Passion for Real Estate Investing

Mike: This is the flipnerd.com Expert Real Estate Investing Show, the show for real estate investors, whether you’re a veteran or brand new. I’m your host, Mike Hambright. And each week I bring you a new expert guest that will share their knowledge and lessons with you. If you’re excited about real estate investing, believe in personal responsibility and taking control of your life and financial destiny, you’re in the right place.
This is episode number 409. And my guest today is RJ Bates III. In today’s show, we learn more about RJ’s journey from the brink of failure where he had only $11 left in his bank account to doing over 100 deals a year and branching into multiple markets.
He’s actually in the DFW market here where I’m at, but he also buys properties in a lot of other markets, including Hawaii, which is pretty interesting. We talk a lot about following and finding your passion today and the importance of passion and taking massive action and the importance of how that plays on your success. Now, it’s no surprise that many real estate investors fail, usually before they ever get started. A big part of this failure can be attributed back to lack of passion and certainly to not taking massive action. RJ’s a great guy. You’re going to be really inspired by today’s episode. So I’m excited to get it started here. Please help me welcome RJ Bates to the show. Hey, RJ, welcome to the show.
RJ: Hey, thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.
Mike: Good to see you, man. For those that aren’t listening right now, unfortunately, this is the second time we’ve recorded this show. This hasn’t happened to me. This is episode 409 now. It might have happened once early on, but we had a technical issue. And RJ and I have probably known of each other for a couple years, but really just got to know each other pretty well other the last few months here and have been talking quite a bit on just things we do. And we operate in the same market, obviously. So really excited to have you here, buddy.
RJ: Thanks, man. And don’t worry about this being take two. It’s going to be better for everybody.
Mike: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I’m excited to talk about this because the market we’re in today, it’s more challenging. For people that have been in it for a long time, they kind of feel the pinch. They feel that it’s more challenging. Guys like you come in in the last few years and just start cleaning up. And so, I always love talking to people that come into this market and they don’t have preconceived notions about the good old days or the way it used to be and show the more veteran folks kind of how it’s done or how you have to adapt, but I also know it had a lot to do with passion. That’s really what we’re going to talk a lot about today is how bad do you want it? How passionate are you for this and not just real estate? I mean, truthfully, anything. If you want it bad enough, you can get it. You just have to work hard, right?
RJ: Absolutely. So I guess I’ll jump into my story a little bit and kind of explain how we’re going to get around to finding your passion, but in 2012, pretty much my entire life changed. That year in the summer of that year, my niece was diagnosed with leukemia in June or July. I can’t remember. In August of that year is when I created my first business, Fairway Solutions. It was not real estate investing related. It was in the general contracting world. We were a consulting agency. A month after I started my own business, my dad fell in his house and passed away. And a month after that, I had my first son. And that was just a whirlwind of a couple months and a lot of struggles and things that I had to emotionally and mentally overcome. And I had learned how to be an entrepreneur from my parents. They owned their own business. I think they’re approaching their 26th year in business this year.
And we learned a lot from that. And we realized that we weren’t in the correct business. And we moved to being a general contractor. And then from there, we started getting hired by real estate investors. We were doing their fix and flips and their finish outs on rental properties. And that’s when I pretty much realized I knew that was where I needed to go. And I convinced my mom to buy our first fix and flip property. We bought it from one of those large wholesalers. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but I knew a wholesaler. That sounded intriguing to me. I did some research and realized they’re going out and they’re finding these properties, not doing anything to it, and they’re making sometimes more than the rehabber themselves who does all of the work. And that was very enticing to me.
And from there, I attended some education programs, learned more about real estate investing. That was late 2014. So we had in business right around two years when I learned about real estate investing and wholesaling. I had pretty much at that point in time neglected the contracting business. I knew that’s not what I was going to do with the rest of my life. And I knew real estate investing is what I was going to do. And I kind of left my partner, Cassie, out high and dry. Let her run the entire contracting business while I just dove into real estate investing and so much so, I almost drove us into bankruptcy.
