Going All Out to Secure Deal No. 1 (For Sale By Owner!) with Tim Goutos

Ashley:
Tim, welcome to the show and thank you for joining us. Can you tell everyone a little about yourself?

Tim:
Oh, thanks for having me here, guys. This is fun. This is my first time ever doing something like this. A little bit about myself. I am 28 years old. I live in Upstate’s, but Eastern New York. Compared to you, Ashley, I know you’re out in the Buffalo area. yeah, for those listening, there’s more than New York than just the city. a lot of people don’t know that. Even Americans. so take a look at a map after this, but I’m over by Vermont and a place called Lake George. it’s a tourist town, so the economy and just everything kind of revolves around the smer season here. I enjoy things like traveling, skateboarding, sports, all that type of stuff. And of course I’m here now because I’m trying to dip my toe or jp straight into a real estate. So it’s good to be here.

Felipe:
Oh man. Thank you so much, man. That’s awesome. I can’t wait to dig into all of that, especially skateboarding and traveling now. There’s some great stories coming out, but let’s get started. How did you get into real estate? you talk about traveling and doing all these outside stuff and like all this, all this fun jazz that you do, but how did, how does that come into real estate?

Tim:
Sure. So, one of the things about this town that I live in is very seasonal. There’s only about a hundred days to make any money here between Memorial day and labor day. So anybody who’s ever been to the Jersey shore or the Cape or any other seasonal town, or if you’ve ever been to Lake George, you may know if you come here in the off season, everything’s closed, which means nobody’s really making any money. The other, eight or nine months out of the year, myself included, a lot of people here have small businesses or they work for their uncle’s pizza shop or their mom and pop shop, et cetera. And I’m no exception to that. So, in the past I have, spent my winters traveling, just to do something fun cause I didn’t know how to make any money the other times of the year.

Tim:
But now that I’m a little bit older and I’m starting to think, well, yeah, I should be making money of course, as much as I can. But also during times when I traditionally can’t. and real estate is starting to, was starting to peak my interest. It was in the last year in 2019 because, when I would go travel for four or five or six months, I would just kind of watch my bank account go down lower and lower and lower and lower. And, and then as soon as I would get back, April 15th or May 1st, it would be right around zero. So it was time to make some money again. And it was just the cycle that I’ve been doing for the last eight years. And it’s been good and so far so good, but I didn’t have too much to show for it except for a full passport.

Tim:
So, you guys may know, it’s, it’s sometimes difficult if you, are used to being your own boss or used to kind of, setting your own hours or, or your own schedule. the last thing I wanted to do was, get a, a regular w two job and there’s nothing wrong with that of course, but it just wasn’t what I was used to or wasn’t really even what I wanted to do. It would almost feel like a career change to me. Even if I was at people. My customers always ask me on my boat, they say, Oh, do you go down to Florida in the winter to go be a captain too? And, and I say like, Oh, it sounds kind of cool, but I don’t want to necessarily work for somebody else or, or even do the same thing, 365 days out of the year, or 50 52 weeks. So real estate peak my interest for a lot of reasons because you are essentially your own boss. You’re making money year-round, hopefully if you find the right deal and do it right. And then of course, the classic example of making money while you sleep. When I wasn’t making any money while I was sleeping, even when I was working in the smer. So seemed to be a lot of reasons why it piqued my interest that was included in and some more as well.

Ashley:
So is it safe to say that you were looking for a passive revenue so you could still continue your, your winter lifestyle traveling and not being tied down?

Tim:
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. , real estate if done right as I understand it, certainly does require some work and, and you to be present sometimes, but it’s again, nothing like my regular job or a normal w two job. You don’t have to clock in or physically show up nine times out of 10 or even most of the time in general. So, myself, my own example is, yeah, I like to travel. I like to take off and go, go to the, go to the other side of the world for a couple of months at a time. And this might be the only way I know that I could start making, some money right away in the beginning. And then hopefully longterm, continue that as well. That’s amazing. So you started on a boat, which is great, right? I’m assing either you grew up, you grew up knowing or learning how to do that, but when it comes to real estate, did you end up educating yourself?

Tim:
Did you pick up a book? Did you have a mentor? How did you get a, start self-educating? Yeah, yeah. So quickly as far as the boat goes, like the joke around here is, people learn how to boat before they learn how to drive a car. And I was telling you briefly, early Felipe, like I would use to take my boat when I was, you could get your boaters license at 10 years old in New York state. So when I was 10 11 I would just take my boat or my parents put to go across the Lake to visit my friends rather than have my mom drive me all the way around the Lake. Particularly half an hour. Yeah. New York state. Yeah. I don’t know what it’s like in Tennessee, but you can get your motor’s license and time by yourself when you’re 10.

Ashley:
Yeah. Hey, nice.

Tim:
So, so yeah. So yeah, boarding aside, , growing up with that, that was great. But yeah, I didn’t have really too much, at least recently, hands on a, have a relationship with real estate. And my father back in the day, he did have some apartments and some, some single family homes that he rented out, but unfortunately it all kind of went down Hill 2008, 2009, everything kind of went downhill back then. And yeah, he’s not doing it anymore. Long story short, like, he’s okay and everybody’s fine, but, I had to, kind of teach myself and, and make it happen, one way or another. So, through bigger pockets, podcast and, I’ve listened to, over a hundred of them and through YouTube and just books, audio books, all that fun stuff. you can, you can teach yourself anything of course. But I, I feel like I can can talk about real estate comfortably. Of course doing, it’s the other part, which I’m making happen now. But yeah, you can teach yourself and I did. So, yeah, it’s not that hard.

Ashley:
I have to ask, how did that not scare you that your dad kinda had his investment portfolio wiped out and here you are wanting to do that. Yeah. Good, good question. Main story. That’s the main story we hear Tim, right? That’s where we hear like, Oh well my uncle got into real estate or my dad got into real estate or my brother got into real estate and I saw them crash and burn. So real estate is terrible. Don’t do it. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Like Ashley said, how did you get over that fear?

Tim:
Yeah, and I mean, my dad will be the first to tell you that, he, he probably was a little overleveraged or maybe, kind of put too many of his eggs into one basket at the time. But then again, who could have predicted what was going to happen. I mean, when it happened to happen fast and , everybody kinda got caught. not everybody, but certainly a lot of people who didn’t necessarily do something wrong, but there are obviously important lessons that can be learned from what happened back then. And there are tighter regulations now, that hopefully are preventing the same thing from happening. And certainly, I mean, I remember like I was, I was, 16, 17, 18 back then, like, I remember it was tough. I mean, for everybody. , my friends, my family specifically, there were tough times, knowing that unemployment rate was 10% or more and everybody was losing their, their, their hat.

Tim:
But, I knew that if done right with, a little bit of some precautions kind of built into it and, learning from a couple of mistakes that some people made a couple of misfortunes that some people had. It was a combination of a lot of things. But I think there’s lessons to be learned. And that being said, there are also lots of people who didn’t lose everything back then who again were maybe lucky or, or anticipated it or had already been through something like that decades before, who also who equally didn’t have the end of the world, be upon them during that time. So it could go either way, but with some knowledge and a little bit of experience think it, it didn’t scare me. I just knew that I had to be a little bit more careful. Maybe

Ashley:
what are, do you have a couple tips that you could give everyone just a what you’re doing to protect your portfolio? Like you had mentioned your dad maybe was a little over leveraged, do you have a couple tips of things you’re doing now in case there is another crash?

Tim:
Sure. So, full disclosure, cause we haven’t mentioned it yet, I’m just about to hopefully close on my first duplex. it’s under contract and lending, it’s all taken care of, which is great. But one thing that I did was rather than try to put as little money down, which don’t get me wrong, is a, a viable, method, especially sometimes in the beginning or even later on, but I put 20% down on this loan. , it’s conventional. I didn’t want to have to deal with mortgage insurance, which again isn’t always a bad thing. you can use it to your advantage. There are pros and cons, a low money down versus, the traditional 20%. But anyways, from my end as to do what for my first property and who knows what’s going to happen six months or a year from now.

