Rags to Multi-Millionaire

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

Hey, it’s Mike Hambright with flipnerd.com, welcome back for another exciting VIP interview, where I interview some of the most successful real estate investing experts and entrepreneurs in the industry to help you learn and grow. Today I’m joined by Corey Patterson. He’s a single family and multi-family real estate investor that decided to leave his day job and start from scratch less than ten years ago. And he’s met with a lot of obstacles… today we’re going to talk about how to just dive in and make your dreams happen, which is exactly what Corey’s done.

So before we get started though, let’s take a moment to recognize our featured sponsors.

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

Hey Corey, welcome to the show.

Corey Patterson: Hey, thanks for having me here.

Mike Hambright: Yeah, yeah, good to have you on. So, a lot of folks probably realized it, before we start each show we chat for a little bit and sometimes I have guests on that were referrals from previous guests, which is the situation with you. So we hadn’t even talked before, but I know you’ve got a great story to share today, so glad you’re here.

Corey Patterson: Yeah, no problem.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about, you know, I guess where you are today and then let’s go back to how this all started less than ten years ago, when you’d never invested in any real estate in your whole life.

Corey Patterson: Well, cool, yes. So where I’m at today is, I own three multi-family properties, I have 144 unit property in South Carolina, I have 120… or 118 in Atlanta. I own a 70 unit apartment complex in Tucson. I did it all with OPM… Other People’s Money. You know, on paper I’m a multi-millionaire.

Mike Hambright: That’s great.

Corey Patterson: That’s pretty cool.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. Yeah. And I know from our discussion that your properties are cash-flowing really well too, so. It’s nice when you get to a place where everything you think about is what do I want to because I don’t necessarily have to work anymore. I know that’s a great place to be. But I know that’s not how you started out, so. Tell us… let’s take it from the top. Tell us about where you started at.

Corey Patterson: You know, I grew up in a small town in Missouri called West Plains, Missouri, which is more than it deserves. I grew up on a 180-acre farm, and I grew up… I would say, looking back, I would say I grew up poor. Not that that means anything, but I want you to know I started, really, I was not voted “Most Likely to Succeed” . . .

Mike Hambright: [laughs]

Corey Patterson: . . . in school. The only thing I actually was really good at was copying, and my teachers didn’t like that too much.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: But I found out in my adult life it’s the best trait I ever had. Because all I’ve done… I was good enough if I was going to copy, I always at least made sure I copied from the smart people. And so in my business life, I just copied successful investors. Just like what we’re sharing information today, I would take good information and act upon it. So, how I started off… I actually read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” in 2004, and really that’s the book that changed my life.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: I… the download [SP] from the mother ship and said “real estate’s the deal.” And so then for the next year all I did was read every book I could ever find. Barnes and Noble, they love me.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Because I bought every book on the shelf.

Mike Hambright: [laughter]

Corey Patterson: And I became a book-read investor. And so, in 2005 I made the plunge, I started my own business called “Kahuna Investments” because I wanted to the big kahuna.

Mike Hambright: So talk a little bit about, before you go any further, tell us a little bit about… there’s so many people that read a lot of books. They are well-educated academically in what they need to do, but they never get over that hump of getting out of the gate, you know? And it’s usually some sort of fear, or not enough pain associated with where they’re at. So, kind of talk about, what made you different to take action because I know you’ve taken massive action since then.

Corey Patterson: Right.

Mike Hambright: And maybe give some tips on, for people that have read all the books, you know, now they’re ordering them all on Amazon because you probably can’t find a Barnes & Noble anywhere.

Corey Patterson: Exactly.

Mike Hambright: But just talk about that, kind of, getting over that hump of taking action.

Corey Patterson: You know for me because I only had a high school degree, when you only have a high school diploma, there’s only like two things you can do. You go to work for a living really hard, or you got to manage something. Or, actually, there’s the third option, which is what I really wanted to do was be my own business owner. And so I always really wanted to be a business owner, my dad was a business owner, so it was deep in my mind, but what got me over the hump was just, tired of taking crap from the man. And being, you know, in that place where, you know you just always looking up and seeing someone right behind or right in front of you, and it didn’t smell good and so I think that dissatisfaction led me to the point where I was ready to take action and start something for myself.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Patterson: So, you know what, I took action, I started my company and then, and then, you know, I read a book that said hey, refinance your home, get some equity, some money and start, you know, start the deal. So that’s what I did, I went and got a home equity loan, I got like $30,000 cash and I opened up the phone book and went to credit unions. Because at the time… before that I sold cars for a living, and I always realized that credit unions were really easy to work with. They seemed like they were smaller banks . . .

