Wisdom to Navigate the Market

Mike: Welcome to FlipNerd Live discussions with and training from America’s very best real estate investing professionals. We meet live twice a month to discuss what’s working now and get your questions answered. We broadcast live inside of a private online community, which you can join for free by visiting flipnerd.com/live. Let’s start today’s show.

Hey, what’s up Tony? Welcome to the show.

Tony: What’s up Mike? Good to be here, man.

Mike: Yeah. Glad you’re here. Uh, thanks for those that are watching live here. Let us know where you’re joining from. We’re gonna be talking a lot today about what’s going on in this market. Tony’s been an investor for a long time.

I’ve been in the game for 15 years. I think he started a little bit before me, and, um, hopefully we can impart some wisdom today. If you guys have questions, uh, for those of you that are watching live, we’d love to, uh, try to answer some of your questions. So make sure you kind of chat ’em in here. Um, but um, Tony, really excited to see you.

Always good talking to you. You and I talk. Fairly regularly. And so it’s always, always, uh, insightful for, I know we’re always like, bouncing ideas. What are you seeing? What are you seeing? And today we’re gonna talk about that publicly, I guess.

Tony: Yeah, absolutely, man. I love our conversations. I love, uh, you and I both have the entrepreneurial spirit always doing different businesses and doing different things.

Yeah. And we have, um, a lot of the same clients, so we get to see, uh, what’s going on behind the scenes. So looking forward to talking about what people are doing and what we’re doing to, to navigate through.

Mike: Yeah, today and just for some perspective, for some context for people, like, I’ll say our conversation started off today with me saying, you know, I always bite off more than I can chew.

And so that’s kinda where, that’s where I’m at. I know a lot of folks are, are feeling that, but uh, but you’re right. I think, um, you know, some of what we’ll talk about today is just the importance of people staying resilient to just on kind of winning and doing whatever it takes. Um, instead of just bailing out and quitting and uh, or moving on to the next thing that will inevitably get hard as.

Um, and you know, you can’t have been in this game for 15 years. How long you been in, You’ve been like 17 or 18 years, something

Tony: like that. 20. It’ll be, it’s actually, this is my 21st year, 20. I keep, I keep saying 20 years, but it’s actually my 21st. Okay.

Mike: So a little bit longer than I thought. So yeah, you can’t have been in the game for that long without having some war wounds and, uh, some things that’ll, that’ll.

Allow you to understand that hey, times you’ve been through tough times before, right? And, and, and you know, what it takes to, uh, kind of move past that. So, uh, hey, before we jump in, if anybody’s watching this right now, you’ve been in the game for 21 years, so a lot of folks already know who you are, But maybe tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into real estate and what your business looks like today.

Tony: Yeah, 21 years ago, Carleton Sheets, no down payment system. Saw that on a late night infomercial. One night I was in college waiting tables and um, you know, you see the, uh, the testimonials I’m making, you know, I’ve got a hundred properties in my portfolio, million dollar net worth making, a hundred thousand dollars a year, you know, that kind of thing.

So, yeah, you know, that sparked my interest. I’m like, well, shit, I have no money. I wanna make money, so, you know, it’s perfect. Um, so I had [00:03:00] probably a thousand bucks in my account. Spent $200 on, on a course, and within about five months of buying the course, I had my, uh, first two properties closed. September, uh, 2001, so right at nine 11 Okay.

Is when I bought my first two properties. And so from this day, still buy properties with no money down. Um, and you know, I’ve got a team in, in which it’s all Kansas that runs my real estate investing business. While I’m in San Diego, I’ve been here for seven years. And, uh, like you said, we can talk about ups and downs.

Man, I’ve been through many, many ups and downs, um, and not just market cycles, but just ups and downs in general. So, yeah, I know some people are feeling it right now. Maybe they’re stuck with inventory that, that they’re trying to get rid of. And, you know, I’m, I’ve got some inventory that I’ve. Funded for other investors around the country that I’m having to clean up.

So I’ve got some, I’ve got some, uh, wounds that I’m getting ready to have here pretty soon as well. Uh, but yeah, I mean, it’s just been an evolution of the last 21 years of building the business, uh, figuring out how to build a team to sustain without me. Being able to do more, you know, smart marketing and just smarter business practices in general.

And, um, you know, for the first 10 years it was a lot of, um, you know, mistakes, figuring things out and not having groups like investor fuel and the Mastermind that you run, um, to lean in support on. And then once I figured out, I could, you know, have support and, and could really lean on other people’s mistakes and their journeys and what they were able to accomplish or not accomplish very well.

