BiggerPockets Podcast 097 with Kyle Pettit Transcript

Link to show: BP Podcast 097: Quitting Your Job and Overcoming Real Estate Obstacles with Kyle Pettit

Josh: This is the BiggerPockets podcast, show 97.

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Josh: What's going on everybody? I'm Josh Dorkin, host of the BiggerPockets podcast. Here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon Turner. What's going on, Brandon?

Brandon: Eh, not much. It's cold. It's freezing cold. I don't like it.

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Josh: Aw, is it like 50 over there?

Brandon: It's like 40, alright? It's miserable.

Josh: Aw. I'm so sad for you. Yeah, we had like the arctic plunge. It was zero for like a week here. It was pretty miserable. Snow. Snow! We had snow. We went sledding, which was fun but, yeah.

Brandon: It's exciting. I haven't seen snow in a while.

Josh: Yeah, well you know, that's what happens.

Brandon: That's what happens. Alright, so what are we doing today?

Josh: We've got a cool show, man. We've got a cool show. We're going to just cut through all the BS, since nobody cares about us and we're going to go straight to our guest, Kyle Pettit. Who is Kyle Pettit, Brandon? You brought him on.

Brandon: Kyle is a buddy of mine. He's one of my good buddies out here in Washington State and he has a really, really good story. If you're listening and you are just getting started, you're going to love it. If you've been doing this for a while, you're going to love it even more. It's really motivating. It's just kind of cool to see how he's progressed in just two years pretty much. Built his business to the point where he can quit his job and he did.

Josh: Nice, nice. Is this a buddy story, you and him?

Brandon: No, he did this alone. I didn't even help him.

Josh: Oh okay. Cool. Yeah, Kyle's a good guy and definitely has some cool stuff to share. I think the thing that I walked away from the interview with was it's not as easy as they make it look all the time. We've got a lot of guys who make it sound easy. The gurus really make it sound easy because you can sit on your couch and your underwear and have the money just flow in, but no. It's not that easy. If you want to be successful as an investor, you've got to have some patience. You've got to have some perseverance. You've got to fight through some of the tough times. It's always fun to hear those stories, not because I enjoy hearing people have difficult times, but because it's nice to hear that, everybody listening, you guys are not alone. Everybody is struggling. Everybody struggles at some point. Everybody kind of deals with similar challenges in many. I definitely encourage everybody to stay tune and listen through. Before we get to the show, let's do today's quick tip. Alright, today's quick tip is...

Brandon: We've talked about this before but I want to rehash it. Every week, pretty much, we do webinars on BiggerPockets. Just different subjects, I usually host them and we just hang out for an hour and talk about stuff. If you want to attend a webinar, check out what the newest one is. We have new ones all the time, but you can always find out at BiggerPockets.com/webinar and sign up there.

Josh: Nice and it's every one to two weeks.

Brandon: Yeah, it's not every week. It's whenever I get around to it.

Josh: Ha-ha. But if you get on the landing page, the slash webinar landing page, you'll get the date of the next one and the topic. So just check back regularly. Awesome. Awesome. Alright, well before we get to the show with Kyle, we've got a great sponsor and Brandon, why don't you tell us about these guys?

Brandon: Sure. Today's sponsor is RealtyShares.com. Realty Shares is a real estate platform, a crowdfunding platform, that allows accredited investors to invest in pre-vetted real estate deals online. Investors can browse and invest in both residential and commercial properties that yield returns of 8 to 16% annually. As a Realty Shares member, you can passively invest in professionally managed real estate investments in a variety of asset types and locations for as little as $5,000 all from the convenience of your living room. To learn and more and get started with a free account, visit RealtyShares.com/BiggerPockets. That's RealtyShares.com/BiggerPockets.

Josh: Nice, nice. And ironically, as I talked about sitting in your couch in your underwear, investing in real estate, this is actually a way to do it.

Brandon: This is a way to do it, if you want to invest with crowdfunding. It's the future.

Josh: Fascinating. Fascinating. Not for everybody, but certainly a great way to go and certainly something worth exploring. We've got a lot of content on the topic of crowdfunding on BiggerPockets. We've got a forum about crowdfunding so we definitely encourage folks to dig in and check that stuff out.

Brandon: There you go.

Josh: Cool, well let's jump on to the show. We've got Kyle Pettit, as we've talked about already and let's bring him in. So Kyle, welcome to the show man. Good to have you here.

Kyle: I'm happy to be here, thanks for inviting me.

Josh: Yeah, no problem. My pleasure, my pleasure. That was all me. Ha-ha.

Kyle: Ha-ha.

Brandon: Alright, so back in the day, people who don't know this about but maybe I mentioned it earlier, Kyle and I actually know each other. You brought me out to coffee, like you actually looked me up on BiggerPockets and said, "Hey, you want to go get coffee with me," and we did. I think it was that day, I was like, "I want to bring him on the podcast one day." Like that's what I said to myself and I'm like--

Josh: And you said it to me I think.

Brandon: I think I might have said it to you yeah. When he gets some more deals, because like you just had that something special that I thought would be good to have on the show.

Josh: You guys need a room? Something special?

Brandon: Ha-ha. No, I'm just saying you're a go-getter.

Kyle: Are you still on for Friday night by the way?

Brandon: Ha-ha. No, seriously. You're a good guy, I'm excited. We're going to talk about your story today and looking forward to it.

Kyle: Well, I hope that I can contribute. After listening to some of the other guys, I listened to Anson's interview today and I was like, "Man, how am I going to compete with that?" Ha-ha.

Brandon: Ha-ha. That was a good interview yeah.

Josh: It was good. It was good.

Brandon: Yeah, you'll do well. Alright, let's do it. Let's start at the beginning where we always start. How did you get into this thing? How did you get into real estate?

Kyle: I've always had an interest in real estate. From the time I was in high school. I never really had a niche or knew what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted to do something in real estate. Never really did anything with it. My dad had a couple of properties that I helped him work on. He did a flip. One flip.

Josh: It’s better than most by the way.

Kyle: Yeah, it's better than most. But you know, I was exposed to it young and knew I wanted to do it but never really knew where to start and just kind of got caught up with life and got a career, a couple of different careers. Tried a few different things. My last switch I was actually in Montana. Couple of years ago now. Heard this commercial come on. It was a Rich Dad, Poor Dad promo that they're in town and they're having a conference and I was sitting there and it was like 12 degrees and I'm thinking, "This is miserable. I got to find something else to do." So I went to the conference that night and it was on the free deals. Kind of an up-sell but it got me in the mindset anyway. So I kind of started doing my own research and that year, bought our first property and I've kind of just been building ever since. So that was how I got my official start was just by hearing kind of a little voice. It was kind of a clue, I guess. That's where I got started.

Josh: Nice. So you're not still hearing voices, are you?

Brandon: Ha-ha.

Kyle: No. Well, only once in a while.

Josh: Okay. Just checking. Just making sure. Alright, so you said you don't want to be outside in the miserable cold. What were you doing? What was your job?