I remember the second or third property that we got under contract. After depositing earnest money and the option check, we were down to $11 total in all of our bank accounts. That was business account, personal accounts. That’s both my personal account and Cassie’s personal account. You know, we could barely even afford Taco Bell.
Mike: But you had some properties in inventory though, right?
RJ: Yeah. Well, we had one. We had one.
Mike: Yeah. It’s funny. There’s this kind of saying of being real estate rich and cash poor, right? When you were truly . . . I mean, a lot of real estate investors are that way. “I have millions of dollars in rental properties, but I don’t really have any . . . You know, I’ve got . . . It doesn’t reflect out of my bank account.” Of course, you don’t want it to sit in your bank account, when you’re an active real estate investor. Of course, nobody ever wants to get down to $11 either. So, man, I can’t imagine.
RJ: Yeah. No, that was not a comfortable, but we sold that property. Cassie trusted me with the decision to put all of our money in it. And we went all in on it. We made an $11,000 assignment fee. A couple weeks later on January 1st of 2015, I told her we were working on New Year’s Day. And I told her we’re not going to sell another job for our contracting business. We’re going to go fulltime in real estate investing. That year we ended up doing about $750,000 in wholesale fees and at that point in time, we’ve never looked back.
Mike: Yeah, that’s awesome, man. That’s a great story.
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RJ:And I told her, “We’re not going to sell another job for our contracting business. We’re going to go full-time into real estate investing.” And that year, we ended up doing about $750,000 in wholesale fees.
Mike: That’s awesome.
RJ: And at that point in time, we’ve never looked back.
Mike: Yeah, that’s awesome, man. That’s a great story. It’s funny. I’ve had hundreds of people on the show and not that everybody tells me the story or tells us a story like that, but there have been a lot of people on here that had just hit rock bottom in one way or another. And talk a little bit about . . . You know, we were going to talk about passion today. I want to talk about the importance of that passion to kind of drive you forward because like I said, I’ve had people on the show before that became homeless. They were sleeping in their car for a while. And now they’re multi-millionaires kind of crushing it, but it took kind of that situation happening to force them to say, “That ain’t ever going to happen to me again,” right? Talk about that part, how that drives you.
RJ: Yeah. So I talked a little bit about the education programs that I attended. And I remember at the moment I was sitting in the room. And it was definitely one of those vague moments where they were just very briefly touching on wholesaling. They just kind of slapped some numbers up there to teach you a little bit about it. And everything that he was saying, even though I didn’t understand some of the verbiage, it was clicking. And I was literally having that feeling. I played sports my whole life. I played hockey, baseball, football. And it was like that moment before going into a game. And I just realized like, “Man, I haven’t had this fire, this passion, inside me in so long. I can’t wait to go out and make offers on properties,” even though I didn’t really know what I was doing, but it was clicking.
And I remember pulling my mom out and telling her, “This is what I’m supposed to do with the rest of my life.” Like this is the moment that it all clicked. And at this point in time, I don’t ever feel like I worked a job because I’m truly doing what I’m passionate about. And everything that I’ve been able to accomplish or we’ve been able to accomplish as a company all circles around taking action that follows that passion. And it really is what drives us every day is just because we’re truly doing what we love and what we care about.
Mike: Yeah. That’s awesome. So help listeners understand this. Like there’s a lot of people that say they want to me . . . You know, I do a lot of coaching and mentoring. There’s a lot of people that say they want to be real estate investors. They like the idea of that. Of course, they love HGTV shows, which isn’t really how the business really works, right?
RJ: Right.
Mike: Because, truthfully, they never actually talk about the business. They just talk about the property. And there’s a lot that goes into it, as you know, but a lot of people claim they have some passion or maybe they have some passion for it, but they get too comfortable in that J-O-B or working for somebody else in something that they don’t enjoy doing, but they just get comfortable because let’s face it the average American is largely living close to paycheck to paycheck. So it takes time to bridge that gap, you know. So if you could kind of go back to maybe where you were, where you thought you had some passion for it. You were kind of forced to do that and talk about . . . Because there’s a gap, right?
RJ: Right.