Tim:
It’s, it’s an election year and everyone’s talking about the economy of course, because we’ve been doing so well cause I for the last week, I put 20% down so that way I would have almost have like a bit of an anchor or, or a bit of a, a foundation so to speak, that, could, couldn’t really be swept out from underneath me so easily. I happen to think that if you only put three and a half percent down, like on an FHA loan or three or 5% down on a conventional loan, that’s great. It can get your foot in the door, but you’re not, you don’t really have a grasp necessarily, on, on that property. And maybe that loan could be called easily or it could just be taken out from underneath you. And especially, your payments will then be higher.

Tim:
Of course, basic math will tell you if, if you’ve got a vacancy for longer than you expected, if the economy goes down and the job market crashes, that could, that could be hard. So I said, what, I’ve got some money now. I’ve been saving lately. I’m, I’m okay right now. I’m going to put a full 20% in right now to lower my, my mortgage and my monthly payments. So, if I do have more vacancies than I expect, or unexpected, cap backs and things like that, I can, on a month to month basis, not have to pay X amount of hundred, hundreds of dollars more each month. right off the bat, of course it’s a, it’s a tough bullet to bite in the beginning, putting a full 20% down. But my plan would be, hopefully in a year if I can save more money or if I have a good season with my other job, buy another property and then gauge it from there. Maybe I’ll only put five or 10% down on my next one, but then at least I know I’ve got this one that’s already got over 20% and then maybe I might be able to take a a he lock out on the home equity line of credit on this one after I build even more. Oh look at that. Yeah. Someone’s a fan to have that to fall back on to. Yeah. Okay. That sounds good.

Tim:
Absolutely. so, so yeah, tell, I mean that’s, it’s crazy because I use the same concept. What I like to do is, is the same thing. I put 20% down in all my properties and I know that’s

Felipe:
typical. That’s not sexy if you will. Most of you are like, Oh, how do I put the least amount of money down? So I tried to stay a little bit away from those conversations cause I do the same thing to him. I put 20% down and most if not all of my rental properties, and when I get to about 40% 35 40% I get a line of credit on it. And that’s how I, and that’s how I buy the next property instead of refinancing. Right. I actually like that strategy better because like you said, it’s a little bit more hedge against a correction or a recession, right? I mean, you have like 25, 30% down as soon as you buy the property. so that, so like I said, the economy would have to drop that much in that city before you’re even flatline, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley:
And for those listening who don’t know what a HELOC is, it’s a home equity line of credit. So basically you get, a certain amount of money that you can pull off. and usually it’s interest only payments until you pay it back. And that’s, added on top of your mortgage. So say you have a house valued at $100,000 in your mortgage is $40,000. They may like let you take, another 20, $25,000 that line of credit to have, depending on the bank, your credit score, all of that. But just the, that’s how I buy Philippe buys and that’s how Tim wants to buy is using these line of credits. So you’re taking the cash from there, pulling it off, making the purchase a cash purchase or as flea be dead, using that as your 20% and then you’re going back and paying it off.

Felipe:
And then I’m assuming Tim, because what I do is I use the cash flow from the rental property that I just purchased. [inaudible] pay off the line of credit, rinse, wash, repeat. Is that kind of before, before we can do your deal analysis and we’re going to hear about all that, but does that, I’m assuming that’s what you do, right?

Tim:
That that would be, that that would be my plan. , fingers crossed if everything goes well and if I’ve got everything, kind of, I guess the way to put it is like, you said, a rinse, wash, wash, wash, repeat, everything kind of feeds into itself and hopefully by the time you’re on your second, third, fourth property, it’s kind of feeding itself. And then, yeah, you put that initial 20% down out of your pocket. But if I, if I’m thinking correctly, you’re going to take the 20% in the form of that home equity line of credit from the one property that you have the equity in. And you can use that essentially as cash to use as a down payment on the next one. And maybe if the next properties cost two or three times more than you meet the other part of that down payment with your own cash out of your pocket.

Tim:
But, if you’ve got a cash flowing property already or your, your, your second one will be cash flowing as well. It can pay off itself. And it’s almost like, yeah, you have to put your own money in at first and continuously here and there, but it becomes its own business if you do everything right and you can almost kind of step back and you look at the numbers, if you’re a visual person, it’s, this is feeding this, which is paying this off. And then a little bit trickles down to your bank account, but then it feeds itself again and then your event’s coming in from here and it’s, it could be a powerful thing that way. And we talked about being overleveraged earlier, which I guess is the opposite. And, and again, not necessarily a bad thing, but it could be a little tougher when your interest rates are higher or you have less equity and it’s not, you don’t have a lot of skin in the game so to speak.

Tim:
So yeah, that’s the idea. I guess that’s, that’s exactly what our listeners need to hear. Strategies that you can use and overcoming the are so many talked about others so that that’s, that’s perfect. That’s what, that’s what we definitely love to do. And so before we go on here, you do have the property in mind that you want to talk about, right? Certainly, yes. I’m, it’s, it’s under contract. Hopefully due to close by the end of this month. the lending is pretty much squared away at this point. it’s right down the road. I can almost see it from here. So to speak. it’s, it’s a, I got into mind, I seen that person that been there, I checked it out, the docents are signed. It’s, it’s almost as real as it can get before I actually get the keys in my hand, so to speak.

Tim:
Of course. Who knows what could happen on closing day. We’ve all heard stories, but yeah, it’s, it’s ma, I’m making it happen. Well let’s, let’s dig into it a little more. So, or how did you find it? What is it? I mean, give us the story on this rental property. You’re short into the nitty gritty man. Sure. So, the, the way I found this property was, at the end of my last summer season, September, suddenly I didn’t have to work, all day every day anymore. So I was looking on Zillow and I was looking on realtor.com and trying to find listings, sorting all the stuff for free. Just go on those websites and just sort by multifamily if that’s what you’re looking for, you, whatever criteria you need. And, I was, I found a few there.

Tim:
There are, there were some multi-families in the area, but, I kind of dragged my feet a little bit. I was tiptoeing around, I was still, thinking about it and next to, offers are being put on them and not missing out on ’em. So I said, what, maybe now’s not the right time. So I did what anybody would do and I bought a one way ticket to the Republic of Georgia and then took off for six months. , that was my plan at least. I said, I’ll figure this out in the spring. But anyways, fast forward a month or two later and , right in buses and trains out there and Azerbaijan and Turkey and I started downloading a bunch of podcasts when bigger pockets and other real estate podcasts out there, cause you’re on this bus and the one you rode for two, four, six, eight hours sometimes, it’s kinda tough when you’re looking over the edge and there’s like literally a cliff right there.

Tim:
So I need something to keep my mind busy. So I started listening to podcasts. I know your guys’ voices. It sounds funny and, and kind of creepy to say, but I’ve heard you guys on, on the podcast yourself. And I’m senior, so that’s good. and, and so I, so I said, what, like this wasn’t all just, it wasn’t just a possibility back then. Like I can make it a reality. Like I’m listening to these other people just like you guys. What’s the big difference between you or me or anybody else who’s listening? I mean, we’re all

Ashley:
exactly, it’s like, it’s that aha moment. If w if you’re doing it, why can’t, and that was the same for

Ashley:
me with the investor I was working for was he can do it. Why can’t I? And I think that’s such a powerful message and that’s a powerful why as to if you look at the people doing it and listen to them, that you’re right. There’s nothing special about them. It’s just that they put what they were learning into action. They took that first step.