Kyle: The last, my most recent was-- I worked in construction. Line construction through the IBW Union.

Josh: Okay. I don't know what that means, but okay.

Kyle: I was ready to go through my lineman apprenticeship to work on power lines and all that good stuff.

Josh: Oh power lines. Gotcha.

Kyle: So never actually got in to my apprenticeship. In fact, the day I got called after putting all that time in, waiting to get into my apprenticeship and going through the interview process - actually it was like the day before they called and said, "Hey, you're next on the list," I had just closed my first, big, wholesale deal and I was like, "Yeah." This is better. Ha-ha.

Brandon: That's cool.

Kyle: I never actually went through with it. That's what I've been doing ever since is sticking with real estate.

Josh: So you ultimately got that first deal and we'll talk about it, but you got that first deal and that was it. That was like, "Alright I'm done. I'm not working."

Kyle: Yeah.

Josh: Bought for it myself.

Kyle: Well, I didn't quit after my very first deal. It was the first big paycheck, I should say.

Josh: Gotcha.

Brandon: Well, I want to know more about that very first deal, the rental property. Let's dive into that a little bit.

Kyle: Yeah, so the first rental property, it was an REO. I've kind of been watching it here in town. The price kept dropping and dropping.

Brandon: Oh real quick. You should explain where you live. People make fun of me living in Podunk, Washington. You should talk to Kyle.

Josh: What? Come on.

Kyle: I live about 20 minutes south of Brandon. We're in a town called Raymond, Washington.

Josh: How many people live there?

Kyle: City limits population, it's under 3000.

Brandon: It's actually bigger than I thought. I was thinking like you and like four other guys in lumberjack outfits.

Kyle: Pretty much. It's an old logging fishing town and it's not the booming area that it used to be back in the day. It's just kind of slow paced living down here.

Josh: Gotcha. So your plan is to own said town?

Brandon: Ha-ha.

Kyle: Yeah, I've got four so I've got half the town now. Ha-ha.

Josh: Ha-ha. Alright, so you got this REO and REO is real estate owned. It's bank owned foreclosure property with no liens on it so it's free and clear. Well, lien-free and clear. You've been watching this thing drip and drop, that was of course the only property available for sale in your town, correct?

Kyle: Ha-ha. Right. So yeah, we watched it and I decided to make an offer on it. After we had went to our second conference, I should say, we decided just to dive in. We made an offer and that took forever. Kind of went back and forth. Actually, when the offer finally got accepted, the week later I got called to California to work. So the offer went through. Closed on the house and three days I went to California. Ha-ha. I was actually traveling. We rehabbed it ourselves. It wasn't a full rehab. It was just floors, carpet, paint. That kind of stuff. But I was actually traveling back and forth every weekend to work on the house.

Brandon: From California?

Kyle: Yeah, from Mount Shasta, California actually.

Josh: Oh. That's not terribly far.

Kyle: No, only about 12 hours. Ha-ha.

Brandon: I just drove that yesterday.

Josh: Ouch.

Kyle: Just imagine that drive every weekend back and forth.

Josh: Yeah, that's crazy. So you had mentioned kind of a back and forth bit of a process. What was that like? Talk about the REO process. Where there any hoops you had to jump through or dealing with bank? Where there any headaches that kind of popped up?

Kyle: Well, it really wasn't. It just took a lot longer than I anticipated  because we never bought a property. That was the first property we ever bought, it was a rental property. Just the time that it took, it was irritating because there was no other offer and they finally accepted. And even after they accepted the offer, it was weeks before we heard anything. So yeah, that was a learning experience. Just got to have patience, especially with that kind of property.

Josh: Cool. So what were the numbers? How much was it listed for? What'd you make the offer for? What'd you end up with?

Kyle: It started at $45 and by the time it hit $35--

Josh: $35?

Kyle: $35,000. So I made an offer. I started real low at $25,000 and kind of countered back but ended up getting it in for $32,000. I think we put maybe $5,000 into rehab. Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't have bought it because it doesn't meet the return that I'm looking for rental-wise, but we paid cash for it so it wasn't financed. We still haven't put any debt on it so we're still just cash flowing right now. We don't have any debt on that property. It's actually been our best property, our first one.

Josh: What are you renting that for?

Kyle: $600.

Josh: So just under 2%?

Kyle: Yeah, yep.

Josh: Right on. Not bad.

Brandon: Can I just ask, why did you not put debt on it at the time and today? Why do you not put some debt on it, get some cash? What's your reasoning?

Kyle: Well at the time, it was just because I knew it would be a quick offer that they looked at over any others. It would have come in and I really didn't want to deal with financing. Well, for one the bank wouldn't have loaned on it because the power had been unhooked for a certain amount of time. And in this county, unfortunately, if it's unhooked for over a year, they require you to install a whole new underground service because they're trying to get rid of the overhead lines, I guess. So that was the cost that I wasn't expecting. So without power, there was no lender that would basically loan on the property. It needed too much.

Brandon: Let me ask you this then. First of all, do you have any reason why you don't put some debt on it now? Is that just principle or you just haven't got around to it or you don't want to?

Kyle: Just haven't gotten around to it. I certainly will use it for leverage now. And I have used it as leverage, as collateral. I just haven't actually pulled any loans on it yet. I certainly have plans to do so with it very soon.

Brandon: Cool. Well, the reason I actually asked that because it's one of the creative methods that you can use to buy real estate is by having another property and putting debt on that one to go buy more. Obviously this is a lower priced property, you're not going to be able to pull a $200,000 line of credit to play with but you might be able to work something out. The second kind of question I had was you're a younger guy, you and I are pretty close in age, and you paid cash for that property. I don't know a lot of guys, especially in our area, that have that kind of cash. Did you just save up from your job? Did you save up for years for that? Can you kind of talk about that?

Josh: Well, it is a small town in Washington. There's a little trade of meth. We can't really talk about it here.

Brandon: Ha-ha.

Kyle: There's plenty of that around. But yeah. It wasn't all mine. My wife also, we both contributed to it. But yeah I had a little bit saved up and she did as well.

Brandon: So do you have any good tips for people that are listening to this right now who have a hard time saving up that down payment? They have a really hard time saving up five grand or three grand or two grand.  I mean a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Is there anything you can offer?

Kyle: Yeah, I guess something I learned through as well and everybody goes through it - but if you're still living at home or living in a place you can barely afford but you've an $800 a month truck payment, you need to re-think your priorities. I went through that myself. Right now, we don't have any vehicle payments or anything like that. It's a waste of money. Just getting rid of a car payment alone can give you that extra $600 to $700 a month that you need to start saving and it builds quickly when you're conscious of what you're throwing your money at.

