How to Get Your First or Next Property (Step-by-Step) in 90 Days

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast, show 463. It doesn’t take 1500 properties to attain financial freedom. I hit financial freedom at the age of 27, with like 30 units. I just keep buying more, because it’s fun, I’m addicted to it, and I love doing this stuff. But it doesn’t take that many properties to get financial freedom, it just takes the right ones, and it takes a little bit of patience.

Intro:
You’re listening to BiggerPockets radio, simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you’re here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you’re in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from Biggerpockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.

Brandon:
What’s going on everyone? It’s Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets podcast. I’m actually in the great state of Idaho right now. I’m on a little bit of a trip here with my family to go visit my buddy, AJ Osborne, who’s been on the show a couple times. But here in AJ’s office with my buddy, David Greene. What’s up David? Not technically in the office with me, but over the worldwide web.

David:
Well, I’m there in spirit.

Brandon:
Thank you, dude. How you been, man? What you got going on your life?

David:
A lot of growth is happening really quick. So the real estate team is still doing well. I hired a bunch of new agents, and I’m looking to get them trained, the mortgage company’s coming along well, but same thing, we’re hiring loan officers. Just growing pains that every new business goes through. But they’re good, right, because it’s good to have growing pains when you’re doing good business.

Brandon:
What’s the number one best tip for hiring people you’ve found?

David:
I would say that what I’m finding right now is that, people’s past track record will tell you much more about how they’re going to work in your company than anything else. So, what I’ve realized, I had this little epiphany where I’ll ask someone, “Hey, you got to make five phone calls a day to people you already know to tell them you’re an agent.” If you worked at Starbucks and you didn’t have to talk to anyone ever, that feels like an insurmountable hurdle, and they’ll give me so much pushback on why they don’t want to make these five calls.

David:
If I hire a Navy SEAL, they’re like, “Okay. So five calls not 500, and I don’t have to be swimming in the water while I’m making it, and carrying a weight.” Right? It’s the easiest thing ever for that person. So, it’s a part of human psychology that I’ve learned when you’ve done really hard things in the past, when you get a new opportunity, it doesn’t feel that hard. If you haven’t done something challenging when you hit a new obstacle, it can feel debilitatingly difficult. So, that’s something I’m really looking at when I’m hiring now, is what has this person done before? Will working for me feel easy or hard?

Brandon:
Well, and speaking of challenging and challenges, let’s talk about today’s show a little bit. So today’s show is different than anything we’ve done in a long, long, long, long time here, and that is, Dave is not actually going to be on the show, the rest of the show. It’s just me talking at you for like an hour and a half, and here’s why. So, a lot of you know, every week at BiggerPockets we do or I teach a live class, and David teaches a live class almost every week as well. We did one a few weeks back called the 90 Day Challenge, and I revamped it. I did it a few years ago, and I’ve done it a few times over the last few years.

Brandon:
But I revamped it a little bit for kind of where we are at in the world today and what’s coming. We had a few 1000 people show up, and the people that showed up have just said it was one of the most impactful things that they had attended and been to, and it changed a lot of people there. So we thought, “Why don’t we put this out more than just a few 1000 people that were able to attend live, why don’t we put this out to the entire BiggerPockets audience?” That’s what today’s show is.

Brandon:
So today’s quick tip is simply to listen to the whole interview, or the whole episode. I know it’s longer than maybe our normal episodes are. But I just want to encourage you to listen through because I’ll cover a lot of … Basically what I’m doing is, I’m covering the six phases of a real estate investor’s journey, there are six phases, we’re going to go through each one of them today, and how you can get worked today, after you listen to this thing, how you can apply all six of those toward buying a property in the next 90 days, whether it’s your first property, your second, your third, whatever. We’re going to make sure you can get that.

Brandon:
Now, in the show as typical … if you’ve ever been to a BiggerPockets webinar, at some point in the webinar, I usually end up talking about BiggerPockets pro because it’s a big part of what we do. We analyze deals, and on this episode, you’re going to actually hear me analyze a deal. I know you can’t see it, use your imagination, but we analyze the property. Sometimes on the show, we will actually give away a deal discount on a pro membership. So, I want to make sure that even though that webinar is old, not old, it’s a few weeks old now, and that code no longer works. We did a new code for anybody who’s listening to this show.

Brandon:
So if it’s something that you listen and you’re like, “Yeah, you know what? I think a pro membership would be a good investment in my future.” You can use the code podcastpro, one word podcastpro, and get 20% off your first year of a pro annual membership that does expire on 6/1/21 though. If you’re thinking about doing it, make sure you upgrade by 6/1/21. Again, the code is podcastpro. BiggerPockets.com/proupgrade, that’ll be the URL to go to. Now before we get into me talking for the next hour, I wanted to ship this over to David one more time.

Brandon:
David, I want to know your opinion on this one ultimately important question. Why do so many people think they want to get into real estate? They talk about it, they listen to our show, they get excited about it, they listen to you, they read your book, they read my book, they read other books, they watch YouTube videos, and then a year later, they have not done anything. Five years later, they’ve not done anything. Why? Because that’s really what today’s show is all about, is how to do this stuff. But I want to know your thoughts. Why don’t people do things?

David:
I think it’s the same answer why when someone comes to work for me, some people thrive and say, “This is the easiest best job I’ve had.” And other people say, “This is horribly ridiculous.” It’s their expectation of what it takes to be successful. I think real estate investing is probably for what you and I see, just opposite someone who can be a rocket scientist or do something very unique, play like Michael Jordan. Real estate investing is the highest ROI you can get on your time. But it’s not easy. It doesn’t just fall into your lap but its very nature, you have to go find a property that is better than other properties that works better for the purpose you want it for and then wait.

David:
There’s delayed gratification, and there’s a lot of work that’s done up front that doesn’t turn into results right away. Very similar to other things like learning ju-jitsu or getting fit. Everything good in life, you got to put the work in upfront before you get the result. And that often feels different than other things we do in life. Like I go to work and I get a paycheck right away. Even when you suck at your job, when you’re there, you’re getting paid by the hour, and there’s laws that protect employees to get paid really before they deserve money sometimes, it’s not serving them. And you get out of that world and into this world, which is a really doggy dog, love the wild, the strong survive, and it can feel really difficult.

David:
So, what sad is the people that quit before they get through that initial soreness when they first start working out, because man, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was so great, but I really think that’s what a big piece is, their expectations when they came in.

Brandon:
That’s really good. I’m going to take that clip you just said, and I’m going to make that an Instagram post with music behind it, and it’s going to be a big deal. That’s going to go on our maybe YouTube channel.

David:
Can you put a filter on me to make me look like the rock or something like that too?

Brandon:
Yeah. I was waving American flag behind you as you stand up and say that.

David:
This is getting better, like a bald eagle on my shoulder, like the parrot of a pirate or something.

Brandon:
I love it, man. All right, well, let’s get out of this introduction and into the 90 Day Challenge, which is the six phases of the real estate investor journey. Hope y’all like this, and if you do, don’t forget to leave the ratings and reviews over on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Google Play, wherever you listen to podcasts at, and watch these videos on YouTube as well.

Brandon:
In fact, you can watch this video, if you’d rather go watch this webinar replay instead of listening to it, just go over to the BiggerPockets YouTube channel, and you can watch it there. You can also go to Biggerpockets.com/show463. Again, Biggerpockets.com/show463. At the show notes page, the video is going to be embedded there as well. Without further ado, let’s get to our guest today, Brandon Turner.

David:
Brandon Turner.

Brandon:
That’s me. What’s going on everyone? Welcome to the webinar, on the 90 Day Challenge, how to buy your first or next property in the next 90 days. My name is Brandon Turner, I’m going to be your host today, with 800 and some people here right now, I suppose we’re going to be all over the place. Let’s get this thing kicked off right now, we got a lot to cover today. Today’s the long webinar, it will be about 90 minutes long of just fire content. In other words, it’s going to feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose, I got a lot to cover today.

Brandon:
If you’re brand new to real estate, that’s okay, this is for you. But just know that you’re going to want to take some notes. Because this is not one of those webinars where I’m going to sell you on a $80,000 coaching program afterwards, I don’t have that, we don’t have a course even that you can pay to take. This is the information, this is what you get. I’m not holding anything back today. So, take some notes because it can be like drinking from a fire hydrant. A little bit of introduction here. First, I’ll tell you a bit about who I am, what BiggerPockets is, and we’re going to get into the meat of this thing here in a few minutes.

Brandon:
So first of all, let me slow down my talking a little bit. I talk very quickly, I get very excited about real estate investing. It is amazing, and it completely changed my life. More on that in a minute. So thank you for attending today. Today’s goal is simple. I want to share with you guys today, exactly how to get a property in the next 90 days, maybe even less. It doesn’t matter how much experience you’re starting with, how much time you can put into it. How much money you currently have, all that doesn’t matter. What matters to me is that you want it, if you want it, you’re going to find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse. Does that make sense?