Tim:
I think you’re right. You’re right when you say that. so anyways, long story short, there’s only so much progress you can make when you’re, staying at a $10 hostile Linda stand bull or when you’re, 12 hours time difference and all that. So I said, what, I’m coming home, I’m gonna, I’m gonna hit the ground running, so to speak, and, and, and make it happen in person. So anyways, yeah, I flew back home from Egypt, in, in January, and literally the first thing I did the next morning was I jumped in the car and, and I said, there’s, there’s gotta be some properties around here that I’m, it’s winter, it’s the dead of winter, upstate New York is, it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s a Tundra. Nobody’s coming or going like it’s, there’s not much going on, but I said, there’s gotta be something for sale.

Tim:
It’s, either off the market or not listed or for sale by owner or that I was like, I’m going to start talking to the mailman. I’m going to go to the post office, I’m going to talk to the nice people at the town. these are small towns where I live, by the way, only a couple thousand people max who live in these towns. So you talk to the butcher, like literally you were a few, walk into the diner and start asking around like, somebody’s going to know somebody who might be trying to sell something, but,

Ashley:
so what kind of, what kind of questions did you ask them then? Just, Hey, do like the mailman to, Hey, are you taking mail to any vacant houses or,

Tim:
yeah, though I, luckily I found one, pretty quickly just driving on my own, but like I had a list of questions ready to go. I was, you ever see the movie up in the beginning when the, the little boy scout knocks on the door and he’s like reading the list. He’s like, good afternoon sir. I am a little bit, I felt like I was going to be like that, but I had the list kind of written out and I would have asked things like, Hey, you live around here writer, you first just gotta establish, the fact you, you don’t want to make the mistake of talking to the random guy driving through town just sitting at the diner. Cause that would just be a waste everybody’s time. But you just say like, Hey, are you from around here?

Tim:
And then of course I would have just within the first minute just segued into like, Hey, I’m, when you say it out loud, I’m a real estate investor and like I have a distinct memory in my mind. The first time I actually said that out loud, even though I really wasn’t yet. Like they don’t know, what do you got to lose? it was easier to talk to a stranger about it than it would’ve been to tell like my friends or family. Cause then they would’ve been like, well, what do you mean to realize the real estate industry? I didn’t know this about you. Everyone else believe you. So, so I said like, Hey, I’m a real estate investor. I’m looking to buy multifamily property. I knew what I wanted. That’s the other [inaudible]

Ashley:
you’re putting it out into the universe. I know Felipe’s a big believer about that, right? Felipe? Putting stuff out into the universe and

Felipe:
yeah, I wrote that down, Tim. there’s power in words and to all our listeners, what you just said is key man. Where you were like, I just started telling people that I was a real estate investor. just whether you are or you’re not, there is power saying, Hey, I’m

Tim:
a real estate investor. I’m going to do this. And the more you say it, the more even you yourself believe it, ? I would say it more for myself even. And for the person I was listening, right? Yeah. No, you’re right. I mean, I think everybody kind of knows this. if you go going, if you start going to the gym, if you tell everybody that you’re go into the gym, you’re more likely to keep going. And then you, then it just becomes a kind of a self fulfilling cycle. People start asking you about it like, Hey, how’s the gym going? Or Hey, how’s real estate going? And next thing you’ve got people well meaning people who care about you or even strangers who are asking you and then it just, it becomes a reality. So anyways, long story short, I kind of knew what I was looking for.

Tim:
I had done some research by, again listening to podcasts and reading all sorts of articles, watching videos, and I could kind of talk the talk and now I was transitioning into walking the walk, so to speak, which is a, it’s a bit of a leap at first, but even the first part, just even learning how to learning what he lock is, and you can read it a hundred times and you can define it, even maybe put it until you can explain to somebody else, that that’s usually a test of if you actually know what you’re talking about. Right. So, anyways, I ended up driving around town and I, and I, and I went down every side street roads. I never even saw in this town called Warrensburg, just up the road from Lake George. and normally just drive through it on my way to go skiing.

Tim:
But I said, what, if, if I’m going to do something I never have, I’ve got to go check out some places that I’ve never seen before. You got it. You got to do things that you’ve never done. If you want to get what didn’t, you’d never had, right. I think the Coke or something like that. Right? Yeah, paraphrase that. So, so anyways, I, I checked out every single side street in that town and I couldn’t find anything. And then I just kind of pulled over on the main street side of the road and I was looking at my window and low and behold on main street, if I just drove to go skiing, I would’ve seen, if I did what I normally did that time I would’ve seen it. There was a for sale by owner sign in front of this house.

Tim:
I said, Oh my God, it looks like a duplex. It is a duplex and I, and w and, and there was a website on, on the sign, there’s Adirondack for sale by owner Adirondack is the name of the state park here where we live. and, and I, I had my, I put my phone out and went to the website and found it and it’s like, okay, the addresses match, this is it. Oh man, it’s 2000 square. I learned a bunch of stuff about it while looking at it and I was like, okay, it’s 2000 square feet. It’s a duplex. The downstairs, I’ve recently been renovated. I’m looking at it, it’s got a slate roof. It looks like it was, it was built in 1920 and all of a sudden I, I know all this stuff about this property and there’s a phone nber there and I said, I’m going to call this person.

Tim:
So I called right away and 10 minutes later after speaking to their assistant, turns out the owner was a lawyer. he called me back cause he had been in a meeting, I guess, and I had a 25 minute conversation on the phone with this guy and I, by then I had already known like all types of questions that I would have needed to ask at that point. I was asking questions about the heating, air conditioning, all the stuff that you learn. If you listen to enough podcasts and do enough research, you, what to ask. what, all these other real estate pros or Joe’s are, are asking. So I just kind of fired off a list of things that I know everybody else asks. And, and he picked up right away like, Oh, this guy kind of knows what he’s about. A little did he know? I really didn’t, but he answered all my questions. He was nice to know. I mean, he wants to sell it, right? So what is it going to do? Like not listen to you and not call you back. So it’s like, well he wouldn’t have called me first. He didn’t know I was looking. So I had to make that first step and next thing as best forward I, I saw the property and, and hopefully going to own it in the next four weeks.

Ashley:
Now when you were talking to him, did he add any value to you? Just talking with another real estate investor where there’s, just in that 25 minute conversation, things that he might have, recommended to you or said to you that just resonated from interacting with another investor?

Tim:
Well, it turns out that he’s, , of course, I don’t know for a fact, but he, he’s in his sixties he’s a lawyer. It seems like he’s kind of getting ready to retire. So here’s, here I am attempting to kind of start my, my real estate, passive investment career and he’s kind of at the tail end try, he T mentioned is trying to sell off some of his other properties as well. So we were kind of two opposites, but we both kind of had with the other person wanted so to speak. And he almost, he kind of knew what the next question I was going to ask going down the line before I even finished it, he said, well now that I told you that told you about the electrical and now I should tell you about the plumbing.

Tim:
Like he knew what I was going to ask. So, if you’re the type of person who’s looking to buy a house from a home owner, but you’ve never been a homeowner before, or if you’re looking to buy a property from an investment owner, they know how it goes. They already are in that position. And this, by the way, this is the first home or anything that I’m buying. So it’s kind of, some people listening right now might already be a homeowner. You probably already know way more than I do. the different types of heating and cooling systems, the pros and cons. Some I didn’t even know what a, a forced air oil furnace was until I saw that, saw the one there for the first time, and then I had to quickly, figure out how they work. so you probably know a little bit more than you think if you’re listening to this, especially, me just being a single guy who doesn’t even have his own place yet. So it’s not that hard to, to yeah, talk the talk. I guess I keep saying

Ashley:
now did you, I want to make sure that you told him when he’s ready to sell his other properties is going to come to you first. Right?