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Tony: That’s when I, um, kind of, you know, went through something that made me say, Hey, how can I create a business that could last without me?

So, yeah. Uh, 2015 is when I stepped outta my business, um, to move to San Diego. Um, now we run TV commercials for real estate investors around the country, which is what I love doing. Um, it’s something that, you know, not only do I get success out of me and my business, but also helping other people scale their businesses as well.

Yep. And so, um, so yeah, it’s been a, a big evolution and, and, you know, multiple businesses later and like you said, multiple war wounds and figuring out, you know, how to navigate through things. Um, and now, you know, I’m at the point where I’m gonna have some wounds over here, but then I’ve got other things over here that are supporting.

Um, that I’m not too worried about it. So, um, so yeah, that’s, that’s kind of, uh, from A to z a little bit from a high level overview of, you know, kind of where I started and, and where I am today. Yeah, that’s

Mike: great. And I’d love people to kind of chat in with what they’re seeing. I just did a poll of our investor fuel members, uh, you know, like, how are you feeling on a scale of one to five, And five was, it’s my best year ever.

And one was, uh, I’m really struggling right and you know, two and three were kind of, and four were kind of in the middle ground there. And it’s amazing to see when, whenever you pull a group of people, like professionals really, right? There’s some people that were struggling, you know, For sure. And there’s definitely still some people that are like, This is my best year ever and we’re crushing it right now.

And I think, um, you know, you, I think you and I know if you’ve been around long. It’s, it’s, your business is just stronger because you’ve, it’s been tested, it’s been stress tested a lot more. And so those that have the right people and processes in place, and maybe the ones that took, um, the last couple years to kind of get better at dispo and stuff, knowing that the market was gonna turn at some point in dispo would be a, be a, a more, uh, a more important skill like, um, having the right processes in place.

And, you know, let’s be honest, the last few. Almost anybody could make money in real estate. If you find a deal, it didn’t even, didn’t even have to be a great deal. You could still somehow sell it for above, uh, above market value. Some ridiculous stuff, right? and we all knew that those things wouldn’t last.

I mean, I don’t think anybody’s surprised that, uh, Open Doors stock is at like an all time low right now. Um, and, and because you knew they were doing things that just didn’t make sense. Like, how are they paying that much for properties? And it’s like, well, it didn’t make sense and now, now we see why, Right?

Mm-hmm. . But, um, so let’s talk about what I, what I really wanna share here, Share with everybody. Just some wisdom that you have or that we, things we’ve experienced before around a number of areas. So maybe we could start off with just kind of operationally, you know, what do you do differently on your team in a market like this?

Like obviously your, your acquisitions and dispositions has changed a little bit. Maybe the team structure has changed a little bit. Um, maybe there’s more focus on changing your processes, but just talk about like, you know, what you’ve been doing lately or, you know, what, what you see people.

Tony: Yeah. Well first of all, I mean more money’s made in the down market than in upmarket, so I don’t see us having a huge downturn.

But you know, those that we’re counting on $30,000 profits on properties, the property goes down 20 to 30,000 and. Three months, four months worth of work and money tied up and marketing dollars and you don’t make any money on properties, you know it’s gonna take a toll on you if, if you have to do that for, you know, the next few months.

Right. Um, so I don’t see the market getting crushed. There might be some that do get crushed. Some, you know, some markets, you know, we were talking about this earlier before we started recording, is it could be market specific. Wichita, Kansas probably isn’t gonna see a big downturn, uh, but San Diego, where I live, Um, you know, some, some bigger markets that, that, that, you know, are, are probably gonna see an impact, right?

Of maybe 10, 20, 30 per, I don’t, maybe not 30%, but, you know, 10, 10 to 20%. Yep. So with that becomes opportunities, like even, um, you know, I looked at the, the rates yesterday and I didn’t realize they’d risen so high. And so I, I got on the phone with my sister, who’s my acquisitions manager, and I said, Hey, that deal that we just put under contract, uh, 10 days ago, I’m like, I don’t think the numbers are gonna work on it.

So I was like, Let, let’s just back, like I’ve only backed out of five deals, I think in the last 20 years. Like when I put on something under contract, I’m closing on it, I’m rehabbing it and I’ll rent it out if I have to. And um, so she called the seller and the seller’s like, I really need to sell this house.

I was really dependent on it. , um, what can you guys do? And you know, my sister’s like, Well, I don’t know. We could probably reduce at 15,000, uh, and make the numbers work. And she’s like, Well, go back to ’em and see if he’ll do that. So it’s like we just got a $15,000 price reduction on a house that we may have to pay, pay higher interest rates on right now.