Brandon:
So that’s my goal today, is to lay out exactly what you need. Now real quick about us. This is BiggerPockets, we’re the world’s largest real estate investing website. Millions of people come to BiggerPockets every single month to learn, network and grow, and that’s through our blogs, our forums, podcasts, webinars, webinar replays. We’ve got networking books videos, eight of the top 12 real estate books in the world, our books are published by BiggerPockets, including some of my own. Videos, millions of views on YouTube or our videos, and it’s all designed to help you use real estate investing to achieve your goals and your financial goals.

Brandon:
Because at our heart at BiggerPockets, we believe so strongly that real estate is the answer. Now, BiggerPockets, we have a free membership. That’s where you probably have education, networking, Q&A forums, it helps you build confidence and that kind of early education. Then we have our pro membership which is advanced education data, investment calculators, landlord legal forms, tools to take action. Really that helps people like go from like, “I want this to I’m actually doing it.” Then finally, here’s our core philosophy. Number one, and as I’m reading these to you guys, let me know in the chat room if you agree with this stuff.

Brandon:
Number one, we believe real estate is the greatest wealth building tool the world has ever seen. We really believe at BiggerPockets, we also believe that it’s not get rich quick, it’s not quick and easy, but it’s a business, you can learn to run any business if you read the right books, ask the right questions, take the right action, you can figure this stuff out. It’s not rocket science. I’m not a super intelligent guy. I just figured it out. Then finally, anyone can invest regardless of past or current position. I don’t care how much money you have, how much time, where you were raised, your family. I don’t care about any of that stuff. We believe at BiggerPockets, these three things.

Brandon:
Let me tell you, it’s not just like the BiggerPockets corporate believes in this stuff. I wrote this because I believe in this stuff. Me, Brandon Turner, personally this is my thing. Because my name is Brandon Turner, and I’m actually a real estate investor. It totally changed my life. I had no business being wealthy or being successful, real estate got me there. So I’m a real estate investor. I live now in Maui, Hawaii. I have an ocean view from my office right there, which is amazing. I live here, thanks to real estate, thanks to the financial freedom and financial independence. I could live wherever I wanted. So I left Washington State, moved out here. I flipped houses a little bit, did about a quarter million last year. Landlord flip houses like I said, I did a quarter million last year in flipping.

Brandon:
I own 1500 rental units roughly, hosted the BiggerPockets podcast, over 100 million downloads of that guy, married a beautiful woman named Heather. She’s awesome. I got two little kids Rosie and Wilder, author of several real estate books, and I’m a travel addict. I love traveling. I love seeing the world. Anyway, these are some of the books I’ve read. Has anybody read any of my books? Just curious, let me know which one you’ve read, if you have. You can just say the red book, yellow book, blue book, or black book, or the journal. If you’ve read. Some of the people have read all of them. You guys are awesome.

Brandon:
I also got a new one coming out soon, called the Multifamily Millionaire, it’s going to be pretty fun. Let me ask another question, how many of you have used the Intention Journal? Is anybody here use the Intention Journal? Just curious. I got a copy of it, right here. Mine’s in the house. But this is my spare. This journal, just journaling in general changed my life, and then I wrote this thing to dramatically increase my productivity. It’s designed for real estate investors. Anyway, I’m not trying to sell you on a thing. In fact, later today, I’ll give this away to some people if you hang out to the end of today’s webinar. So stay tuned for all of that.

Brandon:
Literally, there’s a weekly plan and then there’s the daily stuff. It’s pretty cool. It’s been sold out for four months, but we finally got some back in stock at BiggerPockets. So I’ll be giving them away to some people later on today’s webinar. Now, let’s talk about this real quick. So I should not have succeeded in real estate. Any guy that looks like that should not have succeeded in real estate investing. That’s me. Those are taken actually like a month apart. So, I had my girlfriend at the time, who’s now my wife, shaved my head into amazing Mohawk. True story, true story. That Mohawk right there, but between the Mohawk and the long hair there, I actually shaved my head into a mullet. So a raging mullet spiked hair in front, curly in the back, it was amazing.

Brandon:
That week that I shaved the mullet is when I asked out my best friend Heather Chilman at the time, when I asked Heather Chilman, and she said yes, after four tries. She said yes. I also dumped a basketball, the only time in my entire life, and I kissed a girl which was Heather. The first kiss I ever had, all in one week. Now, was that because of the mullet? I don’t know. But I’m just saying that there is magic in the mullet. Today, this is what we look like, as my daughters, my son, as my wife and we live like I said in Maui, Hawaii. If you want to know more about me, today’s webinar is not really about me, but you can follow me on Instagram. I’m pretty active there, I’m like a 13 year old girl on Instagram.

Brandon:
I am actually going to be doing a giveaway for a trip to Maui in the next week. So if you’re interested in that, come hang out with me and Joshua Dorkin. It’s going to be called the ultimate real estate investing experience. The only way to know about it is by going to my Instagram. So make sure you guys are following me at BeaadyBrandon, Beardy with a Y. But here’s the thing, I was where a lot of you guys are. I should not have succeeded, I started when the recession began back in ’07, lower middle class family, no money, no experience, a bunch of credit card debt, bunch of student loan debt, didn’t know how to swing a hammer, didn’t know how to manage people, didn’t know what real estate was, didn’t know anything about this.

Brandon:
People around me said I shouldn’t get into real estate. It’s a scam. It’s a bad idea. Then you know what? I jumped in anyway, because I’m stubborn and pigheaded, and I floundered around for years and I made a ton of mistakes. But nobody can accuse me of not being persistent. I’m pretty pigheaded, I’m just going to figure it out. So over the course of the years, I discovered the right way to do things and the wrong way to do things. In that time, I discovered what the main thing I was doing wrong in the first 5, 6, 7 years of my real estate. It was this, I was treating real estate the same way a lot of people treat fitness.

Brandon:
Now what do I mean by that? Well, let me explain. How many of you are workout freaks? Like you’re super in shape, like CrossFit. You’re super ripped. Anybody here? That’s not me. I do like working out, but I’m not crazy in shape. But let me explain something, I want to see, how many of you guys have ever started a diet or a workout plan or you started going to the gym, you bought a Peloton, and then within a month, you’re already off that train, you’re already doing something else. Anybody else here? Maybe I was like that. Okay. Yeah, I do that all the time. I’ll fully admit that.

Brandon:
Let me explain how people who actually get in shape what they do, and I’m using this as an analogy. So don’t think too literal about this. Number one, people who actually get in shape and they lose a lot of weight and they keep it off, they have a strong reason for why they’re getting in shape. It’s not just because they want to look good necessarily, that is a strong reason. Usually, it’s something more powerful. They want to be there for their kids, they want to live a long time. Maybe they want to attract a better spouse or a significant other.

Brandon:
Number two, they think about, read about, talk about and all other ways, obsessed about getting in shape. You have ever heard the joke, how do you know somebody is a vegan? They’ll tell you. How do you know somebody is in CrossFit? They’ll tell you. It’s so true. How do you know I’m in ju-jitsu? I just told you. Right? People who are obsessed, they talk about it all the time. It’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a great thing. They also focus on a particular set of workout. So, I do ju-jitsu like I said, and I’ll probably say it many times, that’s like my main thing. Now, I do play with racquetball. I do some weightlifting, I run a little bit, but my main thing, my focus, my one thing is ju-jitsu, I put a lot of energy into that.

Brandon:
They also educate themselves on the proper form so they don’t get injured. So they’re not just out there like throwing weights around, they learn how to do it right. They also surround themselves with other people who are trying to improve their physique. As a great old quote says, “You are the average of the five people you associate with the most.” I love that. You are, if you hang around with a bunch of runners, you’ll probably naturally become a runner. It’s actually the number one tip I have for people in wanting to change their life is just get around people who are already achieving that thing, and you’ll naturally become that way.

Brandon:
Also, they don’t fall for, get rich quick schemes like that, I invented that, I made that up. I don’t invent a lot of things. I invented that one, and I invented BRRRR and house hacking, but those are my three things I’ve ever invented that were clever. They don’t fall for, get rich quick schemes, but they are not opposed to paying for the right equipment, the right tools, the right gym membership. I got a guy Jerry, comes to my house three times a week to do ju-jitsu private lessons with me. Now, yes, does that cost me hundreds and hundreds of the dollars every month, like even probably over 1000 a month? Yep. But guess what? I’m in the best shape my entire life. I’m pretty decent at ju-jitsu. I could wrestle most of you guys and probably win. It’s totally worth the money that I’m spending for the tools, equipment and training that I needed to get there.

