing funds, etc. But I can tell you this, if I was on the hard asset side, with where the market is right now, I would really be looking into my business and looking for any . . . I call it doing a fire drill. ‘Cause you can say, “Oh, we headed back.”

Well I can tell you right now, if the market shifts, and by the time you realize it has, and I’m telling you I think it’s coming, you’ve got to be prepared. If you’re prepared, it’ll be no problem. The way to get prepared is to do what I call a fire drill, and we do this probably about once every year in the Collective Genius is; sit down, turn everything else off – your employees, your people, your wife, your kids.
Lock yourself into your room for a half a day or today, and really poke holes in your business. Where are your weak spots? Do you have only one source of funding? Do you have only one source of leads? Are you too dependent on a single employee or team member?

Really poke holes in your business and figure out if the market were to change, how would you need to react, right? If houses started taking three times as long to sell or whatever it may be, you’ve got to get down, you’ve got to get [dirty] and take a look at your business. Can you run leaner, right?

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: What are the gaping holes in your business? ‘Cause those are easy; when things are good, the money’s flowing, and you’re cracking, you know, a bunch of deals every month, it’s easy to remove yourself from the realities of what could be happening in your business.

Mike: Right.

Jason: But they’re not painful yet ’cause nobody’s come up and poked at the…

Mike: Yeah.
Jason: Scab yet, you know?

Mike: And it changes fast, too.

Jason: It does change fast. I made a post on Facebook today talking about, “Hey, you know,” and I don’t want my message to be misunderstood. There’s ample opportunity, there’s tons of people are going to continue to make lots of money . . .

Mike: Yes.

Jason: But it will be done differently, is I’m getting at.

Mike: That’s right.

Jason: But I had a gentleman respond to the Facebook post, basically kind of, like, “Dude, you’re crazy. Nothing can stop the market right now.” And I was just like, “That’s the guy who in six months is going to be, like, ‘Ooooh, no way . . .”

Mike: Yeah. What happened to me?

Jason: Because he’s…Yeah, you can’t be ignorant to it. The appreciation cannot go on forever while incomes are not growing to match it, or what it takes to buy the average home.

Mike: Right.

Jason: And so when things hit that threshold, which I feel like we’re at, you’ve got to start thinking about what’s next.

Mike: Yeah. That’s a smart thing to do anyway. I think a lot of folks, I talk to guests about this all the time, you know, if you’re just a wholesaler and you’re just the one-legged stool, I mean you’re more prone to something bad happening.

If you don’t have other exit strategies or other ways to shift your business, I mean if you’ve really, or like you said, one source of leads. If you’re so focused on something that you can change with the market, then you’re at the higher risk than the person that’s kind of balanced out.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I’ve seen it ever since I’ve been running this group for, like, the last five years, you know? When I first started five years ago, everybody in there was a short-seller, right? Not everybody, but 80% of the people in there were [laughs] short-sellers.

Mike: Yeah, well every real estate agent in the country was a short sale expert, so.

Jason: Yeah, yeah. And now, as you see that progression, you know, short sales are getting harder, they’re no fun, you take forever. And then I see my guys migrate over into, you know, wholesaling, and then more wholesaling into rehabbing.

Bottom line is, the market’s always changing, another change is coming – it’s already taking place in some of the big, you know, big markets, the hottest markets. The Arizonas, you know, the Southern Calis – it ain’t coming, it’s already here.

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: But one of the things that I’ve learned over the last 14 years of being in this business, what starts there usually spreads East . . .

Mike: Right.
Jason: You know? And so you’ve just got to be prepared. I encourage anybody who’s listening to look at the holes your business and be honest with yourself, right? Sit down, slow down, look at the holes in your business and figure out a plan to address them and start filling those holes right now.
I would encourage you to be more careful in how you evaluate your deals right now. You know, here’s the thing, when you reach a point where appreciation stops, if the market’s blazing and you make a mistake, either in value, or say on the rehab side of it, well, it’s okay because your appreciation will often fix your mistake . . .

Mike: Yeah.
Jason: All right? When you reach a point where that appreciation starts to come more, in some cases, you know, stop or reverse, you don’t have that same luxury . . .

Mike: Right.

Jason: Anymore. I would try to focus on fewer, better deals versus just running and gunning, buying everything you can get your hands on right now. Because . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: If the appreciation is slowing down, you don’t have that buffer to allow yourself the same mistakes in valuation judgments.

Mike: Yeah, that’s good stuff. If we had a new guy that listened to everything we’ve just been talking about over the past 5 or 10 minutes, they may be scared out of their mind to get started on real estate investing.

And like you said, there’s still a lot of opportunity. But what advice would you give a new person that’s looking to get in to a market that, you know, may be challenging?

Jason: I think if I were going to give some advice to a new person, would be, and it’s all relevant. I mean there are new people who’ve been successful previous life and they have . . .

Mike: Right.

Jason: Money.

Mike: Right.

Jason: And then there’s somebody who’s bootstrapping, you know? You know, that’s somewhat of a tough question because my, personally I would say that you know, I would not want to go out after the deals that everyone else is going after . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: Because a lot of those deals require cash. If you’re buying at auction, if you’re buying at, you know, MLS; if it’s competitive, a lot of times the cash offer’s going to win, if you’re new and don’t have money, you’re kind of bootstrapping. I would probably focus more on the wholesaling side.