But I’m hoping that next year rates will go back down and any properties we re refine the next few months, our next, you know, six months, whatever it. As rates go down, we’ll refi and, and get those lower payments, uh, down to where we need ’em to be. Yeah. Um, so number one is opportunities. So just think about opportunities.

So rather than stopping marketing, you know, obviously if you’re in a cash crunch and just can’t afford the marketing, that’s one thing. But like if you can afford to market market right now, because they’re gonna be some good deals out there, no doubt. Um, investors are not paying as much for properties.

Some investors are getting out. Um, there’s just gonna be a lot of buying opportunities. Staying on the forefront and, and getting those leads coming in and, and adjusting your numbers to make the deals work. So, you know, numbers from three months ago and especially six months ago, aren’t gonna work now.

You know, you’ll just have to adjust your numbers to make those work. Um, so that’s, that’s the first thing I would say. And then, uh, two is just tighten up the ship. I mean, you know, I think this last market, um, people just got really lax, you know, they were just making tons of. Probably, I mean, I’ve been guilty of this when, when, when business is going really well, just hire too many people, you’re not looking at your KPIs and your marketing really well.

Um, for me, I love just looking at the bottom line and saying, Am I making money or not? You know, and kind of adjusting from there. It’s been easy to get sloppy, right? Oh, yeah. Totally, totally easy. And so, um, going back to the basics, you know, am I, you know, have I hired too many? Uh, what marketing dollars are working best and, and concentrating on those that are, you know, those marketing methods that are doing well and maybe taking any that aren’t doing well and pushing them out the window.

Um, are there, um, projects that, that, you know, were taken on that, you know, we shouldn’t have taken on? Like I told you, you know, I’ve got some deals around the country that I’m cleaning up that looking back hindsight, I was depending on. The, the, uh, hot market to bring some of these deals even better, uh, better ARVs, better values at the end.

Um, but the investor took so long that they’re nine months in that now prices are gonna start dipping in those higher price point properties that we’ve invested in, that now we’re, you know, it’s cuz we’re in second position. We’re, um, not in, not in as good a position of, and so, We actually stopped doing some of that a few months ago cuz we, we were kind of worried about something like this happening in the market.

And so, um, so yeah, so just anticipating the market and, and figuring out what is going to be a good strategy moving forward. Flipping houses and whole tailing may have been a great strategy, um, you know, the last 24 months, just because by the time you bought ’em and the by time you sold ’em, they increased 10, 10%, you know.

Um, but we’re not, we’re not seeing that now. So you may. You know, just wholesale some properties or you may have. You know, buy some properties at deep discounts, rent them for a while, and then wait for the rates to come down in the market to get better, uh, and then sell ’em on the back end later. So, um, so yeah, those are probably the two big things that I would say in this market you need to do is, um, you know, get leaner and adjust what you’re doing right now so that if your revenue does go down, you’re prepared for it.

And then just figure out how to adjust your numbers and do deals that maybe other people aren’t. Um, that’ll allow you to get better deals just because people are stepping outta the market. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. One of the, one of the early lessons I had after the first couple of years was, you know, a couple people that were kind of mentors or people that had been in the business for decades is just this realization that they have different access strategies and.

And different tools they use in different markets. Right. I mean, I think for a lot of people that have come in over the past few years that are maybe just wholesalers or just rehabers, like they’ve got, they kind of had one tool in their tool belt and that’s all they did. Right? Um, but the people that I’ve seen in the game for a long time and, and you know, some of these guys too, They just, you know, when, when it’s a seller’s market, you do more selling activities because you can, That’s, that’s where the market’s at.

When it’s more of a buyer’s market, you need to do more buying activities, maybe more buy and hold. I know that’s not something you could do in every market, but you never stop buying. You just change, you know, change your strategies. Like you said, buy deeper. Uh, and your X strategies are probably changed based on where you are in the marketplace.

So I know like a number of the guys that are in investor. You know, past couple years hadn’t been keeping rentals and now they’re back to stacking up rentals, which has its own challenges where, with, where interest rates and things are, but they’re getting better deals than they have in the past couple of years.

So I think, um, you know, just like people that invest in Wall Street, when the stock market’s really hot, some people feel like they need to mitigate some risk and they start buying things that are, you know, a little more. I guess a little more risk averse or whatever. They just kind of shift strategies, maybe buy more bonds or whatever.

Um, and it’s the same thing in real estate. Like you just, you just pull different levers during

Tony: different markets. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. I think having different exit strategies, you know, when, when some, someone comes to me to run TV commercials, I, you know, I ask them what is their exit strategy if they have one.