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: . . . and I could get to the decision-maker quicker.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: So American Airlines Credit Union. That’s like the first one, right? [laughs] I had a [inaudible 00:07:18 ] source there and she sourced me three or four really good deals. I bought them and then what happened was, I [inaudible 00:07:26 ] my first obstacle. I flipped a couple, and then I bought three, and I ran out of money.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. Now, you said they helped you source deals. Were these like, foreclosures at the credit union?

Corey Patterson: Yeah, they were bank-owned.

Mike Hambright: OK.

Corey Patterson: They were from the bank, from the credit union. This is like 2005. And I bought them. Actually I still own them today.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: These three that I have? I still own them. They’re in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Mike Hambright: OK.

Corey Patterson: And I still own them. And they still cash-flow every month.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. OK. Great.

Corey Patterson: So, I turned them into rentals, and they actually turned out to be recession-proof, thank God.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: But, so then I ran out of money. I didn’t have any more money to do deals, and I had actually quit my job, so now I had no income to show anything to the bank to get any more new loans, and man, I hadn’t read a book to tell me how to get out of that.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And so, I went back to work, and I got a job as a financial advisor. So at this point, then we moved to Phoenix, Arizona. So I was in Oklahoma at that point, moved to Phoenix. Now, I at this point, I’m still not rich, I just filed bankruptcy in 2003, right? So bankruptcy 2003, obviously my credit’s not that good.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: That was a business that failed. But it’s okay, you only have to be successful one time, right? And life is a journey of many mistakes, the more mistakes you make, the better you get right?

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: So, I’m a financial advisor in Phoenix, and then the Great Recession happens. What a horrible time to be a financial advisor.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: But what a blessing. I worked for Edward Jones and as an Edward Jones financial advisor you start OUT door-knocking. You go door to door, door to door every day. You had to knock a tremendous amount of doors and its networking, networking, networking.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: The one thing business taught me is how to meet people and engage them, and how to stay in contact with them. It was the best business coach I could ever get, for free, and I got to make some money at it.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: But what happened was, the market tanked and you know, the only reason I got a job was so I could buy more real estate.

Mike Hambright: Right.
Corey Patterson: That was always truly my passion.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: But, you know, I didn’t know how to… I hadn’t learned the secret of OPM yet.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: “Other People’s Money.” So I quit my job, so the market crashed to an all-time low and every book I’d ever read, and you can probably attest to this . . .

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: All the big guys, Trump, Kiyosaki, David Allen, they all made their biggest gains in down markets.

Mike Hambright: Absolutely.

Corey Patterson: And this was one of the biggest we’ve ever had, at least in my lifetime. And so I sat there at my office one day, depressed, tired of hearing people come in and cry about their financial, you know, situation. I’d had enough. So I sat there and I made a gut-wrenching commitment that day at my work. And it was I was going to do real-estate full time. I was going to quit. And then I had to go home and tell the wife. Actually I had quit before I had told her. So, she looked me with loving eyes and she said, “you better not fail.” And she meant it. [laughs] And so, was I committed, yes, I absolutely was. I love my wife and I love my kids and family. And I know, you know, bringing home the bacon is part of the deal.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: So, I took that and I learned that I didn’t have any money, didn’t have any credit, so where did I start? Wholesaling. It was the only thing I could do. The only thing that I was really good at was, I learned how to lock up and find property. And I was good at it. So I would lock up properties… and by the way, so we talked about networking? What I… once I made the switch to real estate full-time, I got so engrossed in networking into my local REAS [SP]. Anytime there was anybody speaking on real estate, I mean I was there 24/7. And I met some great people with money. And one of the secrets that I’ve learned, when you’re new to a group like that, you go to the guy hosting the group and you just say “Hey, I’m new here…who’s some of the players? Can you point out a couple players?” And they always will give you a couple or two. And guess what? Guess who was sitting by him that day? Me.

