Chris Jefferson: Decade of Experience Wholesaling, Flipping and Investing

Chris Jefferson is a real estate investor based out of Richmond, Virginia. Having over twelve years experience in real estate has allowed Chris to transition through multiple strategies. After taking two years to get his first wholesale deal completed he started getting traction as a wholesaler but quickly transitioned to rehabbing properties and new development. In this interview, we break down why he made that transition and why he is now focused on wholesaling and wholetailing. Other topics covered in this interview are the marketing strategies he currently uses and how we are both speaking at DRIP 2020 in April. To purchase tickets visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/drip-conference-double-revenue-increase-profits-tickets-66013956521

Transcript

spk_0:   0:01
It's not real estate investors, entrepreneurs and agents. You're in the right place. Unlocking the secrets to real estate investing in entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Times Young Vaults hosted by R. J. Bates The third years. Hey, guys, welcome to the titanium vault. I'm your host our debates today. I'm sitting down with fellow drip 2020 Speaker Christopher said. How you doing, man?

spk_1:   0:37
I'm good brother men. How are you?

spk_0:   0:39
Good. It's following toe. It's nice toe. Put a voice to the name and, uh, you know, connect. I know you and I have been friends on Facebook and Instagram for quite a while, so I'm excited for today's interview and sit down and talk about some deals that you're currently working on and what you're doing and real estate investing. So for the people that don't know who you are, give him a brief break out of what it is that you do in real estate.

spk_1:   1:03
Yeah, man, I guess it's quick breakdown. I'm ah, you know, 12 year veteran. Uh, 10 years of making money, right? So there's two years there of ah being broke, struggling, trying to figure out how to do a deal. Right? But being kind of rolling hard for 10 years, Started out doing wholesaling. Took me a couple of years, obviously, to get my first deal. Like I said, you want to get that first deal? You know, my goal at the time, which, you know, made a lot of sense in the moment on hindsight's always not the best idea, but so I jumped from wholesale into rehab and super fast. You know, I did a few also deals and went straight to rehabbing. And this is, you know, 2010. Right? So this is back when you know you want to buy five houses, you go in the MLS, man, by the end of the day, you got five houses, right? Uh, nowadays might take you five months to find a deal in the MLS, right? Eh? So I started out doing a bunch of fixing flip. You know, we're doing about 2030 of those a year and a transition in 2013 and to do a new construction and Enfield developments, I still kept doing a lot of fix and flip, but I got into the infield development because, you know, deal started to get fewer and farther between, right? So you know so abundance of lots down in the city. So we started purchasing some of those building new construction houses and, uh, 2020 15 2016. Got a big flipping operation. We're doing a lot of properties and, uh, start running the casual issues, right? If anybody's ever done a lot of fix and flip, you know, I think at the time we had about 26 active fit flips and or new new builds eso we're spending over 200,000 month just to keep the lights on right? And things started getting tight and say to my operations manager, I say, Look, man, we got to figure out it, come up with some more monthly revenue and ah, we had always done our own, uh, marketing for deals, right? So we had always done our own marketing, but only Cherry picked what I wanted. Everything else you know, we just kind of do it, Do it away. I just bought the lease that I wanted to buy. So it was easy for us to transition back into doing whole selling at the time they started. Holds it on again, and, uh worked out really well. We started making a lot of money from it. And I realized pretty fast that, you know, it's taken, you know, 6 12 18 months. Sometimes to build a house or to do a large scale renovation. I did renovations where the budgets were over 100,000 Bryant 100 we realised pretty fast that wait a second. You know, we could just wholesale and make the revenue stream that we're looking for on what occurred to me, right? Is that flipping is for people who can't source their own views. All right, um, you know, if you can source your own deals and wholesale lemon wholesale those and get good margin, you're already flipping. You don't really need to go into being a rehab. Er, we're also right on. So the gold swished into making a focus on doing wholesaling and then starting to build up more residual income. So I did a apartment development with a $2 million project here in Richmond. What? We bought a 23 unit apartment complex that was back in 2017. We finished that late last year. Now we've got that rented up. We're looking for some more apartment complexes. And now we transition into doing just a ton of wholesale deals. And we've kind of found the fun again, so to speak, you know, being in the wholesale business. I

spk_0:   4:32
got you, man. That's a That's an incredible journey Going from, you know, struggling at the beginning, taken two years to get your deal, wholesaling, rehabbing, then development. Now back in the wholesaling and also doing multi family. Um, I see a lot of people that kind of break out of wholesaling and they want to get into rehabbing or development something along those lines. From your perspective, looking back at it, what was the mindset that you had that made you want to make that transition from wholesaler to rehab or what was the mindset?