I’m like, Okay, we can, we can work with that. But if you have multiple, it’s gonna make, make your business. And your commercials work better cuz if you can buy properties that you can’t flip, that you can keep as rentals or, you know, if something happens and you’re wholesaling and you, you know, you, you need to close on it and do some work to fix it up and resell it and, and make it a flip.

You know, those are deals that maybe a wholesaler couldn’t, couldn’t do. Um, so having multiple exit strategies is, is super important. And then, you know, there becomes a time where if you’re doing really well in one, Figuring out how to create other streams of income, whether it’s rental properties or whether it’s investing in other businesses.

Um, you know, like I said, I’m fortunate enough that, you know, I’ve got some deals that may lose, um, you know, some money because I’m in second position and having to clean up deals for people. Um, but I’ve got other businesses that, that are gonna float it and, you know, it’s not gonna be an issue at all. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so there’s things you can do to mitigate your risk for. Um, it’s easier said than none obviously, cuz multiple streams of income isn’t necessarily easy. You know, people just say it like, it’s, like it’s, you know, can be, can be really easy. Um, but those are things that you need, need to look at from a long term standpoint.

And I wish, you know, 20 years ago, I wish, you know, I would’ve invested. Taking some of my profits and invested in things that could be providing some residual income right now. Um, but, you know, it’s, it’s never, never too late to start.

Mike: Yeah. And, and I with the same thing you just said there, that that’s, I’m grateful that we did keep rentals.

Like, and most of them were, we kept a long time ago, like in the first five years I was in business, we, we kept a bunch of, uh, single family rentals and, and in hindsight I look back and like, why didn’t I keep hundreds more? But, uh, that’s how hindsight works. I’m grateful for what we have cuz truthfully there’s a revenue stream there.

There’s most of my wealth, you know, on paper at least is tied up in those assets. And so we have other streams of income that we’re real estate. Just the ones that we, you know, could have rehabbed and made 20, 30, 40 grand. And we said just stuff in the rental portfolio and. Um, and you know, at the time I, I remember it was painful.

You’re kind of making those sacrifices. Uh, but you know, I thought it would pay off some way down the road and, and it has. And so I think that’s something that only time can kind of show you of like, Hey, that was a good decision. Um, but if you’re not keeping rentals right now or feed to market, I know there’s markets that are hard to keep rentals.

Obviously you’re in San Diego and it’s not like you’re keeping rentals out there, really even doing a lot of activity out there. But, um, you know, you can buy in other markets as well, but I think it’s important to have, uh, like you said, multiple streams of income even inside of real estate. There’s other ways to make money.

Right. So let’s talk a little bit about lead gen. So what do you, what you know, you, you do tv? We do some very data, uh, specific, um, stuff that’s very kind of nichey and very unique in both of our cases. Um, that I think are some of the best strategies you could use going into this market because they’re ones that not everybody can do, uh, not everybody does do.

Um, but they’re very kind of targeted like yours obviously helps people build up brands. And having a brand right now is, uh, a lot more powerful than somebody that doesn’t for sure. In a market where. , um, where it’s more turning into more of a buyer’s market and sellers are, are gonna kind of call the people that, uh, that, that have built up a strong brand.

But what do you get, What are you doing differently? What are you kind of seeing from a legion standpoint?

Tony: Yeah, I mean, we’ve been all in on TV commercials for, for 10 years now. I started TV commercials 10 years ago in my market. Um, we started, um, helping other real estate investors do TV commercials a couple years ago.

Yep. Um, which has been a great business, not only for us, but all our clients are, are absolutely crushing it, uh, because it’s such a unique lead source. Not a lot of people think about it. Uh, and when they do think about it, they think it’s too expensive, and if they get through that hurdle, they have to go and negotiate with the stations.

And there’s just a lot more obstacles that you have to go through. To get on TV compared to, you know, you know, cold calling, texting, and some of the other platforms where you can be a real estate investor tomorrow by buying a list and buying a software that can just start dialing for you. Right, right, right, right.

Um, so, you know, it’s, it’s something that has helped us, help me throughout the last 10 years. Navigate through the ups and downs and be more consistent. You know, our TV commercials are, uh, more consistent than anything has ever been in the last 10 years. We’ve been, you know, we’ve done things that have, you know, come and gone.

MLS used to be a great thing. Um, direct mail was bad for a long time than we got with you guys, an investor machine, and realized that our TV clients, we were telling our TV clients to put ads seen on TV on their postcards, and they started seeing an uptick. So then when. Started doing direct mail with you guys again.

