How to Wholesale Your Way to $250,000 Profit in One Year

Cody Hofhine is a wholesaler that is on pace to assign over $1 million worth of contracts this year. In our recent conversation, he provides a 5-step roadmap on how he started a wholesale business from scratch and earned over $250,000 in the first year.

Step 1 – Have an Abundance Mindset

The first, and most important step to success in any business is to adopt the right mindset. Before Cody found his first deal, spoke with his first seller, or added the first name to his buyer’s list, he read two books: “The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity” and “The Go-Giver.” Upon completion, he made the commitment to adopt an “abundance mindset.” Essentially, this means that if you focus on giving and helping other people, you end up getting a huge return on your investment. Whether it be donating X% of your income to charity or giving a huge tip at a restaurant, he is always scanning for opportunities to contribute.

Having this abundance mindset and helping others as often as possible will start to rollover into how you should be wholesaling. Cody never meets with a potential seller and tries selling himself. He goes in there with the sole intention of helping. He has replaced the word “sell” with “help” in his mental vocabulary. When he has that mindset of always looking for ways to help other, the byproduct is walking out with the contract.

Step 2 – Build a Big Buyer’s List

Many newbie wholesalers come to Cody and say, “how do I find my first deal? What is the best way to find my first deal?” However, if you don’t have the end in mind (in the case of wholesaling, this end would be having a cash buyer) it doesn’t matter how many deals you have or how good the deals are because you won’t be able to sell it to anyone.

Therefore, before even finding your first deal, you have to start by building a cash buyers list. Build up a massive cash buyers list so that you are able to easily sell those properties and do whatever you need to do in order to make a profit.

Blog Post: 4-Step Process to Creating a 15,000 Person Buyer’s List

Blog Post: 8 Ways to Quickly Build a Buyer’s List

Step 3 – Learn the Legal Rules

Wholesaling is a great tool to make a lot of money, but it is governed differently in every state. Make sure that you wholesale according to your state’s law. The best way to accomplish that task is to hire a great real estate attorney.

On that note, you will also want to find a great title company. You don’t want to personally do a closing, nor can you, so it is important to find a title company that is well versed in performing the type of wholesale closing that is legal in your state. After you have found a real estate attorney, they are usually already tied to a good title company as well, so it is a win-win.

As for the rest of your team, Cody recommends that in the beginning, get out there and learn to wear all of the hats. Get your foundation set first, and then focus on delegating aspects of your business to team members.

Step 4 – Find Phenomenal Deals

Finally, after all of the foundational work is accomplished – you’ve adopted the abundance mentality, built a buyer’s list, and learned the rules – it is time to start finding deals to wholesale.

Cody’s favorite and most effective method for finding deals is direct mail marketing. However, there are endless marketing strategies to choose from. Pick a strategy that you are most comfortable with and then make the commitment to adhere to that strategy week after week.

Blog Post: Three Marketing Methods to Wholesale 250 Deals a Year

Step 5 – The Secret to Stellar Seller Conversations

Cody believes that wholesaling is simple. If there is anything complicated about wholesaling, it is the wholesaler. It can be as easy as always remembering that wholesaling is a people business.

If someone responds to a piece of marketing, they are doing so for a reason. As a wholesaler, it is your job to find out why they reached out to you and not the hundreds of other wholesalers, investors, or real estate agents in the marketplace. The best way to accomplish that is also very simple: ask and listen.

Whenever Cody meets with a potential seller, he sits down with them for a minimum of 30 minutes and only talks about them. In doing so, he quickly builds a level of trust, and since people do business with people that trust, this gives Cody an advantage over the competition. After 30 minutes, transitioning to discussing the deal is an easy conversation. Now, he is on a friend-to-friend basis, which is a situation that most other investors aren’t going to achieve.