Corey Patterson: So we talk about the power of networking, right? And what Edward Jones taught me was amazing because what I did is I went to every networking event available for real estate guys. So all my local REAS, all the… anything, when they were speaking of real estate I was there. And one of the secrets that I learned, is when you’re new to a group like that, you go in and you find whoever’s hosting the event, and you kind of pull him off to the side and you say, “hey, who’s the players in the room? Can you point out a couple?” And they always do.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And then, my [inaudible 00:12:33 ] was sitting right next to him. And I was like a damn order-taker. This is like, easy. Hey, you know, so where do you do deals? OK. Well what kind of size deals do you like? How much rehab do you like, a little or a lot?

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: I’m just kind of… every real investor, any player knows their deal. They know what kind of deals they like and where they like to buy. How much spread they like to make. I asked all these questions. And we’re just doing it in a normal conversation, like I’m just generally interested anyways.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: But I just compiled the whole list of what this likes, where he likes to buy, and so then at the end, well guess what? I’m a wholesaler and I find properties just like this each and every day. Would you be willing to pay me, you know, like a $4,000 or $5,000 wholesaling fee if I can find a deal that looks just like you said. They all say yes.

Mike Hambright: Yeah, absolutely.

Corey Patterson: So that’s what I did, man. I started off as a wholesaler because that’s where I had to start. I had no money, no credit and few contacts, right? So but I got really good. Now, the one thing I learned other than that is I video-recorded every deal I’ve ever done.

Mike Hambright: Oh wow.

Corey Peterson: Still… I can pull up my DropBox account and I can show you, hey here’s… hey, Corey Peterson, you know over here so-and-so craphole property. And you know, I do it, here’s this old crapper. Look at all this stuff that’s wrong. This is a goldmine, right? And then I would wholesale it to the other guy. And then I’d go in and while he was rehabbing it, and take videos of it for myself. [laughs]

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Hey, I’m Corey Patterson, we got a guy working on this property.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And what I did though is I created my track record.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: And you’ve got have a track… to get private money, you’ve got to have a track record. You have to show that you’ve been, that you’ve done it and been there. Now these were never my deals, but they were my deals. I just wholesaled them because I didn’t have enough money to capitalize on them. And so I wholesaled the deals, I tracked them, when they sold them I tracked the sale price and I showed the profit. So I knew exactly how they shook out. And so I did that consistently and I built a pretty good track record. And also, what it gave me was confidence. Because, you know, coming from no credit, not a whole lot of monies, sometimes people’s confidence can be kind of shaky.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And even though you’ve read all the books, you kind of know what to do, you’re still trying to get into real estate and start playing the game, you know, you’re on the sidelines.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: And so, I did everything I could just to stay in the game, stay active. Even though I was only making $3,000 or $4,000 a deal, you, you know, put three deals together that’s $12,000 a month. Well that was a pretty dang good income.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. Yeah. Well a lot of people that are newer, I think, don’t realize too… so I’m a rehabber by trade. Typically we rehab most of our houses. And a lot of our deals are good deals. I mean, we make a fair bit of money, but for a business the size of mine we have a fair bit of overhead too. I do a lot of advertising, I have a lot of staff, an office, things like that. But, you know, this tends to be the type of business where not every deal’s a home run. I kind of liken it to baseball, to use a baseball is that, you should, you know, be able to survive and do pretty well on your regular business just doing kind of base hits. But if you play the game long enough, you hit some doubles, triples and home runs every once in a while. But, totally can make your year.

Corey Patterson: Yeah. So then I came across the best thing that ever happened in my life. I found a real live mentor. So my first mentor’s Bob Norton, and I’ll share with you his contact information when we’re done because that’s a guy you’re going to want to talk to. Bob showed me KISS flipping, that’s what he called it… KISS flipping. Keep It Simple, Stupid. And he showed me how to find deals on the MLS. And this was like 2008, 2009. And I still use it today when I really want to find a deal and flip it. I mean, I take the path of least resistance. And if I could spend a couple hours online and find deals, you know? It was a great way to do it. And I still do it today, is use the MLS. And I just… the power of it.