Josh: For sure. Yeah, it's especially hard - it's not a generational thing - but it is somewhat. I mean you look in the '50s, everybody wanted to have the cash to put into their house. Today everybody wants to have the bling that they want to show off and nice clothes or whatever. Which obviously everybody wants, but it's that sacrifice, right? What are you willing to do today to have the nicer things down the line? And I think that's a common theme we get on the show here. Folks who've decided to get into real estate investing, they've thought. It's not just like, "Hey, I'm going to be a real estate investor." They've had to put the time and energy and to analyze their financial situations. They've looked at other sources of income as an investment like stocks and bonds. You kind of go down this funnel to the point where you're like, "Oh, real estate!" And to get there, you've gone through a lot of thought. And so I think that's probably why we see that and why most investors at least are more money conscious than not.

So it's cool to see these young guys, these young generation of people. Because I talk to a lot of young guys who don't have their heads screwed on right, or spending it on everything else. "Let's go to concerts every weekend. Let's go do this." You know like, "Oh cool! Yeah! You guys go do that and be broke."

Kyle: Yeah, there's some sacrifices a person definitely has to make. But you can still have a little bit of fun. You just can't do it every weekend. I certainly wouldn't suggest being a hermit by any means. I like to have my fun as well but we just do it less frequently and on a bigger scale now. Ha-ha.

Josh: Nice. So what was the next deal? Did you do another rental after that first one?

Kyle: I did. My second deal - I think I even made the offer on this property before we had a tenant in that single family. Maybe just right afterwards. But it was a duplex that came up in town. It came up at a price that I knew it wasn't going to last. So I made an offer on it, knowing I wasn't going to get financing. Went hard money. Got approved. Hard money lendered. Long story short, the guy that actually came down to assess the property was actually from Raymond. So he knew the area and they were comfortable lending down here and I used the rental property as collateral. They took that and that one, it's an older property. It's fairly dated but it didn't need any work. It had new windows, new roof, insulation. Just aside from cosmetics being a little dated, it was ready to roll. So we jumped on that.

Brandon: Let's go back and talk about the hard money lender. Some people might not know what that is. Can you kind of explain what that is and what they do and kind of how that process worked?

Kyle: Yeah, hard money lender is somebody who lends based on more value of the property versus your income. They lend at a high rate. They're not intended, at least in my opinion, to be a long-term option. It's more of a get in, get it secured and do something with it. They like to be in and out. But especially now, they're everywhere. They're not hard to find. It is a little difficult, as you know, to find anybody that'll end in the rural areas, but they're out there.

Josh: And he can even say rural.

Brandon: He can say rural. I can't. Curiosity. Are you from the South at all? Just curious?

Kyle: Nope.

Brandon: Okay. So here's why I asked that. This morning, my wife - I'm doing our prep call with you on this thing - and she goes, "He's got the Raymond accent." It's that like very slight Southern, like Raymond-Podunk, Washington accent that I'm trying hard to avoid.

Josh: Wow. I'm the only guy who's supposed to rip on people.

Brandon: No, it's a good thing.

Josh: He lives nearby you. Just keep that in mind.

Brandon: That is true. Okay so hard money lenders are guys who lend on the property. Mostly, it's not like a bank. And how did you find that hard-money lender?

Josh: Can I jump back on that? The hard money lenders. Typically, people think of them as somebody you would go to when you're doing a flip. In this case, you were not using it for the purpose of a flip. Can you kind of explain that before you get into how you found this guy?

Kyle: Yeah. My deciding factor in using the hard money because we didn't have the cash. We just used it in our first purchase and I knew there was going to be, at least I felt there would be multiple offers on the property, especially on what it was listed for. So I just wanted to be the strongest offer on the property and I knew if I could close quickly and approved for the cash offer, it was going to be looked at before something with financing. And I actually went to a couple of local lenders here and told them. Gave them the numbers. I said, "This is what I'm doing. Would you refinance on this when it's all said and done?" "Oh yeah, no problem you know." And that's something that I learned that they'll tell you one thing and do another. So we ended up having to hold that property for six months on hard money before we could get it refinanced.

Josh: Wow. So your plan was to get this hard money loan at really high rates. You kind of went upfront and talked to these other lenders with the hope that they'd re-fi it as soon as you closed and turns out that they were full of it. But you ultimately, six months later on this very expensive hard money loan, managed to get a re-fi.

Kyle: Yeah, and thankfully I was cash flowing so well on the property, even at hard money I was cash flowing. It wasn't hurting us but I wasn't getting what I knew we could out of it. So that bothered me. Ha-ha.

Brandon: Yeah. You know I find that I've seen that in a lot of lenders. I say it time and time again, lenders are very optimistic. Or the bankers are very optimistic. The front-end people are very optimistic and then when it really comes down to actually doing it, they're not the ones that make the decision and they tend to say one thing and do another. I face that all the time. And usually they don't tell you no. In my case anyway, they don't say no until they make you fill out like 40 forms and put you about a month or two into the loan process and then they'll say, "Oh, we actually can't do that loan." So I get that.

Kyle: Right, and these guys, even after the appraisal, it came in at - it was right about 60% or 65% LTV on the lender's appraisal. They still had to come with money out of pocket before they would refinance. Yeah that one, it's just a learning experience. You just got to expect that and start building relationships with your lenders. That's a tip that I would suggest.

Brandon: I think that's huge. Building those relationships. We talked about that on the show before. I stress it all the time. Start building those now, even if you're not going to use that loan right now. Do you remember where you got the hard money lender from? I mean where you found them? Was that online?

Kyle: Yeah, it was online and do you want me to say who they were?

Brandon: You can if you want to. You don't have to.

Kyle: Yeah. I found them online and I talked to a couple of other people who had used them and said they were good and they ended up being really great. I'd definitely use them again.

Josh: Cool. And you know for anybody listening, if you're looking for hard money lenders, you can always post on our marketplace at BiggerPockets.com/marketplace. "I'm looking for a hard money loan. Here are the numbers, this is what I'm looking for." You can also look in our hard money lenders directory.

Kyle: The lender I used is in the directory that you guys made.

Brandon: That's what I though, yeah.

Josh: BiggerPockets.com/hardmoneylenders.

Brandon: Also, can I plug my book, Josh? I want to plug my book.

Josh: Oh dude.

Brandon: Chapter five of the Book on Investing in Real Estate with No Money Down is all about hard money and the exact strategy that you use with hard money. I talk a lot about how I'd done that too. Hard money to refinance. Alright, if people want to pick that up, where can they go to get that? BiggerPockets.com/nomoney. Look at that, see?

Josh: Wow. Look at that. That was well done. That was well done. Alright, let's get to your next-- actually, we don't want to get to your next. I want to hear about the numbers on this deal, the duplex.

Kyle: The duplex? Yeah, so we paid just under $65,000 for it. They're both two-bed, one-bath units but they're really big units. They're actually a three-story house. It was built as a duplex. It's not something that was turned into a duplex. I think each unit has, I want to say like 1700 square feet, which is for a two-bed, one -bath is pretty big.

Josh: That's pretty good.

Kyle: Yeah, so we rent those for- one's at $600 and the other one is $575. Which will be going up again when the next tenants move out.