Brandon:
Finally, the most important thing of all, they show up consistently, despite not seeing immediate progress. In other words, in the words of Tony Horton, the founder of P90X. You guys know Tony Horton? His famous catchphrase is just keep pushing play. If you just show up every day and stop worrying about like, “Oh, I didn’t lose that weight today.” And you just keep pushing play, it’ll eventually happen. The results you want. “Now why are we talking about weight loss, Brandon? I thought this was a webinar about real estate.” It is. Let’s look at this list now to the eyes of a real estate investor.

Brandon:
Number one, they got a strong reason for why they’re getting into real estate. Number two, they think about, talking about, read about, and always obsessed about investing in real estate. They focus on this particular niche and strategy. They educate themselves. They surround themselves with other successful investors. They don’t fall for, get rich quick schemes, but they do pay for the things that are going to help them get there faster. Am I missing one? They constantly show up, every day they do the work in order to get there. Isn’t that powerful way of shifting our thinking? So, when I started thinking of my real estate in these terms, you guys, it blew up like in a good way, I dramatically increased my business. I started buying stuff like this. I bought this fourplex for my daughter, Rosie.

Brandon:
I make about 1400 bucks a month in cash flow, pure profit. Pure profit. After I’m done with that property every month, about 1400 bucks a month. That actually came from my tax returns. I pulled that number from there. This triplex, I average about $1000 a month on this baby. This one, it’s a fourplex, I turned it into a five unit, I make about 1583 a month on this property. This is just three properties. I have 1500 units right now. Here’s what I’m trying to say, I’m not trying to brag and say, “Oh, look how good I am. You could never do this.” I want you to know that everybody here can do this, if you apply the right lessons. But more importantly, I want to teach you this lesson right now.

Brandon:
It doesn’t take 1500 properties to attain financial freedom. I hit financial freedom at the age of 27 with like 30 units. I just keep buying more, because it’s fun, I’m addicted to it. I love doing this stuff. But it doesn’t take that many properties to get financial freedom, it just takes the right ones, and it takes a little bit of patience. Now, by the way, I don’t have 1500 properties, I have 1500 units. I’ve got about 30 properties. I buy a lot of 100 plus unit property. So, don’t think I have 1500 separate properties. I buy a lot of mobile home parks, which by the way, if anybody here is interested in learning more about what I do in my company, go to ODCfund.com.

Brandon:
Well, somebody put that in the chat room, ODC, Open Door Capital fund F-U-N-D.com. You can learn all about how we buy mobile home parks, and if you’re an accredited investor, you can even come join us. So ODCfund.com. But that’s kind of my story in a nutshell. So, how do we get there? How do we get you to that financial freedom? Stop worrying about getting 1500 units. How do we get you your first five? How do we get you just a few of these type of properties right here? How do they get you a 1000 bucks a month, 2000 a month, 3000 a month? Well, to do so you have to follow something that we call the Real Estate Investing Mastery journey. It is a six step journey that everybody has to walk together.

Brandon:
Everybody has to walk, not a lot of people walk it together. But at BiggerPockets, we’re going to help you on all six phases of this journey. All for the grand price of $29,000. I’m just kidding. No. I’m going to give you it right now. Real estate journey. Number one, the first thing I want you to define, and we just mentioned this a moment ago, is your purpose. I believe having a strong reason for why you are getting into real estate, it’s one of the most important thing that’s going to keep you going for long term. So, what’s your purpose? Why are you getting into this thing? What’s your why? In fact, I would love to know, let me know in the chat room right now, why are you wanting to get into real estate. What’s your goal here? What are you trying to get out of it?

Brandon:
You see, real estate is not easy. I’m going to say that again. Real estate is not easy. Real estate is not always easy. Many times it’s hard. Sometimes it’s easy, but most of the time it takes some work. When things are hard, if people don’t have a strong reason, they tend to give up. The only goal is to just get rich. People are like, “You know what? I didn’t really want to get rich anyway, rich people are lame. I don’t like them.” What’s your stronger reason? “To take care of my family, generational wealth, to retire big time.” I love that. To save the world from climate disaster. That’s awesome. Right? Things like that. Legacy, I want to have a legacy. I want to make affordable housing for people. I love that. Right?

Brandon:
You can do more like … For me, let me tell you guys, why I got into real estate. There were really primary two reasons. Well, I’ll go with three reasons. Reason number one is surface level. I wanted to sleep in more. I hated getting up for work. I hated it. I worked at a bank. It was horrible, horrible. I remember like every Sunday night was terrible, because all I could think about is how much I hated my job the next morning. I’d struggle to go to sleep at night because I was fretting and anxiety ridden about my job, and then driving to work. I’m like, “Oh, I just can’t believe I have to do another week of this.” Then I get there and stare at the clock going like, “When is this day going to be over?”

Brandon:
It drove me to want something different. I wanted to sleep in and do fun work. Number two thing that drove me. I love traveling. I once read that the world is a book and those who don’t travel read but a page, and I’ve always loved that quote and it guides me a lot and so I wanted to travel, I wanted to see Europe, I wanted to see Asia, I wanted to go to Africa. I wanted to go to South America, I wanted a backpack, I wanted to do all this stuff. But guess who doesn’t want me to do that? The man, right? The boss, jobs. They didn’t want me to travel. So, I wanted to travel, and more so, I wanted to have kids someday.

Brandon:
This is the third reason and probably the biggest reason that drove me to real estate and financial freedom, is because when I was a kid … I love my dad, I love him. He’s amazing. He worked so hard for my family. But he worked so hard and long hours for my family. I never saw him, he would show up for like 10 minutes before I went to bed when I was a kid, and I always told my dad, and I swore that when I had kids someday, I was going to be the best father I could possibly be. I wanted to be there for my daughters, if I was going to have. I didn’t have kids in the beginning, I knew I wanted them, and I was like, “When they go to dance recital, when they have Tee ball, when they have a field trip, I want to be there with them, I want to raise them, I don’t want them raised by somebody else.” Those three things drove me to get through the difficult times.

Brandon:
I just want to encourage you guys today, is really sit down and think like, “What is that reason I’m getting to real estate? What do I want out of this? How am I going to change other people’s lives by me getting into real estate?” Now, things have changed. I’ve got more time with my kids, I spent a stupid amount of time with my kids. It’s great. I like literally just laying on the floor tackling my son who’s not even two yet. I was like rolling around on the floor and I’m throwing him. It’s so much fun, and it’s like in the middle of the day. It was awesome. All right, number two, just wanting something is not enough. Can we all agree with that? Just having a strong reason is not enough. You got to have a plan to get there. That’s why step number two is to create your plan.

Brandon:
Now, I’d like to define that into two words, niche and strategy. Say that aloud with me, niche, strategy. Niche is basically asking … This entire idea of a plan is how are you going to invest in real estate. Niche is a type of real estate you buy. So you want to buy single family houses, you want to buy small multi, you want to buy large multi, you want to buy office space, what are you going to buy? I buy mobile home parks and apartment complexes today. You might want to start with a single family house, it’s a great way to get started.

Brandon:
The second thing is there’s niche and there is strategy. Strategy is what are you going to do with it? So, buy and hold, fix and flip, wholesaling, developments where you build turnkey rentals, BRRRR investing, well, my favorites, house hacking, student rentals, vacation rentals. Now, you might be looking at this list and being like, “Oh, I don’t even know what all these things are, Brandon, I’m so confused. I’m scared. I’m going to give up and go back watching Dancing With the Stars because at least that’s easy and mind numbing. Stick with me for just a minute. I know it can feel overwhelming, but let me make this very simple.

Brandon:
In the beginning, you do not need this whole list. Just pick one niche and pick one strategy and just go with that. You can correct course later on, but just start, what’s your next deal going to be? What are you looking for right now? Somebody let me know in chat area. What is your niche? What’s your strategy? Now, somebody said, “Well, what if you’re broke?” We are going to talk about money in just a minute. I can tell you that I don’t put very much money in any deal and I haven’t since day one. I rarely put money into my real estate. So don’t, just set that aside for now, we’ll come back to it in a minute.

Brandon:
All right, house hacking, small multifamily. I love it. Buying single family houses. I love it. Rentals for apartment complexes. Love it. Turnkey single family house. That’s great. If some of these terms, you don’t know what those are, guess what? There’s a website out there that’s totally free to go and search any of these terms called BiggerPockets, and you can find out articles about it. You can go to YouTube and learn, you can pick up books. In fact, let me show you something. Again, I’m not trying to sell a book here, I just want to show you guys something.