Tim:
Yeah. Well he, he knows, I told him, I said, I said to him, I said, this is the start of hopefully a, a career of mine that , a side career so to speak, side gig that I’m trying to make happen, and, and I do know the other properties that he, that he might be selling or will be selling. So yeah, hopefully he does call me that.

Felipe:
You’re right. Yeah. Let me, let me ask you the question that I can imagine that our listeners want to know. Okay. When you initially were going to call this gentlemen, you haven’t said no idea that caliber who this guy was, how did you hype yourself up to call him? Because a lot of people, that is one of their biggest fears and past that is what you wanted. That’s a, there’s a, there’s a fun quote there somewhere. There’s, I’m sure that what you want is on the other side of fear. I’m sure there’s a court, but seriously, like I feel like a lot of people would be scared to make that phone call, including myself. Right. It’s like, do anything about the guy? You’re literally just cold calling this guy and saying,

Tim:
can I buy your property? So tell us about that. Yeah, so I’ll be honest and, and nobody will know this, but when I drive around, even in general and I’m just driving around by myself and a lot of people sitting or sitting in the shower, I talked to myself out loud or I pretend I’m talking to somebody and it can be even, a difficult conversation that I know I have to have with a friend or a family member or it could be anything. I kind of just talk out loud when I’m by myself when I’m driving, I do well. Yeah, to be honest on my way here I was absolutely. So if you are worried about putting it out in the universe, saying things out loud, maybe the first time that you say these words shouldn’t be directly to the person who you are already possibly even a little nervous about talking to or potentially talking to.

Tim:
So yeah, if you’re, a lot of us, have time to ourselves, hopefully during the day at one point and the other go for a walk, drive every car, whatever, just a, just talk out loud and just pretend you’re having a fake conversation. That way, you’re, your own voice doesn’t kind of scare you when you first pick up the phone. And, we’ve all been there like, I guess what I, some other points that I should make are, is that, I was polite. I spoke clearly and calmly and I just said, Hey, good afternoon, I introduced my, it’s, it’s, it’s, what’d you learn like in kindergarten when you learn how to write a letter, dear Mr dermato like you just, you just start with the basics, , people, people’s phones are ringing off the hook these days with telemarketers and people trying to sell them stuff.

Tim:
So if you just say like, Hey, my name’s Tim Goutos, I’m from Lake George and I understand you have a property for sale. I’m actually sitting out in front of it right now. I was wondering if you had some time right now to tell me a little bit about it. And that’s actually a good thing that I’ve learned through my, through my jobs and through being, an entrepreneur in general is you should introduce yourself, tell them what you want to talk about and ask them if they have time to speak all within the first like seven seconds in the first breath. That way. It’s not like, like yes, the ball’s in their court because it’s their time to speak, but it’s not just like a, Hey, how are you doing? Like can you tell me right now all about your property and who knows?

Tim:
They might, they might be holding a baby, they might have a client on the other line or in front of them right there. They might be stepping out of the office, I’m going to do their lunch break. And you don’t want it to be a confrontational first conversation you have with that person. It’s supposed to be, a just an inquiry, of course then their response could be a number of things like, Hey Tim, like I’m happy you called and I can’t speak right now. How about we talk in two hours or actually I do have 10 minutes. Is that okay? if you just in your first breath, pass the ball to them but don’t make them feel like they need to them. Kinda like carry the conversation and make a difficult decision right then and there. Cause they don’t know who you are even though you, you just kind of told them real quick.

Tim:
They, they might, they might tell you any number of things, but you just don’t want to come off as aggressive. Fleabane in the first couple seconds I guess. Or even accidentally aggressive or just, confused. You just gotta be confident and just be respectful right out of the gate. And, and if they are, you could, might even be able to learn a little bit about them, how they respond, if they might even be somebody you want to work with, if they just sound like they’re already annoyed. And it’s like, well if they were annoyed, it’s like well why do you have that signup? Why do you want to sell it if you’re not even willing to talk to somebody who’s going to call? So they already put all the effort in by hopefully putting the sign up and putting their phone nber out there. They shouldn’t be annoyed or upset or angry or aggressive towards somebody out of the blue calling them cause that’s what they’re asking for in the first place.

Tim:
that makes a lot of sense. I feel like one of the things that I like to do when I make a cold call is I make sure that I smile when I’m talking to them. I don’t know why that comes across. Right. I should’ve said that. And I was thinking that earlier and I, and that’s what I do on purpose cause I speak to F on the phone with clients all the time. [inaudible] for those of you who are listening and if you’ve ever worked in customer service or anything like that, when you’re on the phone with people, they’ll teach you this, like in the first day, like if you, if you literally smile, I mean you, it sounds like, you might be laughing to yourself like by yourself on the phone, but if you’re physically are smiling like this, like people can hear that and, and it’s just kind of a cue that you are aggressive, but as opposed to like if you were kind of slouched down or like laying down or like your body language and what’d you do with your body directly can be conveyed through your words.

Tim:
, especially even if you can see them. of course we, we can see each other right now in this podcast, but when you call somebody out of the blue, they can’t see you. You can’t see them. So if you’re smiling, it’ll, it’ll come off as better.

Ashley:
I think this is such a great Tim, you’re actually giving people kind of a script to follow here when they are going to call someone and that that’s very valuable. But I as a landlord when I’ve listed apartments for rent and I have people just like message me saying price question Mark or just something like that. I definitely look at the people more who are hi, my name is. Even though on their email addresses basically their name, I ha I’m looking for this place for my mother and kind of introduce themselves just like you said. And I think to me those people stand out to me than someone who just like dogs. Okay. Question Mark. and I think that kind of relates to when you want to be the buyer to a seller, how you should interact with them too. Those are really great points.

Tim:
I agree. I agree with that. Just send like one word with a question Mark. I’m just going to happen. Right? You, you only really want to deal with somebody who’s putting in some effort themselves already and instead the email, I know it’s not that hard. So just to get back on track with the deal analysis that we’re going to see. Yes. What estimated numbers do you have? I mean, what’s the rehab look like? Like what’s the rent? Is it like in that tower, how did you find those numbers? Yeah, give us the nbers on the property. Great. Let me, let me try to go through everything that I can think of off the top of my head. So the property, I’m purchasing it for $112,500 I’m again, I’m putting 20% down on it. And with closing costs, estimating around, 26 $27,000 including, 500 $600 appraisal.

Tim:
That’s by the way out of your pocket. right away that you kind of have to pay in cash. You can’t have some other things. Sometimes you can finance in some closing costs, with seller concessions. But in this case, I’m not, but anyways, so 26, $27,000 kind of a to get my foot in, so to speak. and again, a lot of that is by designed to have some equity right, right away. the downstairs and it was a two unit, by the way. I don’t know if I’m, it’s a duplex gap. So the downstairs is currently rented for $660 per month. I was recently renovated by the current owner about a year and a half ago. The upstairs is currently rented for $595 a month, and they’re both in longterm tenants, at least a couple of years upstairs. Tenant might have already been there for six or seven years.

Tim:
The seller, he, he’s, he knows what he’s doing. He switched them to month to month leases when you put it on the market, of course, to give more options to potential buyers. so, so I, I know that this property is inhabited right now. That’s, that’s one thing, I don’t know for my first deal if I would’ve been comfortable buying a foreclosed property or a place that no one had even turned the water on or the electricity hasn’t been on in six or 10 months. Like yeah, there can be deals out there to be found and I am excited maybe down the road when I have more experience at tackle one of those. But I don’t know if I wanted to deal with that type of stuff right away. So I know people that are living in it right now, clearly it’s in decent enough shape.