Josh: Again, close to that 2%. Cool.

Brandon: Alright, let's move on the next one. We can just kind of walk through your whole story.

Josh: Yeah. I hear you.

Brandon: Yeah, what came next? I mean this guy is really good. A lot of the guys we have in the show, they've done a hundred deals. Anson's in a hundred wholesale deals. But I think people love this kind of stuff because it's like, "Let's talk about your first, second, third, fourth." We can do that all day.

Josh: Justify it however you want. Let's just get to it.

Brandon: Ha-ha. Alright, what came next?

Kyle: My third deal - and keep in mind, these all came pretty quickly. I mean, I couldn't believe there actually is to buying a house and doing it. It sounds easy in theory but it's the details that get you. The third deal was actually a wholesale and it was a lease-option wholesale. The lead came in off from one of my Craigslist ads and kind of went over some options. I'd never done a lease option of course but I'd read a couple of books and so I just started working through it and it turned to be a mess. Ha-ha.

Josh: Ha-ha. Well, tell us what is a lease option? How do those work and how do you wholesale these options? Yeah, how does that kind of work together?

Kyle: Yeah, so basically what the lease option--

Josh: Or you don't, in the case of this mess of a deal right?

Kyle: Ha-ha. Yeah it's been interesting. But lease option basically you tie the property up on a lease with an option to purchase with the seller. Full disclosure. They know exactly what's going on within a signed contract, your interest to an end buyer who wants to live in the property. We did that and worked with the sellers. They knew every step of the way, what was going on, what I intended to do with it and they were cool with it. Found some tenants. Screened them and verified income, all that good stuff. That's I guess another tip, would be to find a highly-rated screen company. Because I actually used a company and two months after these guys moved in, the owners contacted me and said, "Hey, their check bounced." And so the owners they kind of had a soft spot for this guy too. He gave them the whole story. Lost his job and he's got a family. So they made the mistake. I suggested booting them. Evicting them. I told them I'd help them out with that right away. That don't wait. Don't let them stay in there. It ended up, they're still in there but we went with the eviction company. I tried to help them out along the way but they just kind of kept making exceptions and didn't get everything to the attorney that was needed. It just kind of fizzled out.

They're still in there today. I guess they're paying what they can, but I talked to the attorney and he asked me if I screened these people. I said, "Yeah, I did." I sent him what I had pulled and what he got and what I got were two completely different things. They had prior evictions. They had history. I come from law enforcement so I know what to look for and kind of the red flags and the company I used, none of it came up.

Josh: That’s not good.

Kyle: I would highly suggest finding a top-rated company to use when you're screening people. Expecting something like when you're handing over the-- basically taking that person and giving up to somebody else is their responsibility. You don't want to give them somebody who is a turd.

Brandon: Yeah, and I won't ask who the bad company was but can you tell us, who are you using today?

Kyle: It's a company out of Washington here and they are called LandLord Solutions.

Brandon: Okay. I haven't used them but good to know.

Kyle: They're a little more expensive but they obviously get better results and that's what I've been using now to screen for my own rental properties.

Josh: Nice. We at BiggerPockets, we partner with SmartMove. It's a TransUnion company and if folks are looking for a screening company, you can check that out at BiggerPockets.my smartmove.com and we've got a lot, a lot, a lot of people who views them. Overall, it's been pretty good.

Brandon: I hear good things about them.

Josh: I definitely, definitely recommend it. Awesome.

Brandon: So I want to go back and just clarify. We kind of of went over that real quickly on wholesaling and lease option. For somebody who's new, that's probably completely blowing their mind. So essentially, correct me if I'm wrong here, you marketed for a property using Craigslist, and you got a motivated seller to say, "Yes, I want to sell it to you." And then you found somebody to do a lease option with them. So one of them signed the contract, with like the buyer signing the contract with the owner to do a lease option. And you are officially at that point, out of it. Correct?

Kyle: Correct.

Brandon: But you hung around anyway?

Kyle: Yeah, even after I signed everything over because the owners of the property, they're good people. They were just relocated. He's in the military and with what they owed on the property, it didn't qualify for a typical wholesale. And so I kind of told them what their options were and they were comfortable with the lease option. Yeah, it just worked out. The tenant buyer ended up not being as good as they appeared to be on paper. I'm sure everybody's got a similar story that that's happened to but I just felt bad for the buyers. I told them. I've been working with them still, trying to help them out. You know it makes it tough too, they're in Florida and clear across the country. It's just one of them deals that they're getting by and I just don't want to overstep my boundaries.

Josh: Well, I tell you what Kyle--

Kyle: We're still working through it. The guy feels bad when that happens. More than most people would. Most people just walk away from it and say, "Oh, that's their problem." But they can't do that.

Josh: Well, you're one of the good guys, man. That's what we look for. We like the good guys. We like the guys who kind of make those choices and step it up because you know in the end A, you're doing it as just a human, right? You're trying to be human and B, frankly you're doing this as a means to better your business and better your career and frankly word spreads around, you do shady things. And had you cut it off there, you wouldn't have been shady. I'm not saying that. But by going above and beyond, it trickles around, man. It'll circle back and you'll get rewarded for it, I think. At least that's one of my crazy beliefs.

Brandon: Did you end up making any money on this thing in the end?

Kyle: No, not after the time and money spent trying to help get him out. So yeah, no. At the beginning, it was a small lease option assignment. I think it was - I'd have to look I think it was $2500 or something like that - but yeah, after everything's said and done, I'll be definitely be in the haul on it. Just trying to do the right thing and make it work out but I'm at the point where I'm not going to throw any more money at it if all parties involved aren't going to…

Brandon: I mean obviously they were aware of what you were doing. It was a lease option. I think it's very cool what you've done so far. And I think it's important for people to hear this. I've kind of been asking these questions because I think it's good for people to know - real estate doesn't always end up as a big, gigantic check in your mailbox. You know, wholesalers love to post pictures of their checks. That's a big thing. "Hey, look what I just made!" And yeah, it's motivating but they never hold up the check of negative $12. You know, they never hold up the bill. You know, "This is what I just did." So I think that's cool. Okay let's move on. Something a little more happy. What happened next?

Kyle: Yeah, next deal. Even though I didn't have any money after that one, I sent out postcards and some yellow letters and some calls started coming in. After my first postcard campaign, I got a whole bunch of calls and got excited because the phone was ringing and I had to start calling people back. Most people were pissed off. "What are you sending me?" “But I didn’t get this one.” "Yeah, I got your postcard here. Yeah, I'm interested in selling this place." And so, set the appointment. Went and looked at it and yeah, the place had been vacant for I think he said five years. He had owned some rental properties before and kind of got hit with the market. He was a broker and just bought at the wrong time and lost the couple of the properties and this one actually they didn't have much debt on but they just lived too far away and didn't have the gumption to... It was partially rehabbed. He had demoed it and began rehab on it but just couldn't finish it.