Brandon:
This is a book I wrote, it’s called How to Invest in Real Estate. Somebody writes that in the chat room, How to Invest in Real Estate by Brandon Turner and Joshua Dorkin. We wrote this book as a beginner’s guide to teach you all the niches and strategies that you’re going to need. So, in other words, if you’re like, “Well, I don’t know what this thing is. What’s REIT? What’s crowdfunding? What are private notes? What is house flipping? What is BRRRR investing? What’s house hacking? It’s like all of that. So again, I’m not trying to sell a book here, you can get it for free if you go to your library, I don’t care. I make like three cents when you buy this book.

Brandon:
What I want you to do is to not shut down your brain today on this webinar, when things get hard, I want you to say, “I can learn this stuff. It’s out there.” All right, cool. And thank you to those people who said this is a good book. You guys are awesome. Leave me a review on Amazon. I think we just crossed 1000 reviews on this, which is pretty crazy. All right, the next part of a plan. Right? We have a niche, strategy, and then location. Where do you plan to invest? Now, you can invest locally, or you can invest long distance. Either one works, there are people who are super successful in your market, and there are people probably who live in your market that invest somewhere else. You can go either route.

Brandon:
In fact, let me show you something. Right here. This is another book, you can get from your library. It’s called Long-Distance Real Estate Investing. It’s written by my bestie, David Greene, co-host to the BiggerPockets podcast. This whole book is about how to invest in a long distance. So it’s totally possible. I bet there’s also investors that are in your market, no matter how expensive your market is, that are making money right now in some niche. So you got to figure out what they’re doing.

Brandon:
I mean, literally, I buy property in Maui, Hawaii, and I buy property in Ohio. You could not get further away financially from those two markets. I buy in Florida, I buy in Minnesota, I buy in Wisconsin, I buy in Pennsylvania, all over the place, Indiana, Washington State. So, the point is, there’s a way to do it anywhere, it’s more important that you decide than what you decide, just make a choice and go with it. Number two, once you know your general area, I want to encourage you to focus on a neighborhood. Because here’s the deal, when you first start running the numbers on properties, what we’re going to do here in a minute, when you first start looking at properties and trying to figure out if it’s a good deal or not, there’s a lot to consider.

Brandon:
But the more you become an expert on a certain location, the better you’re going to be able to know if it’s a good deal or not. So, become a really good at a location, whether or not that’s local or long distance, I don’t care. You might want to invest, like Dave said, South Side of Chicago, great. Learn that market, where are the high rents? Where are the low rents? Where’s the crime? Where are the sex offenders at? Where are the good school districts? Where are the bad school districts? Where are people moving? Where’s population trends going?

Brandon:
You can learn all that just by talking with people in the market, talk to agents, talk to lenders, talk to people. There’s a million websites online you can learn this stuff, like City-Data. There’s a bunch of them there. Right? So, know your market, just study it. How do you do that? One of the best ways to do it, honestly, is just get in the ring and start swinging, jump on the mat and start rolling. In other words, start analyzing properties. We’re going to do that together live on this webinar in just a few minutes. So, I’ll tell you that in a second. All right. We’ve got purpose, we’ve got plan. Is that all helpful so far? Are you guys learning some good stuff? Okay, good. Thanks. That’s to make sure I’m not boring you guys.

Brandon:
Number three, you got to have a deal. You got to go get the property, the property matters because most properties are not deals. If you were just to go blindly, buy a property, majority of the time, you will lose money in the short term, and maybe in the long term. Most properties are not going to be good enough deals that are going to … they’re not going to get you any closer to your financial goals. Now, maybe 30 years down the road, they will, but my guess is you want financial freedom a little sooner than that, which means you got to learn how to identify the best deals out there. So, how are you going to find your real estate deals? Let me explain.

Brandon:
First of all, I’m going to give you actually three ways. The simplest way that I think every new investor should start with, every new investor should start with this, literally go to realtor.com or Zillow, sort by your criteria and then what you want to look for is what’s called a hidden potential. Because let’s be honest, properties that are on the market for sale on realtor.com, it’s super competitive. Let me just show you, somebody give me a city name somewhere in the country. Somebody give me a city name. Let’s go to … Anchorage? I’ve never done Anchorage. I thought Anchorage. Anchorage, Alaska. Let’s just try just for the fun of it.

Brandon:
I’ll show you this. So here we go, in Anchorage we’ve got a house, one bedroom, one bath, 440 square foot house, that is tiny, for 100 grand. We got this nice one though for 580, we got this one for 209. Now what if we wanted a multifamily, let’s go up here and look for a duplex or something. Let’s find it. Right? You literally go in here … Okay, look at this, in Anchorage we got this guy here for 334. Side by side, I like side by side. They each have their own garage. They can do their own shoveling. South Anchorage duplex townhouse style, large backyard, great area, separate gas, and electric for low utility cost. It’s great. In other words, the landlord doesn’t have to pay the gas bill. Don’t miss on the great opportunity for sweat equity.

Brandon:
Okay. So we already found it right here. Hidden potential. One of the first things I look for are properties that are kind of ugly. Like this one says there’s some sweat equity, which means, it could use some work. All right. Let’s look at some pictures here. Right? They’re trying. Oh, yeah. Look at this thing. We can totally clean that up. This property could probably be fixed up a little bit, but it’s not bad. This is what I call a cosmetic fixer. They’re my favorite type of real estate to buy. They don’t need that much paint. You paint these walls like a nice Chip and Joanna Gaines gray. That should actually be a color. We call it repost gray, but Nessa gray color walls, put some nice laminate wood flooring in there. This thing’s going to rent like top dollar. It’s going to be amazing.

Brandon:
Yeah, I mean, there’s a little bit of work in that ceiling, it looks like right there, but overall it doesn’t look bad. Now, it doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. I don’t know that, we have to run the numbers on it to find out. We will do that in just a moment. But first, let’s go back to our slides. That’s the easiest way. Now, I would recommend getting a real estate agent. It’s free. The seller pays for it. The seller pays for it so you’re not paying for it. So get a real estate agent. Now, let me be clear, I want everyone to focus really, this is important right here. Ready? If you’re on your phone right now taking selfies and duck face stuff and posting on Snapchat, put it all aside for a minute and focus in, here’s the deal.

Brandon:
You are likely not going to hit a home run when you buy on the MLS, the MLS is like realtor.com or Zillow, right? It just means properties that are for sale, you’re probably not going to get a home run in today’s crazy competitive market. Now maybe you find some hidden potential, you can fix the property up, maybe you can find a way to make it better. But even then you might not find a home run. But here’s the thing. When you’re first getting started, you don’t need a home run, you don’t need a property that makes you $5,000 a month or $1,000 a month or whatever. What do you need in the beginning? What do you need?

Brandon:
You need proof of concept. You need momentum, you need a team, you need networking, you need confidence in your soul, you need an identity shift, that you are not just somebody who wants to invest in real estate, you’re freaking real estate investor, and a pretty darn good one at that. Right? That’s what you need. So stop freaking out about needing to get a deal as good as my deal, or as good as that deal you saw on TV or on the BiggerPockets forums, and just go get some confidence.

Brandon:
Now that’s why I think everyone should start with a real estate agent and looking on like a realtor.com or Zillow. You’re not going to find a home run, but if you can find something that makes some sense, go with it, get it done. Now, if you want to find better deals, there’s a whole other world I’m going to open up to you today. It’s called off market real estate investing. It means you’re finding properties that are not for sale, you’re talking directly with the owner of a property and you’re trying to find …

Brandon:
Now, how do we do that? Let me give you two ways. This is a little more medium difficulty. Get in your car and drive around if you’re in Anchorage. Yeah, Anchorage, Alaska, you’re driving around Anchorage, you’re looking for properties that are maybe rundown, or they’re like a multifamily, they got like long grass or the broken window, or anything that tells you that maybe they’d want to sell. Then you’re going to add them to what’s called a CRM, that could literally be a piece of paper in your car. There are CRM apps out there just for driving for dollars, there’s one called driving for dollars, there’s one called DealMachine, you could put in a spreadsheet if you wanted to, whatever.

Brandon:
Then you’re going to mail letters to them or send postcards or if you’re brave, what I would do is call them. Call them and just say, “Hey.” Here’s why. You’re going to say, “Hey, I drove by your property over on Third Street. I’m a new investor in Anchorage, and I’m just looking to buy a property and I’m just getting started, and I thought, You know what? I’m just going to take a shot, take a wild shot here, and see if you had any chance or any willingness to sell your property.” You know what? They’re probably going to say no. But then you follow up with this question. “Okay. Yeah, no problem whatsoever. Two quick questions Ma’am. Would you mind if I follow back up with you in like a year from now about it, just in case anything changes?” What are they going to say? “Oh, sure. Go ahead and do that.”

Brandon:
Then you say this, this is the key. This is the million dollar question right here. That’s going to land a lot of people some deals this year. Write this down? “Do you have any other properties that you’d think about selling? Any properties causing you any problems?” You see, if this person is a landlord, which many of them are, if they have a rundown property, they are probably owning other properties as well. Because you asked them about that property, they’re not thinking about their other ones. But as soon as you open that question up, now, they start thinking, “Hmm, do I have any other properties?” Many times they will.

