The Titanium Vault hosted by RJ Bates III
RJ Bates III, affectionately referred to as the Viking Wizard by his students, started his real estate investing career in 2014 after attending a real estate education program that put him $65,000 in debt. RJ contracted his first deal he found on the MLS and wholesaled it for a $7,500 assignment fee. That was the end of his former life and the beginning of his venture into becoming a real estate investor. Since that moment, RJ has become an influential figurehead in the real estate investing industry. He has successfully purchased and sold over 2,000 properties all across the USA including wholesale deals, rehabs, rentals, owner finances and short term rentals. One of his passions is being the host of The Titanium Vault Podcast where he interviews the top real estate investors and finally, RJ has won back to back Closers Olympics earning him the reputation as the King Closer!
The Titanium Vault hosted by RJ Bates III
What Would Happen to the United States Real Estate Market if There was a War on American Soil? | Pardon The Disruption
Welcome to Pardon the Disruption, an entrepreneurship debate podcast featuring RJ Bates III, Steve Trang, Leon G. Barnes and Eric Brewer.
1. There's a belief that the elites are pushing for a world agenda where "You'll own nothing and you'll be happy" where private ownership will be extremely difficult or nonexistent. Do you believe Real Estate investors are helping with this "belief" by selling to hedge funds, and accumulating massive portfolios etcc.?
2. Just like Sam Bankman-Fried's trial of FTX's fraud trial, how can people protect themselves from Real Estate fraud/schemes?
3. With global conflicts rising recently, what would happen to the U.S. real Estate market if there was a main-land war?
4. Like Drake releasing his 10th studio Album; "For All the Dogs" and seemingly still involved and influential in the music scene, what do you do to stay motivated and focused on your Real Estate career?
5. According to the telegraph "Mortgage defaults rise at fastest pace since 2009 as lenders warn of worse to come." Do you think the worst is yet to come?
Learn how to close like The King Closer at https://thekingcloser.com/
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Buy the replay of the Closers Olympics at https://closersolympics.com/rj
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The Most Powerful Dispo Tool: https://get.investorlift.com/titanium/
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What is going on everyone, welcome to this week's part in the disruption. I am your host, matthew Potter. It's good to be back. Thank you to Aaron for filling in for me last week. The show today, so that you guys know, is sponsored by Bateman Collective. If you are in real estate and looking for PPC help, reach out to Bateman Collective. They're going to go ahead and get you squared away Real quick. We are going to go ahead and let you know how we break things down around here. We have five pre-selected questions Forty-five seconds for each one of our panelists to go ahead and answer and then two minutes to chop it up and give their best rebuttals. We're going to go ahead and start off with intros with Mr Disruptor himself, steve Trang.
Steve Trang:What's going on, guys? Steve Trang, real Estate Disruptors Glad Matthew is back with us here today. We focus on sales, we solve sales problems and this week we just bought CloseMarsalescom Really happy we're able to land that. Let's see what we were able to do with that in 2024.
Matthew Potter:Absolutely Glad that you are adding to your addiction of owning website domains. Thanks, steve. Next up coming to us from York, pennsylvania, we have EB Eric Brewer. Introduce yourself, boss.
Eric Brewer:What's up, everybody Happy to be back. I was out for a few weeks, contemplated coming back, and then I found out Leon was going to be here today, so I decided to go ahead and come back in, especially since RJ begged me. We wanted some type of competition on the show. So I'm just here. I'm going to try and perform like a tree today. I just hope that I can do a good job of being more like a tree. Those are my aspirations.
Matthew Potter:It's going to be a great show today. I promise you it is. You guys really should have heard it before this. Next up we have Leon. Don't forget the G-Barns. Introduce yourself, boss.
Leon G. Barnes:What's up everyone? Leon G-Barns, so happy to have the Varsity Squad back. In fact, I have a new writer, just so you know, matthew, I refuse to be on this show unless the Varsity Squad is here. So that's my new writer, green M&Ms, and I only show up when the Varsity is ready to go.
Matthew Potter:Love it and love that backdrop you got going on there, Leon. That is crisp and clean. That is nice.
Leon G. Barnes:It's crisp and clean, like Eric's filthy down there.
Matthew Potter:Absolutely Last, certainly not least, coming to us from the great state of Texas, we have RJ Bates, the third. Introduce yourself.
RJ Bates III:What's up guys? Rj Bates, the third, the King Closer and also the reigning champ, pardon, the disruption in live. Eric didn't even show up. He knew it was going to be so dominated by me, and I took last week off because we had a crucible and I don't know what happened, man, the show fell apart. We had some high school dropout hosts come in with a gone cup and I listened to the rebound and it was the worst hosted show I've ever seen. So, aaron, I love you for what you do in the background, but excited to have Potter back here too.
Matthew Potter:That might be the first time that RJ Bates has ever endorsed me as a judge. I appreciate it. I'm excited to be back, Excited for this week. Let's go ahead and get started on question one. There's a belief that the elites are pushing for a world agenda where you'll own nothing and you'll be happy, where private ownership will be extremely difficult or non-existent. Do you believe real estate investors are helping with this belief by selling to hedge funds and accumulating massive portfolios of real estate holdings? Start us off, Steve. Yes.
Steve Trang:I do think that the people that are selling to funds are contributing to it, and you and I had the fortune we were fortunate last year when we went to the IMN and we listened to all the hedge funds that owned tens of thousands of properties and they all said that in the future, the American dream no longer includes home ownership. That's what they said on the panel. Are we contributing to it Absolutely? What do you want us to do about it? We have people to feed. We have people to take care of. We're going to make sure we're getting the income we're generating the income necessary to run a business, to pay our organization, to pay our staff. So are we contributing to it Absolutely? Unless something else changes, this is the way it's going to be for the foreseeable future.
Matthew Potter:There we go. Yes, I do remember that, being in that room and hearing that and being like, well, I guess that's what it's going to be. All right, bro. What about you? What are your thoughts? I don't know what that was. That was the wrong button.
Eric Brewer:Dang. I like that, though. Is that the new buzzer?
Eric Brewer:For you, yes, Can you hear me? Yes, Anyway, I would say, yeah, we're contributing, If you believe that the World Order's goal is to force us to own nothing. But what are you going to do? I think at the end of the day, your choice is to not sell to them. There's entire businesses that were selling to hedge funds and without the hedge funds they had no business. They'd have to develop a new skill, like becoming a king closer, like RJ, where you can sell to other people without selling to hedge funds.