Tim:
, let’s see. Proper green school taxes altogether for the four year are about $3,000. although in New York States, we do have something called an star program, which is like a credit that if you are living in that property as your primary residence, which by the way I will be doing this is going to be an owner occupied house hack. Again, if you want to follow along with all those different terms. Anyways, long story short, you should be able to get a a few hundred dollars, maybe back on your school taxes, if I’m not mistaken. for if you, if you live in that property, which you wouldn’t be entitled to if it was just an investment property that you weren’t living in. So I could expect to hopefully get that number maybe down to 27, $2,800 a month. I started, it’s, by the way, all this stuff is free to look, look up.

Tim:
You can just go, you can just talk to the town or the County, the tax assessor and mr job, that’s why you pay your taxes is for them to, keep the, all these public records. So I called them up and I was like, Hey, one, two, three main streets. what’s the, assessed value? how long has the title been in the current owner’s name? So I can find out when the last time it was sold. with the tax assessed value, what is the tax rate? And then how is that broken down into County tax, school tax, fire tax, all the different taxes. And then it’s just a simple mathematical equation. they usually give you this number, 10, 15, 20, $30 depending on where you’re from, times every thousand dollars, that the property is assessed that. And then next thing exactly what the taxes are.

Tim:
, Texas of course are complicated as you want to make them, but it’s not that hard to, to figure some of these numbers out. And, and on that same note, I just went online to, Allstate and state farm and, and all these other homeowners insurance websites and they, it’s in their best interest to give you free quotes because they want to earn your business. I just started typing in all the information that I found out or knew about this property from the public record and from talking to the owner to get home insurance quotes. So it looks like it might be anywhere between 70 and $80 a month for homeowners insurance. Again, considering the, I will be living there, that that there’s a tenant, the, the, the, they ask you a question for those of you who’s never, never been down that road before, it asks you questions like what’s the finishing on the floors and the attendant tile on the roof.

Tim:
, they, they want to know if it’s got granite countertops and crystal ball chandelier’s or if it’s, a little tired. And on the case of this property, it’s a hundred years old. So it’s a, at least at least the guts of it had been updated like the plumbing, electrical. So anyways, they ask you all those questions, you get these numbers and yeah, long story short, I know I said a lot more there than I probably should have, but the mortgage after putting 20% down, hopefully will. And again, including, the taxes and the homeowners insurance should be around 700, $725 a month. And again, I will be moving into that upstairs apartment. I didn’t say that prior, but the idea would then to be rehabbed and updates. That one who ha hasn’t been, I tell you it’s pretty tired up there. It needs to be redone. So,

Speaker 7:
[inaudible] apartment, are you going to raise their rent at all?

Tim:
So I, I so looking at the, I’m going to be looking at the rent rolls to see, when and if they have been raised in, in recent past and of course, it’s free for that matter. I’m glad you brought that up to just go on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace, to see what other people, what people are getting for rent everywhere else. And I mean if, if the neighbors and other one bedroom apartments down the streets are all getting six 50 and I’m getting six 60, then it probably, it looks like I, I have a decent deal and I don’t want to scare this tenant away and when it’s time to sign them to a one year lease, when I take ownership, cause they’re right now they’re on a year to year at least I want them to stay. They’d probably want to stay too.

Tim:
But if I were to say, Hey, not only do you got to sign this new lease, but I’m raising the rent by 25, 30, $40 could scare them away. So it’s a good idea to kind of know what the comps are as we say. and then the idea would be after we having the upstairs, which has the potential to have a couple of extra bedrooms, and, and it’s a little bigger after I move out within a year, which is my current plan because, with an owner occupied loan, you’re supposed to legally live there for, got to move in within the first 60 days and you have to live there full four year. Otherwise, it’s essentially mortgage fraud. would, you don’t want to

Speaker 7:
get into on your first ever deal an orange general, it’s not a good idea. And I don’t tend to do things like that way. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good piece of advice. Right. So anyways, after I moved

Tim:
later on, hopefully raise their hands on that to maybe $700 a month. And then if you do the math, six 60 plus potentially $700 or so, on a 700, $725 a month mortgage could cashflow pretty decently. so that’s the plan that we used.

Felipe:
Sam, have you, talked to the tenants that are gonna be there, like, like did you get to know them? It was that part of your due diligence, , how does that work where you’re, cause I know we get that question a

Tim:
lot, sure. If I’m going to inherit tenants, can I talk to them before, how are you going about that? And then did you just decide what side or upstairs or down? So you’re going to live in and you’re like giving the boot to one and it’s, I mean, how did that go? Yeah, so it’s a good question. , of course, when there are tenants in a place when it’s fully occupied, like I mentioned before, a that’s good because like at least somebody is living there and, and it’s hopefully in decent shape, but B, it also means that you probably don’t have up to date pictures of what it looks like. or maybe even the owner hasn’t even been there then in there in a few months. they might just not do that, which could be a good or a bad thing, it depending on how you look at it.

Tim:
So anyways, of course I wanted to get a walkthrough in the property and that’s another thing when I spoke to the owner on the phone, I said, Hey, how much notice do your tenants need before you can? Of course they know it’s for sale cause their lease has got switched. How much notice do they need before we can get in there? And he said, well, we usually give them 48 hours notice cause they work, blah blah blah. So anyways, we got in there. I brought a friend of mine who’s, , basically knows all phases of construction. That’s what he does for a living. I don’t, I can swing a hammer, I know some basic stuff, but, I brought a friend with me who knew what he was doing and he does it every day.

Tim:
Like he, he lives, eats, sleeps and breathes construction. and then I brought a friend’s father who used to be a home inspector. He used to do that for a living. he currently isn’t, but he’s, he’s inspected over 5,000 homes over the course of, his previous career. so I kind of brought the big guns with me who knew what they were, knew what they were doing. Cause I, like I said before, I didn’t even know what a forced air hot air oil furnace was before I even got in there. So anyways, we, we spoke, I spoke to the owner who spoke to the tenants, who then told us what day that we could get in there. And then I went back and talked to my friends and said, Hey, are you guys available and next week at this time, blah, blah, blah.

Tim:
So we got in there and then I, it became very apparent, apart from what I heard from the owner and from what I kind of read on that listing website that yes, the downstairs was pretty good. I didn’t really have to touch it. It had been new. I had been updated. Meanwhile the upstairs was just tired, it just hadn’t, it’s still standing and people are living there, don’t get me wrong, but it needs new floors. probably need some new appliances. there’s still some plastic, it doesn’t even have, drywall on a lot of the walls upstairs. It’s just, it’s that old. So it just, it just needs some work. And it was very apparent that like, okay, like if I’m going to do this, I’m going to want to keep the one that’s already getting that the tenant who’s already paying more in rent by $65 I’m going to leave them there because of course it’s 65 extra dollars and it’s already been renovated.

Tim:
What’s the value there? So, and by the way, this is kind of the angle I was shooting for, knowing that this was going to be my first deal anyways. I wasn’t looking for turnkey and I wasn’t looking for, again, a foreclosed property with the hadn’t been lived in recently. I was kind of trying to find something in the middle, if that’s the best way to put it. And I think I found that and I met them. One of the tenants was home during that time. I attended a very nice, , of course, it might be very likely that in the next 60 days I’m gonna have to, not renew their month to month lease, which is probably a better way to put it then. Like, it’s not really an eviction, eviction. I don’t think that’s the right way to put it.

Tim:
It’s just like, Hey, you’re on a month to month lease and I now on this property, just so we won’t be renewing your needs at least, which is kind of a nicer, more legal way I guess way to say like, sorry, but you gotta you gotta move and I’m going to be, , up front with them and just say like, Hey, that, that’s the plan. And, and I, maybe when I, if you really do love this place, maybe in, in the 10 months when it’s all fixed up, I’d be happy to take you back and, and, and you just want to have that relationship with them hopefully. Cause again, it’s a small town up here where I live, it’s, that’s when everybody kinda knows everybody. There’s a lot of connections. So you don’t want to any one of those steps in the process.