spk_1:   5:08
So So I love that question, Right? So at the time the mindset waas, we're headed, you know, to grow and scale. You know, in your mind you're like I got to be a reactor, right? You know? And so you know, you're trying to transition to that as quickly as possible When I tell people now, is that you know, wholesaling right at the end of the day, is the bottom of the totem pole, right? And it's in terms of the real estate hierarchy, You know, you've gotta rehabbing. You've got landlord. Being a landlord, you've got fella meant builder. Wholesaling is like bottom of the barrel. Right? But what's happened in the last five or six years? This whole selling his transition from a pen and paper business. Right? So when I first started, you know you're writing yellow letters by hand, right? You're you're knocking on people's doors. Runner. There was no text message. Service is there were no voice mail. Drop service is right. Wholesaling his transition into a more of, like, almost a tech business, right? Was more base now are not pen and paper, but systems and processes. So, like, if you could develop strong and good systems and processes, you can now really get a wholesale business doing some consistent value on a monthly basis. So, you know, that's what I know now, right? I didn't know that run back then at that time. So at the time the thought was Well, if I want to be a realistic off, I want to be a real estate investor. I could actually buy property and you know that transition us into into rehab

spk_0:   6:38
when I'm gonna take it even a step further. Just based off of what you told me, you'd only done, you know, a few wholesale deals before he became a member. So in all reality, you runt, really a good wholesaler yet? Agree? Yeah, Absolutely. Part of the reason why I'm assuming you made the decision. You want to go to rehab? Er is because you thought I could make more money. Yeah, right. Absolutely correct. They weren't making enough money wholesaling. So you're like, Okay, I'm gonna just transition to go get bigger checks.

spk_1:   7:10
Yeah, it's funny, man. You say it. Right. So, like at that time, you know, deals, war by getting a $10,000 wholesale right was like, amazing, right? Right now it's like, Dan, that's not You know, that was the best deal, You know what I mean? And so, you know, it was just like you said. It was the nature of, you know. Hey, I want to make more money. I want to scale quickly. And we were in a different environment, too. So that's 2010 when you know they want us. There weren't as many active people right on the market that

spk_0:   7:40
weren't Facebook groups with 90 plus 1000 people.

spk_1:   7:42
Definitely was not that man. Yeah, there was none of that going on

spk_0:   7:45
right here. So, yeah, I mean, it's funny how the evolution not only for the industry, the technology that now we use as wholesalers, but also just your mindset and how you've grown as an investor, and and now you're viewing things much differently. Like you said, that $10,000 hole selfie back in the day was I mean, you were probably, you know, high five and everybody that

spk_1:   8:08
I was going nuts, man.

spk_0:   8:09
Exactly. Like what was the cost to get that deal, you know, is that three or $4000 to get it? Was the time and energy wasted on it like, was it even profitable? You know, correct. So that's the difference that I think almost everybody has been in the several years kind of goes along lines I just wanted to bring light to If you are a wholesaler and you're thinking about becoming a rehab, er, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Make sure you aren't doing it because you think, well, I could do the same volume and get bigger checks. You're essentially trying to solve the problem because you're saying I'm not really good. And at the end of the day, it's all about marketing. Like, exactly Tell everybody like we're not in Her sisters were marketers like Everybody that's good at this has to be great at marketing.

spk_1:   9:02
And so when people what people say, you know, what do you do? Write that non real estate folks, right? Right. What I explained, I do sales and marketing. What happens is you know, wholesalers want eagerly make that transition on Lee because being a wholesaler is hard ass work. And so when it's that when you're at the bottom of the barrel, you've got to constantly grind this business out, then you could best with it. So now the mind says adjusted. So, you know, a couple of years ago what we started looking at things as and look, if we could do 10 deals of months and set that as a target and on average do at least 10,000 deal, it's $100,000 right? You know how many houses do we have to turn in the course of a year And how quickly you have to, You know, how many employees do we need to be able to do that To make that same rev right there? What you realize is building the systems and processes for wholesale business is actually way easier. The other piece of that is there's nothing more critical in my opinion in this business than being directed cellar. Right? So when you're in that wholesale seat, you now really control the deal. You know, when you don't do your own director seller marketing, you're at the mercy of how that deal is brought to you, right? So when that wholesaler or that agent brings that deal to you, they're saying, Hey, this would be a good rental property. Hey there, Seller. Financing available on this deal. Hey, you could do contract for deed on this book. So, like you're stuck, how somebody brings you that deal? You know, you control your own marketing when you're when you're director seller in your business now you doesn't mean you can't be a landlord or you can't do seller financing are subject to, but you control uh, you know that deal processor, that deal what those deals look like. And so that's my favorite part of kind of where my business is at right now.

spk_0:   10:52
And part of being an entrepreneur is aren't we all kind of control freaks anyways? Isn't that why such maneuvers? 100%? I don't know what else to

spk_1:   11:02
tell us what it did,

spk_0:   11:03
right? So it's honestly kind of weird. And you brought up a good point about re Havers. Like, I'm not gonna say unanimous unanimously because I interviewed people like Don Costa and Luke Webber that a great re Havers and they do all of their own marketing and they go direct seller. But I do know a ton of rehab first that they're only buying from wholesalers, right? It's funny because when you said that, I started thinking about all of my rehab projects and almost all of them come from wholesalers, right? Well, whatever reason, a You know what? It's funny because when we don't do our own deals, we're buying deeper and we look at it and we say, Do we could wholesale this and make just a CZ. Much is if we were to rehab this. Why wouldn't we want to just go ahead and wholesale it? We wait. Now we've you know 2019 was a year of change for us. You know, we were where you probably were a couple of years ago where cash flow issues as a rehab. Er that's another thing that wholesalers don't understand. One day, a win when you rehab one property seems really easy. Yeah. Is that by 10 or 20? Like you were saying, like Roger is going on. Do you get enough? Oh, yeah. You could have, you know, be cash in $300,000 force and checks in a month and be like, 50 light.