Eric Brewer:By the way, the third in his name I know it's a little off topic I just realized that has nothing to do with his family heritage. He's just projecting that it'll be three years in a row that he wins King Closer. So it's a hard one to beat Three-time winner King Closer back to back to back. But yeah, we're contributing, but such a small percentage. I think the number last year of institutional transactions was right around 3%. So we got a long runway left and I have a sneaky suspicion Legislation will sneak in and they will try and in some way suppress hedge funds ability to take away the dream of owning a home.
Matthew Potter:There we go. I like the deeper dive insight there is, always from Brewer. All right, what about you, leon? What are your thoughts?
Leon G. Barnes:The varsity squad is back A deep dive on. Rj Bates is third on there. I love the start and I also love this question. You know why? Because it's very click bait-ish. Whoever came up with this, congrats to Eric's point there. This is it's a slow roll. The amount of properties that are owned by institutions is still right around that 3% mark. The majority of homes are still owned by individuals that own one to four doors. So this is something that is going to be a long time to get to that point, and I do think the government doesn't want that. The government always has always pushed home ownership for citizens makes for better communities. So I do think that you'll see some changes there and, quite frankly, I know a lot of investors are selling out a lot less today than they were just this time last year to institutions, so I think this is a little bit premature. But also, like each of the other two have said, what are we going to do about it? In this timeframe? We're going to continue to sell where we can.
Matthew Potter:There we go. All right, All right, King Closer. What about you? What are your thoughts?
RJ Bates III:Well, like normal, I'm going to go against the grain here and I'm going to say no, I don't think so. I think it's just how the narrative is spun. I think there's a flipside that. Let's just take Eric for an example. He's big in no vacience and what is he doing with those no vacience? He's turning in those deals around and he's selling them to FHA borrowers that otherwise are struggling to find homeowner or homes to purchase. Right Out of all of the wholesale deals that we've done over the past 12 months, a very small percentage of them have gone to hedge funds.
RJ Bates III:That's, as us as being a nationwide wholesaler. There's plenty of people out there that their sole strategy is to flip homes and not to sell them to hedge funds. This is to sell them to owner occupants. So I think you could. You could spin the narrative to say sure, we're helping fuel this fire, but the flip side of it is is if you defend ourselves and you say no, that's not necessarily the case with facts. To Eric's point, 3% of the transactions were with institutional buyers. So no, I'm going to disagree. I don't think we are.
Eric Brewer:RJ, by the way, to make you feel a little bit better, even though you did such a low volume of deals to hedge funds. I assure you Steve did even less. I know you were being modest there and it's like, hey, small percentage of deals. We really didn't do many. I assure you he did far less, but we all play all the check the numbers the whole thing Okay, but the Leon's money.
RJ Bates III:You know, in the past 12 months even just wholesale deals to to hedge funds have significantly dropped off. They have like the.
RJ Bates III:The lowest hanging fruit hedge fund, the wholesale to was SFR. Three like 12, 18 months ago. They literally have a website set up where it's like, just punch in the address when it was part of our acquisitions process. We're going to be looking at their website, type it in the address to see if they hit their buy box. They're not even buying anymore. So I mean there's a lot of hedge funds out there that have slowed down and I think as we go into today's questions we're going to see how my answer kind of fits into what else is going on in the world.
Eric Brewer:You know what the dichotomy might be. There is that by inflation and raising rates, where a lot of people see that pushing hedge funds out it may have actually increased their chances of buying a home, because, I mean, that's the only thing that changed. Why did hedge funds slow down? Rates went up and they bowed out. So it's an interesting philosophy there that you have a couple things that appear to be working against the consumer, but that one thing actually helps them.
Leon G. Barnes:I think the trend on the institutional side that does continue to increase doesn't affect home ownership. I think it's more apartment-based. If you look at from a percentage base and the amount of doors, acquisition-wise from a multifamily approach, you see that more and that doesn't affect home ownership.
Steve Trang:Yeah, we're all going to bring that up.
RJ Bates III:Go ahead, Steve.
Steve Trang:I was going to say that other thing we saw not only were hedge funds buying a lot of homes, but they're really big on built-to-rent or either buying new built communities and they're building built-to-rent communities. They believe, and they're very convincing, that the future, again for the American Dream, does not include home ownership. Go ahead, rj.
RJ Bates III:But that's their narrative. Of course that's going to be their narrative. They're going to visit. We're going to buy them all, baby. They're not going to sit there and be like we're only going to own 1%. Their mindset is hey, in order for us to be what we want to be, we have to buy them all.
Steve Trang:Sure, but we're talking about the narrative right If we're selling to them Right now. The reason why wholesalers are not selling as many homes to hedge funds right now is because this big has been turned off. But once this big is turned back on, I think this narrative continues to be true.
Eric Brewer:Damn Nice word placement of the word spicket. I like that.
Steve Trang:You like that compared to finagle?
Eric Brewer:Use finagle with me on like 11 times in a phone call. It threw me off a little bit.
Matthew Potter:We all know that RJ's favorite word is unfettered access. If you haven't seen that reel, it's the greatest reel of all time. Steve. Come on with the solid argument at the end there, though, about the fact that it's because the spigot's off. Let's be honest if a fund was going to come in and pay 95% of ARV right now on any of your wholesale deals, would you sell it to them? Probably so. Point to Steve on this one. Excited to see what the answers are going to be today, though, because these questions, like RJ alluded to, but we're going to go ahead and dive All right. Question number two just like Sam Bankman's trial of FTX's fraud, how can people protect themselves from real estate fraud and schemes? Start us off, steve.
Steve Trang:So I have the unfortunate experience of being named in a lawsuit in a transaction that I was in no way involved in any whatever bad stuff that the guy was doing. The best way to protect yourself is to make sure that if you're giving money to a real estate investor, that you have a lien recorded on the property. So we had this guy who gave this other investor 200,000 plus in private money with no lien on the property and the guy was furious with everybody on this transaction because the investor let the property go in foreclosure because he couldn't flip it for what he wanted to flip it for and so he lost his 200k plus and I feel genuinely bad for the guy that lost the money as a private money investor. But the best way to protect yourself is to use the laws in place and follow those laws to protect yourself. Put your lien, put your interest on the property and recorded record.