We, we, uh, tie that message in as well and we’re doing really well with postcards again. Um, but those are, I mean, postcards and direct mail are the two main things we’re doing right now. We’re testing some radio and some other things that are more inbound marketing, which is what we like. We like inbound leads.

Yep. Um, but yeah, TV commercials, um, are something that if you guys have not thought about it, you. Um, it’s, you know, the credibility factor you get from TV commercials is second to none. I think the only thing you can get better than, than TV commercials is probably Instagram, you know, if you have hundreds [00:21:00] of thousands of followers.

But you know how hard that is, Mike, that’s not, not something you can do even in a year. Usually it takes years to build that up. Um, You know, the return on investment, the return on time, you know, once you set it up right? Uh, or have us set it up for you if you want us to. Um, you know, you, you don’t have to do a lot of work.

Um, but answer the phone and, and that kind of thing. And just the scalability of it too. I mean, we’ve got several clients that are, um, plugging TV commercials in multiple markets. In fact, I had conversation with investor, fuel member, um, Launching his second market next week, and he’s already called me.

He’s like, Hey man, I think we’re looking at a third market. We’re doing, uh, crazy numbers in the first market. In the second market. We know we’re gonna do well and we wanna plug in a third market and do, uh, acquisitions and dispo. Virtually. Um, so yeah, I think, you know, for, for me, direct mail and um, TV commercials work really well together.

Um, if anybody’s doing texting and cold calling and doing well at it, I think that’s fine. Um, but I would consider other marketing methods to add to it. Cuz if someone calls me and they’re like, Hey, I’m gonna do TV commercials, and all they’re doing is cold calling and texting, I’m like, I’m glad you called me because at some point that is gonna dry.

In fact, we had one of the, another investor, fuel member, we have a lot of clients in investor fuel reached out to us today and he’s like, Hey, direct mail, um, in his market and texting and call client are drying out and TV’s doing really well. How can we add more, uh, more tv? Uh, and, and it could be vice versa too.

It could be that TV dries out for some people eventually, and, you know, doesn’t do as well. You just have to have other marketing methods to help supple. Um, the ones that, that aren’t doing well at the time and diversify that way as well. Yeah, there’s

Mike: probably no one, you know, I would never advise anybody, just, just focus on one marketing channel.

I mean, certainly for professional, if you’re brand new, you gotta start with one, right? But, Right. If you’ve been around for a while, you need to have some, you know, multiple lines in the water, if you will, or with different bait on there, because that’s really how that, I mean, honestly, if I name any, any successful investor that I could, Um, there’s gonna be times where this is working really well and then times where this is working really well.

And unless you’re, unless you have multiple channels going on, you don’t see that sometimes if you just have one or two channels, you think like everything’s down, but you have one channel that’s working really well and the other one just isn’t for some reason. I mean, it could be a lot of different reasons why.

Of course with texting and cold calling and stuff like that, there’s always tech issues or governmental issues. Like there’s things that go on and if you’re just overreliant upon any one thing, um, somebody else could make, that, somebody else could impact that and outside of your control. I mean, fortunately with TV and mail, you know, those things are never gonna, those things have been around for as long as any, any of us have been alive for sure, and aren’t gonna change any time.

Uh, but laws could change around texting and coal client effect they have, right? So not saying you shouldn’t do those things, but for folks that were over reliant upon just those things. [00:24:00] Um, and on top of that, I, I do think that there’s a lot of what happens in this market is sellers are adjusting to, um, the new market, right?

Some are still unrealistic about what their house is worth. Um, and some found somebody, uh, an unscrupulous wholesaler that had just pay ’em whatever they wanted for it. Say they would pay ’em whatever they want for it only to have the deal fall through. And in my experience, when people, um, have a deal fall through, they go right to somebody that’s credible.

And it could be somebody that’s using mail or somebody that had a messaging came in more professional, whatever it is, they’re like, you know, you weren’t the lowest, you weren’t the highest offer that you weren’t the lowest offer they had. They’re willing to pay more for somebody that can actually get the job done.

So, uh, as long as you have that credibility, whether it’s in your marketing channel or how you represented. Uh, on an appointment, people are gonna go, they don’t wanna strike out three times. Like they, they wanna, I had one problem and now I’m gonna go to the Sure thing, even if it wasn’t my best offer.

You’d agree with

Tony: that, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We get, [00:25:00] we get deals all the time where, um, you know, they’ll, they’ll call us and maybe one or two other people and they’ll go with us, even though, um, our offers a little bit lower just because they, they know we’re credible cuz of our TV commercials and, and our branding and authority.

So, yep, a hundred percent People want solutions and they don’t wanna have. To call other people. They wanna call one person if possible, or even if they call three people, they wanna choose one person, go with that person and have them close, uh, close on the property and not have to call, call other people.