spk_1:   12:22
Do this crazy, man. You know, I remember days, you know, in my former life, right as a re. However, I remember I remember days, you know, I'd sell a couple properties in a month and bring in 102 103 100,000 bucks. Right? And I turned around three weeks later, and I've got $10,000 still left. Oh, that's it. All right. And so it's Ah, it's ah, being a re Amber is a tough business. There's people that are really successful with it, and you can do that. Right? But if you're going to do it, you gotta be directed Seller, in my opinion Oh, you have. You know, one thing that saved my ass for sure is when I started having those Cashel issues and I had to take a look at different projects that I had going on, you know, I had to make quick, swift decisions and say, you know, I sold a bunch of properties when we're in the middle of developed, right? Just to get dead off, you know what I mean And had to make those had to make those decisions. But all those things kind of lead down the path of getting to the next spot. You know, that's how we found hotels, right? I remember. You know, I did the HD TV stuff, right? So the crazy rehabs. You know, we've put showers are bad freestanding tubs and showers and write all this stuff right? And people love the pictures and all that. That's all cool, right? Uh, but the most important thing is revenue. Right? And so what? We started realizing I'm like, man, we're doing all these crazy houses and I'm looking at comics one day I'm selling houses that I think of the time around. 400,000 right? Brand new, fully build house to the nines Crazy. Then I'm checking Compton. I'm seeing houses go for 3 50 All right, that hardly have any upgrades. It all right, And something I'm taking on my way to say, if somebody's buying effort 3 50 that means there's a market for just a regular house, right? So it means something to somebody to get a decent deal. Catch $50,000 in equity and then they can make the upgrades they wanted, whatever the case might be. So it's like a band like I've gotta make. I've got to make an adjustment on the right. And so that's how we shifted into that hotel. Mom.

spk_0:   14:29
Boy, it goes back to you. And I were just talking about this before about here in 2020. You know, you could feel like you know somebody and you never actually spoken to him before, like you and I know. And ah, in business. It's kind of funny, especially in real estate. Everybody loves the pretty pictures, right? Right. So you post the pretty pictures of this beautiful rehab date did, and everybody tells you how awesome you are. You did today. It's kind of like, Am I doing it for likes and comments, or am I doing this for money and e goto work to make money? I have to, you know, I gotta pay for my baby's food housing, like eventually, we want to get the point. We're recreating generational wealth, right? Isn't that what we always say? 100 110% right? And so I don't get any money off of Facebook likes or an instagram lights, you know, I Okay, so I go post something gets 500 lights. Amanda's posted blowing up. I never deposited a cheque from getting 500 lights from Facebook,

spk_1:   15:31
and it's interesting meant God got yet.

spk_0:   15:33
And then I was just gonna say hotels. I don't have her post pictures of hotels. People should be so excited about that. If they actually understand the DOT process of because we get a really good job of marketing. We have got a property we bought deep, and we sold it with very minimal effort on our parts. That's called efficiency within business, and that should be something that's applauded, but we don't wanna do it because it's like, Well, it's kind of got it still on ugly bathroom or the kitchen doesn't have the beautiful granite countertops it's got for Micah's still, but that's okay because of the neighborhood, it said. And so it's funny the world that we live in, and I think people get wrapped up in it, Man, it's kind

spk_1:   16:14
of Oh yeah,

spk_0:   16:14
orphans, you know, it's like they need that hit of like I gotta get you know that the public's gonna tell me how awesome I am and that's not part

spk_1:   16:23
of this part of the tough part, right? You know? I mean, when I was doing all these crazy projects and, you know, getting high fives all around town people pat me on the back all day, every day. And how many houses are gorgeous? Are you know, I want a house from you and that kind of deal, and at the end of the day, right? What I had to figure out and understand for myself was, But I still gotta make one like you should write. And so why am I doing 20 houses in a year? And I don't have the money sitting around that I feel like I should have this sitting around. But then you look at your landlord buddies. You guys, you got buddies that they don't do anything but rounds, right? Right. You don't do. They don't do any fix and flip. They don't do any of that stuff, and you look at them and you're, like, always. So you got 50 doors. I sold all of mine, right? Right. You've got your sitting on 50 doors, and you got 10 15,000 That cash, you know, full coming in a month

spk_0:   17:13
and the most rather than relax guys of all time, you're back. But, man, they felt that it is living the life.