Tim:
You, you want to be respectful and if they’re mature and they would understand the situation, obviously it wouldn’t be ideal for them. But they got to know that that’s kind of how things could work, when you were a mentor and when that property eventually goes up for sale. and, and by the way, I also want to have a good relationship with them so that way I could ask them like, Hey, if you were going to update this place on your own, they’ve lived there for six or seven years, they kind of treat it like their home. What should I fix? What’s been leaking for the last, monitor what, which floors are squeaky or , , they might, they’d been looking at the kitchen for the last seven years. They might say like, man, this place would look great if it had this color, flooring or that color that cause the sunsets over there. And then the is good. stuff that I don’t even know cause I haven’t even lived in there yet. I’ve only stepped foot in a place once and I’m trying to come up with all these ideas, but who knows it better than the tenants. So hopefully I can you have a good relationship with them as good as I can

Ashley:
now for the upstairs, are you going to do the renovations yourself or are you going to hire most of it out?

Tim:
Good questions. So again, I have some basic remodeling, late light rays experience. I wouldn’t consider myself, an expert in really anything, anything in life. I tend to know a little bit about a lot of things. That’s kind of my, my ML out there as a, that’s how I live my life. But, I, I think flooring, I think I can tackle that. No problem. you just go on YouTube, just go on YouTube. This other, other people have done this stuff already. Like I don’t need to reinvent the wheel or pretend like I need to figure it out on my own. Someone else already figured out who is way smarter than I am and was nice enough to make all these videos. And how to,

Ashley:
yeah, investor girl, Brett, do her? Graham? If you guys need DIY tips, go to [inaudible] at investor girl Brett, she’s got a lot of great videos on there to do different stuff.

Tim:
You mentioned that because if anybody out there who’s got, most of us have Instagram and Facebook and if you are thinking about getting into real estate, are you following other people who are actually doing it? If you’re spending, your free time looking at 100% that other people’s pictures that may be nice but don’t have anything, any value to you, then then you, you’re not really doing yourself a favor. So I would recommend anybody listening right now. Just go, go follow, five or 10 or accounts of other people like you and I who are doing it themselves. And then they’ll not only give you, some tips, but then you can kind of feel like you’re doing it too and you won’t see that it’s that hard. So yeah. Long story short, I’m going to be trying to do as much as I can by myself.

Tim:
I’m going to have some friends who, might owe me some favors or I’ll help them where I can with other things and they’ll help me. Cause again I don’t, I’m not rich. I don’t know. I’ve got a ton of money. I don’t think I’m going to be doing a $50,000 rehab with a general contractor and subcontractors and all that. Right out of the Gates. I think I’m going to be, what do you guys call it? sweat equity. I think I hear that term all the time. It’s when you kind of do that, you put in the sweat and the blood materials yourself and then you’re better off for it. And then maybe 10 properties down the line or five properties down the line. Maybe I won’t have to wear, it won’t be worth my time to do that anymore. But right now it is worth my time. So cause again, cause I don’t have too much money. So that’s the plan.

Ashley:
No, I think it’s great that you have, friends around you that are willing to help you. And I was thinking before when you talked about, your friend’s dad coming as a home inspector and your other construction friend, I bet they were more than happy to help you. I bet they were just almost excited as you are that you’re getting into, this venture. And I thought that was really cool.

Tim:
Yeah, I mean, think about it from your own perspective. If a friend or even a stranger in the street came up to you and asked you for help, like, you would say yes or you would do what you could. And then, especially if you kind of, I don’t want to say like, tickled or stroke their ego, so to speak, but like if someone who’s into construction, chances are if you ask them about construction, they’re going to get all fired up about it and they’re not going to shut up about it because they like it. And, whereas if you ask somebody who doesn’t care about that at all, like they’re, they’re not even gonna entertain the conversation. So yeah. And that’s all that relates to anything in life, I guess. like I’m not an expert at like accounting or QuickBooks or anything like that, but I have some friends who are accountants, so I’m sure I’m going to ask them some tips and then of course, hopefully get to a point where, I could give them something in return and, you just make it and make it a win win for everybody.

Tim:
I’m not asking, I’m asking him for an hour of their time, Hey, could you come check out this property with me on your day off? And if they’re, if they don’t have anything better to do or they’re your friend, right? So you would do it for them. So they would do it for you. And they did in my case at least. Yeah.

Ashley:
Well now that you’re thinking of all these people that have helped you through your first deal, I want to take you to our segment and this is where we highlight someone on your team who was really a key player for you. It could be a, you haven’t had your handyman yet I guess, but someone who’s going to help you. You’re like you said your accountant or your attorney. I’m in New York state. You have to have attorneys for closings. So we call this segment the

Felipe:
MVP and MVP and be paid. No, it’s interesting because you’ve talked about some people that have already played a key part so far, right? So you have in mind some people that are also going to play a key part. So who would you say is the most valuable players so far in your real estate journey? Probably so

Tim:
the person who’s given me some advice right here, right now, who has helped me right here right now would have been my friend’s dad, Peter, who was, he was the home inspector. Like I said, he’s inspected for 5,000 homes. He’s seen everything in anything, every possible condition, that’s expertise that you can’t find elsewhere. , so without paying a pretty penny for, and again, this is my first deal. So Peter, thank you for your help. And, and again, I was bouncing questions off of him that helped me directly decide if I wanted to buy this property or not. And again, I’ve got other friends who have given me shoulda, coulda, wouldas for the future, but Peter helped me right here right now and helped me decide to buy this property and I might not have bought it if I didn’t have somebody like him to, give me that advice.

Ashley:
Now did did before the deal if before the deal that he was in home inspector, like before you even started in real estate or like, come in, how did you even ask him? Like, Hey, would you help me on this deal?

Tim:
Sure, sure. So it happened. It was just a coincidence, that I, that I knew him and that’s where he happened to do. But I had been best friends with this on for, over 10 or 12 years. We used to wrestle in high school together. So, , all of a sudden I’m 28 years old and I’m about to celebrate my 10th anniversary, graduated from high school, like time flies. But did they, some of these, people that you grew up with, they still look at you like, little Timmy or your friend’s friend. So their son’s friend. So they, they, again, they’re willing to help you. They want to help you. They want to see big, big moves. And I guess I should go back to the point when I was on this trip most recently, again, backpacking, traveling, I was, I had notes on my phone like, Hey, who can I ask for this?

Tim:
Who knows this? Who knows that, who’s an electrician? my best, my other friend of mine who’s a spare room, I’m got this all set up and whose house I’ve invaded for this podcast, he’s an electrician. and you better believe I’m going to ask for his advice when I have to redo some wiring or, or, replace an outlet at this new place. And then of course I’m going to help him do anything he knows. So anybody out there listening, like you, you have some friends, you have some family, you have coworkers, you have friends of friends, friends, spouses who do this. Like the, the network is out there. And I think this goes back to, putting it out there and you universe and singing out loud. You might not know that this person that you’ve been working with in whatever job for the last year, their brother might be an expert at something. But if you just never mentioned in passing to this one person that that you’re becoming a real estate investor, that you’re going to buy a property, they wouldn’t say it. The odds of them saying it to you casually or coincidentally are really low. So if you put it out in the universe, you might get lots of people, piping in or seeing how they can help or knowing who they can recommend to you.

Felipe:
Yup. That’s perfect. Leveraging who what, it all together definitely makes the deal work. So we’re going to move on a little bit here, Tim. We’re going to get to, probably one of my, I would say my second favorite, if not my first segments of this, podcast. It’s called the rookie request line. Right? Okay. This is where we take a question from a rookie and our audience, they get to phone in, right? and they get to ask a question, right? So you’re going to be answering that and you guys can reach us anytime at one eight, eight, eight, five rookie to leave a voicemail. We might use it on the next show. All right, Tim, are you ready? I am ready. This sounds kind of fun. All right, let’s do it. Okay, so this is from Patrick in Milwaukee. Patrick says, what’s the best way to analyze deals once you pick a niche or niche? However you want to say it and you’re trying to get the nbers right. What is the best approach to analyze a specific deal? What would you say was your way to analyze your deal, bro?