Matthew Potter:There we go. Good answer from Steve. I feel like I almost was there for that one Next up Brewer. What are your thoughts?
Eric Brewer:I would say the keyword there is fraud. Steve, if the guy borrowed 200 grand and the agreement was not to put a lien, there was no fraud there it was just an investment that went bad and that guy lost.
Eric Brewer:It happens all the time. So while that sucks, I don't see it as fraud. There's an example that's in the news right now that I'm actually I'm a little bit of a hater. If you guys watch the Breakfast Club, it's a radio show that's been around for like 30 plus years and Charlemagne and DJ Envy are just two of the worst radio personalities I've ever met. Our politics don't align, so they often have debates and dialogue that I heavily disagree with.
Eric Brewer:And DJ Envy has found himself part of a fraud scheme that he claims he knew nothing about. He went and actually commented on their Instagram page yesterday because he said that he tried to teach people in his community real estate to uplift his community, while charging $2,500 a ticket. And then he brought it all of these speakers and there's a guy named Caesar which who would ever think that a guy named Caesar would be a fraud right? And he took all of this money and committed fraud. And now DJ Envy's tied up in the fraud scheme because he sponsored this guy. He quote unquote co-signed this guy. They're saying he knew about it and he got paid and he was begging for forgiveness on the show yesterday and it tickled my heart because I think the guy deserves everything that he's getting.
Eric Brewer:So it didn't really answer the question, but Steve's answered with garbage, and I'm just happy that DJ Envy's getting in trouble.
Steve Trang:So take that, tickle. My heart Tickle's getting hard.
Matthew Potter:I love the brrr brought this one in because as soon as I saw this question, it's immediately what I thought of. I thought of DJ Envy sitting here promoting this.
Eric Brewer:He's not a sale of that guy, he's a word.
Matthew Potter:He's well, he's promoting it everywhere. That's the thing he's promoting it, so that's why he's lumped into this right now. All right, next up, we're looking for some insight, and there's the most insightful panelists we've ever had. Leon, go ahead and give us your thoughts on this one.
Leon G. Barnes:So I'm going to give you the insight not statistical or anything like that that I typically do. I'm going to give you a little insight on me today. So there's a couple of things that I'm very fascinated by. History is one of them. Another one is serial killers. Very fascinated by serial killers and I'm also fascinated by fraud and I think all of those type of criminals, serial killers and fraudsters. Those guys always leave crumbs breadcrumbs, and you can learn a lot by getting in the mind of serial killers and people that fraud others.
Leon G. Barnes:There's a really good documentary on Bernie Madoff massive, massive Ponzi scheme the largest in the history of the world, I believe. Billions of dollars never invested, complete Ponzi. I love research. I watch a lot of American greed and I watch a lot of those documentaries on frauds that have happened over the course of history and I just look for those type of signs and do as much research on anyone I would ever give a dollar to. So I'm fascinated by it, which makes me do a lot of research and make sure that anybody that I'm ever investing with I know as much as I possibly can about that individual. That said, what I've learned from watching all that history is that it's not 100% foolproof. You can still get got do as much research as you can, just knowing that it's always not full. It's not always foolproof.
Matthew Potter:Very nice. Due diligence, the due diligence king that's going to be Leon's new name. All right, what about you, rj? What are you doing?
RJ Bates III:So, to take Steve's answer, I'm going to combat that with. There is a gentleman that is currently facing charges by the SEC. We're just going to call him for the sake of not using his name. He was a doctor. We're just going to call him Dr Justin. So Dr Justin put 40-something liens on one property that was worth about $40,000 in the Midwest.
RJ Bates III:So, steve, your point there are levers that you can take. But combining your answer and Leon's, you need to take it a step further and make sure your due diligence is done. Had any of those lenders pull the title commitment on that, they would have seen, holy cow, there's 35 liens on this. I'm going to be in 36 position for my 40 grand. Like, maybe you're a fraud. So there is a level of hey, risk exposure, making sure you use the levers. I'm going to go back just for Eric. I'm going to say, hey, hedgehog concept, same thing here. When you're going to be lending money out, make sure you're limiting your exposure by only having so many investments that are possibly going to put you at risk. Because the Eric's point as well if you invest enough, you're eventually going to lose some money, so make sure you're limiting it as much as possible.
Steve Trang:So few things. First, thank you, rj Bayes for being the first official sponsor for my title company. Yes, title insurance is valuable. B I am very frightened now to hang out with Leon because all he does is spend time thinking about being a serial killer. I'm thinking about it.
Steve Trang:And number three I'm worried now about giving Eric Brewer a platform, because if anything happens, this is going to fall on me. But you talk about Caesar right? Because unfortunately I've interacted with this guy and I've gotten to hear a little bit more about what he was doing. And what he was doing is exactly what RJ just said. He was borrowing on one property nine times, not just borrowing money on that property nine times, he was borrowing money on that property after he sold it, right. So getting liens will protect you in these circumstances If you do a title report. So thank you, rj, for putting that bow on it.
Leon G. Barnes:You know what? Also, protect your Steve, having a friend like me that can point out any serial killer in the room, that's what we'll do.
RJ Bates III:I'm going to say this at Intampa was the first time I actually got to meet Leon G Barnes in person and he is frighteningly tall, Like I mean, what are you? Six foot four, six foot five? And he kind of looks down upon you and I actually told Cassie afterwards Leon kind of reminds me of a serial killer. So it is there.
Eric Brewer:Leon's defense RJ, lots of people look down on you, so it doesn't make him a serial killer. You don't need. He didn't need title insurance. You don't need a title. Search would have revealed the nine lead Right, you didn't need the insurance. You just need someone to pull the title.
Steve Trang:So nice try, but usually title companies do that, but I don't know. I mean, maybe you guys do it differently in York.
Eric Brewer:Insurance is the issue, not the title. It's the insurance.
RJ Bates III:I appreciate Eric explaining to the owner of the title company how title companies do it.
Eric Brewer:I often explain to the sales trainer how sales works too, so I'm just staying in that I'm not here.
Leon G. Barnes:That's it. Wow In the show. I'm that right there.