So made an offer. Long story short, made the offer. He kind of [inaudible] [34:31] and as we were negotiating, the nosy neighbor shows up and he's like, "Hey, what do you want for the place? I'll buy it!" So that kind of caught me off guard. I've never kind of been in a situation like that before. So I let him do his thing and I told the seller, "Well, I tell you what. Let's meet up later." He had another property that he wanted to show me. We met up at that property later in the evening. Made him the offer. He agreed to the offer but I couldn't get him to sign the contract and he was like, "Well, just let me ask my wife." You know, the typical "let me ask the other half". Went back and forth email for a couple of weeks.

Couple of weeks went by, we met up with him and got the contract signed. Found a buyer. What we thought was a buyer and ended up-- the buyer, of course I have never dealt with her before, because I've never done a typical wholesale deal-- but I met her and her husband. They're both really interested. Got an extension for it because she needed a little more time. And like two days prior closing and said, "We can't do the deal". You know, I didn't get an earnest money deposit or any of that kind of stuff. I'm just working off people's word, which I know you got to build a little history with people before you start doing that. I would give that a tip. If you're working with somebody new, get some of the non-refundable earnest money deposit.

So we ended up, two days to closing, we had to just dump it. What went from what was supposed to be a $12,000 wholesale to about $300 to $500. So it still came out positive on that one, which was good.

Brandon: So by dumping it, you don't mean you gave it back. You just sold it to somebody cheaper?

Kyle: Yeah, we had a couple of other interested buyers that were just a lot lower in price. But then we knew they can close. They do multiple properties. So we were confident that they would close on it and they did within two days.

Josh: So here's my question. You've got this property for sale. The nosy neighbor walks in. He's all like up in it, right? He wants a piece of it. You're in there. You're talking the guy and you said it took weeks. I guess why did they end up going with you versus the nosy neighbor?

Kyle: Well, the nosy neighbor he ended up being-- it was just the house needed too much work than what he could take on. He had some properties. The guy lived next door. He owned a bunch of properties there in the neighborhood. I think he was just being the typical-- he was just bored. Ha-ha.

Josh: It's interesting. Because you don't usually hear about wholesale deals taking weeks and weeks and weeks to get a contract signed. Typically, you kind of hear a little bit of a shorter process.

Kyle: There's definitely a lot of rapport building to make them feel comfortable.

Brandon: You're saying you're not like Michael Quarles. Walk in the house, "Hi, nice to meet you today. I'm going to buy your house."

Kyle: I listened to some of Michael's stuff. I envy him. I wish could be a little more…

Brandon: Me too.

Kyle: I try to leave there and I feel like I could probable invited to Thanksgiving dinner with most people that I… I spend probably too much time on rapport building.

Brandon: I don't know. I think that's commendable. I think that's what wholesalers should do, is spend more time on rapport building. I think a lot of them and all they think about the money and the dollar sign and they just want to make something of it. I think that's great, trying to build that relationship.

Josh: Well, the successful ones that we've spoken to and that we've spoken to off the podcast just in general, they tend to be the ones who really focus on solving a problem. The ones who are just going in for the kill, for the money, you don't really hear those guys sticking around forever. There has to be some semblance of it because in the end you're helping somebody with a problem, get out of that problem. And if you're just there to be like, "Hey, here's some cash," and not listening, people aren't going to take you seriously.

Brandon: And even guys like Quarles, he's an expert negotiator, but even he talked about like if he fills in an old lady, he'd always make like the kid come in. You know whenever kids come in and negotiate with. Because he didn't want to ever be seen as taking advantage. You want to build that rapport and make sure that he's solving a problem, not taking advantage. And again, he's successful. The ones that we see that are successful are like that. I think that's cool. I want to ask you about the first deal. The rentals worked fine, now you're getting into wholesaling. The first one didn't work out so good and it's still in process. The second one didn't work out as good as you had hoped. At this point, most people, I would say 99% of wholesalers, would throw in a towel. They probably wouldn't have done the second one you did, they would've probably said, "Oh, this sucks. It's not making me money. I'm not rich yet like I thought I would be."

Josh: "Like I was promised."

Brandon: Yeah, like I was promised. I mean wholesaling at its heart is very a simple process. You send out some letters, you negotiate the deal, you make some money, you do it again. And what I like talking to you about this, it's like real life. This is what wholesaling is. This is what it is. Do you have any thoughts, tips on how you kept going? Because I know we're going to talk about some more stuff you did after that. But how did you keep going and how do you keep going despite having those two that didn't work out the way you wanted.

Kyle: It really just as much mindset as it is learning the trade. You got to work just as much on your mindset as you do learning about the business and that's really what kept me going. I found a couple of good resources and I knew I didn't want to go back to working outside and all that good stuff. I knew I had to keep plugging away and I found a couple of good mentors and I'm working with one right now in the area. So I know it works. Knew it worked and I knew I just need to keep pushing and that's what we've done and things are starting to pick up.

Brandon: So let's talk about that deal then you did. You said you finally got a big check and that's when you quit your job. Maybe you can tell us that story.

Kyle: Yeah, so it came in off yellow letters. Sent out some yellow letters.

Brandon: Can I ask how many you sent out? What're are you talking when you're sending out? What does that mean? 10,000 or 1,000?

Kyle: No, no, no. I was just doing them myself. I was sending out probably 25 to 50 a week. Just doing what I could. I was targeting absentee, out of state. I wasn't even sending them to absentee and state owners. I was aiming for low hanging fruit because I wanted a check. I got a call and this house had been vacant for a couple of years. I went and looked at the house. Made the gallant offer and I always hear guys saying, "If you're not cringing when you make the offer, you've offered too much." And so I threw out the offer and she's, "Oh yeah. That sounds okay." Wow, that's easy.

Josh: “I should've asked less.” Ha-ha.

Kyle: Yeah, yeah. But I got it under contract and talked to her a little bit more and she kind of gave me a little bit of a story. You know, what happened and why the house was vacant. And then I felt bad because I knew what I was going to make on an assignment. Like the next day, I called her up and I was like, "Yeah, you know I looked at the numbers. And I can actually give you a little more." Ha-ha.

Josh: Nice.

Kyle: So it was set to be a $30,000 assignment to $25,000. Most guys are probably thinking, "What in the hell did you do that for?" But I just felt bad I guess. I was happy with what I was getting.

Josh: No, it's great.

Brandon: Alright, so you ended up making $25 grand then off that?

Kyle: Mmhm.

Brandon: That's awesome. I love that. We talk a lot about direct mail. We talk a lot about that. A lot of people are using direct mail. I love the fact that you just did your own, 25-50 a week. You didn't go out and spend $10,000 a month on sending out mass letters. You just did what you could, where you could and it worked out for you. I think that's great.

Kyle: Well, even if I could have afforded to do more, I couldn't have handled the calls that came in. So I knew I would've been wasted my money. I didn't need more than what I was doing.