So a

Mike: hundred percent. Yep. Yep. So what are you guys doing differently right now from an acquisition standpoint? Are you basically trying to buy a little bit deeper than you have and maybe talk a little bit about how you’ve kind of had to train your team on buying deeper, um, in this.

Tony: Yeah, we’re just adjusting our numbers a little bit.

We actually, um, luckily middle of last year, I think is when we decided to keep almost everything we bought. So instead of flipping and selling it, we decided to flip it and just add it to the rental portfolio. Uh, so a lot of those properties have gone up anywhere from 10 to 30% in value over the last.

Or May, probably 10 to 20% in value. The last, uh, last 12 to 24 months. Um, uh, and so, uh, what we need to do now is look at our cash flow for those rental properties. Just like I I mentioned earlier, we have to, you know, we were getting four and a half to four and three quarters percent on our loans as of a few months ago.

In fact, I think I signed a loan last month. That was still in the force. Our bank, our bank was just really good about like not, you know, increasing rates on us. And then finally, all of our banks came back to us in the last 30 days or so and said, Hey, we need to increase. In fact, I got a letter on, one of ’em went up to from 5.19% we got five years ago, and they wanted to, uh, they wanted to go to 8.19.

So I made a quick call and I’m like, There’s no way. And they’re like, Okay, we’ll do 7.19%. And I’m like, Well, I guess that’s better than, you know, 8.19. So yeah. Wow. Uh, so we just have to adjust our numbers there. I mean, I think the math on, on the property that we were. Um, that I, that I mentioned, we had to do a $15,000 price reduction.

It was gonna be an extra about a hundred dollars a month, um, which isn’t, you know, isn’t the end of the world, but I mean, it still affects your numbers. So, uh, for us, we just have to buy it at better discounts. There’s gonna be some properties in certain price points in certain areas. We know we don’t have to lower our numbers because we know the values are still gonna be there.

We know there’s a ton of buyers in that market. Even if the rates go up, we’re still gonna be able to sell. Um, Yep. But in the upper price points, for sure, this was gonna be a $215,000 property, I believe. And, um, so we know that, I mean, 215 can go under 200 pretty quickly in a, in a market like this, if. Uh, if things don’t line up.

Um, so yeah, I mean that’s, that’s what it’s all about. And then if you’re a wholesaler, like for our clients, our clients are saying that most of their backend buyers are just decreasing their numbers by 10 to 15%. You know, just, just as a buffer. And so if you know that your client, your backend buyers are decreasing their numbers by 10 to 15%, then you just have to do the same to make Yep.

You know, about the same amount of money you were making.

Mike: Yeah, for wholesalers, you’re really just a traitor. Like you, you’re just, it doesn’t really matter if the market’s going up or up or down. You just have to anticipate and try to plan around protecting your spread ultimately, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, but with that said, you know, I’m not an advocate of somebody just purely being a wholesaler.

Back to what we talked about, I think you should find some ways to keep some rentals. You know, this is probably not the ideal time to get into fixing and flipping, but there’s always those cherry deals that, that you just can’t really lose on, uh, as long as you play your cards. Right. But you just made me think of something I was like, I got, I still have some, some of my rentals still have a little bit of, uh, financing on ’em and.

We’ve had ’em so long that the, that the rates adjust annually now. I was like, Oh crap, we better look into that. So, uh, cuz the rates have been so low, they’re gonna pop up. So anyway, another task for me to handle on my plate. So let’s talk about, um, what, what other things do you do in this market, um, regards to, let’s just say kind of managing cash.

Are you stacking cash for opportunities that are coming up and added a little more kind of cushion for any operational issues? Like, what are you guys doing

Tony: Different. Yeah, we actually dug into financials, uh, a few weeks ago and we cut out a lot of stuff we didn’t need. I mean, a lot of stuff I’m like, you know, as, as a business owner, you know, you, you, you think you have things dialed in and then you’re like, Man, I, I, you know, last year, you know, there’s one business, the TV business that I started growing the last year and we just, we added a bunch of stuff.

We didn’t need to just cuz you know, money was coming in. Um, I thought I needed to add, you know, this and that, and, and it just all adds up. So, Yeah. Um, a few weeks ago went through the financials and we just cut a bunch of stuff we didn’t need. There’s some marketing that wasn’t working as well. There were, you know, some overhead that we didn’t need.