Mike: People say, “Here’s where I’m at now. Here’s where I want to get to,” but bridging that gap is really hard for a lot of people. And a lot of people just truthfully aren’t willing to take that risk because maybe they can’t financially afford it and even mentally, they can’t overcome taking that risk.
RJ: Yeah. I think first and foremost, you have to understand that becoming a real estate investor means you are creating a business. This is not a hobby. So many people want to get into real estate investing. Like you used the example of HGTV. They want to make properties pretty. And maybe that is their passion or maybe real estate investing isn’t the best career path for you. You can do that as a contractor. You can do that as an interior designer. There’s a lot that goes into becoming a real estate investor that is not just making houses pretty.
And so for me, it was about I found passion in creating deals, strategic partnerships, the different creative ways that you can purchase real estate with no money down. And we treated it like a business. We had already created two businesses that had sustained our lifestyles, for the most part, until I kind of stepped out and became a real estate investor in my head, but we had already done that. And so we treated it like a business from day one.
And that’s why in year one, we were able to have $750,000 in revenue whereas that was more revenue than we had been able to do in all of our other businesses. As an entrepreneur with all of our business, we continually have year-over-year growth, even though we’ve changed our business three times. And that goes back to just making sure that you’re not getting into this because you think it’s going to be a fun hobby. We treat it like a business. Every day, I wake up at the same time. I go to work. I could work from my house, if I wanted to, but I don’t. I go to work. And I treat it like a business. And that’s really what I see is the difference between us and some other people that maybe struggle is they just don’t treat it like a business. They want to get into this for the freedom of time and financial freedom, which is great. I had the same goals, but I didn’t treat it as if like immediately, I had freedom of time. I’ve treated it like I had to create a business.
Mike: Yeah. It’s funny. I just recorded a commercial for [OU 00:13:22], a lot of, some live events here. And we have a coaching program. And I literally . . . I mean, it sounds like everything you just said is what I say all the time. This is a business. And it’s not rocket science, but it’s not easy, right? And truthfully, that’s what I teach a lot of people is like, “You’ve got to treat it like a business.” You’ve got generate leads. You’ve got to have staff, unless you want to be like self-employed forever. And there’s a lot of things that you have to do.
And I tell a lot of people when I first start talking to them about our coaching programs and stuff is I said, “Look, if you’ve been to an event before, they probably talked a lot about the dream, a lot of the sizzle, right? You could have fancy cars, fly on private planes, whatever.” Even people that I know that are multi-millionaires, by the way, most of them don’t do that. They just in reinvest it in a business, but I just say, “Look. I’m going to talk about something boring today. I’m going to talk about the actual stake, right? So if you can figure out the stake, then you can get the sizzle, if you want it, but you’ve got to put in the work. And you’ve got to treat it like a business.” So I agree 100%, man.
RJ: Absolutely. And you brought some good points. I mean, I love real estate investing, but I don’t necessarily love marketing, but I have to work on marketing. And I have to manage that within my business. And I have to hire people. I mean, this . . . You know, everybody talks about real estate investing. It’s financial freedom and freedom of time. I hear it in every mastermind I attend to. Ninety eight percent of the room says, “That’s why I got started in this.” And that’s great, but what are you doing every day to actually create that for yourself within your business? You can’t just walk in, create a fancy LLC name, and go out and then say, “Okay. Now I’ve got financial freedom and freedom of time.”
You realize that you have to create a business and have that staff and that support system. And it’s very similar. I think Marcus Lemonis always talks about this on his show, “The Profit.” It’s people and processes equals profit. And I kind of . . . That’s always stuck with me. And so that’s one of the things that we always try to work on. Yeah, this is my passion, but I still have to treat it like a business. And some of those things aren’t as fun as they could be, if every day I was just going out and trying to create fancy new ways to buy real estate with no money down. I have to work on the business, as well.
Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about . . . You’ve mentioned couple times partnerships and relationships. I know you have a partner. My wife is my partner. Like there’s lots of people that partner in this business. You’ve got kind of partners in your business. And then you’ve got strategic relationships with people. So let’s kind of break that down into the importance or what you’ve seen with having a partner in your business like Cassie and then maybe even strategic relationships with people that you just kind of meet. And you’re like, “Hey, they’re good at this. And I’m good at this. And I see some opportunity how one and one might be three.” So let’s kind of start with the internal part, the importance of maybe having somebody kind of in your internal business as a partner and then kind of go to the other.
RJ: Yeah. So Cassie is obviously my partner within Titanium Investments.
Mike: She’s the brains of the operation, right?
RJ: Yeah, pretty much. I’m just the good looking one. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that, Cassie, but no, I . . .
Mike: You know what’s funny is my wife used to say . . . My wife’s more introverted. So a lot of . . . I’m the face of like everything we do, but she referred to herself as the woman behind the curtain. It’s like, “That’s okay.” And then one time I heard her refer to herself as the puppet master. And I was like, “Wait a minute. What does that make me?”
RJ: It can change all the time.
Mike: The woman behind the curtain is fine with me, yeah. Go ahead.
RJ: But she’s the integrator. I’m the visionary within the business. And that’s very common nowadays. Everybody talks about that from the book “Traction,” but that’s definitely what we have within our business. She has strengths where I have weaknesses and vice versa. So that’s how we’ve been able to work together and grow our business is we understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. And we also blend very well together. And we have the same end goals and ideas on how we want to grow our business. Outside of that though, I’ve been beyond blessed with the partners that I have in other markets.
You know, Titanium Investments is not just in Dallas-Fort Worth. We’re in multiple markets across the United States. Some of those have just been pure luck of the draw. For example, Hawaii is . . . My childhood best friend since fifth grade, he’s a contractor, lives in Hawaii. It’s unchartered, untapped, out there. And he can do all of the rehab work for us. And we just get to be the brains behind the real estate investing, but really probably the most influential strategic partnership we’ve had is with Chris Burgin. And Chris is out of Los Alamitos, California. And back in early 2015 when we first got started, I actually sold one of our first wholesale properties off of FlipNerd, posted it on there. And so a little shout out for FlipNerd.
Mike: Yeah, that’s awesome.
RJ: It does work, but he saw the property on myhousedeals.com. And he called me and wanted to know if he could bring a buyer in. And we co-wholesaled it together. And I said, “Absolutely.” And then I never heard from Chris for, I don’t know, probably two, three months. And somehow, he got on my buyer’s list. He blasted out a property. My phone rang. And it just said, “Chris.” I didn’t know who Chris was. And he said, “Hey, I want to buy this property. Send me the contract,” and sold him that property. Sold him probably the next three to four properties that we had under contract. I mean, I would send it out. And boom, he wanted a contracted. And the fifth one that I sent him, he was like, “Man, I can’t buy them all.” You know, I actually called him because he didn’t call me. And I was like, “Hey, did you see the property I just sent [you 00:19:11]?”
Mike: What’s wrong here?
RJ: Yeah, I thought we had it made. I was like I had the buyer. Like I don’t need a buyer’s list. I have Chris. And finally, he was like, “Man, I’m kind of tapped out. I’ve got to take care of the ones I’ve already bought.” And he goes, “But I do know people that could be interested in buying it. Do you want to try the co-wholesale again?” A couple days passed. And he sold it. And from there, it just took off. And at this point in time, we own 70 plus properties together, rental properties. We’ve been able to do deals.
And we own rentals in St. Louis, Tulsa, San Antonio, here in DFW. We’ve wholesaled properties all across the nation, Seattle, Portland. It’s crazy what . . . Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona’s another market we work in. So Chris Burgin has definitely been a mentor, a friend. I always laugh and joke with him because he’s 20 years older than me. And I tell him I basically know who I’m going to be in 20 years from now because we’re that much alike. So I love that guy. He’s definitely been a huge part of Titanium’s growth. And strategic partnership alone has been a huge part of what we’ve been able to accomplish.
Mike: Yeah. That’s awesome. How do you find strategic partners or relationships or maybe you can kind of give some guidance to people that are listening right now that say, “Hey, that sounds awesome, you know. How can I . . . ” Not that you can repeat that, but how do you just kind of discover people that you might do things with?