Corey Patterson: And one of the things he taught me was “experts make money” and, you know, “generalists usually make excuses.” So I became an expert in a couple little areas of subdivisions, right? Where I knew those subdivisions so good, and I got so good by studying the MLS every day for two or three hours. So then if a deal showed up, I could really look at that and analyze it so fast, you know, this is how much I need to buy it for, this is how much my typical rehab cost was going to be for it, and this was going to be in my potential profit. Before I even bought it I could make an offer over the phone confidently because I knew my market. And so that was my first real-life mentor. And you know, a mentor, you’re going to make mistakes in this business. And I think what a real, true mentor does is he cuts the mistakes in half.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: You know? If you listen to him. And I did. My whole thing was, I was a copier. I’ve never been able to recreate anything new, I’m just not that good. I mean, look at me [laughs]. Kind of bald up here, you know.

Mike Hambright: [laughs]

Corey Patterson: I speak out one side of my mouth. I’m not that talented. Yet I’m a multi-millionaire, right?

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: Because all I did was just copy successful people. When Bob said do it this way, I just did it that way. I didn’t try to recreate it and do it my own and make something new. I just did it the way he said it.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Simple. So fast-forward. You know, we started with 2000… really, ’09 is when I really got going and made the switch full-time. And, you know we did super deals, ’09, ’10, ’11. 2011, I started thinking about to myself, man, this may not be forever. Because in Phoenix, Arizona, it was one of the hardest-hit places . . .

Mike Hambright: Sure.

Corey Patterson: . . . and it was so easy to find deals. I mean, you could throw a dart and hit a deal.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Right? And make $20,000 all day long. And so at that point I started seeing a change in the marketplace, though, and then I realized I needed to do something. You know, one of the things I used to always do, I’d drive by these apartment complexes and I used to say to myself “Man, I wish I could own an apartment complex.” And honestly, that’s all it ever was, it was just a damn wish. And then one day, and I don’t know what it was, I think it was because the market changed, I started [inaudible 00:19:32 ] and I drove by the same place that I always looked at. And I actually changed the way… I asked myself the question, “How can I own an apartment complex?” And it’s like, whoa crap, and it just like hit me like a ton of bricks. Well I don’t know. What do I know about apartments? I go, I don’t know anything.

Mike Hambright: [laughs]

Corey Patterson: So I go to my, the first place, now it’s Google, but I mean . . .

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: I went to Barnes & Noble’s and I bought five multi-family investing books.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And the last one, I met Dave Lindahl, and Dave Lindahl’s my mentor for multi-family.

Mike Hambright: That’s great, I actually interviewed Dave a few weeks back.

Corey Patterson: OK.

Mike Hambright: He’s been on the show.

Corey Patterson: I’m going to Boston, I’m going to be speaking at his event.

Mike Hambright: Hey, great, great, great absolutely.

Corey Patterson: So Dave… and I flew all the way out to Boston just to meet Dave. And have lunch with him. Just have a lunch date with him. Because he was that important. And Dave, again, has a program that he shows step-by-step on how to do multi-families with OPM.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Other People’s Money. And again, I’m not a dummy, but I’m not very good at creating stuff, so I just followed his program exactly like he said. Because he was wildly successful. He’s a wildly successful business owner, entrepreneur and coach.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: And so why would I do it any different? So I followed him and you know, I followed his principles and lo and behold, I own some pretty cool stuff.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Corey Patterson: So, that’s kind of my story, but you know, a lot of things that we kind of [inaudible 00:21:06 ] the way, just you know networking-wise.

Mike Hambright: Yeah, I know you’re big into networking and masterminds and REA groups and stuff like that. Talk a little bit about the importance of that in the whole process of, kind of, chasing your goals. Achieving your goals.

Corey Patterson: You know, one of the things that I learned by going on these… I call it the “networking circuit,” or when you’re buying coaching programs and go to seminars and things like that?

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Who’s the one person everybody wants to talk to? It’s the guy that’s speaking.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: And so I learned real quick that, dude, if I want to be that guy I better start doing it now. And so I started my own local REA. So I went to all the REA’s that I’d been to, but then I was like, you know what, why don’t I just start my own? And how I did that… and this is a real simple process for, to teach you guys. Your listeners, is go find a title company and find their marketing rep and a lending company and their marketing rep, and get together because they have lists, big lists.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And have them sponsor you. And they’ll do it, man. You come up and if you can get a good enough topic to talk about, they’ll promote you, get you going and next thing you know you’re a speaker.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: And now you’ve become the expert. You’re teaching what you know. And that’s exactly what I did, I taught what I know. And you wouldn’t believe how much private I have raised in my own little group. Because I was the [inaudible 00:22:35 ].