And what I would do is, I would probably, if you’ve got some money, I would mail directly to non-owner-occupied, basically landlords, who’ve had, either free or clear property, or have a mortgage on it that was originated more than 10 years ago. Now . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: Let’s say you don’t have any money for marketing, all right?
None. What would you do? I’ll give you a cool strategy that you’re going to have to have a little time on your hands, but let’s say you’ve got no real money, okay? How do you find a really, really stressed out landlord?

Well, eviction notices are often public knowledge, or public record, if you will. Either yourself, or sometimes if you have somebody in your county who has a foreclosure service, they provide data to investors . . .

Mike: Right.

Jason: Either you could, or maybe that person would be willing to farm the notices for you for landlords who’ve filed eviction notices, right? Now, I would target those folks because that’s a small audience, it’s very targeted, it shouldn’t take you a lot of money.

And let’s say you’re completely . . . don’t have any money to go and actually mail those people, more often than not you can get your hands on a copy of the eviction notice, which often has their cell phone on it, right? Because the eviction notice you’re seeing, “Hey, if you want to talk about this, call me,” right?

Mike: Right . . .

Jason: And so…

Mike: Right.

Jason: If you’ve got enough junk in your pants to pick up the phone you can actually pick up the phone and call those landlords who are filing eviction notices. A lot of times you can even research and find out when their court date is, right? You can show up down at the court. The court dealing with some ding-a-ling not paying their rent, they just might want to dump the house, right?

And then I would work on a assigning or I should say getting that property in your contract, which if you go that route shouldn’t really take a lot of money. And then you think, “Okay, now that I’ve actually gotten a property under contract, how am I going to sell it?”

And this may sound rudimentary or elementary, but Craigslist, going to your local auction, if you still have an auction that is public if you will, that’s like, at at the courthouse steps where there’s human beings bidding versus online . . .

Mike: Right.

Jason: You’ve got a good deal under contract. Most of those folks down there are rehabbers buying those deals, they pay cash. You can go down there and look for a buyer to assign that property to, go to your [inaudible 00:31:36] [to somebody] assign that property to. You know, there’s ample ways to find cash buyers without spending money.

Mike: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good tip. I’ve never actually done any of that myself and you’ve got me thinking, here. But I have a good friend that’s a fairly large property manager and he got a lot of his business by showing up at the eviction court . . .

Jason: Yeah, man . . .
Mike: And handing out flyers. Like, “You want to never want to come here again? Well maybe you should consider talking to me.”

Jason: Yeah, right . . .

Mike: So that’s . . .

Jason: Exactly.

Mike: Good.

Jason: It’s a good . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: Way to get started if you don’t have a lot of capital and you want . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: To find some folks who are motivated . . .

Mike: Yeah . . .

Jason: You know?

Mike: Awesome, awesome.

Jason: With that said, if you’ve got a dream and you’re listening to this, you’re working a job, you’re unhappy with what you’re doing – don’t let anything stop you. There is nothing more rewarding to me in life, than to have the freedom of doing it my way. And real estate can absolutely give you the power to do that.

Mike: Absolutely.

Jason: Yeah, man. I live an incredibly blessed life, with massive control of my time, so if you’re listening to this, and you’ve been listening and you’re not doing anything, take action, make it happen, go do something.

You will live in pain the rest of your life if you don’t go after your dream. Now you’re still going to have some pain when you go after your dream but it’ll be for a short-term, and then you’ll live the life of your dreams versus being in agony working for somebody else or going that route the rest of your days, you know?

Mike: Absolutely, awesome, awesome. Well, Jason, man, I wish we could talk longer. We’ve run out of time, here.

Jason: Yeah, sure.

Mike: Real quick, tell everybody how to learn more about how to get a hold of you, or how to connect with you, and how to learn more about Collective Genius.

Jason: Sure, sure. I’m not a real public guy, I don’t have a bunch of fancy websites – I am extremely focused . . .

Mike: What’s your Pinterest account? What’s your . . .

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Pinterest account?

Jason: I can’t spell Pinterest. So with that I will say, I’m extremely focused, the Collective Genius is my baby, it’s all I do. I don’t have a fancy website; my website is strictly for people that are interested in coming. If you’re interested in coming, again, you can go to thecollectivegenius.com.

It’ll break down the type of people that are there, the relationships that are created, how it’s formatted. From there, if you want to learn more, basically you go to the next page.

And what I’ve done is, I’ve done an interview, it’s a video interview, kind of like what we’re doing, but instead of two of us, there’s six of us . . .

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: Kind of like you see on the news. And I just go around the basis and ask everybody how being involved in group has impacted their lives and their business. And then from there, if you want to talk to me, you go to the next step, which is an application. My assistant will buzz you once we get the application to set up a time for us to speak, and then we go from there.

I do want to stress, though, it is application invitation only – everybody’s time is valuable. Please don’t waste your time; unless you’re playing at a high level, it’ll probably be a waste of your time. I say that to be helpful, not to . . . because I don’t want . . .

Mike: Yeah . . .

Jason: You to go, yeah, go waste your time. If you’re playing at a high level, it’ll be a wise use to your time, if you’re not, it’ll just, you know, it won’t be the best use of your time.

Mike: Awesome, awesome.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Mike: Well thanks for your insights, Jason appreciate your time.

Jason: Absolutely, I appreciate you having me on, Mike, I’ve enjoyed it.

Mike: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I look forward to talking some more soon.

Jason: Yes, you got it.

Mike: All right, buddy, take care, have a good day.

Jason: Sure.

Mike: Bye-bye. 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.