Matthew Potter:Yeah, I really kind of wish that was question five, six, right there, I really wish it was all right. On that note, the best answer that actually you know for the question that we were asking was provided by mr Serial killer himself, leon G barns, over there. Yes, you have to do due diligence at a exponential level. I don't know why he left, but okay, anyways, points Leon on that one. Let's get to question three. All right, next up.
Eric Brewer:Since when did like question relevance become part of the scoring model?
Matthew Potter:There we go. We're gonna cut to breaking, we're gonna sever over there, all right. Next up, question number three with global conflicts rising recently, what would happen if the ua? What would happen to the us Real estate market if there is a mainland war? Start us off, leon.
Leon G. Barnes:Nothing good. I mean you look at the Our time frame. You know on this planet in our live lifetime there's been one Attack on American soil and look what that did to our economy at that given time in 9-11. The only other time that ua soil was attacked was Pearl Harbor. So it's been you know two times. Once in our lifetime that's something like this has happened. So it becomes a black swan event and all bets are off. I mean obviously all resources are cut to make sure that we protect our citizens and Defeat the enemy. So I can't think of one good thing that would come from that, and Definitely for what we do. People obviously are going to need shelter, but from us, from a commerce standpoint of doing business, nothing good happens from that.
Matthew Potter:There we go, given into giving into a straight. All right, what about you, rj? What are your thoughts?
RJ Bates III:So I? This is a relatively obvious answer. So I just have to poke fun at Leon, because we always say he's the most informed. So, leon, write these down. Okay, the war of 1812, the Mexican-American war, the Mexican border war, the civil war, those are all attacks on Americans. So I don't know if you were aware of those or not, but I appreciate you saying there's only been two attacks. Mr Most informed, I listen it. Obviously it's not gonna be good.
RJ Bates III:Going back to our first question, though, we're talking about these hedge funds, these institutional buyers. If this were to happen, the first people that are gonna pull out of buying any piece of real estate are gonna be those institutional buyers. I believe they would instantly Curl up in their turtle shells and stop buying, and I think the whole world would, or specifically the United States, because we'd never experienced anything like that outside of 9-11 and World War two, I mean. But you can't even really consider World War two, and we saw what happened in 9-11 to Leon's point. So I think it would come to a standstill. Lord be with us if it happens. I hope nothing ever comes close to that happening in our lifetime, but Obviously it's gonna come to a halt.
Matthew Potter:There we go To vote to votes for nothing. Good, all right, steve. What about you? What are your thoughts? I Think that what would happen to the real estate values would be very similar to what happens with natural disasters.
Steve Trang:Right, like every time there's a massive earthquake in real estate in California, all the real estate values go down and eventually it goes right back up. Right, the property values in Houston after Hurricane Harvey it all went down and over some period time it comes back up. I think I think long term it would be the same thing here. I think there'd be immediate collapse in values, but particularly with the collapse of infrastructure. But I think eventually, if you look at, if you'd to graph it out, appreciation over time, I think it would eventually catch up, like I seriously consider. That's easy to consider. I contemplate here and there at some point investing in San Francisco. If it falls bad enough, it might make sense to invest in San Francisco because in the long term eventually You'll be desirable real estate again. So I think that short term maybe catastrophic, long term it'll match the appreciation group.
Matthew Potter:So if anyone has any deals in San Francisco to sell, go ahead and send them over to Steve. He's a buyer apparently right now.
Steve Trang:We always say that the smell of cat piss was the smell of money for real estate. But in San Francisco is a little bit stronger it.
Matthew Potter:Oh, it's stronger, all right.
Leon G. Barnes:Human fecal matter smell? I guess would smell like honey yeah.
Matthew Potter:Nothing like the poop app, san Francisco poop app. That that's when you know. That's when you know that your city is on point. All right, bro, what are your thoughts?
Eric Brewer:This is even more but to think about. So I try to compartmentalize this a little bit. The likelihood of a main land war is as close to zero as possible. Like Nobody's coming up in here and like it's just not happening, right like I think Russia was Exposed during their invasion of Ukraine of how dysfunctional their military is. Like they should have taken over that country in three days. No one's messing with us. Like it's just not happening. Our military is, and even though it's been weakened recently, unfortunately because of Steve's president, but it's it's drastically Better than everybody else's.
Eric Brewer:May there be a strike? Yes, right, but it's. It's likely gonna happen on one of the coast. It's gonna be, you know, in a consolidated area. To Steve's point, it'll have a short-term impact.
Eric Brewer:Uncertainty and conflict is never good for real estate. In the short term, it's not good for any investment, right like if you think about one word that will bring down the stock market, it's uncertainty. War leads to uncertainty. So in the short term it will create opportunity and. But over the long term, regardless of war or COVID, real estate always goes up. It historically always has. So what I would say is, in the short term it will come to a screeching halt, which is hard to imagine because we're almost there now from transaction volume, values may come down a little bit, but they will. It will have an immediate bounce back at the instant that that uncertainty starts to subside. So I think it would create a unfortunately a massive opportunity. But the likelihood of war happening here is unless I'm just Ignorant now you don't have to nod your head either, rj that that's just not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen here. There's no war happening here. If anything will participate in a war somewhere else.
Steve Trang:I think I have to be careful with that Confidence right, that they'll never happen. Because it doesn't take a whole lot. Right, it doesn't have to be a missile. It could be a hacker, it could be someone messing with the electrical grid Right, it doesn't take a whole lot, it doesn't have to be, fine, yeah. Yeah, there might be something where, if you have to get tested to find out if you have it, one of those things might happen again, yep.
RJ Bates III:So I mean that was a good rebuttal, especially coming from the guy that Said the place to invest in real estate right now at San Francisco. And you also voted for Joe Biden. I think we're gonna have a conversation.
Steve Trang:Like my attorney, is we reaching out to both of you two? It's vicious slander. There's nothing more vicious you can say about me than that.
Leon G. Barnes:I have a question because I do appreciate history and I do appreciate the history lesson. I was talking about recent history of our lifetime, so I do appreciate the history lesson, but I do have a question. In 1812 the US real estate market, I know, was popping with wholesalers. Is that what RJ Gates the first did? Was he the whole cell in back in 1812 slanging slanging properties in Texas or the territory that is?
RJ Bates III:No, he was. He was still slinging shit boxes in York Pennsylvania.