Brandon:
Now again, it doesn’t mean 90% of time, people are going to say, yes, this is a large funnel, if you talk to 100 people, maybe 10 will have a conversation with you, and one of them is going to sell you their property. So what does that mean? Does it mean you got to give up, or does it mean you got to go out and talk to 100 people? That’s how winners think. That’s how winners think. By the way, you just repeat steps one through four until you get a deal, and bonus, you can hire other people to drive for you. You don’t have to even do it. So, Jason said, “Josh, do you have any other properties you’re think about selling?” It’s a great question.

Brandon:
All right, number three, this is more advanced, but this can be a very powerful strategy. It is called direct mail marketing. It’s where you download a large list of sellers, not just sellers, people who may be interested in selling. A large list of them. I’m talking 1000s of names. Then you go to ListSource or PropStream. Those are two websites. That’s how you get your list. So you get your list from them. Now, there’s different types of lists. You can mail to people who are late on their mortgage, you can mail to people who are being evicted, you can mail to people who have long grass, they got fined by the city because they didn’t mow their lawn, or they didn’t shovel their driveway.

Brandon:
You can mail to people who bought their house 20 years ago or greater. You can mail the people who bought their house for cash. There’s all types of people you can mail to, and that’s public data, you can get from sites like ListSource or PropStream. Then you’re going to mail letters to them or postcards, or you can call them. Then when they start calling you, answer the bloody phone, answer the phone. Again, large funnel. So it’s a really cool strategy. In fact, remember that property I showed you earlier, was a fourplex that makes me $1400 a month in cash flow. That’s how I got it. I sent 300 letters out, just 300. I got back about 40 phone calls. Out of those 40, a bunch of them were, “Don’t ever call me again.” Some of them were, “No, thanks, but thanks for calling.” Some of them were, “What can you pay me?”

Brandon:
Then a couple of more, “Yeah, I’d love to sell, I’m having a lot of problems. Can we talk?” And one of those ended up being a deal that I landed. That property makes me $1400 a month. Patsy said, “Doesn’t everyone get the same information on the list?” Very much so. In some areas, a lot of people do direct mail. It’s not as effective as it used to be back 10 years ago. But a lot of people … You know what? Sometimes a seller might get letters every single day, but one day, they just decide, “You know what? I’m done.” And whatever letter is sitting on their desk that day, that’s who they sell to.

Brandon:
So, they know the game, sellers know the game. They know they don’t want to go to a real estate agent. So they might just sell to whoever has the best letter, or whoever’s the nicest person, whoever has a picture of their dog on there, whatever. [Rothen 00:41:17] “Where’d you get their phone number from?” Right down this word. Skip, S-K-I-P, skip tracing, T-R-A-C-I-N-G. Skip tracing, somebody write that in the chat room, skip tracing. Skip tracing is the art and science of getting people’s addresses and phone numbers. There are entire companies out there that do skip tracing. You can literally hire them on Fiverr or Upwork. You can go search in the BiggerPockets forums, you can just google skip tracing, you will find that information. It’s scary how much information about you is out there, and people can pay for it.

Brandon:
All right. Has anybody here used any skip tracing services, and if so which ones would you recommend? Put them in the chat room. Let’s share some good ideas here. Somebody said Batch Leads. Yeah, a couple of people will say Batch Leads. That’s a great one. Leadfusion. That’s another one I’ve heard a lot about. So there’s a lot of options out there. Yeah, PropStream can do it for you. ZoomInfo, Lead Sherpa. Yeah, it’s crazy how much public data is out there on you. So here’s the point you guys, when you’re getting a real estate, you got to get leads however you can, I would say 95% of you should do nothing but start playing on realtor.com today. Just do that. Don’t worry about the fancy stuff. Just start with like a realtor.com. Get yourself your first deal.

Brandon:
Once you build that knowledge, experience, confidence momentum, then you can get the more fancy stuff like the driving for dollars, or the direct mail, get leads however you can. By the way, if you want more on this, I go a lot more in depth on a webinar that I did, called How to Find Incredible Real Estate Deals in a Competitive Market. You can watch that by going to biggerpockets.com/proreplay. However, you do have to be a pro member to be able to watch webinar replays. That’s one of our benefits of being a pro member. We want to reward all pro members, there’s over 150 hours of webinar replays in there. So, check it out.

Brandon:
All right. So, once you get leads, though, what do you do? Well, here’s the philosophy that guides my entire strategy for real estate. Every property has a number that makes it a good deal. In other words, every property has a home run number, that price that if you could just pay that price, it would be a home run. Every property has a number that makes it a good deal. Now, most of the time, that number and the number they’re asking are way too far apart. You’re never going to get it. But I’m just talking theory right now. Right? Theoretically, every property has a number that makes it a good deal. Does that make sense? Yes or no? Because this is going to build our next point, is going to build on this, I want to make sure everyone understands this. Every property has a number.

Brandon:
Now, sometimes that number is even negative. Right? There are properties that you could not pay me to buy. But you get the idea, everybody has a number. So here we go. That’s why step number four is to work your process to find that number and then go after it. So, process is one of the most powerful words in the English language and it is probably the most important word for people who want to achieve success in anything. Process is the steps you take that will deliver a certain outcome. Let me say that again. A process is the individual steps you take that will deliver the outcome that you want.

Brandon:
What’s the process look like for losing weight? Somebody tell me. If you want to lose weight, what’s that process look like? Anybody? Anybody? Eat clean, eat less, starve, exercise more. Great. Everybody knows the process. How many of you all have a six pack? Anybody here have a six pack? Why not? I mean, I don’t have one. I know the process, because knowing it and doing it are two separate things. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. So what’s the process like for real estate investors? It’s this. Let me explain. Leads, you got to get leads coming in. We already talked about that, everybody here can get leads coming in, starting today for free. Everybody can do it.

Brandon:
Number two, once you have property leads coming in, you’ve got to run the numbers. You’ve got to run the numbers, you got to analyze them. Because what? Every property has a home run number. So find that number. What price makes sense for you? If you don’t want a home run, if you’re just getting started, what’s the base hit number? What number just gets you on base? Then guess what? Once you find that number, you’re going to pursue it, you’re going to pursue it. What does that mean? You’re going to make an offer? You’re going to talk to the seller, you’re going to say, “Okay. Yeah, I’d love to buy your property.”

Brandon:
You’re going to take action toward actually buying that property. It’s like, you can’t date a girl without asking her out first. Right? It doesn’t just happen automatically. It’s not like, one day you’re at the mall together and you see each other, and then the next day, you’ve got four kids. There is a process that leads you down that trail, just like in real estate, you got to ask the person out, you got to pursue it. Finally, step number four. If you do that consistently, leads, analyze, pursue. Leads, analyze, pursue. If you do your laps enough, you’re going to get success. That’s it.

Brandon:
So let’s go through this together. Oh, I already told you this earlier. Remember that property I bought from my daughter. I didn’t say this. I bought it for my daughter, Rosie, this is her college education right here. This property, the fourplex, we sent out 300 letters, 40 people called. I made about a dozen offers, so I pursued about a dozen of them, and one of them ended up working. 1400 a month in cash flow, over $100,000 in equity. This property will be paid off when Rosie goes to college because I put it on an 18 year payoff plan. I literally did a calculation to figure out how much I have to pay every month, to pay it off in 18 years.

Brandon:
I bought it the week she was born, and when she’s 18 years old [inaudible 00:47:11] paid off, it’ll be worth about $300,000, and Rosie can use it for whatever she wants. College paid for, medical school paid for. She wants to dump it into her own business or real estate. Hallelujah, I hope she does. But my daughter will not be strapped with financial stress and burden like I was, because she’s got this property. Let me tell you guys the best part, let me tell you the greatest part of all. It’s not the money, it’s not the college education, it’s not the cash flow. What’s the best part?

Brandon:
It’s the fact that for the next 18 years … I tear up even thinking about this, for the next 15 years now, 14 years left, every single month, Rosie is going to see a financial statement. She’s going to learn what I wish I had been taught when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. I’m going to break that cycle with her that my family has been lower middle class for the past ever, and she’s going to learn the actual skills that they should be teaching in school, but they aren’t.

Brandon:
So, all this came because I followed a very simple funnel, and you can follow the exact same funnel as well. Isn’t that awesome? You guys can do the same thing. If you define your process. So what’s it look like? What are the actionable steps you’re going to do to get the results that you want? In other words, how are you going to generate leads? Somebody tell me right now, what are you going to do to generate leads? Somebody tell me. Research, cold calling, maybe get an agent, realtors, driving for dollars. Great. Skip tracing. Awesome ideas. Work with wholesalers. There’s lots of ways.