RJ: Yeah. I think it all goes into like the nature of real estate investing. There is so much that goes into this and just really being yourself and always being open to the opportunities. It doesn’t have to immediately start as some magical partnership. It can just start from co-wholesaling or JV’ing on a rental property or a fix and flip. And from there, you can really grow together as a business. And I really do treat each strategic partnership almost as like an individual business. My business with Elijah in Hawaii is far different than my business with Chris in Tulsa or St. Louis are different. And even my business with Chris in Tulsa and St. Louis are different. You know, we own just a couple rentals in Tulsa compared to 70 rentals in St. Louis.
And so really, it’s just being kind of emotionally intelligent about it. You know, you don’t want to jump the gun and try to create some huge partnership with someone because that’ll turn them off. It’s really just getting a feel for what their goals are and always bringing value to that relationship. For example, if I wanted to try to do something with you, Mike, I know that I’m going to have to be probably the more hands-on partner in that. And you’re going to be the more passive partner because I know where you are in your career compared to where I am. And I just have to be aware of that. And so it really goes back to just understanding where you are in your career compared to the person that you’re trying to create a partnership with.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I like what you said about being open-minded because you’re just . . . You know, obviously, we have a couple mastermind groups. I’ve got coaching stuff. And all the time, I’m thinking of . . . You know, I’m trying to serve the people that are a part of those things, but just in the context of something that comes up, my ears are always perking up to like, “Wow. I wonder if there’s some way to do something together,” because I think this business and I think it’s just the entrepreneurial nature, right, of even though I’ve been a real estate investor for 10 years now, I’ve said several times to people that it’s kind of a cliché comment of mine.
It’s like, “Yes, I’m in real estate, but I’m in the opportunity business. I’m looking for opportunities to arbitrage or buy something for one price and be able to sell it for more or whatever it is. It’s funny because my background is all retail. I came out of like large corporate retail. And it’s the same thing. There’s merchants that go procure product. And you put it in your store. And you sell it for more. I mean, at the end of the day, that’s kind of how most business works fundamentally. And so I think if you kind of have your ear to the ground, you never know who you’re going to meet. And I think if you’re open to meeting people and learning about them and what their needs are, then opportunities just kind of present themselves, right?
RJ: I really don’t view strategic partnerships very differently than I view analyzing a property. I mean, it’s very much just analyzing what that partner potentially needs. And for Chris, he needed boots on the ground here in Dallas. He needed properties. He wanted to buy in this market. And then that turned into he had an opportunity to make additional revenue for himself by wholesaling properties, but he needed properties. And we were acquiring properties. So we just filled that need for him. And he filled a need for us in dispositions. And those opportunities are all over the place. I have a call later today with a gentleman down in San Antonio that wants to start wholesaling here in Fort Worth.
He doesn’t have boots on the ground. Well, guess what? You have the best boots on the ground with Titanium. I mean, I have a whole team of people that can be your boots on the ground. That’s just an opportunity from a Facebook post. So be aware of what’s out there because he didn’t write a Facebook post and say, “Hey, I need boots on the ground in Fort Worth.” He said, “Hey, I’m thinking about starting a wholesaling in Fort Worth, but I’m really not sure how to get started.” Okay. Send a private message. What do you mean? What do you need to get started? Boots on the ground. I’m your boots on the ground. It’s done. Phone call today. And it’s going to be a partnership.
Mike: That’s awesome.
RJ: So the opportunities are always out there and available to you.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Let’s talk a little bit about the importance of taking action and massive action. And so you were at our recent mastermind, our Investor Fuel event. And one of the guys there was teaching us how to do something or it wasn’t so much teaching. He was just kind of sharing like how to do something. And then you guys went berserk. You like totally took that, applied it, and I think you bought like five houses the next month from that advice. And I was like, “Holy cow.” So obviously, taking massive action, we all know that’s important. You just kind of proved that you can do it, but just maybe share with people the importance of, because a lot of people are just indecisive, right? And that’s the reason a lot of people fail in real estate investing and unfortunately, is they don’t treat it like a business, like we already discussed. They don’t really know what to do. And, therefore, they end up kind of doing nothing or nothing that’s massive. So talk about that a bit.