Eric Brewer:Boxes. I put up a tech talk video other day. Rj would love this. I should have tagged him in it and said real estate terms and it said like Quaint and what they really mean is shit box, and there was five of them. They got three and a half million views. There's three and a half million views. It was like the code, the code words that real estate agent choose, which is like developing neighborhood means ghetto, is you know what? Quaint means? Small shit box. Fixer upper means it's about the collapse. Good bones means it hasn't been painted since 1974. It went. It went bananas. I never like every five minutes I'd check it. It was going up a hundred thousand views.
RJ Bates III:All right, real quick, since we none of us want to talk about a mainland war anymore. I'm in. Steve brought up San Francisco way back when we had a question on PTD about San Francisco and I said my answer that I I couldn't fix San Francisco because I couldn't be the mayor. I have bought two houses from a seller who watched my reel about that and said I knew I wanted to sell to you because you Hate San Francisco and I just had a student at the crucible that said the moment I fell in love with you, who is the moment?
RJ Bates III:you shit all over San Francisco, san Fran.
Matthew Potter:San Fran is good for business for RJ over here cheese, all right. So on this one, you know, let's. Let's be honest. I think everybody agrees this is not gonna be good for real estate values as a whole if we are involved in a mainland war. I'm gonna go ahead and see what's going on in our chat over here. We have RJ Bates scoring the point. It's RJ Bates. He's got a little pink moniker today. Along with Aaron hates this guy. So it's, it's amazing. I'm not gonna lie. That's what happens when you, when you insult the judge, bro, what are you gonna do? All right, next up we're gonna have what is this question for? All right, here we go, like Drake releasing his tenth studio album for all the dogs and seemingly still involved in influential in the music scene. What do you do to stay motivated and focused on your real estate career? Start us off, rj.
RJ Bates III:My answer is gonna be brought to you by Bateman collective. What do I do to stay motivated, focused? I mean, listen, I have two beautiful kids that, every single day, solely rely on me to go out and perform. What other motivation do I need than that? Oh, I walk in the door and I have a team full of people that rely on me to come in here and be at the top of my game. Every single moment I look around and the people that I am surrounded by rely on me. I'd need no other motivation than that. To stay focused on what I'm doing, because that is who we are as leaders. We put ourselves in the position to say I promise that I'm going to show up and I'm going to give a thousand percent every day, and that is what I signed up for. I don't need any other motivation other than the people around me.
Matthew Potter:RJ with the motivational speeches. All right, Steve. What are your thoughts?
Steve Trang:So I saw a video it was Tom Bill you and a CIA recruiter, and he talks about how the CIA Specifically looks for people that suffer childhood trauma. Right, people that face a lot of adversity, as kids tend to be broken, and those kids that are broken are constantly looking for a hole to fill. I would put myself in that category. I imagine some of you guys on this panel would as well, right? So what drives me is this insatiable appetite to compete, to get better every single day. There are no exert, there is no external motivation is all entirely internal, and it's not necessarily real estate. I just have a will to win and dominate. So I don't have any external motivation. I am just wired To keep going to my detriment. Right, at times, right, I might go too hard. So there's nothing outside to motivate me, I'm just. I think the childhood trauma is what it's a program, so it's programmed us.
Matthew Potter:There we go Way to harness your trauma for good. Steve, we appreciate it. Yeah, I'm sorry. All right, bro. What about you?
Eric Brewer:This is a difficult question, I think, to get to the root cause of, I'll tell you, early in my career Admittingly and I'm not proud of this it was for admiration and relevance I Would keep doing more because I thought that made me worthwhile. I thought that made my father proud. I thought it made you know me an important person. And then to RJ's point. I think at some point in your life, some people maybe earlier than others, if you're fortunate enough to have children for me that changed everything. It was a pivotal moment in my life where I no longer wanted the admiration or relevance from anybody other than my wife and my children. And that shifts. That looks different, because what the outside world wants from you or we believe that it is as much different than what people at home count on you for right. They want you to be present, they want you to set a good example. They don't care what you wear, what you drive, where you live, they just want more of your time.
Eric Brewer:So I think, at the end, what now motivates me is human connection. The day that I stopped driving, or if I was draped, did I stop doing an album? That human connection goes away. Real estate and leadership and sales is my community, it's my tribe, those are my people and if I keep doing deals, I stay connected. And then I've been in pursuit now of this sense of significance when I'm gone, and I think that's what Drake did potentially with his. He is probably the best of all time and it may take years for that acknowledgement to happen and in his craft, but he is now operating in significance where he will arguably be the best artist of all time.
Matthew Potter:I think that's a question for another day. We'll go ahead and have that discussion on here. All right, Leon, what are your thoughts?
Leon G. Barnes:Steve hit on a point there that I think resonates with me. The government did some good things when I was a kid, including government cheese. I think about government cheese because I never want to eat it again and motivated the hell out of me when I was a kid. Powdered milk and government cheese sandwiches those two things motivated the hell out of me and still continue to do so in the fear of loss, of going back to that originally, is what motivated me to Eric's point. I just wanted to continue to make others proud but, more importantly, I wanted to make something of myself beyond where I started.
Leon G. Barnes:Now, as you continue to age and new things come your way, I think the I know it's cliche, but you are who you surround yourself with the motivation that I get seven times a year within a community of the highest level real estate investors in the United States, and every time I walk in that room I feel not necessarily inferior, but I feel motivated to keep up and continue to hit my goals and reset my goals. When you stay around goal oriented people, it's hard not for that to come to you as well from a motivational standpoint. It's just, it's fun to see, it's fun to watch.
Steve Trang:Yeah, and I think if you look at that room, I would, if you survey it right, like I think we did a survey at one point I think like 40% of the room in the premier level are Mavericks, right, which are high A, super competitive, and I think it's the same thing. It's that there's a desire to win. That's internal, it's intrinsic, but probably as a function of your childhood, function of upbringing, right Eric's talking about for admiration, and then he has the thing with the family and now he's looking at significance and the significance and admiration. I think those are pretty closely intertwined. And I think for RJ, you know, taking care of your family. I think that's absolutely important.