Tim:
My answer would be some of the same answers I gave earlier, which were, see what you can find on the public record by calling the town or the County offices to see what you can pull up. Of course, if the, if the property is already for sale and on the market, whether with a realtor or for sale by owner, the price should be out there. So that’s a big one. again, you can just get free resources again, like Facebook marketplace and Craig’s list or your local, even the newspaper to see what comps are, what rents are, what the rents are currently being rented at, excuse me, in those apartments that in that unit that you might not be buying. you can look up utility super easily. You can see if it’s an HOA, you, the information is out there and people are making money from every angle in this process. So it’s in their best interest for a lot of the information that’d be out there. People aren’t like trying to like keep secrets because they’re not gonna make any money if they don’t kind of let the money that’s being spent and coming and going in these, all these equations be public. So the stuff isn’t top secret. And if you already, if you, that’s probably the hardest part. If you already know your niche, like, like, the, the color, asked them than just, just go through some of those resources that I just mentioned.

Speaker 2:
[inaudible]

Ashley:
yeah. And then a great use when you find all those resources as you can go to biggerpockets.com and use the calculator reports. Do you use those at all, Tim?

Tim:
I, I have, I’ve, I’ve done that. And you, you certainly know better than I do, but you, you can punch it. So, so suddenly you’ve got all this data, right? what it costs, what it might cost you. You can go to all these, you can see what it would cost, just to see how much how much money you have, how much money is going to cost. You punch all this stuff into a mortgage calculator online somewhere and you’ve got an idea of possibly with your down payment, what the mortgage will cost and you can, again, you can look up the quotes, you punching all the information and it spits out numbers and you look at a nice pie graph I’ve done, I’ve done that. A bigger pockets in it. It makes it as simple and as easy as possible, and then the last thing you have to do is just do something about it. it’s then you, then you call somebody or you make the first step because the information is all there and you can, there’s resources out there.

Ashley:
Yeah, I love the bigger packets calculators. That’s how I use to analyze all of my deals is it’s so easy. You take, the information you have, you plug it in and then poof, it gives you, your cash on cash return. your cat, what your cashflow will be. It’s very useful. So if you guys haven’t checked it out, yeah, just pull a property off the MLS cause usually that can have all the information and may not be correct, but it will be good enough for you to practice. but we will, tag a link to those calculators and there’s a flip one, a bird one, a rental property one. and they actually just got ’em updated too. They, I know they change them around a little bit to make them meet them better. but it’s at biggerpockets.com forward slash calc or, and we’ll link that in the show notes [email protected] forward slash rookie too. And we’ll link that in the show [email protected] forward slash rookie three and we’ll link that in the show [email protected] forward slash rookie for,

Tim:
yeah. One thing I would like to mention is if you do that enough and you practice that enough, and again, it’s all, it’s free to do all that stuff we just mentioned, you might then not need to go through every one of those steps every time. From there on out, you might be able to look at the asking price of a property or see what the rents are for that property and kind of know within the first 30 seconds, you hit all the examples or if you can do the math on a napkin and it will make sense or it won’t. And before you even have to waste your time going through all those, that not waste your time, but spend your time on those extra steps. So do it enough. Use all those free resources we just talked about and you could be analyzing dozens of deals a day or a week. And that’s what you got to do to get started.

Ashley:
Philippe, do you use

Felipe:
yeah, I was gonna say it’s like flexing a second muscle. do I use the calculator when I first started? Yeah, I absolutely did, but since I buy such a little market, I buy within like three miles of here in Nashville, Tennessee. you just know now. Yeah. It’s just after I’ve done it for so long I don’t, I don’t even use the calculator anymore because I’ve done it so many times. It’s almost, it takes me longer to get on to use it. But yes, when I first started, absolutely that was the way that I was able to start flexing that muscle over and over and over again were analyzing a deal, analyze cause analyzing a deal is free, right? Yeah. We’re pretty off the MLS. You say, I think that’s going to work. You plug the numbers in, you say this is that, these are the records and then you start figuring out ways to find those numbers quicker and before it, it’s just popping into your head. You’re like, Hey, I’ve literally analyzed almost this exact property a hundred times. I’m going to go ahead and offer on it. And that is how you get the rental properties.

Ashley:
And if you have, if you have a mentor too, or even someone that does real estate investing, send them, the deal analysis, whether it’s a bigger pockets calculator report or your Excel spreadsheet with all the nbers, send them the listing of the property and send them the report and say, Hey, can you just look at this real quick and see if it makes sense. See if I did it right. And maybe they’ll say, what, I know in this market right here that you and bp your insurance supper, the property taxes they have listed on there is incorrect. change that around and you’ll get a feel for it. But just ask someone so give it a second glance because you’re not asking them to analyze the deal for you, but you’re giving them an information that it could take them two minutes to look it over.

Ashley:
And that’s actually what I do with one of my friends. He’s like, I’m looking at this property. He’ll, pull all the information himself and then he’ll send me the report and I just say, what, I would change that change that he reruns it. I look at it again. Yup. That, that’s better. So for anyone out there who’s unsure how to analyze, at least try, try, try and then just have someone double check it for you and have, you need to find someone to double check it for you. Go on Instagram, go to meetups some. There’s plenty of investors out there who would take two minutes to overlook a deal. Just make sure they don’t steal your deal if it’s a really good

Tim:
yeah, right. I I agree with everything you just said. You quick, quick example, when I was checking out this property of mine, hopefully mine, with Peter, he looked, he took one look at it. He said, Oh look, you’ve got a slate roof. That’s great. Those things are Bulletproof. I’m like, I didn’t even know what a slate roof Rose. But that’s great. Thanks for the tip. That stuff we’ll jp to if they’ve done it or they have an expertise, it’ll jp off the page and they’ll tell you stuff that you never would’ve been able to kind of get right off of right off the bat off of this kind of sheet of paper that’s 2d. They just know. And that’s, that’s the great thing.

Felipe:
Yeah. Tim. So let’s wrap this all up. Let’s get it in a fun boat and let’s have a little bit of fun here. You ready? We’re going to ask you some questions that we ask here at the end. Are you ready for this? Let’s do it. Okay. So obviously aside from me and Ashley, who else would you follow on social media? That would be great tips that, regarding real estate. Obviously besides me and Ashley, we already know. So two or three other people that you gotta follow on social media. We talked about that earlier, that you’re like, guys, if you want to get involved in real estate, if you want to crush it, these are some of the key players that you think, , some of our listeners should follow on social media. Who do you,

Tim:
yeah. Yes. I mean, I actually, I literally already following you guys and have already for months. So it’s, it’s, again, it’s, it’s funny to, to know your voice already in, to see you and to be here, but you said it earlier, actually a, investor girl, Brit, , let’s see who else I credit curl up. I follow him obviously. here’s the thing, like if you just follow one or two or three of these people that were mentioning, obviously Instagram wants you to is smart and it knows other people will do that and you’ll just get like a little explore tab or you’ll see all these other pages again, follow five or 10 of them. Those are, those are real people again, who are doing it. So that’s, that’s what I recommend.

Ashley:
And Craig’s, is at the FI guy, I believe, but we’ll link, Craig and Buster girl breads, , Instagram accounts in the show notes biggerpockets.com/rookie2 Forward slash rookie for. Okay, so my turn for question, I want to know what your morning routine is. do you have anything special that you do besides just getting up, brushing your teeth and getting out the door?