spk_1:   17:21
That's the funny part, right? So you know, the builder rehab gets those pats on the back for doing nancy stuff. You know, they're just doing a regular house man and fix it up, get a tenant, and you know that kind of deal. And at the end of the day, men, you know this. But this business is about making money, right? It's about what's the rate of return? You know, what equity do you have And you know, at some point we've we've got as people in this business, we've got to focus on that part of it. Um, you know, hire some consultants back in 2017 to come in and take a deep dive. Look at you know what my business was doing, right? And, uh, you know, the Harvard educated guy came in him and his wife. They had worked with a lot of big, bigger, small businesses in town. And so they came in and at the time had a construction business have my development business. I had also business, okay. And so we're sitting down first meeting, looking at financials, looking at tax returns, and, uh, you know, they're asking me like, Hey, look, you need to shut down your construction business. And I'm like, Well, what? Right? And I like It makes me so master money every month. Right. So they say, Look, this I don't want you to do I want you to for the next two weeks before we meet again. I want you to track every day in 30 15 minutes or 30 minute intervals and monitor. Let's look at your time to see what you're contributing your time. So almost all of my time was going to other people's projects, not even my own development project. Wow. So, you know, my projects are slowing down, right? Because I got you something. I'm doing a renovation for when you're driving by the house and they want to know why a subcontractor isn't there. Right? So I've got to stop what I'm doing and run over there to deal with that. But here's the funny thing. One thing they said to me in that meeting is they said, Hey, what is this? I will see over here, right? And I So I asked my wholesale business. I don't need any help from you with that, all right? And so the wife says to me, she says, Wait a second. Why are you not doing more wholesale? And I'm like, What do you mean? And she was Hey, look, you gotta show Adric construction business down and you need to go all in on whole son. If that's to return your getting inside your wholesale business, you need to blow that up. Right? And I looked at the numbers man, and I was just like, you know what? It makes perfect. Perfect sense to go as hard as fossil with the wholesale business and that, And like we've been talking about, that just siphons often creates everything else for you.

spk_0:   19:44
And that changed that changed your life right there. You know that 100% you know. So let's let's talk about some of these deals that you're doing now. Well, you know, break it down and give us some examples of what you're doing now.

spk_1:   19:56
Yeah, So we're doing some pretty cool stuff. You know, whole telling is one of my favorite models right now. They'll see no talk a little bit about that. There's different confusion on what a hotel deal is. I feel like sometimes, so I'll just say what it is for me, you know? So hotel deal from me as a property that we acquire director Seller one that we actually clothes on, and we listed on the MLS by either doing a minimal amount of work to it, Right? So, you know, just getting cleaned up, getting it cleaned out, you know, changing the locks, things of that nature and or coming in and doing a very light rehab. Right. So, uh, in my world, that means making it f a J compliant so that it can pass an F h A inspection. So, you know, we'll fix the chipped paint. There's any wood issues will fix those any structural issues or termite damage, that kind of thing. So we've been doing a lot of that, you know, For example, I've got a deal right now that we just got an offer on yesterday, right? So about 30 days or so ago, I bought that property for $77,000. All right? And it's a nice little rancher. Cool it out. So I paid 77,004 use private money, okay? And so now we've gone in, we've cleaned out the property and we've painted the property. That's all we've done. Clean it out and painted it. All right. And so we've now got an offer on their property. 422,000. We listed it for 130 we ended up getting offer after about 30 days for 122,000. So that's what we've probably got 1500 bucks in the place, right? Right. And so you know, that's my That's my version of rehabbing these days. you know,

spk_0:   21:36
you and I are right on the same path right there, man. That's that's all we want to do the same day in those very minimal rehabs. I don't have a problem with doing flooring. It's leading share. That's like a 12 day max in and out. Ah, but really, we try to keep it just like you're doing minimal rehab paint, maybe flooring and clean up and then put it on the market on that deal there you brought up that you want to rehab them to get him up toe F h a compliance. Right friend, how are you doing with the 90 day F A. J guidelines? When you are trying to sell it? I mean, you pretty much just can't accept that. H a right?

spk_1:   22:17
Yes, a great question, man. So here's what I do on my old tale deals. So for the 1st 60 days, and we haven't ran into this issue yet, But for the 1st 60 days, we put in the agent remarks on the listing that on Lee are not know F h A financing could be accepted, right? Right? And so you'll still have f h A buyer's call like their agents call and enquire about it. And we'll just explain to him that, you know, we recently acquired the property we're looking and turn it around. You know, we don't have the time right now to wait for that 90 day flip rule to expire and the fall back on. That is, if we get close to that, then we'll start to entertain. You know, once we hit 60 days on a property if we've got it listed, and again, this hasn't happened yet. So this is just plan in action. If we get to 60 days and a hotel hasn't sold, then we'll make the transition into taking that all taejin remarks, being willing to accept, you know, some f A j financing on a property. But what I found is, even if we're not accepting that, fetch a financing, we want to be f h a compliant because typically, that's what buyers air coming in. Kind of looking for on these hotel deals, you know, we sell him as is also so we don't, uh if a buyer wants to get a home inspection, you know, we put on the contract. The inspection is for informational purposes only. And we don't We don't negotiate repairs or kind of anything of that sort,