Steve Trang:I think every good man should want to take care of his family, but I would argue we don't need to do what we do today to take care of our family. I think there are a lot of things we can do to take care of our family. Besides taking a bunch of risk, buying a bunch of real estate, running operations, creating content, I think there are a lot of other ways that are easier to do to take care of our family. The greatest showman right with Hugh Jackman. There's a scene right where he goes off and he goes to take Jenny Lin and does all these opera houses, whatever. And he kept saying, like I'm doing this for my family and remember having a conversation with my dad about this like he's lying to himself, he's not doing this for his family, because his family wants him here at home. He's doing it for him.
Leon G. Barnes:So when I say- I'm sad that I didn't appreciate Kobe Bryant more in his playing days. I was such a Michael Jordan fan that I just thought he was a clone, a wannabe MJ. The more that, thanks to my good friend, eric, has exposed me to the mama mentality, the more I can relate to it, the more that I understand where that it doesn't take anyone else. It's not internal fire that to continue. We do it for us first and foremost. Let's not lie to anyone. To Steve's point, we do it for us. And then we work on the as we continue to evolve. We work on the balance of making sure that we're also doing it for others and giving more of our time. But it's very similar to the mama mentality.
RJ Bates III:Well, let me dive a little bit deeper into my answer there, steve, and I appreciate you bringing this up, because when I say hey, I look at my two kids and I'm doing this for them. It's because I look at my kids and I say, hey, if you're gonna do it, be the best, whatever it is Trinity. If you're gonna go play hockey, is this what you wanna commit yourself to? Is this something that you're gonna do? That where you really truly wanna be the best? Same with my daughter and the example that I wanna sit, that competitive nature that you're talking about.
RJ Bates III:Steve, you're right, there is a certain level of which I want to set the example for them, because I wanna look back at the legacy that I left and say, hey, I hung it all out there, I gave everything I could. I don't wanna look back and say, hey, I still have half a tank left, but my body's given out on me. When I leave here, I wanna say I gave everything, I got to everything that I did, and set that example for them. Same thing with my team. It's not just my family, it's everybody that's here, it's everyone that's ever attended a crucible, anyone that's ever listened to anything I've ever said. I want to set that example for them, because I want them to say, hey, there's an inspiration of what I could be like.
Steve Trang:Right. But I look at that responsibility. It's important but it's not. I wouldn't say it's the responsibility that drives us. I think that responsibility comes with it. I wouldn't say it's what drives us, but it's not what drives me. I don't know.
Matthew Potter:Point on that one to Leon for sliding in government cheese. Like no joke, like that. As soon as he dropped that biological warfare bomb into PTD I was like yeah, no, that's where it's at right there, before we get to our next question, gonna go ahead and kick it over to Steve for an announcement from our sponsor, bateman Collective.
Steve Trang:Yeah. So guys, if you've ever ran PPC ads, you know what a headache it is and nightmare to keep up with the constant changes. I used to run my own PPC campaigns. Then I found Bateman Collective. I was relieved to find a PPC partner who actually understands the real estate industry and are true experts in PPC. Do what I did get a free consultation with Bateman Collective. See how they can make PPC work for you and generate more leads for you. Go to batemancollectivecom, slash PTD and get your consultation.
Matthew Potter:There we go. Thank you, steve. All right, next question. Gonna be interesting to see what y'all's thoughts are on this one. According to the telegraph, mortgage defaults rise at the fastest pace since 09. As lenders warn of worse to come, do you think that the worst is yet to come? Start us off. Leon Answer's so good, we're not even gonna hear it.
Steve Trang:Yeah, I'm glad we muted him.
Leon G. Barnes:The answer is yes, but I gave you props on the very first question. On the very last question here, I am going to take those away, because this is quoted from a UK newspaper. This is not a US newspaper. This is from the UK, this is European, this is England. So do I think it is? Yes, but is this article for Europe? Yes, so yes, it will get worse.
Matthew Potter:Okay. Do we feel that the rest of the world is ultimately not gonna have an effect on United States?
Eric Brewer:Absolutely. Will you coach it and hear us answer now, hey, hey, hey, relax over there.
Matthew Potter:All right, you know what? We'll put that one into the two minutes. Everybody can chop it up there, All right, RJ? What are your thoughts on this?
RJ Bates III:I think this week's questions are highly depressive. I mean, are hedge funds buying all the real estate? How do you protect yourself against frauds? Are we gonna go to war? How do you stay motivated? And is the word gonna come Bro? Yeah, I mean, this is funny because when you look at the trending topics, this is how we're getting these. So the narrative is is that institutions are gonna buy all the real estate and the American dream's going away, but according to this, Americans can't afford their houses anymore. That's why defaults are going up. So maybe the reason why the American dream's going away is because of another issue and it really has nothing to do with real estate investors selling deals to hedge funds. Maybe it's because they're not making enough money to afford the appreciation and the price rises. So do I think the worst is yet to come? Yeah, I think the defaults are gonna continue to rise, but we've been saying that since COVID and the poor parents and everything that's been coming along. So Henry has been on the wall for this for a couple of years.
Matthew Potter:There we go, rj Bates bringing it in hot on question five. All right, steve, what about you on this upbeat question? What are your thoughts?
Steve Trang:First I wanna apologize to my team for RJ's attitude towards my team. It's not their fault If they're watching what's happening in the world and it's depressing right now, damn it. Anyway, yeah, I mean I think this, like RJ said, this is kind of the trend. We've been expecting this right. We keep wondering when the jobs report is gonna change, right, cause you can't raise interest rates this many time in this such a short period of time and not have consequences. We are still waiting for the consequences. If this is the time it starts happening, then I guess this is the time it starts happening, but it will get worse. It has to. It cannot be the way it's been. It doesn't make any damn sense, much like housing prices going crazy during COVID, like how much of this makes sense? So eventually there has to be hell to pay for all the money you've printed and everything we've done. There's a price that's gonna have to be paid.
RJ Bates III:You're president.
Matthew Potter:The hangover All right season assist.
Steve Trang:This is an official season assist on YouTube right now to RJ based the third.
Matthew Potter:All right, bro, I'll give you like five extra seconds, since I tried to coach Leon over there. So what are your thoughts on this?
Eric Brewer:I won't need it. I'm gonna use the first couple of seconds to challenge my friend RJ's perspective. Rather than it being depressing, let's turn each one of these questions upside down. If the elite is really challenging and pushing towards a world order where they control the real estate, go out with a bang, sell them a shitload of property, make 10 million bucks a year and burn this amount for down.