Brandon:
In fact, let me tell you guys something, if you’re still stuck on the hole like, “I don’t know how to find good deals.” Remember that book I showed you earlier, How to Invest in Real Estate. Again, not trying to sell a book here, just trying to show you something to make a point. One of my chapters in this book is literally called, 27 Ways to Find Incredible Real Estate Deals. I gave you three of them today. There are 24 other ones in this book that you can learn, and that’s not even all of them. New ideas have been invented all the time. Because the more creative you can come up with ideas, the more leads you’re going to get. Yeah, you guys are like, “There’s so many options here.” So, get that leads.

Brandon:
Next one, how are you going to analyze them? How many deals do you analyze? What are you going to use to analyze them? What makes it a good deal? Now we’re going to do that in just a second together, but I just want you to know, how many deals are you can analyze? Set a freaking goal. I’m going to analyze 10 deals every week. I’m going to analyze one deal a day. Somebody tell me, what’s your goal? I’m going to show you in a minute how you can analyze the deal accurately in under five minutes. So, if you knew you could analyze a deal in five minutes, how many every month you can analyze? How many every week? Set a goal for yourself. I’m like five a week. I love that. Two a day. 10 a day. Whoo, we’re crushing it. 20 a week.

Brandon:
Now, if you have leads coming in, and you are analyzing them, and then you are making offers, how many offer you’re going to make this month, in the next, let’s just say this, in the next 90 days? This isn’t the 90 Day Challenge today, I’m going to get to that in a little bit. How many deals are you going to offer in the next 90 days? Somebody tell me. You may be none, that’s fine. You may be still in the education phase of your life. But I just want to know. “250 offers.” That is nuts. That’s awesome. “I want to make one offer.” I love it. “One a week.” That’s great. “Five.” that’s great.

Brandon:
You know what? Some of you are saying, “I don’t have enough money to make an offer.” Can I encourage you on something? Yes, pay close attention here. We’re going to talk about the money here in a second. But remember, every property has a number that makes it a good deal for someone else too. Right? So let’s just say hypothetically, let’s just say you found a property because you did all of these steps, and you can buy that property for $150,000, and it was such an amazing deal. You can find somebody in your area that’s willing to pay 170 for it. You just got it for 150, they want it for 170, you can literally take a $20,000 finder’s fee for no money out of pocket at all, and use that for your down payment on the next property.

Brandon:
And guess what? It didn’t cost anything to do that. That is called the wholesaling. Write that down. Somebody write it in the chat room. Wholesaling. That’s what the wholesaling is. Now, there are legal ways to do it and there are illegal ways to wholesale. Don’t do it illegally, learn how to do it right. You can find out lots of information on BiggerPockets. Thank you for those people who do it. That’s what wholesaling is. So don’t tell me I can’t make offers until I have money. Go make offers and get good at this stuff now so you can make money, so you can get good at it, so you can get confidence, because you know what? If they accept your offer and you don’t know what to do with it, you can still back out, there’s lots of ways to back out of a deal. I want you to get good at making leads, getting analyzing, making offers.

Brandon:
Now, let’s go and do it together right now live on this webinar. I already showed you this property, let’s just do this one in Anchorage because it’s quick and easy. It’s in front of us. I’m going to go to BiggerPockets.com/calc. C-A-L-C, calc. Like calculator. All right, here we go. So, here we go. BiggerPockets has a calculator for our pro members. There’s a Fix & Flip Calculator, a rental property calculator, a BRRRR calculator for properties that are really cold. I’m just kidding. Another joke. That’s a strategy that I use, that is great for no and low money down investing. It’s my favorite, no and low down strategy. Probably. There’s another one I like a lot too. There’s a wholesaling calculator. There’s a Rehab Estimator.

Brandon:
So, I’m going to do the straight rental one here. Is that cool? All right, how many of you guys want rentals by the way? How many of you guys want rentals? Yes, rentals? Okay, let’s go ahead and just run the numbers real quick on this property. So I’m going to put in the address here. There it is. Let’s go ahead and just take the zip code, put it there. I’m going to upload a photo. Let’s just do a quick photo here. Let’s just take a little screenshot of this. Let’s add our photo. There it is. All right, everyone gets to page one. Everyone’s saying I can do this. Say that right now. Say right in the chat room. I can do this. Okay, good. I want you to feel confident on this.

Brandon:
Number two, purchase price. How much? 334, 334 or the 500, 334 or 5. Let’s just start with offering full price. Now, what about the closing costs? “Well, Brandon, I don’t know how to do that. I’ve never done it before, I’m lost. I’m going back to watching Dancing With the Stars. I give up.” No, stick with me for a minute. So, I’m going to show you something. If you hover over these calculating closing costs, here we go. Closing costs. If you don’t know how to do it, click on the blue links. You’re going to learn how to do this as you go through it.

Brandon:
All right, closing costs, let’s just call it five grand for now. I’m going to be rehabbing the property, I’ll be worth 350 when I’m done. I’m going to put 10 grand into some paint carpet. Next, let’s do a 20% down loan, like 4% on a 30 year mortgage. A lot of people are like, “Whoa, slow down, Brandon. I’m not going to.” [inaudible 00:54:30] name was Karen. That’s funny. So, 30 year-term. If you don’t know what this stuff means, trust me, you will learn as you’re going through it. I want to just give you a quick overview because I don’t want to sit here for a half hour explaining every single step, but just trust me, you can do this. Has anybody here ever used the calculators? Do you agree with me you’ll figure it out? Okay. Good. I’ve seen a lot of yeses.

Brandon:
Next, income. What does this property rent for? I’m going to go check out the BPInsights. This is another pro tool we have, you can also go look on Craigslist or talk to a property manager. But this is our data, I’ll show you. So, what was this property? How many bedrooms? Total is six bedrooms. So, each one’s probably a three bedroom, two bath, I’m guessing. So three bedroom, two bath, in this market, what’s it going to rent for? All right, here we go. So, on the low end, 570, and a high end, 1,415. Now that’s a really big range, and that’s probably because there’s not a lot of comps to go by.

Brandon:
So, some are on the very low end, some are on the higher end. So what we want to do here is, I’m going to actually go to this. I’m going to go down here and see if it tells us in the listing. I can see square footage. Whoa, taxes are crazy expensive, $7,000 a year for taxes almost. That’s nuts. We’ll get to that in a minute. All right, well, that’s crazy. All right, let’s just assume at this point, that we’re on the higher end of here, the 1,415 per side, let’s just say we’re at 1,400 per side, times two, equals what? 2800.

Brandon:
All right. Next, expenses. Now, property taxes was $7,000 a year. I wonder if that’s right. I wonder if that’s a misprint on this thing, because that is crazy. Anybody know of … Yeah, I don’t live in Jersey. No, my taxes in Maui are $2,200 a year, and I got a $2 million house. Somebody tell me if that’s normal for Alaska. Let me know. Maybe it is. I’ll go with that. Insurance, probably are going to run me about like 1500 bucks a year, repairs and maintenance are used to go about 5%. Vacancy, maybe 5%, CapEx maybe 5%. Management, maybe 8%, up in Alaska, maybe nine.

Brandon:
Then finally, remember, this unit, they’re separated meters. So, I’m going to go, electricity, zero. Gas, they’ll pay their own. Water and sewer. I’m assuming they’re separated because everything else is, and they can pay their own garbage. That’s it. Let’s go run the numbers and see what it says. Now before I show you, I want to pop up a poll on your screen, and I want to ask you, what do you think? Good deal or bad deal? What do you guys think? Good deal or bad deal? 5, 4, 3, 2. Yeah, Anchorage is one of the highest. Somebody said it’s one of the highest property taxes. That’s crazy. I might not buy in Anchorage for that reason.

Brandon:
All right. Ending the poll. Based on our results, 25% of you thought that was a good deal. 75% thought that was a bad deal. Let’s go find out right now. Here we go. Based on our numbers, it’s not as bad as I thought, monthly cash flow, $442 a month, and that is a 2% return on investment. Do you guys see where I’m getting that at, right here? 2% return and $142 a month. Now, what do I look for? I’ll tell you, I look for minimum base hit. Actually, let me type this on the screen. It’ll look better. For a base hit, I look for $100 per month per unit, and an 8% return. For a home run, I’m looking for $200 per month per unit, and a 12% return. For a grand slam, I’m looking for about [inaudible 00:58:41] the next line down. For a grand slam, I’m looking for more like 300 per month per unit, and more like a 15%.

