All Forum Posts by: Charlie Cameron

@Page Huyette I believe Charlie means buying and selling businesses.  In some states (FL included), with a real estate license we can broker buying/selling businesses - but I'm sure he will clarify for us!

If you're wondering why a whole brokerage/team would partner with eXp, there are at least fifteen reasons I can think of.  But perhaps for your situation the top ones would be:

1. Virtually eliminate overhead and liability
2. Shifting workload - for example eXp would now review paperwork, provide 50+ hours a week of live training from the best agents in the nation, handling all the financials, etc.  Would allow you to focus more on supporting your agents and growing your team.
3. Providing benefits and an attractive business model to your agents - healthcare, CRM, lead gen, exit strategies, stock earnings, etc.
4. Growth/scalability
5. Your own long term exit strategy

For your awareness I'm on a team just like yours.  It's a perfect structure.  I split my commission with my team lead for team provided leads/clients.  And I just pitch in a fee and keep 80/20 until I can on my own leads.  Works great because I still get support, love my team lead, love the team collaboration, get a TC, and have lots of flexibility and options.  

The growth opportunity is truly massive.  As a broker you'd cap quickly and you'd likely be doing enough each year to reach ICON status, and you'd get all your $16,000 cap as EXPI stock.  So you can look at it that way, perhaps you really aren't paying 20%.  Sounds like you might need a deeper dive, happy to help.  My team lead started in real estate part time 2 years ago and recent hit ICON status by building a small local military and investor friendly team.  

Best of luck in your decision!  We win together here, it's awesome.  

@Brian Oberg welcome brother.  Definitely check out the military to millionaire community, it's fantastic for us military investor bubbas.  Ran by none other than @David Pere. I just turned my last home into my first SFR, after owning 24 multis and recently starting an AirBnB. Happy to share whatever experiences I can. What is your big goal? I always like to start there. For example, is your plan to replace the AD portion of your income with RE cash flow?

Thanks for the tag @Dalyn Hazell!

@Trevor Andersen Congrats on making the leap out of AD brother, I'm working on that as well.  

I would also consider the FL panhandle, though I think the options you laid out would give more possibilities to the wife's profession.  Up here you have a drivable and popular vacation market from Destin to Panama City Beach, as well as a bunch of military bases between Pensacola to Panama City Beach.  I focus on military and investor clients because they are who I understand the most and it's a good market for it.  

Best of luck in your search!  Happy to connect if that might help.  Cheers!

@Robert H Hilbert Congrats on getting started.  While I'm NOT a CPA, generally you can deduct those expenses regardless of entity because you can deduct them as a sole proprietor. Hope that helps!

@JDee Moore it sort of depends on how much you make. Sorta. I'M NOT A CPA so let's get that out there. But my CPA suggested that since my business is starting to pick up to file my agent LLC (which will then elect to be taxed as an S Corp) for 2021. This is all for tax purposes rather than liability (we get E&O coverage already for that). Should reduce self employment taxes and will eventually be beneficial for other reasons like healthcare (not an issue for me yet). You can switch from SSN to EIN later.

Another note, make sure your filed business follows state requirements for naming convention and entity type. There are specific requirements per state for filing your agent business.  

@Deneuve Brutus I'll keep my ear to the ground and see who I might know.  I'll be in Woodbridge for Christmas!  Wife's family is there.  Small world!  Good luck on the transition.  

@Ryan Robinson that's interesting, I too just bought an AirBnB in the Disney area with a second home loan!  

But I'm actually located in the Panhandle.  VERY strong short term rental market between Destin to Panama City Beach.  You can find BRRRRs here but you have to be very quick about it, the cat is definitely out of the bag.  I keep some searches on for myself and investors for distressed properties and man they go quick.  There's also a LOT of wholesale deals to be had, but again, have to move fast, put down non-refundable deposits, inspect before contract, AND close cash in 2 weeks.  There are still a lot of areas and properties that need improvement... and I suppose there always will be, here #hurricanes !

@David Pere I actually can't say I know one either... and while I'm very strongly considering going commercial myself, I'm planning on waiting until after AD.  @Deneuve Brutus if you're already investment minded and like to hustle I don't think you'd have an issue.  For me I believe the issue would be getting business going while part time.  That's doable for residential, but I think it would be a lot harder for commercial.  Maybe just my own limiting belief!  

@Antoine Armstrong I guess my first question is... why would you want to stick it out if you aren't getting the support you need to be successful?  Sure, you can succeed anywhere with enough hustle but initially you also need SUPPORT in the form of training and mentorship.  Just like all the ways to make money in real estate, there are about as many ways to attract clients: A LOT.  But as a new agent it basically boils down to two things:

Way one: Hustle. This typically involves networking, which during this pandemic has reduced community networking and has cut down to mostly just social media.  You could create a community group, join other groups, be active on BP about miami investing, build a YouTube channel, leverage your website and squeeze pages.  These are usually ways to build a stream of clients that come to you and take time to build and grow.  

Way two: Pay for leads.  Three ways to do this: ads, referral splits, or with a bigger commission split (hint: if you are paying more than 20% commission to your broker, they'd better be providing leads to pursue as well... it's 2020 afterall).  Any of these ways can result in quicker wins but require a LOT of lead nurture and follow up. 

Either way, hustle required.  What kind of lead generation training, tools, mentorship, and support are you getting?

@Raj Kaushal So definitely heed the advice about your own performance may vary despite the area.  I recently got a 4/3.5 resort townhome in Davenport (I'm twice as far from Disney as much of Kissimmee, but it's still only 15-20 mins depending on where in Disney).  Got it for $175K - which is why I DIDN'T buy in Kissimmee.  I did my homework by reaching out to some of the top AirBnB hosts in those communities and found out in a non-COVID year they pull 30-35K.  Due to COVID I expected to mostly break even, but we're doing far better.  The strange part is that many if not most of the other owners in our community have been empty since March.  We've been full since we've closed and are projected out into mid Jan and are getting enough inquiries beyond that to indicate the bookings will come.  The way I can figure most of those empty listings are either with management companies (most) or they don't have any clue how to optimize AirBnB - which, turns out, is NOT a mystery.  

I'm actually IN the Destin/PCB market. Like the mountain markets, it stays pretty stable even despite COVID due to the drivability of it all. Your price point will likely be higher but so will your income. PCB tends to have a higher income to price of property ratio (if you compare like properties, condos to condos, homes to homes). But you can buy $5-600K homes in Destin that'll gross $85K+. All depends on what you want to do! AirBnB is very popular throughout the area. You just have to know which sides of the street STRs are allowed and then dig into the HOA to determine what specific rules there might be. Like some communities will allow STR but for no less than a week. That's a deal breaker for me personally, but may work for families that want a vacation home that makes some money as well but don't care as much about ROI.

Happy hunting!