Eric Brewer:Number two if you're worried about fraud, continue to do what you've done, like provide safe investments for people so they don't have to worry about fraud. They can just find the guy that shits all over San Francisco. Number three and us real estate. It's an opportunity for you and all your hillbilly friends and Dallas to get more loose Dunwalls and go buy a bunch of weapons so that you can care for us and then stay in believing real estate. Even though it was an emotional response, you know, I thought your answer was actually inspirational. It should make you feel good about the things that you do, and you do work hard for a reason, right? So I would challenge your perspective on that. Turn that upside down. And today wasn't depressing. Each and every one of those questions Held an opportunity. Now, what's the actual question? Because I got completely off track there trying to cheer up. What was it? It's all a crack of you know what right.
Eric Brewer:Worse since what? Since zero, like yeah, when there was no foreclosures and forbearance is where we're taking over there was literally zero foreclosures for like almost two years. So, yeah, it's the worst. It's worse than zero, congratulations. It's definitely not anywhere near 2008 to 2012, and I can tell you in my market. Just how bad it is not. There was a hundred and forty share of sale foreclosure scheduled for the last sale. 90 of them were canceled, 90 and that's that happens almost each and every sale. Why they either sold it, they've worked out a loan repayment plan, they're in a short sale something. So I don't I mean define what worse is. Yeah, it's the worst that it's been in the last four years, but there's no indication that it's gonna reach what everybody talks about when they talk about rising foreclosures is, in Comparison to the recession of 2008, right, if there's no way it's gonna be anything like that. It's just there's no economic factors that would indicate that it's gonna reach those levels in the near future. If it does, it's gonna take 30 months for that to unfold.
Leon G. Barnes:It's not gonna happen overnight or a major event right like Four or something along those lines. This is something that you know. We've been talking about, I think, on this, on this show, for a long time now. I think the opportunity as to Eric's point earlier the opportunity is to know that that's coming. You can't necessarily predict it, but should be prepared for what's coming. That's, quote unquote, worse than what it has been. I.
Eric Brewer:Think that's my point. We've been talking about it for a year and it still hasn't happened. So it just staying these at the top of trending topics, because what we're not talking about is how bad foreclosures are, even though 11 months ago they were supposed to be the worst that they've ever been, or the worst was yet to come. It's probably a distraction from something else. So the new world order can make us all beg for forgiveness and live in poverty, but that's a that's a different show.
RJ Bates III:I'm sorry I I thought your whole point was you were breaking down wholesaling 2.0, the brewer method. Let's save all of you guys 10 grand right now. If you're a listener, we're gonna buy your house and we're gonna sell it to a hedge fund and make 10 million.
Eric Brewer:Part of it should be.
Matthew Potter:Wow, I I'm definitely not mad at that round, I love. The brewer broke down a five-part mini series on how to cheer RJ up like that. That, in and of itself, got to be where they're like at least a point. Actually, you know what I'm. I'm gonna go ahead give brewer two points for that, because he put some extra effort into it. He, I mean he went for it there. There was no hesitation there. Alright, question number six. I guarantee you you guys are gonna like this one. I can't wait to see the answers on this. Alright, this weekend, logan Paul and Dylan Dennis are fighting in a celebrity PPV Match. Which real estate personalities would you pay to see in a PPV fight? Start a software a.
Eric Brewer:Checked out. Read the question again. Someone texted me and I was Coming. I have a habit of tuning out when you talk. I apologize.
Matthew Potter:Hey, don't worry, the feelings mutual. Alright, take his points, give him the RJ. Which real estate personalities would you pay to see in a pay-per-view fight?
Eric Brewer:I'm gonna just answer with no explanation because I think it adds to the mystique. I Would go with a tag team match Jesus.
Leon G. Barnes:RJ.
Eric Brewer:Nah, just RJ versus Ryan Panetta.
RJ Bates III:Oh, my god, all right.
Matthew Potter:Next up, Leon. Who are you gonna put into this pay-per-view?
Leon G. Barnes:I was going down the same path Because they both I have seen them both compete for followers. So I was going down the path of Ryan Panetta versus my man, king Kong. So put those two, they've got a lot of followers Right. But those two in the ring, they're both featherweights is perfect. I.
Steve Trang:Don't think Panetta would appreciate the featherweight comment.
Matthew Potter:All right. What about you, RJ? Who are you paying? Who are you paying in this one?
RJ Bates III:If you follow Panetta, you know he's doing TRT therapy right now. He's gained 16 pounds in the past 10 days, so he's band-aid weight. Yeah, he's up 40 after he takes a shower. Good for you, panetta. I love that. Just so you know, if me and Panetta ever actually got in a ring together, I would literally slap the hair dye off of him. If I could pay for any fight between two real estate investors, I'm gonna put myself in there because I want to fight Carlos Reyes and take all of my anger towards them, for 2020 closes Olympics. It still lives inside of me, carlos, me and you. Baby. I'm going all in on you. That's it, carlos. Oh.
Matthew Potter:Man. Alright, steve, what about you?
Steve Trang:That last sentence could definitely be taken out of context, but now we know what actually drives RJ is that 2020, close to the Olympics. Of course I was gonna say I was gonna say RJ and Carlos, but then I was thinking, no, actually want RJ to get hurt. So it'd be RJ versus Stephen Morales, because that guy actually trains to be a boxer. But we're gonna go back to question number two. It'd be Caesar Pena, tony the closer, because if you watch what these guys are saying on social media, they Hate each other, just absolutely hate each other. They're making videos about each other non-stop. So I think I would actually pay. I would pay to watch that fight. I don't know, rj, you paying attention to what they're doing, what they're saying online?
RJ Bates III:I'm not but could you imagine if Steve Trang got in the ring against whoever it was that sent him the Lawsuit, that he wasn't even a part of the transaction? I think we called him dr Justin earlier. If it was dr Justin versus Steve Trang, imagine that.