Um, you know, that we just, you know, cut out. It’s not gonna make much difference to our business, um, you know, from a, from a top line perspective, but it’s gonna help the bottom line. Yeah. Um, so that’s one thing. Um, I mean, I think that’s just the biggest thing is, you know, you know, not only adjusting your numbers and doing the things that I said, but just kind of looking at the operations and saying, How can I dial things in better?

And I, you know, I, I’ve been in this business 21 years now, and this has happened a few times where I’ve looked back. And said, Man, I should have, you know, shouldn’t have added this and I shouldn’t have added that. And then might, you know, I should have looked at my numbers more often. Uh, but those kinds of things happen and, you know, you just have to adjust.

But the good thing about, you know, markets like this is they make you think and they make you become more disciplined, right? For sure. So you, you have to go to that, go back to kind of the drawing board on some things, and you have to go back and look at what you were doing before and say, How can I do things smarter so that I can hopefully make as much money as I did before?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. This is, uh, I mean, I, I started in 2008, so kind of a, a down market, right where the market was trending. and you know, I believe that this is the best time for real estate investors. You just have to get through this transition period of what’s going on, uh, with sellers being a little bit disillusioned of what their house is worth.

And some are coming around. I mean, on the multi-family side, I’ve got some friends that are seeing massive price reductions when rates changed cuz they had to, like, literally the deals won’t work in any way on the, uh, multi-family side and. It’s just a matter of time before sellers see that they just, you know, for years they’ve been hearing in the news about how hot the real estate market is.

And now of course the best part is the media bangs that drum louder than anybody about how bad the real estate market is. And so it just takes hearing that for a few months for people to start to realize, Hey, maybe, maybe my house is worth less, um, than, than it really is. And as you know, like the situations that, that drive somebody to sell their house at a just to a, to a, a deeply discounted price, like death, divorce, inheritance, problem, rentals, all those things, like things we don’t wish on anybody. Those things don’t follow market cycles. Like people aren’t gonna say, Nah, you know, I’m not gonna die. I’m not gonna die right now cuz then I’ll have to sell my house at a discount like we

That’s just not how it works. So those, those issues are still going on. There’s still plenty of opportunities for us. We just have to buy them. .

Tony: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Just gotta make adjustments. That’s what it’s all

Mike: about. Yep. Yep. So let’s talk about a little bit about the, the importance of, uh, you said some of this up front of really kind of surrounding yourself with the right people.

And, you know, I, I put out a message to my investor fuel crew today and essentially said, cuz I know what happens sometimes with real estate investors, all entrepreneurs, is some ego gets in the way and they’re worried about hurting their ego and talking about what’s going on. I’m like, Like schedule a call with me, come to Investor Fuel, which is in, you know, just a week and a half from now.

And talk about what’s, what challenges you’re having. Don’t hide from that. This is the time how we can all help each other. And I think we’re in an industry typically where there’s a lot more chest dumping and people don’t want to share the negative side, uh, because they’re, you know, it’s gonna brush, it’s gonna bruise their ego, if you will.

You know, our group isn’t like that at all, but it really takes kind of surrounding yourself with truly friends, people that can really help you get through, uh, some tough times. I know you’ve been there, uh, before and I’ve been there before, but just talk a little bit about the importance of kind of being around a peer group that can help you weather storms or help kind of work things out when.

You may not be able to figure it

Tony: out on your own. Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, uh, having support is something I didn’t have for at least 10 years of my business. I think it was closer to like 12 or 13. And what I mean by that is that I just kind of put my head down and I just, I grind it and, you know, if I had issues, I figured them out, figured them out myself.

I thought if I had cash flow issues that, you know, I was the only one, Everyone else is all making all this money, you know, And I had these thoughts in my head that, and then once I started getting around other people and talking about it, it’s like, oh wow. You know, that person’s having, I thought that person was, you know, doing, doing a hundred deals a year is crushing it, but they’re having cash flow issues.

Um, so it kind of makes you, I mean, you don’t wanna see that obviously, but it makes you feel like you’re not alone. And then at the same time, it’s like, okay, you’ve got some struggles. How can. Um, navigate through, through those struggles easier and faster. And typically by finding someone who’s been there before or you can at least give a perspective to, and they can give the perspective back of, Hey, why don’t you try this?

Or even just knowing that people are there, like, Hey man, if you need anything, let me know. Like, Yeah, you know, I’ve been there before, you know, I’ve had struggles or maybe I’m struggling now, kind of thing. Um, so yeah, there’s multiple reasons that you need to surround yourself with, with good people. Um, and it, it’s priceless.

You know, it’s, you know, I’ll be an investor fuel here in a couple weeks, so it’ll be kind of nice to see what everybody else is doing around the country, um, to navigate through what’s going on, and that’ll help me with perspective. Okay. What are some things that I need to think of that maybe I wasn’t thinking of that, um, that I need to think about, um, moving forward?