RJ: Yeah. So I’ll use a perfect example of what you just talked about. I just took on my first coaching client. I’m by no means the level of where Mike is, but I took on my first coaching client. I did a Facebook post saying, “I’m potentially going to be taking on more coaching clients.” And I received just a wave of Facebook messages. And 95% of them, my first question was is, “Well, why do you need help?” And they all said, “Analysis paralysis.” And it blew my mind. I’m like, “Just go out there and do it.” And that’s just my mentality. You’re right. I mean, we went to your mastermind. And we were taught very precisely what to do. It was, “Buy this list. Use this postcard. Use these companies. And you’ll see success. There’s people doing it in these hot markets. And they’re making six figures a month doing this.”
So for myself, it was very simple. The first day I had an opportunity, I came and I bought that list, sent out the mailers. There was really nothing special, other than just paying attention to the people that are smarter than me and told me what to do. And yeah, I mean, we received over 400 phone calls from those direct mailers within a week, which was . . . It was pretty overwhelming.
Mike: Yeah, that’s a lot of calls, man.
RJ: Yeah, I’m not going to lie. It was overwhelming. And we got inundated, but a lot of that was because of Hawaii. We did that both in Fort Worth and Hawaii. And then we realized that we really are in a market that’s just untapped out there. And I had no problem saying that. Some people have told me like, “Why do you keep saying Hawaii’s untapped? You know, people are going to go out there and try to compete with you.” I just realized the market. And I know that people can’t go out there and compete, unless you have a local resource. And honestly, it’s that abundance mindset. Like I want people to realize, there is an opportunity there. And there is an opportunity in . . . I was always told when we first got started that there was no way we were going to be successful in Dallas-Fort Worth because there’s too many big time wholesalers. And you’re not going to be able to compete with their marketing budgets.
When we got started, we had no marketing budgeting. You know, I just shared we had $11 in our bank account. You know, I mean, we made $11,000. That was like to pay for the cars and the house and the food, you know. So when we got started, we found deals off the MLS. You know, deals off the MLS are free. And then from there, Driving for Dollars. And then from there, Bandit signs, and then Direct Mail and then cold calling, but yeah, it’s all about taking that action and treating it like a business. I mean, when you start off as a business and you don’t have a marketing budget, you have to go out there and earn the business. And we never let our lack of resources hold us back. We just created those resources for ourselves.
Mike: Yeah, that’s awesome.
RJ: And that’s really the best way I can put it is the resources are available to you. Go create them for yourself.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah, that’s one of the things that is clear in your story and lots of people I’ve had on the show before and even for ourselves is like if you want something bad enough, nothing can stop you. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to hit obstacles. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to fail along the way. I mean, if you consider this, like I tell people this that are new to the business all the time like, “We fail every day, every day.” I have to get 20 or 30 leads to buy one house or more sometimes. And so that means I’m failing like 97% of the time. Like I get an opportunity. And it doesn’t work, you know. So you just have to get comfortable with failing. Most people, that scares them to death like, “I fear I’m going to fail.” You’re going to fail. And it’s okay. You’re just not going to fail 100% of the time. As long as you succeed 3% of the time, you’re good in this business, right, because the items, the tickets are so big.
RJ: Yeah. And another thing is find a way to motivate yourself. I know this might sound silly to some, but this motivates me literally every day of my life. Before I leave my house, my son and I go through the same ritual. We high five. We fist pump. We hug. And we kiss. And from the moment he started to talk, I told him as I’m walking out the door, I tell him, “Love you, bubba.” And he says, “Love you too, dada. Go sell some properties.” So the last thing I hear when I’m walking out the door is my son telling me, “Go sell some properties.”
Mike: That’s awesome.
RJ: There’s nothing that fires me up more than that, you know. My little two-year-old son all the way to now he’s about to be six in October has told me very day, “You know, go out and do this.” And that fires me up. And that gives me my reason and my motivation every single day.