Eric Brewer:You should, steve. You should start. Does anybody know who Bradley Martin is? He's a podcaster from like Canada. He's part of like the milk boys, if you follow them at all. Anyway, this is weird thing. He has a lot of UFC guys and boxers and athletes and he'll just go all right, like, seriously, who wins in a street, fight me or you? And His answer is always like he asked us to like featherweight boxers all the way up to like middle weights, and his answer is always I'm dope, I'm 260, though, bro. Like he's not a great fighter. And I'll ask like Train fighters? And they're like oh, dude, I killed you, like I'll snap your neck, like I will literally kill you. He's like but I'm 260, though, bro. You should do that, steve. You just tell him like oh, steve, I would kick your ass and you could say yeah, but I train. What is it? What do you do? You do martial arts, right? Yeah?
Leon G. Barnes:So that made me say we were talking about featherweights and banning weights earlier. It made me think about heavy weights that we know like. Can you imagine, um, formally on the show, mike Moulton versus, like, chris, I'm in from Phoenix? Like, if you really there's some big dudes that we know in your mistake investing, we could do the whole heavyweight, cruiserweight, middleweight.
RJ Bates III:We could have a battle royale if we needed to can we just give some light Honorable mention answers here, eric being the novation guy. I would say Corey Geary, but he retired and now he does crypto, so we can say Eric versus Richard wonders the novation king. That would be like the novation battle. Steve, we need another mediocre podcaster. Who would that be? And then Leon, we need another like mastermind right-hand person. The only point I could think of is is Christina Kraus. So Leon versus she's biting me.
Leon G. Barnes:Caps, bro, you're done if you've ever seen Christina competed anything. You want no part to zero.
Steve Trang:I Think it'd be fair to put Leon against Matt Andrews. I Think that'd be more fair fight.
RJ Bates III:I yeah, maybe.
Steve Trang:Leon's watching. Mr Classy doesn't want to say anything that's gonna get him a truck.
Eric Brewer:So if you, know anything about fighting. I'm always gonna take the guy that ate government cheese sandwiches.
Matthew Potter:Yeah, he's by on it at that point.
Eric Brewer:And Matt Andrews wears bands all the times. Historically those guys are not great fighters. I think the state community is not historically good with the hands like they're, just they're not able to throw down. Government cheese over skateboarders oh.
RJ Bates III:I thought of another mediocre podcast, hose, steve and Brett Daniels. There you go.
Steve Trang:I do think it would be good, though, to have maybe With before Caesar and Tony is like the opening one, it would be Carlos and RJ, and the second would be Carl, rj and Steven Rowland. That's that's. That's the order I would have me versus DJ envy.
Matthew Potter:Yeah, I'm in on that one.
Eric Brewer:With Charlemagne as like, just like, a little.
Steve Trang:All right. If this video goes viral, it'll be because of this particular round that I told you this question was gonna be good.
Matthew Potter:Um, I also. I'm a little upset that nobody came with Steve versus Jimmy Vreeland. You know martial arts. You got kung fu versus jujitsu, like come on.
Leon G. Barnes:We didn't want to send Steve the slaughter I mean.
Eric Brewer:I will.
Steve Trang:I will fully disclose right. I will never fight a guy that does jujitsu. And it contained environment. That is just bad news. I will contain environment.
Leon G. Barnes:I'll add one this you should never fight someone that if war did break out on us soil that you would go to its place. You should.
Steve Trang:Yeah, get a car and driving straight, straight the St Louis.
Matthew Potter:Absolutely.
Eric Brewer:There's. There's been a war in St Louis for 30. That's why the house is that our jacoin Don't get me started on St Louis. People in St Louis hope one day they can move to York.
RJ Bates III:Who wins between Max Maxwell and Chris Jefferson?
Leon G. Barnes:Oh.
Steve Trang:Chris. I think Chris has more life experience.
RJ Bates III:Oh my god. No little words and just so much weight behind it.
Leon G. Barnes:Different, different type of weight. See, and we were talking about heavy and light weights earlier. I like it. Bulls are oh man.
Matthew Potter:All right, so on that round gonna give that one to RJ just for slapping the hair dye off Panada. I mean that had to be one of the greatest.
Matthew Potter:Responses of all time. So, um, you know, rj Wednesday, cuz he stole Brewer's points, cuz Brewer Apparently just doesn't want to listen to me. So you know, I'm really sad about that, you know. That being said, it's good to be back. I am happy to be here. I feel this was a great show. The varsity squad definitely showed up today. Love, love, spending time with everybody and with our People that are watching. We're gonna go ahead and do some outros. Rj. Say bye to the people.
RJ Bates III:Yeah, so Excited to win another one. Not shocking, since CJ wasn't here and there pretty much wasn't any competition. Potter, we're excited that you survived the entire episode. I should watch my words. I said survive, man.
Matthew Potter:I'll work on that for next episode. Those points to Brewer.
RJ Bates III:No, but I love being here. Always a blast. Appreciate you guys.
Matthew Potter:Awesome, awesome. All right, steve, say bye to the people.
Steve Trang:Steve Tran. Thanks you guys all for watching and just disclaimer I am in no way affiliated with Eric Brewer oh.
RJ Bates III:You did vote for Joe Biden.
Matthew Potter:All right, brewer, say bye to the people.
Eric Brewer:Yeah, today was fun, I'm reminded at the end of today's episode even there was a lot of laughs about the importance of significance and human connection. And thanks RJ and Steve for reminding us the balance of Taking care of the people we love and being around to take care of the people we love. There's two different things the balance between going out and earning Beyond what's required to take care of them, and at some point they want more of our time. And then, in the Words of my late friend Scott Smith, I am out like a boner in some sweatpants, jesus Christ.
Matthew Potter:And that's it right there, okay, and and we're good, we're gonna finish. We're gonna finish on a high note over here, leon.
Leon G. Barnes:Let me class it up a little bit, so class until that last line. First of all, rj Matt. I don't care if he had, you know, some health issues or not. You got to treat him like you normally treat him. Be real, like Matt appreciates when you're real with him. It is good to have you back, mr Potter, good to have the 18 back as well. Always, always a blessing to be here. One thing I will end with is this outside of Eric making fun of things in the background and none of you can see, is find things that give you energy and don't take them away. I get energy from this podcast, from this show, every single week.
RJ Bates III:Always pleasure, be something gay brewer a lot of energy.
Matthew Potter:Before the show Looks like it just kicked in. Alright, everyone to Leon's point. Yes, this show gives us energy. We love this. We love spending this hour with everybody Weekly. Thank you for tuning in. We will see you next week. Have a good one, oh, oh boy, oh, boy oh.