So, um, you know, there’s masterminds, there’s coaches, there’s um, there’s mentors. You know, anybody who is willing to take you under their wing that maybe. 10 to 15 years more experience that you do that you know you can ask these questions to that have been there and done that. Um, it’s super important to have that cuz again, the first.

So I’ve been in business about 21 years now. So 13 years, man. I think 12 to 13 years is how long it took me to find a peer group and to really start reaching out to other people and saying, Hey, I need some help, and how can you, you know, how can I, how can you help me and how can I learn from you? And maybe some of the mistakes that you, you’ve made as well.

Mike: Yeah. It’s real easy to like think you’ve got it figured out and then you don’t, and you. You know, you, I’m sure you, I’m sure this happened to you too, where you hear an idea at, at, at a mastermind or at Investor Fuel for example, and it’s such a simple idea, but you just, you just didn’t think about it. You know, it’s like, gosh, that’s so obvious.

But I didn’t think about it until I got her on other people that were talking about some of the challenges they’re having. Right. And, um, and, and it’s like, you know, it’s just invaluable. To be able to get little pieces of info here and there. It’s not like absorbing everything. It’s just the little nuggets that are like, You know what?

I don’t know why I didn’t think about that. That’s what I need to do. Or, I’ve been thinking about that and somebody just confirmed that, yeah, this is, this is what they did and it worked out for them, or whatever it might be. Right? And so just knowing that you’re not alone, cause it’s real easy to be out on an island thinking that you know how to navigate things.

And then just to get blindsided. I mean, it’s.

Tony: Yeah, absolutely. And even like TV commercials when I joined Investor Feel, there was only one person doing TV around the country in your whole group. And so, you know, we started implementing TV commercials for other investors and then, you know, people would come and see other people’s, uh, you know, what they were doing.

And, and in all that, [00:37:00] now we have 27 people in investor feel. We’re running TV commercials for. Had they not gone to your mastermind and seen what other people were having success with and they wouldn’t have came to us and said, Hey, can you help us with our commercials as well? So just the little strategies, the little adjustments you can make, um, that can, can can, you know, cuz like I said, if I wouldn’t have started TV commercials 10 years ago, for instance, like little things like that that you make those decisions of, Okay, I’m gonna try.

I, I don’t know that I’d be in business today from a real estate investing standpoint, just because there’s so many other marketing mediums that have gone away. Right. That TV’s kinda carried me through for the last, uh, for the last 10 years.

Mike: Yep. Yep. Awesome. Well, Tony, thanks for sharing your insights today.

Um, folks, if you’re listening right now, if you’re listening live, um, you can find out about our past shows and our current, uh, live show or our next live show, I guess by going to flipper.com/group. You can opt in and we’ll send you notifications. Of, uh, upcoming live shows like this cuz we [00:38:00] love when people participate live.

Um, and, uh, uh, Tony, if folks wanted to connect with you, Where can they go to learn more?

Tony: Um, yeah, so the big thing we’re doing right now, like I said, is TV commercials for real estate investors. So you can go to r e m tv.com stands for Real Estate Masters, so r e m tv.com. And then my, uh, my website where I, you know, you can see more about me and everything else that I do is, uh, tony javier.com, t o n y j a v i e r dot.

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Well, hey, thanks for sharing your insights with us. Your knowledge of being an investor for 21 years now. You, you, uh, you’re, uh, I was gonna say something about age, but I won’t even joke. I know we’re probably roughly the same age, but , I won’t make any jokes about that. So. Awesome, man. Hey, thanks for sharing your insights today.

Appreciate

Tony: you, buddy. Yep, Thanks Mike. Appreciate you, man, and, uh, look forward to connecting soon again.

Mike: Yep. And everybody, thanks for joining us. Uh, we’ll see you on the next one. If you, flipper.com/group. You can opt in and get notifications about the next, [00:39:00] uh, live show. Of course, we have a ton of information on uh flipper.com.

We talked a little bit about investor fuel. Uh, today, which is my mastermind, which is coming up in about a week and a half actually. Uh, but we have meetings, actually we meet weekly, online and quarterly in person. So you can learn more about [email protected]. So I hope you got some great value today.

Stay strong in this market. There’s plenty of opportunities on the other side of, uh, this thing I promise you. And so just make sure you stay strong. So we’ll see you on the next one. Have a great day. Thanks for joining me on today’s Flip Nerd Live. To get access to our upcoming interviews with experts and get your questions answered and join our free online community, please visit flip nerd.com/live.

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