Brandon: And that's something you and I talked about. We just had, a couple of weeks, when we were out at the coffee shop about answering phone calls because I hate answering phone calls, right? I hate that point and you don't like it either.

Kyle: I absolutely despise it. Ha-ha.

Josh: Nice, so what do you do then? If you don't like it, do you actually answer?

Kyle: Well, no. They go to Freedom Voice. A voice account. I was using Google voice, but I started having too many problems with it so I use a Freedom voice account now.

Brandon: What does that cost?

Kyle: It's only like $19 a month. There are several out there that are similar but yeah.

Josh: So everything goes to voicemail, that gives you the time to kind of like get your confidence up, do some research. Okay.

Kyle: And like I was talking to Brandon about it, it really is all mindset because I look at some of the stuff that I have done as far as careers and things and it's like this is what I used to do and I'm afraid of the phone. I mean it really is just all in your mind. It's still something that I struggle with, making the phone calls but...

Brandon: I'm right there with you.

Kyle: Just keep pushing through it.

Josh: Yeah. Is it a preparation thing, if you kind of knew who was going to be calling you and you had the information that you needed in front of you on that person and felt more prepared, do you think that would make a difference? Because for me, I don't like answering calls from strangers because I want to prepped. If I get a random phone number, I'm never going to answer it because I don't know who they are. I don't know what the call's about and frankly I want phone calls to be on my terms. I want to be able to talk to them when I'm ready to talk to them. So is it the same kind of thing?

Kyle: Yeah and I can definitely relate to that. What we do when the call comes in is we'll skip trace it, just to see if it comes up with a name and cross-reference it with our list. That way we've at least gotten an address and can have the house pulled up in Google Maps. And so we can at least, when we're talking to the person, at least they think we've seen the house and it helps you be a little more prepared. I think it probably weighs a lot more time than most guys will do, but I'm the same way. I feel like I got to be at least a little bit prepared for who I'm talking to.

Josh: Yeah, right on. I was going to ask. We kind of glanced by it, but you did ultimately quit your job, right? How did you know that it was the right time? Was it, "Hey, I just got this check for 25 grand? That'll last me the next six months, a year. If I don't do anything more, I got six months of trying this thing out and I'm going to do it," or was it something else?

Kyle: No, I'd say it was just kind of after I got that check. It was just, "Wow, it does work. I can do this." And so I knew with more time and a little money for marketing now, I could scale it and really turn it into something. So that's what I decided to do.

Josh: Yeah, that's great. Do you miss climbing up the towers?

Kyle: No, and I never even actually got that far. You know, climbing towers. I was just a grunt.

Josh: Oh, right.

Kyle: No, I don't miss this. It was fun in the summer time I guess, you could say, when it was nice outside. But I don't miss working in the slopping mud and the rain. Ha-ha.

Josh: Well you said you were in law enforcement. Were you a police officer? I'm just curious.

Kyle: Yeah, I was a police officer for about five years.

Josh: Oh cool. And do you mind my prying or you don't? I'm afraid to ask these questions, but I get to interview the cops. Yeah! Ha-ha.

Kyle: I'm getting grilled now.

Josh: Yes! What was it that kind of got you out of that?

Kyle: It just got to the point, especially being in a small town, where the wife and I couldn't go out and have dinner because you'd hooked most the cooks and anybody I dealt with and we had to drive out of town to go get groceries because you just didn't want to be around with people you were dealing with at night. It's really funny. After four or five years of dealing with the same people, with the same issues, and you're working so hard to get them, especially the bad ones, put away and then a week later they're out on the street doing the same thing, it was mind numbing for me. They would have drove me nuts to keep doing it.

Josh: Makes sense. Alright, so you did these wholesale deals. You bought a bunch of rentals upfront. Kind of get us up to where we are today. I mean, did you continue to pick up rental properties? Have you been wholesaling? What's been going on the past X amount of time?

Kyle: Yeah, so actually what I've been focusing on and I guess you could probably call it more of procrastination and distraction than focusing, but building my network and meeting other guys in the area. I've met one guy locally that I'm working with now. We're actually partnering. He wanted to expand and move into another area and it was the area that I was working so I said, "Hey, this is what I don't like doing." So he agreed to do the direct mail part of things and I agreed to kind of set appointments and go on appointments and get deals under contract and we'd split the profits. And so that's what we're doing.

Josh: So you guys are partners, instead of fighting and competing and saying, "This is my town." You guys collaborate.

Kyle: Yeah, we don't have an entity, no contract, anything like that. We just agreed to work with each other. In fact, we closed another deal Friday. It was a good deal. That was just under $18,000 on that one.

Josh: That's great.

Brandon: Nice, did you get that from direct mail also?

Kyle: Yep, that was another yellow letter. And that was another one that went on for 3, 4, 5 months. Really sprung out.

Josh: So you really want to be patient and wait it out because something you may think is a dead deal, in time, if you really continue to work it, it can work out, can't it?

Kyle: Yeah, and sellers are funny. They'll just disappear off the face of the earth and then out of the blue they'll give you a call.

Brandon: This is why I hear wholesalers all the time say - the ones that are really good at direct mail - is, "You just keep mailing." I think Jerry Puckett always says, "Consistent and persistent." Right? Just keep going because you never know. If your yellow letter is sitting on their table when they're ready to sell, then you're going to be the one they call. You never know.

Kyle: Yeah, but this one it was one of those deals where he was an absentee owner, out-of-state. Living in Florida and he thought the house was in a lot better shape than it was. He actually called me when he was on his way to come check out the property and I asked him if he had seen it lately and he was like, "Well, no. Why?" So after he's seen it, I didn't hear from him for a long time. I even sent him a couple of contracts in the mail and couple of months went by and he sends me a text message. He was like, "Should we try this again?" And I knew he was ready at that time so I jumped on it.

Josh: Nice. How else do you market besides yellow letters? You've got a website?

Kyle: Got a website. Starting to get some good leads coming off of that. I've really been trying to learn about a little bit about AdWords and SEO and that's the whole thing that I find is a real distraction for me. I'm easily lost in a rabbit hole chasing shiny objects. I'll spend two or three weeks researching websites and SEO and we haven't sent out letters and wondering I'm not getting calls. It's so easy to get lost. I think the key for me now is having somebody that I'm accountable to, so that if I'm not holding up my end of the deal I know it's going to get tougher. That really helps having somebody now to be accountable to.

Josh: That's the partner you're talking about?

Kyle: Yeah.

Brandon: Hands down today, if I decided I'm going to become a full-time wholesaler, I want to make a lot of money wholesaling, the very first thing I would do is find a partner, just like that. Because I know that, me personally, I need that motivation. That's kind of like BiggerPockets right? Like Josh is my motivation to do stuff on BP because he pushes me, I push him to like, "Let’s drive things better. Let's do this and that." The same thing with my real estate. My wife, with my rentals, she pushes me. But there's never been anybody that pushed me wholesaling, so I never did a whole lot of it. That's exactly what I would do is to find somebody to keep me accountable and push me. I think that's great. Anybody listening. If you don't have that kind of partner or whatever, maybe go throw up an ad in the market place.