spk_0:   23:41
right? So I'll give you a little bit of what we do. Their share. My partner, Cassie. She's a license realtor, so we list everything in house anytime we have a showing. Cassie immediately calls the realtor. Can you just briefly asked about the buying or what kind of financing things along those lines? We don't put it in the remarks because we don't want to scare them away. And what they'll do is is that they say, OK, this is an F H A buyer. At that point time, we don't want to waste their time, so we'll tell him in front like, Hey, um, you know, we're still 45 days away from before we could accept an f H A offer. But if your buyer is willing to meet with our loan officer, we do have some other loans that they offer that could work for the F h of buyer. So if it's the perfect house for them and what our loan officer does, remember we're at the peak of our market, right? Like I think everybody kind of understands. So I kind of I wasn't in real estate back in 5 2006 and seven. But from what I hear, he was pretty damn crazy when it came to women. Right? Right now. And we're starting to see some of those crazy loans come back. Our loan officers have these what they refer to as creative loans that they can offer to people. So we've actually converted F A J buyers to a conventional loan with a very low down payment, and it works out perfect. So

spk_1:   25:11
I like That s so pretty sweet.

spk_0:   25:13
So that's just us making a connection with our mortgage loan officer. And then, obviously, because we are the realtor ourselves, or I shouldn't say that Cassie is the Realtor. Sure. Um, we have that direct communication. We're control of it. And it's just allowed us to sell deals, too. I mean, it's minimizing holding costs. You know, I think we probably still would have gotten an offer on the house, but those were the people that wanted it that day. So even if it saved us a week or two weeks Hey, that adds up. And over the course of

spk_1:   25:45
yeah, now I agree, man. So and I like that a lot. One thing that we do kind of similar to that. So the offer that I got yesterday So we're doing this on that particular offer. So we've gotten them to switch to conventional financing. The issue for them is that the down payment is more than it is with F H. A. Right. So what we've done is we've increased the purchase price on the property, and then we're gonna give them cash them back, right? Some money. I sell a concession. Exactly. Yeah, that helps them with that increase in cost. When you guys make that what really wants that particular property?

spk_0:   26:21
Absolutely. Yeah. And the only concern there for anybody. That's, you know, maybe they're in the situation. The only concern there would be if there, you know, it doesn't hit appraisal. That would be directly concerned. I would have with you. But if you know your listing at well below, because that most of time when your whole telling you're not selling it for full market value, Your

spk_1:   26:41
yeah, I think, uh, I think that's a really good point in May 2. So, like the property that I'm talking about the e r V on that properties around 1 60 Yeah, right. You're gonna be funded at once. We listed it at 1 30 You know, it's a livable property. Just it's, um you know TLC, right? Right. You know. So we're able to bump that purchase price up a little bit to accommodate and still be well below you know what the market rate for the property is?

spk_0:   27:06
Yeah. So All right. So what are some other examples of deals that you're doing right now?

spk_1:   27:10
Yes. There's some other deals that we're doing are more traditional, you know, wholesale deals. You know, we're trying to really ramp that up and kind of do that with more velocity. Um, and we're doing that based on a real big on text message marketing right now. What's

spk_0:   27:25
our best to use

spk_1:   27:27
so amusingly sharper right now? Okay. I've been using that, I think since February of 2019. Really great service or summarily good ones out there. We've worked with smarter contact before. You know, smarter contact is more cost efficient. Ah, you know, product that you can kind of go with. We're doing our V ems. We're using our guy rail to do that. You're not really like RV EMS, and the process that we continue uses gun. He's a call a tree. So we have people call and kind of get filtered down inside a call real right. So when somebody calls back off that R. V m. You know, there were greeted with a message where they could make a selection to talk to somebody on our team live, you know, or they can press two to be removed off of our lists, right? And so we're pulling in some really good traction. The wholesale deals with that. My 1st 1st look at any property is to try to take it as a as a whole to explain. I'll explain why I like to do that. The reason I like to do hotel deals is for my private lender. Relationships really gives me a good opportunity to keep those strong. You know, we raise a lot of private capital over the last 10 years, but a lot of private capital relationships. So as we brought that development business down and focus more on wholesaling, we still have those relationships and people who wanted to deploy capital so we wanted to find a place for that, right? Eh? So now we do some we partner with more letters to do some lending, but we use a lot of that ourselves and effort to purchase these hotel properties with 100% financing. The intent behind that is when the market continues to adjust and the buyer opportunities become a lot stronger for people like me, right, That will be in a strong position with a war chest of private capital to pick up his much robbery is we want transition stronger into that, uh, generational wealth. A model?

spk_0:   29:21
Yeah, man. I mean, I think right now if you talk to anybody that went through 2008 they feel like we're gonna have some kind of a correction here coming Pretty soon, I had an episode Gary Boomer Shine recently and he feels like we're right there. I couldn't agree more. And from everybody that went through 2008 the advice that they give and so I'll say it prefer party the 100th time on here, um, is get ready to be flush with cash so you can buy as we're going down and we hit the bottom because men we've seen people become. I mean, they've achieved generation wealth from buying in 2008 in 2009 and just riding the appreciation wave up and then off loading. And then that's how these people are moving into commercial and multi family from 10 31 exchanging into these larger assets. It's a beautiful strategy is a beautiful time to be in real state right now. You know, I think some people are fearful of what's gonna happen. But this is a great opportunity, So touche to you for for the connections and with you in private money and utilizing it right now, you know, you found a way to move away from the thing that was detrimental. The rehabs and developments move into a hotel in the whole sailing and just keep those relationships fresh, even if it means right now for you, it's so important to keep those relationships intact just for what's gonna happen here in the next couple years. Even if it is area four years away from now, you know that was important to keep

