#94: They Give You A Proven Plan. They’ve Done It Themselves. They Can Help You. Use The Coaches and Mentors.

Good morning folks, my name is Steve. I’m happy to be here to talk about my first real estate deal with the Freedom Mentor group. I’m sitting here in my clay studio, I do pottery as a hobby. I actually went to school to learn pottery, can you believe that? Anyway, I’ve been in this program since January. I got into the program because my day job is a bummer and I’ve always believed in real estate. My father was a real estate agent.

When I first moved to this area, which is Northwest Arkansas, I tried to get my friends to invest in real estate with me, I couldn’t find any of them to do it, I did it on my own, I was able to buy a couple houses, live in one rent the basement for instance. It worked out great. Never did have a real overall plan though. In the meantime life happens, those places I’ve sold. I got out by the skin of my teeth, thank goodness. But you really need a plan, and that’s where this coaching and mentorship really helps out.

They give you a proven plan. They’ve done it themselves. Every deal is different, but they’ve seen probably most of them. They can help you. Use the coaches and mentors. In this whole process I know there’s been a couple deals that I’ve let fall through the cracks folks because I haven’t reached out to the coaches and mentors. I’ve fallen back on my knucklehead thinking and got cold feet, let these deals go. Look, we live and learn, right? But use the coaches and mentors.

In the few months that I’ve been in the program I’ve had one deal close. It was a fantastic deal. I found a lead off the internet, intent based marketing, you can find that in the manual. Basically this was a house that 2 brothers owned. They inherited the house from their mother who passed away. They were young kids, had no business owning a house and no support system really to teach them how to take care of a house. In the process of owning this house they got into some legal issues, I guess used this place as a dance studio, graffiti studio and club house for them and their friends. It was a complete wreck.

You know those giant dumpsters that you can put 2 cars into? I guarantee you that between the 900 square foot house, the small little shed and the 2 car garage that detached on this property, there were 2 dumpsters full of junk. Mattresses, baby car seats, stuff, I don’t know, I didn’t look at it too much because it freaked me out. I’m thinking to myself, “Holy cow,” but the one thing is, it’s in this nice little area, nice small town in my area. Big piece of property, sort of a quiet blue collar neighborhood. Good, perfect, right?

Great potential, too much junk. I’m thinking to myself, “Wow, I do not want to deal with this junk.” That’s all I’m thinking, “Junk, me, no bueno.” I also found out that this guy has had other investors come and talk to him, this is the funny part folks and this is interesting. He’s had other people come and talk to him and give him, offer him more than what I was willing to offer him. It was just the personal dynamic between the 2 of us that got this deal done. I treated him as a human being, as just a normal guy with an issue on his hand which was this house.

Not only was the house a wreck but he owed back taxes on the house in the amount of about $1,400. He wanted 10 grand for the house, him and his brother. I looked at him after walking around the place, not touching a thing, I’m like, “Crap.” I’m like, “Look man, you see the work that’s involved here. Now I can take this off your hands and you won’t have to touch any of this, unless you want it. I can give you about 5 grand for it.” He balked at that, that wasn’t going to be quite enough. That’s including, 5 grand, which is including the back taxes of $1,400. He’s going to get $3,500, $3,600. That wasn’t quite enough.

I said, “Look, you want 10, I want to give you 5, why don’t we just split the difference here? I’ll give you $7,500. Out of that 7,500 I’m going to pay the back taxes and you’re going to get, what’s  6 grand out of the deal. 3 grand for your brother and you.” He said he could work with that. But all the while here guys, I’m being nice to him. Look, we all make bad decisions. This kid, bless his heart, had no clue on how to be a grown human being with responsibilities other than the next party to go to. I treated him like a normal guy and he accepted my offer.

He had had offers for $12,000 for the house, right? But the guy didn’t treat him with any respect and he didn’t take the offer for that reason alone, okay? It’s just about the relationship. He liked how I treated him. I’m not judging him. I’m just judging the house and it was a wreck. He knew that, it was obvious, so I made a great deal with him. I’m thinking to myself, I get the signed contract, I pick him up a later day, we go get the memorandum notarized. You’ve got to do those things sometimes. He didn’t have any transportation, I’m like, “Look, no worries. I’m going to pick you up, we’ll go to the UPS store and get this thing notarized.” That’s what we did, fantastic.

Then after that I’m like, “What am I going to do with this place?” I get on the phone and talk to coach Judy. I say, “Judy what am I going to do with this place?” She says, “Put it on Craigslist. Investor special, $25,000.” I’m like, “Okay, I’m doing it.” I put it on Craigslist, I kid you not in 4 days I had probably 10 calls, I had 3 people come out and look at it and I sold it for $24,500. I purchased it for $7,500, I sold it for $24,500 in a period of 4 days. Now then you have the closing, the title work, all that good stuff.

In about 2 months I made that spread, figure it out, I don’t know. It’s a big one. It’s nice, perfect. Can you believe it? In about 10 hours of work. Best of all, I didn’t have to touch any of that junk. Although I did find a fantastic metal roll top office organizer, old thing. Looks like it came from the army or something, weighs about 80 pounds. It’s pretty sweet. I paid the kid $20 for it.

That’s my deal guys. It was fantastic, it was easy. You have to love to talk to people. You have to love to talk to all kinds of people. I’ve talked to people who lived in $300,000 houses, and I’ve talked to this kid who was living across the street in his friend’s house because his house was a wreck. They’re all people, they all deserve a bit of respect. If you can give that to them and give them some trust that you can close the deal, you’ll get the deal.

A couple things I’ve learned is you’ve got to keep the energy active here. What I mean by that is, if you can work a couple hours every day on this, deals will come to you. I’ve struggled with this because I’ve got 2 kids that mean the world to me. When they’re here it’s really tough to not be with them. I don’t have them all the time so when I do have them I really cherish that time. I’ve got my job, which sucks, right? But if you can work out a balance to where you can market, market, market, you can find deals, but you have to work on a balance.

I’ve really struggled with that balance in the last few months. When you have your energy, that vibration, up and when you’re working the business, deals come in. It’s just the opposite when you don’t have that vibration up and you’re not working the business guess what, the leads stop coming in. If you can work the business, you can close deals. This to me was a home run, but I really know there are bigger deals out there. It’s just a matter of talking to people and working through those nos. Most people are not going to be deals, but every non deal you get through is closer to that deal that’s going to set you free.

That’s it folks. It can be super exciting. It’s been super exciting to me, but you’ve got to stick at it. Stick with it, keep your energy in the game. All right, thanks. Stick with the program, trust those coaches and use them. Thanks.