On that note, I want to talk real quick about managing your time. Because you mentioned it's easy to get down that rabbit hole of shiny objects. So when you quit your job, what was that like? I mean, all of a sudden now you've got full time, all day long to do whatever you wanted.

Josh: That's a good question.

Kyle: I thought it was going to be awesome. I thought it was grand, you know. Sit at home. Doing your work at home. Work from anywhere. My wife and I just recently bought our first foreclosure at auction, and so we're rehabbing that and going to be moving into that. And I'm happy that it's actually going to have a dedicated office because right now it's so easy to get distracted, especially if you're a little bit ADD, like me. It's like I could be here building my list and my calls that I need to make and it's like, "Oh, the yard needs mowed."  I thought working at home was going to be great, but it can be a real distraction. I guess I could just tell you to try it if you don't know.

Brandon: You know, one thing I found, that I fell into was the, I said this before but when I quit my job the last time and I said I'm going to be full-time real estate, I found myself doing repairs all the time. And I started working in my business and I just kept focusing inward instead of outward. And it wasn't until really when we started doing this podcast, and all our guests were like, "Work on your business. Work on your business. On your business." That's really when I started saying, "Oh, that's right." So the last two years have been quite a change where I don't do any repairs really anymore, at all. Yeah. Despite what Ben Lebovitz thinks and makes fun of me for daily, I don't actually do my own repairs anymore and I've been working… I think it's a progression people make. If you're going to work on your own, you got to do it.

Josh: So what do you do to manage your time? You say you're easily distracted, you say in the future you're going to have an office but today you don't. How do you make sure you get up, start working at whatever time and kind of get through the day and get your work done? What do you do to force yourself to do that?

Kyle: Kind of what my schedule is I've made myself. There's a few out there, I've kind of customized one that I found but it's kind of a breakdown of your day. I get up. I jot things down at night before I go to bed and then I get up. First thing I do in the morning is go over my priorities. You know, what has to be done in the day no matter what. Organize the projects that I'm working on. Pick out one or two tasks out of those projects that need to get done. People I need to contact. Really having that on paper, and I really suggest that for people who are easily distracted, is having it on paper so that it's there and not just one your phone or on your computer, but something you can look back to multiple times a day just to keep you on track. And that's really helped me a lot. And I've only been doing that the last month, but it's made a huge difference. If I catch myself outside, working on the house, or doing something, I pull that out of my pocket and, "Oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Get your ass back to work." Ha-ha. It definitely helps me having it on paper.

Brandon: I find the same thing. I do it with Evernote now.

Kyle: I've got Evernote too and I was using it but I found it's easy not to open to app. If it's sitting right in front of you or you feel it every time you put your hand in your pocket and pull it out, it just works better for me to have it on paper.

Brandon: I still do post notes.

Josh: Yep, post-its. I got those. You know what I really like? I really like these little notebooks that I get at conferences. They make like a moleskin notebook. Like a reporter's notebook? And I find these really handy and keep them with you because Evernote. I'll get all excited and I'll be like, "Yeah, let me put everything in Evernote," and I'll put like all things in and then it lasts for a day. And then six months passed by and I've done nothing.

Kyle: There is one app that I still use. It's called To Do List. But I do like that one, as far as organizing your projects and kind of keeping track of things. I still do use that one. What helps the most is keeping it on paper, writing it down.

Josh: Nice. And ever body's got their own system and whatever works for you is going to work you. So that's great. Well, cool listen--

Brandon: Do you hear that, Josh?

Josh: What?

Brandon: Do you hear that?

It's Time for The Fire Round!

Brandon: Alright, the fire round. These questions come straight from the BiggerPockets forums and we're going to fire at you, Kyle. Are you ready for it?

Kyle: I'm ready.

Brandon: Number one. What do you think is more time-consuming? Wholesaling or rehabbing?

Kyle: Mm. I would say rehabbing because I've done one.

Brandon: Okay. Because since you did it yourself.

Kyle: Yeah, yeah. So that's another thing that gets you off track. There was two, almost three months, where I wasn't sending out mail. I wasn't making calls. It definitely takes more time, rehabbing. Especially if a person's doing it yourself. SO that's what I would say there. Ha-ha.

Josh: Right on, right on. You don't need to say anymore, man. It's perfect. Alright, when starting out wholesaling, is it best to begin finding motivated buyers or motivated sellers? So do you build a buyers list or do you just go and find the deals?

Kyle: I would say, especially with the experience I've had, finding the deals. Especially nowadays, everybody's pushing their wholesale course and buyers are getting calls from people who have never done a deal and they're not going to take you seriously if you don't have a deal to present to them. I'd say go find the deal.

Brandon: That's great advice. Alright, the next question then is kind of related. How are you finding your buyers? How do you find cash buyers? How have you done it?

Kyle: I've got a few buyers off of Craigslist and now I do a little history on them to make sure they're actual buyers. But also the partner that I worked with, he's been doing it a lot longer than I have, so we use his buyers most of the time and I don't have to focus on that part of it. Ha-ha.

Josh: How many buyers do you guys use?

Kyle: Well, in the ones that I've been involved with, there's just been three.

Josh: And that kind of goes back to the other question, right? I think the gurus are all out teaching guys, "Build this buyers list. Build your buyers list. We've got software that helps you build a buyers list." All this stuff and I'm like, "This is crazy. What are you people doing?" You've done all these wholesale deals and you've used three buyers. Right? The average wholesaler that we talk to uses a handful of buyers. you don't need a big giant buyers list.

Kyle: Yeah, I would suggest instead having a hundred buyers, find one buyer that does a hundred deals a year.

Brandon: I'm not even kidding - I got a private message today on this exact thing. Here's what the private message said on BP. It said, "Hey, what do you think of this program I just saw online?" Links to it. And he says, "It says that I can get cash buyers delivered to my inbox automatically and I don't have to do any work and I can make money wholesaling. Do you think that's legit?" And I'm like, "I don't even understand how that's a question that people can ask." If everybody did that, then everybody would be doing that. I mean, if it was that easy, everybody would be doing that. Like you're going to sit in your underwear, magically buyers are going to show up in your inbox and then magically motivated sellers are going to show up in your inbox and all you have to do is click a button and it joins them together and you all of a sudden make 20 grand. And that's what wholesaling is, right?

Josh: Well, that's how the gurus make their money. Selling to the guys who thinks that things are magically going to appear on their inbox.

Brandon: Blows my mind. Blows my mind. Anyway.

Josh: Alright, last question. Last question. Last question. Here we go, fire round last question is what is the best strategy for finding wholesale opportunities?

Kyle: Obviously, well for me, the yellow letters have been the best. I get the best response rate. And mine aren't branded. They're just handwritten font. Yellow letters. Handwritten envelope. Coming from John down the street that wants to buy your house.

Josh: Is that the return address? John down the street that wants to buy your house?