spk_1:   30:57
those. Yeah, we want to keep those strong, you know, the whole goal is to keep runway as short as possible. You know, um, you know, I thought about something a couple of years ago. They really kind of kicked this off when we're having those casual issues. And what that was was and the thought of you know what? Your runway in this business and what I mean by that is you know, if if you're in 20 construction projects or new development projects rehabs, whatever the case might be, what is your runway Thio Offload that if the market just completely bottoms right and what I had to determine and what I had to get figured out was my runways, like, 12 months me 18 months. You know, we have been land baking, different properties and lots to hold to renovate later. And the reality is, if the market goes compute today, you don't got 18 months. You're ready. Your debt, right? Just just don't write. And so we've been able to successfully transition into. Now that runaway looks more like 90 days, right? And so, for the benefit there is is you keep those relationship strong. Market is too rough. You've got the ability to get out of that debt. Keep everybody happy and being a good position. So I just caution people right now, we're in a time where you know, it's not like it was five years ago when you could just hit it as hard as possible, stack up a bunch of properties, get to him and you could get doing. Now is the time to really be tight, really be efficient. We left you what you're doing. But most importantly, above anything watching that runway and being you, being conscientious of what that actually looks like.

spk_0:   32:35
Yeah, you know, going back to you, talking about your marketing and going direct to cellar. You know, you're eating some of the most cost efficient forms of marketing with the SMS and the rum's, um are you doing anything else like direct mail or cold calling? Or is it mainly those through strategies?

spk_1:   32:54
So we definitely call call with Coco Heavy. We started cold calling. I want to think about four years ago. And, uh, you know, this is before it kind of becomes became a crazy thing in the business, right? And, ah, love cold calling. The foundation of my business is cold calling. That's our number one marketing channel. You know, I hear a lot of people complaining that you're not getting context right now when yada yada yada, Right? Here's the deal, right? Just Just more people are calling. So there's this market has become more saturated. So to surpass that you gotta call more than everybody else. So, you know, if you were buying 2000 records a month to cold call now you got about four. Now you got about six. You know, if you were making 200 calls an hour with you or your V A on the own triple dollar called tools Mojo. Now you got a transition into Maybe gotta put two or three other people on the right so that you could you could make more calls cold calling. Still a really good marketing channel. We got out of direct mail while back. We were doing a lot of direct mail. It before we started cold calling. We got it. We got away from that and just really is a cost perspective. Um, you know, if you take the same 40 sensitivity takes you to mail one postcard, You know, you could probably get, like 20. Uh, you know, text messages out of that cost or 2020 r v M drops. So that was just a cost perspective. I do think male is still good. You know, some people say that Mel isn't good right now. Direct mail is still good. You gotta you gotta be able to be consistent. That's with any marketing channels, you know today. But you gotta be able to be consistent, and you gotta be able to get the marketing out there, you

spk_0:   34:36
know? So are you familiar with Brent Daniels?

spk_1:   34:39
I am. Yeah.

spk_0:   34:40
Okay, so, Mr TTP, he came on to Ah, next level flipping rising stars grew bar on my master mind and I want to share Ah, a couple of nuggets that he gave us. Um, in the group s O if you made it this far in the episode. Uh, congrats. You're gonna get to see a behind the scenes some big gets for a Mr TTP. Um, talking about cold calling. I found this very interesting because Brent for you, that don't know t t b stands for talk to people. And his whole platform is basically on co calling, but also just getting out there and talking to people and one of things, he said when he was talking about cold calling Waas in 2020 door knocking is going to become more important than it ever has in the past. Great because of the amount of people that are cold calling.

spk_1:   35:38
I agree with that.

spk_0:   35:39
I mean, when he said that, that was that was eye opening. You know, this is a guy that's literally built his whole platform on cold calling, and he's saying, Hey, buckle down 2020 door knocking Getting out there in front of faces is gonna be very important. Like you said, Man, it's just because it's saturated. Everybody's had to buy more data. That's only gonna become worse, you know, with the mess and are being now it's like, Did we use data in every possible way we can. We're gonna voicemail. You were gonna call your text. You I mean, it's it's insane. We're even now I'm doing. I've had several guests on their say they're doing email marketing, all

spk_1:   36:19
right? I've heard people talking about that. Yeah, you know, I haven't done it yet, but I know people are doing it.

spk_0:   36:24
I literally I think it was Scott Bowers a couple episodes going. I was like, Is it working? And he's like, Yeah, and I'm like,

spk_1:   36:31
check that out, right? Yeah, exactly. We're in this interesting space where the data is more critical than anything else. You got to get good at data, you gotta be able to analyze your data. And if you're not good at that, you got to get some on your team. That is, well, partner, would somebody that is good at it. Blake, they data is the common denominator in having a successful also business, right?