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: Right? They came to me and I gave them guidance. And a lot of people don’t take action, they sit there and they get frustrated, and finally I’d just approach those types of people and say “Listen. You know, I know you got some extra money, I know you want to do real estate, but you’re not doing anything. Let’s just live vicariously through me, give me your money and let’s go do some deals.”

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And I’ll give you some of the profits.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: That worked.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. And for a lot of new people, they don’t really realize. That especially with single-family houses, you know, it’s a hustle. It’s a lot of work. And I think a lot of the, you know, the shows on A&E have kind of made a lot of people believe that it’s easier than it is. But this is a tough business. And so once you realize that there’s a lot of reasons… partnerships make sense, there’s a lot of reasons to work with other people to be able to pull things off. And I know that as a student of Dave Lindahl, you know that it really takes a group of people to come together. You can grow faster, you can achieve more if you’re working with other people. And I think a lot of folks don’t really understand that up front. They think, well I’ll just do this myself in my spare time.

Corey Patterson: Oh God. That’s how I started, I mean I’m sure you did too.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: I thought I was the handyman hack[SP].

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: I could do everything about halfway, and I was so tired and I was so sore, and I hated it.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And then I was like, gosh, I’ve got to paint tomorrow.

Mike Hambright: [laughs]

Corey Patterson: And you wear your… you burn yourself out. And I had read so many books that… don’t ever do the rehab, sub it all out. Well, when I came to Phoenix and when I started… I actually started doing that. And that allowed me to have velocity.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: Because once I started raising private money, now I had the funds to buy more than one project at a time, and I couldn’t do the work.

Mike Hambright: Yeah..

Corey Patterson: And so, and there’s another, I’ll give you another tidbit, a secret. Can I give you a secret?

Mike Hambright: Absolutely.

Corey Patterson: All right. So . . .

Mike Hambright: It won’t be… just so you know, it won’t be, it’ll be between me and a few thousand of my closest friends, so. [laughs]

Corey Patterson: Hey, I’m all about giving. Trust me. I could tell you all my secrets today, and I could still do… you would never hurt my business one bit. Trust me. Because I know how to do it, and I can do it well, and I’ll always do it well. And so that’s… for anybody out there listening, give out all your secrets, I’m telling you. There are no secrets. You could… I could tell a million people and only two people would actually take action.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Right? It’s good information, but, so, how do you find your subs? How do you find good quality subcontractors? That’s always the hard one, right?

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: [inaudible 00:25:17 ]. You don’t find them in the Yellow Pages, you don’t find them on Google, OK? But you do find them on the MLS. And you know, there’s a tab that says “Vendors,” right? There’s never a tab that says “Vendors,” OK? But here’s how you find them. You go find… usually there’s some clues you can see, you’re going to look up homes in a certain area where there’s a lot of activity and you’re going to… actually, on the MLS, and if you’re not a realtor, you can find a realtor to do this for you. OK? Because you’re going to use realtors in and out of business to do transactions. So they’ll help you. But you’re going to have them filter out, do you want bank-owned properties, or you’ll want traditional fix and flips. In other words, you want to find the guys that say not an REO, not a short sale. Right? Usually they have that on their tagline somewhere. And that are, some for the top dollar and their photos look amazing.

Mike Hambright: OK.

Corey Patterson: In other words, you can tell they did a rehab. All right, that’s key to that company, whoever’s buying or fixing those properties are fixing and flipping. Right?

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Now, that realtor probably knows a couple of the subs. I would almost bet money on it.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Now all you do is you call that realtor up and you say, hey listen, I noticed your… those homes look amazing. Got it? And you start building that realtor up, making them feel special, and you say… “Hey, who does the paint in there? Who’s the paint contractor?” And [snaps fingers] they’re going to give you the goods, man. Because why? They want your business too.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: They want to list some properties for you too. And so that’s how I found every vendor I’ve ever need in this business in Phoenix, is through the MLS.

Mike Hambright: Wow. That’s a good tip.