Tim:
Sure. So yeah, I got an electric toothbrush, by the way. It’s a good idea to invest in my electric toothbrushes. You don’t have one. Don’t use hard bristles either. Anyways. I, it’s winter time up here in upstate New York, so I’ve purposely made myself get up early, out of bed by six 37, which is tough to do when it’s dark and cold up here or anywhere so to speak. So get up early. I would recommend if you can’t, unless you work nights or whatever, but I get up early. I, I get alerts on my phone from realtor.com and zillow.com and I actually have a, I didn’t mention this earlier, but I have a friend who’s a realtor who of course didn’t end up directly helping me with this property cause it’s for sale by owner, but she’s been nice enough to set me up with some automatic emails from the MLS, which I wouldn’t have had had access to otherwise.

Tim:
So, almost every morning I look at my phone and I’ve got a couple of notifications about other properties in the area, which again, kind of sets the tone for like, yeah, you’re a real estate investor. This is what real real estate investors do. They look at the stuff and then it again kind of trains you to be able to see better deals right away. Anyways, I, I usually don’t have breakfast, until I’ve already been out for two or three hours. I just like to drink water. I actually, I’ve, I’ve probably, I could count on my hands how many cups of coffee I would drink in my whole life, like on my fingers rather. Like, I just, I don’t have any vices. I don’t really drink alcohol or caffeine or anything. I don’t know if I’m lucky or weird, but I, I just kind of go for water and just like a light breakfast.

Tim:
And then, I’ve been trying to spend as much time as I can with my friends and family this time of the year that I can before it gets too busy. Come Memorial day. And then next thing all my time spoken for it for the next hundred days. try to be active cause outside before walk. hang out with my sister. she and I are kind of house sitting right now. I’m I’m into a jujitsu, so I’ve been going to jujitsu practice lately, which is fine. we go to the gym every once in a while. Just, I don’t know if there’s anything secret here that I’m trying to say, but just get up early, accomplish a couple things. I’ve got a to do list. That’s another big thing. Write stuff down. whether it’s real estate or not, like scrap pieces of paper, just start writing stuff down or take notes on your phone.

Tim:
And if you check off two or three things a day, even if it’s just shooting off one email or calling one person, that’s huge. And that’s, that could be 20 or 30% off of your to do list. If you only got 10 things written down and then the next day you’ve got no other option but the checkoff another two things. So do that. Just start soft and easy. A beef, I’m not telling you to maybe going to a real estate investing meetup on your first day or would would be tough for you and intimidating. I don’t even know if I’d be really ready to do that. I feel a little safe though. I’m looking at you guys through a screen, ? but so just ease into it I guess is what I would would say. As far as the routine. I couldn’t agree more with you. there Tim. I think waking up early and writing down, your goals, what you want to do that

Felipe:
day and tagging some things off it makes you, it makes you feel good, right? Like, like you’re like, okay, I got that done when I first married or when I first got married to my wife, she was always like, Hey, just write down what you want to do in the day cause you do so much. And then, start marking things off. And I was like, no, I’m not going to do that. I’m just gonna do whatever I want. And I, I ended up not being as productive. I ended up like going in circles sometimes like, Oh, I was already there. I could’ve just done that while I was there. So writing things down really helps you be more, more effective. So, so I agree with everything Tim said there. And I’m going to go onto the next question, Tim. I might get some emails after this later, but I’m going off the script a little here. Tim, if you could have tag, if you could hashtag your real estate investing already, what would your hashtag be? What would you, what would you hashtag

Speaker 7:
it would probably be, it would be walking like you talk it, which is a, I already said that earlier but there’s actually, there’s a song out there, walk the talk and I think it’s Migos feature dig. It’s really funny. The music.

Ashley:
Are you listening? I hit it on I think it was, yes. Either this morning or last night I was on the radio. I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Speaker 7:
Those are the only lyrics basically, but it’s catchy and it, I mean it’s the real deal. Like you can only talk so much talk until you actually do it. And again, literally walk, don’t dive in headfirst, don’t run, don’t sprint. But just take that first step, say out loud that you’re a real estate investor and then you’re, you’re walking in like you’re talking to him.

Felipe:
Yeah, tag, tag. Walk it like you talk to boy. I love it. I love it.

Ashley:
Well, hopefully when you heard that song, you practice your singing skills because next up is a little bit of rookie hazing. cool. What song is your guilty pleasure and can you sing a little bit of it for us?

Speaker 7:
Well, the, the one that I wrote down when I applied for this, it’s, it’s not even like, even singing. So if I’m going to go for one, I’m, I’m, I’m, I, it’s just, at the beginning it’s like rapping. I might as well just go for one that’s going to be totally embarrassing. I should just dive right into it, right?

Ashley:
Yeah. Just do it

Speaker 7:
to just go for Frank Sinatra because by the way, it’s the first time I’ve ever had a microphone in front of me and you guys can probably tell my voice. Just sounds like I don’t have no business. That’s why I talked to myself because nobody else wants to listen. So here we go. Let’s sing. Okay. Frank Sinatra, do you guys know, the song my way by Frank Sinatra?

Ashley:
No, we won’t know it.

Speaker 7:
Is that right? Okay. I hang up my grandparents too much,

Ashley:
we hear it, we would know, but to say the name of it

Speaker 7:
goes, and now the end is near. And so I face the final curtain, my friend, I’ll say a clear,

Felipe:
Oh,

Speaker 7:
take my plate. I think I messed it up. Of which [inaudible]

Ashley:
there’s more respect than that. So if people want to hear more of your singing and your real estate investing, where can they find out more about too?

Speaker 7:
Yeah, yeah, I guess, right? well, yeah, I’m on Instagram just like anybody else. Although if you follow me, it’s Tim goat’s five, five six, that’s T I M goats, Goa T a the nber is five, five, six. I don’t really know why that’s it, but that’s me. And you’ll, you’ll just find pictures of me traveling and doing fun stuff in my life. You’re not going to, hopefully when I close on this property, you start to see some rehab pictures and videos. But in the meantime, yeah, if you have any questions or if you ever come into my home town and want to go on a tour on the boat, just, just give me a, shoot me a message there and captain Tim will take care of you.

Ashley:
Yeah, thank you so much. And we’ll put Tim’s Instagram too in the show [email protected] forward slash rookie too. We’ll put Tim’s Instagram account in the show [email protected] forward slash rookie three and we’ll put Tim’s Instagram account in the show [email protected] forward slash rookie for

Speaker 8:
[inaudible].

Ashley:
So Tim, thank you so much for joining us. we had a really great time talking with you.

Speaker 7:
Hey, thank you. It was my pleasure. And it just goes to show you, if you put yourself out there, next thing you’re talking to some people that you look up to and they’re, and again, they want to talk to you too. So just make it happen. Guys. Anybody who’s listening, I’ll tell you right now. And there’s a lot of people, a lot of girls, especially with tiger, I’m nothing special. Nothing. No, I’m just a regular guy. Like I’ve said go like a plugin. I’ll tell you this whole reason why I probably, yeah, right. No, it’s a, yeah, you could do it. There’s nothing special about me and you guys are great, but I don’t know if you, you guys aren’t superheroes or were born with super powers, like you’d do it too. So that’s what I would say. Oh, look at that. Yeah. What’s going up? How are you doing? just do it, make it happen. And that, that’s what life’s about, right? You don’t just want to be spinning your tires and doing the same thing every day, I guess.

Ashley:
Yeah. Thanks Tim, that that’s great advice and we’ve loved listening to you. So, Tim is going to be part of our Facebook group. If you guys want to chat with him more, you can find us at the real estate rookie on Facebook. And I’m Ashley @wealthfromrentals. And he’s Felipe @FelipeMejiaREI. Good. Kevin.