spk_0:   36:54
Absolutely. And so I want to ask you a question about your acquisitions. But one last little nugget from from Brent Daniels on he ended the our little interview. You know, it's a live Q and A session, so everybody had a chance to ask print whatever they wanted. And my final question him. Was it say, What's your what's your best advice that you would give to people that are newer in this industry or doing 25 or less deals a year? And he said, first and foremost, make sure that you keep a cz much money for yourself and for your family as possible, and That's how he ended the interview. Take that for What do you want? Uh, Brent is a very successful man in this industry. Um, so just take that for what you will. Absolutely. Man s o. I found that to be very enlightening, to hear someone in his position. Um, and And I just wanted to share that with you guys. Could You brought up Coco and reminded me of it. A cz faras acquisitions goes for you. You're you're sending text your Senate RV, EMS. You're You're obviously at that point time getting in contact with their two. That through tax or on the phone. Are you scheduling appointments or you trying to contract it right there on the phone.

spk_1:   38:14
Great question. Right. So we try to contract over the phone that's been our model for a couple of years Now we make our offer on our first initial contact with the cellar. There you go. And you know what? Here's what I personally believe that we've got a written on the whiteboard in the office, you know, speed his life. Yeah, we're all calling the same list. You know, we're all trying to talk to the same sellers so it becomes about volume and it becomes about speed. And so, at the end of the day, I want to be able to make an offer before anybody else. And the whole goal of cold calling Mayo text messages, voice mail drops is to get in contact with cellar. Right? And so we found more success making that offer by phone, for sure.

spk_0:   38:58
And here's the thing about that. I personally like making offers on the phone. I also think it's important to analyze the cellar and kind of get a read from them. Because sometimes, man, when you're talking to, like an 85 year old woman, right? Not want to accept an offer over the phone, you know, she might be like a GM. Sit down. I want to see you and things about those lines. But I'm gonna share a story because you're talking about specific deals you've done. I'm gonna share one that happened last night, man. Do you ever get that? The itch like you know what? Not enough it happened today. I'm going to send out, like, 100 text messages myself. Do you ever do

spk_1:   39:38
it? I'm almost had that same miss this morning.

spk_0:   39:40
So? So that was me last night, man, I'm This is like 5 30 I I usually leave the office somewhere between 6 to 7. Okay. Is this 5 30 And I'm pretty much done, and I might, but we didn't We didn't get any appointments today. Really? It was kind of like the morale was down, and so I was like, I I'm a refresh and old data list. I didn't want to take it from the from the people. Right. So I went to fresh old data and I sent out 260 tex. Now, most of them got ignored because it is really old data. But I got one that said, Can you call me now? So this immediately led me to believe this person is highly motivated, right? They won't move fast. Call me now, So we get on the phone, we have a five minute conversation. She's like, vacant house and need to sell. Gonna pay my property taxes on property taxes and Texas or do in January 31st. So she's okay. I gotta pay my property taxes. I need to sell this so I can pay those. And she's like, and I want to move back to Vietnam. So these air, she told us everything. So I was leaving, right? Like I was going home. I was gonna go home, see my babies, eat dinner. Yeah, but she's like houses vacant. There's a lot box on it. Here's the lockbox code. I need to self. So I went home and I kissed my baby's good night. And I said, That has got to go buy a house. I'm sorry, but I've got to go like this. No one wants it now. We went out there. I drove an hour and 10 minutes to the house. I want it. She had told us on a separate phone call when we were co owner on the way. She said, Hey, don't worry. Call me any time. I only sleep three hours a night. So at 9 p.m. When I'm done walking the property, I'm corner to make the offer on the phone percent, and we're negotiating. As I'm driving my hour and 10 minutes back home, I'm negotiating with on the phone. We're still about $25,000 off. Uh, but I firmly believe we're going to get the deal, and I don't know if we would have gotten the deal if we had to move this quickly. That's what she literally said that she said, Hey, I really like you all. You'll move fast like me You know, she and she appreciated that. That meant something to her because you start off. We were. She wanted 1 80 we're offering 1 25 So here's what I

spk_1:   42:21
love about what you're saying, right? Speed his life. Yeah, right. You know, you had a cellar that jumped on the line or said They call me right now. You recognize that it was an opportunity that you had to go chase down. And that's also what I was talking about. No, I like that. You said that that piece about, you know, going home and kissing your babies and and having to go look at a house and drive an hour and 10 minutes. It's not that we want to do that, all right? We'd much rather stay out on Spence out with our family. Relax, but And that's what I mean when I say wholesaling isn't grinded out business being directed Seller is it grinded up business. So you knew a look. I gotta go ground this thing out there. Right? And the important piece in that that I think some people, miss, is when you when you're having those conversational pews and our clues and sellers is moving aggressively, you have to match their intensity in that conversation. And you got to get that offer out quickly. Because if you didn't get an offer to that cellar, if it was Oh, I gotta go. I gotta look at the repairs. Are I got to go? Look, at some times I'll call you tomorrow morning, right? She could have been calling somebody else right? And that could potentially be an opportunity that you didn't have to build more report and kind extend that negotiation conversation.