Mike: Yeah. That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome. RJ, if folks want to reach out to you and want to learn more about you, you’ve got a podcast obviously, tell them where to go.
RJ: Yeah. So my podcast is “The Titanium Vault.” you can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify. You can find me on Facebook. RJ Bates III. And then also our company is Titanium Investments. And our website is titaniumprops.com. That’s P-R-O-P-S .com. And I have kind of a ritual. The first-ever podcast that I ever did was with Joe Fairless. And I completely . . . I was so nervous. Even at the end, I was still nervous. He asked me, “How can people contact you?” And I just went blank, mentally blank. And I was like, “You can call me. 817-915-6860.” And I bought two properties from giving my phone number.
Mike: Oh, wow.
RJ: So now I [inaudible 00:31:39] podcast. And so that’s actually why we needed to do take two because the first time when I didn’t [inaudible 00:31:44].
Mike: Yeah, that’s crazy. I just thought to myself, “This is episode 409.” I have never ever once said on my show, “If you have properties you’re looking to sell in DFW, call this number.” Like I’ve never said that. What the hell have I been doing for 409 episodes? We could have gotten something out of that. Oh, my God.
RJ: There you go. So if you have properties, call me because obviously in episode 409, I actually thought of something Mike hadn’t thought of.
Mike: Awesome, man. Well, hey, thanks for joining us. I really appreciate you sharing your story with us.
RJ: Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. And for everybody that doesn’t utilize flipnerd.com, remember, I sold one of my first properties off of there. So utilize the resources that are out there.
Mike: You know what’s funny is we have just really not done a great job with FlipNerd. Like when we first built it, and it’s been built three times by now, so we tried to build something that was just like mecca. Like this has everything. And the problem is a lot of people just didn’t know everything it had. It went from a podcast to a kind of a social media platform to like people that didn’t really catch on. And we had forums, but you can’t compete with bigger pockets. I didn’t really catch on, but we just said, “Look, we’re just going to provide great information with people like you on the shows.” We write some blogs that we have a lot of good content on. We have resources like vendors and fine lenders and things like that.
And we have our properties. So we have a property listing platform that’s like the MLS, but for off-market deals. And we’ve had thousands and thousands of properties posted on there. And I think some people just don’t know that it exists. So we actually have rebuilt it. Here shortly, we’re about to start. Anybody can sign up to get . . . You used to have to be a paying member to get real-time alerts of new properties on the site. And we’re about to roll it out where it’s free for everybody. So you can get email and text alert. And you can actually add up to 20 markets around the country. So if you want to get real time alerts and people posting properties, everybody will start getting those soon. So it’s a great resource to list properties or to find wholesale deals.
RJ: Absolutely. Real quick, before we sign off, because you talked about that, I have to embarrass Cassie. So she’s the one that found flipnerd.com. And we sold the property. And then later on, a couple years later, I have you on my podcast. And so I tell her, I said, “Hey, Mike Hambright’s going to be on the podcast.” And she’s like, “Oh, my goodness. FlipNerd’s going to be on the podcast?” So Mike Hambright is kind of famous in the Titanium world.
Mike: Cool. You guys, did you put my framed picture up yet?
RJ: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what she has above her computer.
Mike: Yeah, I bet. Awesome. I appreciate you guys. RJ, great to see you. You and I will talk again here soon.
RJ: Awesome.
Mike: Everybody, thanks for joining us. This is episode number 409 with RJ Bates. Great information. And truthfully, the reason most investors fail is the stuff we talked about today. You don’t treat it like a business. And more importantly, if you’re passionate about it, you’ve got to work hard. You’ve got to put the work in. And you’ve got to make it happen. And you can make it happen. That’s the good thing about it.
So I appreciate all you guys. If you haven’t yet, please go out and give us a positive rating. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher radio, Google Play. You can subscribe to us on YouTube. Of course, you can watch all the videos on FlipNerd.com. So we appreciate you guys. Go ahead and subscribe to those sources there, wherever you watch it at. Give us a positive rating. We love that. That’s the fuel that keeps us going. See you guys on another upcoming episode. Have a great day.
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