Brandon:
Those are my rules of thumb. You don’t have to abide by them. It’s different in every market. But guess what? For me, this property doesn’t meet my requirements. So guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to throw my hands in the air and say, “There’s no good deals to be had anymore. I’m going to give up. I’m going to go back to watching Dancing With the Stars.” No, I got a few options. Right? Number one, remember, every property has a market that could make … sorry. Every property has a price that could make it a good deal. So check this out. I can go on here. I’m obsessed with Dancing With the Stars. Maybe I am. Maybe my secret goal in life is to become a guest or one of the dancers on Dancing With the Stars.

Brandon:
I can scroll down and I can lower my purchase price down. What if we paid 255 for this property instead? What if we paid 255, and still did an 80% loan? Well, now we’re at 446 and an 8% return on investment. That’s not bad. Now, are they going to take 250,000 for this when they’re asking 330? I’ve gotten deals that good before. I mean this property though, has only been on the market for one day. Are they going take this out on day one and take an $80,000 price cut? No. What are my options? Well, what if we talked to a property manager, and the property manager says … or what if you knew your market really, really well, and you’re like, “Oh, you guys, this property in this street, is right by, whatever, Microsoft plant, it’ll rent for way more than that. It’ll actually rent for $2,000 a month per side.

Brandon:
Now, the only way you’re going to know that stuff is if you study your market, like we already talked about. Does that make sense? So, if you study your market, you’re going to know the nuances of where are things more, where are less, what if this school district was actually better? So watch this, I go back to my report here. Let’s go back to our purchase price where we were before. All right? Let’s just say like 335, 8O% loan again. But what if our rent was not 2800? What if we could actually get more like 3500 a month total? Does that change the game for us? It does. Now we’re at 669 a month and a 9% return?

Brandon:
Now, what if instead, what if we had to remodel this property? What if we had to put a lot more money into it? But by doing so we can increase the rent. Or what if we could turn … I don’t know, whatever. What if there was a third unit out back, a garage that we could turn into another unit and rent it out for 2000 a month? What if we could do vacation rentals on this property, and make 5,000 a month off each side? What if we could do a house hack and live in one side and rent out the others? There are so many options, you guys. That is why I’m like “There are so many deals to be had.” But the only way you’re going to know that is by jumping in, analyzing and learning and growing and networking and just trying it. You will do this if you want it bad enough. I don’t care what the market’s like, you can find deals.

Brandon:
I’m finding deals today, I bought more properties, more units in the last year than I bought my entire first 14 years combined. Because I’m just getting creative, and I got a team, and we’re analyzing a lot of deals, we’re getting a lot of leads, we’re making a lot of offers. We’re crushing it, because we’re following the exact system I’m teaching you today. I’m not doing anything different in my life that I’m not asking you to do. I’m not asking you to do anything different in your life that I’m not doing in mine right now. I’m just doing it on bigger properties, you can do this stuff.

Brandon:
All right. So, last thing I’ll show here, once you find a number that makes sense, you can click share, you can even go share this directly on the BiggerPockets forums, you can upload a company logo, so you can white label these reports so that your logo’s on it. You can even download a PDF report to show lenders, partners, your spouse. So, all this stuff is super helpful. Again, if you want to make your analysis really easy. Use it. It’s part of the BiggerPockets pro membership. How many of you guys are pro members? And if so, do you find this helpful? Do you love your pro membership? I’m not fishing for compliments here, be honest. Let us know in the chat area and make sure you choose all panelists and attendees, so people will know that I’m not cherry picking things.

Brandon:
All right. That said, let’s move on. So now you got processed. We will talk about pro in just a little bit. Pro membership is amazing. You’ll love it. So, here we go. Next, how are you going to get the money to find this deal? Let’s just say we wanted to buy this property in Anchorage, and we wanted to buy it at, let’s say they accepted our offer for 259,000. So we want to buy this property. We got the higher rent also. We really want to buy this property. However, we’re going to need $66,000. How are we going to do that? How are we going to do that? Well, the short answer is, if you don’t have $66,000, you can’t invest in real estate, you might have to go back to watching the Bachelor. Somebody might get the rose tonight, you might miss it. So, shoo, shoo. Just kidding. Stick with me.

Brandon:
So how do we do it? Let’s talk through this stuff. The money, how are you going to fund your real estate deals? Here’s four ways to do it. Number one, if you have the money for a down payment, like $66,000, you can get a conventional loan. You go to any bank, you put down 20, 25, 30% down, you get the loan. Now if you don’t have that, that’s fine. Let’s get a little bit more creative. One of my favorite strategies when I didn’t have any money was … Actually no, that’s a lie. One of my favorite strategies when I didn’t have money and today when I have money is partnerships. Partnerships.

Brandon:
Here’s my favorite type. The partner brings the down payments. The partner brings the $66,000. You bring what? The deal. You bring the deal. You bring the hustle, you bring the knowledge, you bring the confidence, you bring the sweat, you do whatever you got to do, and they bring the down payment. You go buy the property and you just flip things. In fact, literally that’s what I do. It opened our capital. We raised $20 million in the last year, we’ve raised $20 million from partners. They are literally called limited partners. That $20 million funded the down payments needed to buy $50 million of real estate.

Brandon:
Now, granted, I put money in all my deals, I put money in all my deals, because I want my investors to know that I got skin in the game, but I don’t have to. I can literally do all of that $50 million of purchases with no money down if I want it. That’s part of it. You can do it on … I mean, I’ve done it on duplexes, I’ve done it on single family houses. My split, we give our investors 70%. So I take 30, my investors get 70. Is how our funding operates. Now there’s some more fancy things in there with what’s called waterfalls. We don’t get to that today. But basically, we split.

Brandon:
But when you’re just getting started, you can literally do the same thing, do a 70/30, do a 50/50 with a partner, or you bring half the money, they bring half the money, whatever you got to do to get it done. Strategy number three, it’s one of my other favorite strategies. It’s called the BRRRR strategy. I’m not going to go in depth right now, but where you basically, you buy … it’s like flipping houses but instead of selling it, you hold on to it. It’s a great way to invest in real estate with using other people’s money. My buddy … where is it? Right here. My buddy, David Greene, wrote a book on that as well. It’s called BRRR: Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat. Get it at your local library or Amazon or BiggerPockets bookstore, but it teaches you exactly how to do that.

Brandon:
Then number four, if you’re young and getting started, or even if you’re not young, there’s a great strategy called the house hacking. It’s where you buy a duplex or a triplex or a fourplex, you live in one unit, you rent out the other units. Why is this so powerful? Because you can get a loan for just 3.5% down. Now, listen close here, first of all, I’ve got a book on … Write this one. But Craig Curelop wrote a book called The House Hacking Strategy. It’s all on house hacking. It’s awesome. I think you’ll like it. So check that out.

Brandon:
Again, I’m not just trying to sell books all day. I just want you to know the information’s out there. I wrote a book called Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down. There are over a dozen different strategies in this book. For people who want to use other people’s money to invest. Has anybody read this one? Anybody buy a money idea with no and low money down ever? Let me know if you’ve ever bought a deal with no and low money down? Put it in the chat room. Just say, “I bought one with no and low money down.” I’m just curious. I want to see if anybody did. “Working on one now.” That’s great. Yes [Va Ilana 01:07:33] multiple, low down. You guys are awesome. All right.

Brandon:
So here’s the key though, to all the strategies we’re just talking about, everything. If you want to finance real estate with no and low money down, the key, the crux is getting a great deal. The better deal you have, the more likely you can get a hard money lender or a private lender, or a bank or a portfolio loan or whatever. The better deal you have, the easier it is to finance. So your job should be to focus on landing great deals. Well, it’s too bad, nobody just spent an hour of this webinar teaching you how to find and filter great deals. I think people worry way too much about the money and not enough about the funnel, laps, get leads, analyze them, pursue them, get success. Once you have a deal, you’re going to figure out the money if it’s good enough.

Brandon:
If you want more on that, I did an entire webinar on no and low money down, it’s called my three favorite strategies for buying real estate without a lot of cash. If you’re a pro member, you can watch it. If not, I’ll probably do this webinar again sometime this year. So, hang tight this year, I’ll do it again. But if you want to watch the replays, you got to be a pro member. All right, so finally, the most important step of all, we talked about the purpose, we talked about the plan, we talked about the deal, we talked about the process, we talked about the money, you have everything you need, except for the last thing, if you’re lacking the last thing, you’re not going to make it, and that is, you need motivation, or what I like to say, you need persistence.

Brandon:
Listen, you can know exactly how to lift weights, you can go to the gym, you can get a gym membership, you can learn how to run, you could buy gym shoes, you could get a detailed diet and exercise plan, but if you only do it for a month, you’re not going to get into shape. Fitness is a lifestyle, and the same way real estate is a lifestyle. It is something that you are going to do from now until years from now, and you have to stick with it. If you stick with it long enough, you will get the results that you want. So how do we build? How do you stay persistent for the long haul? Let me tell you three tricks that I use in my life to make sure I don’t pull that crap that I do when I’m trying to start a new diet and give up a month in. Again, I’ve been there, I’ve started things and then given up.