Kyle: Ha-ha. Yeah. Anything fancy - I actually couldn't believe the response I got when I started using them. They're just real generic.

Josh: And what is your response rate?

Kyle: It varies but it's between 12% and 16% on yellow letters.

Brandon: That's great. That's higher than a lot of people I hear. I wonder how much of that is. I know we've got to move on, but you're not doing these yellow letters in your little, tiny town, right? Aren't you going outside, like Olympia or whatever?

Kyle: Yeah, I don't work there--

Josh: He's arrested everybody in his little town. Ha-ha.

Kyle: Ha-ha. No, the closest market that I work it's an hour and a half away. When I set appointments and stuff, come back to scheduling, I try to set them all for a couple of days a week so that as not spending all your time driving.

Josh: And when you are driving, you should tune in to the BiggerPockets podcast. Ha-ha.

Kyle: Absolutely!

Brandon: Yeah, I've actually told people that many times before. I always say that you can find good deals within a two-hour drive of any border in the US. You kind of prove that. you're in the middle of nowhere. Within an hour and half, two-hour drive. So yeah, use that to gain an education. We are what, at 150 hours of podcast now or something?

Kyle: Turn your car into your mobile university. Don't just listen to music. Listen to something. That's what I do. There's three main podcasts that I listen to. One's BiggerPockets. The other one's more of working on mindset. The other one's another real estate podcast. I'm not a big book guy. I listen to a lot of podcasts, a lot of episodes.

Josh: And the interesting thing about finding deals. Typically, we're doing the opposite. Typically, we're talking or defending, "Hey, you're in New York, Miami, Los Angeles. You're in a big city. And you could find it within two hours." We forget that the opposite is also true. There's also a whole lot of people who live in the middle of nowhere. Let's just take anybody in North Dakota. Now, I got to piss other people off and the folks in Michigan. But yeah, listen. Within two hours you can definitely find deals. I think that's great. Well, fantastic. Yes, yes. I think it's time for something.

Brandon: Time for the...

Famous Four!

Brandon: Alright, famous four. The Famous Four. These questions we ask everyone. So Kyle, I know you've heard them but we're going to fire them at you right now. Number one, what is your favorite real estate book. Now you said, you're not much a reader but do you have favorite real estate book?

Kyle: I do have a favorite real estate book and--

Josh: Ehem. Ehem. And for those people who cannot--

Kyle: Ha-ha. The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No or Low Money Down. Ha-ha.

Brandon: I'll give you your $20 later.

Kyle: Yeah. Ha-ha.

Brandon: Alright, what is your favorite real estate book?

Kyle: The most interesting book I've read, and I haven't read a lot of them to be honest with you, but was the Peter Conti and David Finkle, the one on lease options. I don't really remember the name of it but that's what it was.

Brandon: Yeah, I have it sitting in my room here somewhere. Yeah I don't remember it either. But they can look it up on Amazon, those two guys. Ha-ha. Something like making big money and something.

Kyle: Yeah, yeah. And the other one, I've never read Rich Dad, Poor Dad but I have read some of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad real estate books and The Guide to Real Estate, it's really good. Breaks down the basics and how to get started. So that was the first ever real estate book I actually read.

Brandon: Is that like The ABCs of Real Estate, that one? Or the Real Book of Real Estate?

Kyle: No, it just say The Guide to Real Estate.

Josh: Nice. What about business books? What's your favorite business book?

Kyle: My favorite business book would be, probably How to Win Friends and Win People by Dale Carnegie. That's been my favorite book so far. I've actually read that full. Front to back. Ha-ha. Didn't stop halfway through.

Josh: Awesome. Cool. Alright, man. What about hobbies? What do you in the middle of nowhere?

Brandon: Cow tipping?

Kyle: I like to hunt. Cow tipping. There's cow tipping. Ha-ha.

Brandon: What do you hunt?

Josh: Man.

Kyle: Anything. Yeah, I used to hunt people. Ha-ha.

Brandon: That's actually probably true.

Kyle: Yeah, I like the outdoors. Elk hunting. Deer hunting.

Josh: Nice. You should invite Brandon down and get some video of you two hunting. I would enjoy watching that.

Kyle: Making my [inaudible] [01:04:28]

Brandon: I like my fuzzy animals too much.

Josh: Squeal like a pig, boy.

Brandon: Alright, my last question of the day. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors, especially newbies, from those who give up, fail, quit, run away, cry? What sets them apart?

Kyle: Definitely, I think what sets them apart is just to keep pushing forward even when it gets tough or you come across obstacles. On any of my deals that I've done, none of them, except for the one big one, has been easy. They've all had their challenges and it would have been so easy just to walk away from it. So I would say persistence and perseverance. And just keep working through it.

Josh: Awesome. That's great. Alright, Kyle. Where can people find out more about you?

Kyle: You can find me on my Facebook page. I don't even know what the URL is on it but just search--

Josh: Or you'll give it to use and we'll link it on the show notes.

Brandon: Yeah, I'll link to it.

Kyle: Yeah. That or my website that you can't spell right. Ha-ha.

Josh: Ha-ha. What is that website?

Kyle: It's eliteacquisitionsnorrthwest.com

Josh: Well, it's not North West, it's NW.

Kyle: NW, yes. eliteacquisitionsnw.com is my website.

Josh: Awesome, great. Well guys this is show 97 of the BiggerPockets podcast with Kyle Pettit. Kyle, it's really been a pleasure. If anyone wants to ask you questions, they can do it on the show notes page at BiggerPockets.com/show97 and I'm guessing they can also find you on BiggerPockets, yeah?

Kyle: Absolutely.

Josh: Cool. Alright, man. Listen. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. We really do appreciate it.

Kyle: Yeah, thanks for having me on guys.

Josh: Alright guys, thanks again to our sponsor, RealtyShares.com, we really appreciate them supporting us and the show. Otherwise, thank you to everybody for listening. Lot of fun. Lot of fun talking with Kyle and we definitely appreciate him and his time. Otherwise, if you are not already active on BiggerPockets, we definitely recommend you jump in. BiggerPockets, it's such as great place to meet guys like Kyle and all our other guests. These guys come in, they hang out. They help one another out. They do business, they do deals. And it all kind of stems from getting on, creating your account. And not just creating the account, but being visible. Communicating, connecting to people, posting on the forums, interacting. If you're not doing that. I definitely recommend you do so. Otherwise, check us out on Facebook, on Twitter, on GPlus, on LinkedIn. We're even on Pinterest. But check us out. Find out about some of the cool stuff we're sharing and that's all I got for you. Brandon? Charlie? Got anything for us?

Brandon: No, we're good. You good, Charlie?

Josh: Charlie would be Brandon's lap dog, sitting on his lap. Not his imaginary friend, for those of you who cannot see us. But sounds good. Well, listen guys. Thanks for tuning in. Show 97. You can check out the show notes at BiggerPockets.com/show97. Until next time, I'm Josh Dorking, signing off.

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