Corey Patterson: Because they’re already pre-screened. Hey, I can look at their work by looking at the pictures, I can see if they know what they’re doing. The other company that’s doing it, and if they do it as a lot of volume, right? And you can tell when, you know, the player’s in town, like, that’s a player company. They’re doing 10 flips a month. Yeah, do you want to use their subs? Hell yeah you do.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: Right? For your one or two that you’re going to do.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And that’s… so I just cherry-picked them, and found them, and just started having conversations, and next thing you’ve know I’ve got a drywall guy, a paint guy, a carpet guy. And I get… and they all already know the pricing.

Mike Hambright: Awesome.

Corey Patterson: They’re used to… they know what the pricing is. They’ll tell you.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Patterson: You know? So, that’s the beautiful secret that I… how I learned how to source subs by using the MLS. So if you’re not a realtor, just find somebody that is.

Mike Hambright: That’s great tip, that’s a great tip.

Corey Patterson: Actually I got MLS access a long time ago before I was even a realtor. And I just ask for that too because people do things that, you know, if you ask them in the right way and share the business with them, share them profits, you can get a lot of things in this world.
Mike Hambright: Absolutely.

Corey Patterson: Arnold would say break some rules. The Arnold.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Break some rules.

Mike Hambright: [laughs] Yeah, they’re… so Corey, talk a little about, I guess, any advice you have to people that want to achieve what you’ve achieved. They have a passion for real estate investing but not experience and can’t seem to get out of that gate. What’s the advice you’d give them to just make it happen?

Corey Patterson: Try to find a real life mentor, you know? Try to find some place or somewhere where you can get real information out of investors that are doing business today.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: Like, not two years ago. Not, you know… that’s doing business today.

Mike Hambright: Right.

Corey Patterson: Because the market changes all the time, and, you know, there’s different strategies for every market, you know?

Mike Hambright: Absolutely.

Corey Patterson: You know, I first started in 2009 it was just all REO’s, bank-owned properties. I didn’t, I mean, short sales? I didn’t even want to mess with them because that takes forever, right?

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: But, I… then all of a sudden the market started changing so then I started riding my REO offers. But then I started just putting massive amounts of short sale offers out. And I’d get them under contract. They were just, like incubating, right? And then all of a sudden those deals showed up too. And who taught me that was a mentor, a real live mentor said, hey, you know. A good mentor knows how to pull stuff in the future that you don’t know yet, and kind of bring it to reality, and you know, that’s what mentors do, is they can look into the future and kind of see some trends because they’ve been there before.

Mike Hambright: Right. Right. That’s great.

Corey Patterson: So find a real live mentor, and sometimes you’ve got to pay these people.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: And that’s okay. Because the most costly advice you’ll get sometimes in life is free. And that’s like your friends and family and people that you know.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: A lot of times they give you crap advice, truthfully.

Mike Hambright: Yeah.

Corey Patterson: The paid advice that you get from professionals sometimes is really worth its weight in gold.

Mike Hambright: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well Corey, for folks that want to learn more about you and some of the different clubs and groups you’re involved in, where should they go? I know you have a couple different websites, where should they go?

Corey Patterson: You know, I always liked my… my favorite, my blog is kahunawealthbuilders.com.

Mike Hambright: OK.

Corey Patterson: And that’s where I usually I keep up my blog postings. It’s not as up to date as I would like to, but we’re starting to post more and more recent stuff that we’re doing on the multi-family side, I have a long history of the stuff on the single-family side there.

Mike Hambright: All right.

Corey Patterson: It’s a great place, and then Kahuna Investments is our main website. Kind of where my business format is.

Mike Hambright: OK. Great. Well we’ll add those links down below the video for folks that want to learn more. Hey Corey, really appreciate you joining us today.

Corey Patterson: Hey man, thanks for having me on. It’s been a pleasure. Hopefully I gave you guys enough content that makes some investor out there excited and that will go out and take action because you know, we live in America. It’s the best country ever, where you can start from nothing and have everything you ever wished for. And all it takes is what’s between these two ears to start working, and good people to help you along the way. And you can have everything you ever wanted.

Mike Hambright: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Corey, hey, thanks again and please stay in touch, my friend.

Corey Patterson: Thanks brother.

Mike Hambright: All right. 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.