Brandon:
My guess is, right now you’re super excited about this. You’re like, “I love this real estate concept.” And I’m afraid for you. I’m literally afraid that some of you right now are going to be super excited today, and a month from now, you’re going to be back to where you were before, because you’re going to lose the excitement you have right now. I’ve been there, I’ve lost the excitement on a lot of things in life. So how do we stay persistent? Here we go, three ways. Number one, mastermind groups. What are the mastermind group? A mastermind group is a group of three to five people. That’s my ideal, three to five people, that meet regularly to hold each other accountable to their goals.

Brandon:
I’ve been a part of several mastermind groups over the last decade, and they’ve helped me so much because there’s somebody I have to report to every week on a 30 or 60 minute call. And it’s life changing. I’m going to actually show you guys later how you can get in your own mastermind group as well. We have those, now we’re offering them at BiggerPockets, we can put you in groups together. It’s pretty cool. Number two, daily journaling and tracking of your habits and of your goals. Every single morning, I said it earlier, every single morning, I wake up and I do my intention journal, which means I go through every single day and I write down, how many hours did I sleep? What time did I wake up? Did I drink water? What am I grateful for? What are my top three goals that I defined in the beginning of the journal?

Brandon:
I actually defined them early on? What’s my weekly objective for this goal? What is my most important next step that I have to do today to get this goal done? Think about it. If every day you woke up and you said, “What is my goal? What’s my goal for the week to be on track for that? What do I have to do today? If you did that every single day and you put it on your schedule, do you think you’re going to accomplish amazing things in this life? Yes or no? I know you will. I also have a whole section in my journal, again, you don’t have to use my journal. I’m telling you exactly what’s in here if you’d rather just do it on a piece of paper. But I’ve got a habit tracker, I track all the habits that I care about. Am I waking up early? Am I reading a book, a real estate book at least 10 pages? Am I going on a date with my wife? I track my processes, because when you track things they get done?

Brandon:
I spend 30 minutes every Sunday night going through my three goals. Why do I want this goal? What’s my objective for the week? What’s my biggest roadblock? You guys, this has helped me stay persistent and helped me become a multimillionaire, and it can do the same for you. Again, I’m not saying you have to use my journal, I think it’s pretty darn good. I made it for BiggerPockets members, but whatever you do, track your goals, write your stuff down. You’ll love it. Finally, number three, the most expensive option but for people who have extra money, I use a performance coach. My coach, his name is Jason Drees. He’s awesome. D-R-E-E-S, you can find him on Instagram, if you ever want to check him out. He’s a good Instagram [inaudible 01:12:35] follow.

Brandon:
But Jason Drees is my performance coach, and I meet with him every other week. It’s like therapy for real estate. I sit there and I go, “Here’s the problems I’m having. Here’s where I’m struggling.” And he’ll say, “Well, have you ever thought about this? Or here’s another way to look at that.” So, performance coaching can be a great way, but performance coaching is expensive, it’s like 1000 bucks a month. You can spend $12,000 a year on performance coaching, or you can join a mastermind group or a whole lot less. Or get a journal for a whole lot less, or join a pro membership, a whole lot less than $12,000 a year. That is the journey.

Brandon:
You guys, if you have a purpose, and you’ve got your plan, and you got deals coming in, and you got a process, you’re going to follow religiously, and you’ve got the money to finance it because you are good at no and low money down and you stick with this thing for the long haul. Are you going to succeed in the next 90 days? Yes or no? Are you going to succeed this year? If you don’t think you can do it 90 days, it’s fine. You could, I believe every person here could do all six of these steps in 90 days. You can establish in the next 90 days, the habits, the systems, the processes, the education, the knowledge, the network, you can do all of that in the next 90 days. That is the 90 Day Challenge.

Brandon:
You’re basically building yourself into a machine, and it doesn’t take five hours a day, it doesn’t take three hours a day, it doesn’t take two hours a day. I love it. Somebody said only 5% of people here are actually going to do it. You’re 100% right. I don’t know about 5%. But most people in this world, they love talking about stuff. They love getting excited about stuff. They love thinking about starting that diet next Monday, but in reality, they don’t do it. Life gets in the way. I’ve been there. I’ve been there.

Brandon:
So, the 90 Day Challenge is this, complete all six phases of the mastery journey in the next 90 days by working on your business, 15 minutes a day, five days a week, for 90 days. Work on your business, 15 minutes a day, five days a week for the next 90 days. That’s what’s going to give you success. I’m not saying I’m guaranteeing you’re going to buy property in the next 90 days, though many of you will. I’m just saying if you work at it, every single day. This is the diet and exercise for a real estate investor.

Brandon:
Remember this. Life doesn’t get better by chance it gets better by change. If you want your life to be different, if you want to have that financial freedom, if you want to watch your kids grow up, if you want to break the cycle of poverty that your families had for generations, if you want to sleep in in the morning, if you want to quit your job, if you want to travel more, if you want to just wrestle on the floor with your kid, and have a private ju-jitsu instructor come over three times a week. If you want any of that stuff, it’s not going to happen by accident. Wealth is not an accident, wealth is an action, you can quote me on that. That’s one of my few clever sayings.

Brandon:
Wealth is not an accident, it’s an action. It’s what you do. It’s what you change in your life. But the thing that stops so many people, is fear, they get all excited. And then the actual, the reality of the process sets in and they don’t do it, they feel like they’re jumping off a cliff. But this is not what real estate is, you are not free falling off a cliff, you are on a journey, you’re on a hike, you are on a path. The cool thing is, you guys, is that you’re not alone. We’re all on this together, hiking. All right, I might be a little further ahead than some of you, and some of you might be way further ahead than me, but it doesn’t matter. BiggerPockets is a group of friends that are all doing this together, and our goal is to help each other.

Brandon:
You guys, this is not a zero-sum game, I can help you, you can help me. We can do this thing together. And all of us collectively have a better, more abundant life that we were meant to live, that we were put on this earth to live. But the sad thing is, most people would rather sit on the side of the path and complain about their life, and complain about the cost, and complain about the sacrifice, and turn on the Dancing With the Stars, and not pay for a pro membership. Or they don’t want to put in a 1000 bucks for earnest money, they don’t want to hire a personal trainer, they don’t want to get a gym membership, they don’t want to do anything, because at their core, they’re actually afraid.

Brandon:
So if there’s one thing you take from today’s webinar, it’s remember this is a journey, this is the height that we’re all walking together. And everything we do at BiggerPockets is designed to get you further along that journey. Every tool we build, every networking event we host, every video we create, every book we publish, is designed to get you there. Specifically, I want you to know that, everything I do, everything is determined to get you there, because I know what it was like to be before, to have that job I didn’t like, to not spend time with my loved ones. To be wondering, “Is this really what the next 40 years of my life has to look like?”

Brandon:
And now I know what it’s like on the other side, living where I want to, spending all the time I want with my family, and sleeping in when I want, but waking up early, because I’m passionate about what I do, and I want everyone to walk that journey as well. So, here’s a couple of big questions that I kind of begin to wrap things up. Number one, are you guys fired up? Are you committed to using real estate investing to obtain your financial freedom? Yes or no? Yes or no? I want to see like a 1000 yeses in the chat room right now. Because this is life changing stuff, and if it’s no, fine, say no. Be honest with yourself. Self awareness matters so much.

Brandon:
Number two, are you going to take on that 90 Day Challenge? Will you work on your business, 15 minutes a day, five days a week for the next 90 days? Yes or no? Will you work on your business 15 minutes a day, five days a week for the next 90 days? I’m seeing a lot of yeses in there. I love it. You guys are awesome. Just remember this. Derek Severs once said, “If more information was the answer, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.” You all know how to get a six pack, you will know how to lose weight, you all know how to get financially free. The question is not knowledge, knowledge is not power.

Brandon:
I think Darren Hardy said this in the Compound Effect. Knowledge is not power, knowledge is potential power. So what is the key to success? What does it actually take? What do you need to do? Action. Some people apply the things they learned to their life, and other people just keep talking about it while they’re watching the Dancing With the Stars every night. Even more importantly, action is daily consistent action. You see the difference there?

Brandon:
You go to the gym on a Monday and then go back for three months, that ain’t going to do anything. But if you went three times a week, five times a week, seven times a week, you’re going to see the results you want, because it’s daily consistent action that is going to get you there. I just laid out, over the last hour and 15 minutes, everything you need to do to take action on, so you can get the results that you want. I’m not hiding anything behind a paywall here, this is what it is, and you can get there. That’s it guys. That’s the end of today’s webinar. I hope you do the 90 Day Challenge. I hope you take this stuff seriously. I hope you run with it.

Outro:
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