spk_0:   43:37
She said it to his four or five times. I get calls all the time. She owns it free and clear. So she's getting hammered free and clear house in a great neighborhood in Dallas. She is getting hammered with calling texts. Boy smells everything. She's wanting to work with us. She said, I don't know why, but I got to sell this house, you know, we got we got to find the middle ground here. And every time she says that she comes down 10 k. So I just needed to say, like, three more times t get

spk_1:   44:10
to that. I want 20.

spk_0:   44:11
Yeah, and you've gotta,

spk_1:   44:12
you know, negotiation. And I like to make sure that people understand that negotiations aren't quick things all the time. No. You know, sometimes you gotta massage that out, what? The seller, and spend some time getting to the spot that you want him to be. A You know, you don't want to put something under contract to have it under contract with the no. One that you can't sell it just to try to re negotiate it later. You know, you got to get good at negotiating and really driving your point home with the cellar. And once you find that pain point, you'll get to it eventually. You just gotta spend some time on it, you know, and the reports critical to keep that connection alive until you get to the that common number that you guys need to be it

spk_0:   44:54
for sure. So I'm gonna transition this Teoh, You and I are both speaking at our good buddy and one can and I'm super excited about. It meant absolutely. So that's in April. Go on. Facebook. Just They've been dripped. 2020 Conference. You'll find it. It's on everywhere. Yeah, it's everywhere. Dude, that guy's a great marketer himself. Absolutely. Do you know what you're speaking about?

spk_1:   45:18
So I haven't figured it out yet, but probably wholesaling and hotel. And I'm sure I gotta put something together, and I get that ready. You know, I'm fired up now. We gotta We gotta make sure we get the people the information they

spk_0:   45:29
know for sure. Man says we're excited about it. Antoine has given us the ability. We're gonna do something pretty cool. Um, yeah. Myself. Cassie and Jamie will You are a good friend and partner and next level flipping. We're gonna do a live to end a session Suite Three of us are gonna be up there were literally gonna open it up. Where did you can ask us? Anything you want? One of us will know the answer. Or if we don't know the answer, we do know the right person to give you the, um I think it's gonna be a great conference. He's gotta just awesome lineup of speakers

spk_1:   46:03
he's got. He's got an all star lineup in there

spk_0:   46:05
for sure, man. And I don't know how big it's going to get. I think I saw a post earlier this week. He has four or five more people. You say my added day. Hey, he's gonna have to, man. He's got people. But I actually got to meet Antoine at Whole scale in here in Houston and Ah, man, it just what an amazing guy. Him and his wife and investment. So the tickets are super affordable. I think it's gonna be a highly informants of you enjoyed what you saw that day between me and Chris. I think this is pretty much how it's gonna go down. We're gonna be accessible. All the speakers. I mean, are you gonna be there for all the days

spk_1:   46:44
I'm on there the whole time? And I like how you said that, man. Uh, it is good for people to know we're accessible. Yeah, you know. You know, I know. You get G m's all the time. I get him all the time. You can't. You can't get to everyone. All right, but going to these events is so important, right? you know, for the past 10 years of invested in my education of made sure that I'm going to masterminds of Major, that I went to events. That's how you build a lot of relationships that I have in the industry. I've done a lot of business with people that I've met at these events. You gotta come out. You've got to go to these things because if you don't, people don't know who you are, Right? I

spk_0:   47:22
said it, man. Majority of my private money has come from masterminds and events

spk_1:   47:27
like this. My mind to mind to on 100%

spk_0:   47:30
over the people probably want a Chris I Did you raise all that private capital? Whoa. There you go. Goingto get don't you against this man and get out there. The and the gold is not sometimes with the event in the speakers, right? The dinners and the lunches and the brakes and the people that you're with and how you carry yourself and manage. It's just they're so powerful, You know, if you

spk_1:   47:57
can if you can pay a couple of 100 bucks and I think Antoine's even got ah, you know he'll help you out as far as payment plan, right? Not a lot of people do that. You know, you're paying for the opportunity to just one make a connection, right? Create a new relationship. Might find your business partner there. You might find your lender there might find a mentor there, but but also at the same time, you might just get that. Ah, light bulb moment. They completely change its directory of your entire business. You know, just within a couple of days. But you gotta invest in yourself and and show up for those kind of things.

spk_0:   48:33
Absolutely. And just like I said, be cognizant of how you carry yourself when you go up to talk to people, make it a reciprocal conversation. Don't go up to Chris and be like, Hey, Chris, I got this question. I need you to help me, right? Where you helping Chris out too, man? I mean, uh, that Sze very important And how you carry yourself and how you build relationships. It's just like any other relationship in your life. So, man, thank you so much for taking the time today. Coming on. I know you're busy, guy. Uh, any final thoughts before we sign off here

spk_1:   49:08
now, men. It's a pleasure, man. I appreciate you having me on. Like I said, I've been following you for a while now. We've been friends on Facebook, so I'm glad we had a chance toe to talk today. I see impacting people's lives, man and doing awesome. Awesome stuff. Guys, if you want to catch up with me, you can follow me on instagram. Uh, the Chris Jefferson again. The Chris Jefferson. You can follow me on instagram. And I appreciate you having the Omen.

spk_0:   49:32
Yeah, absolutely. So now it's time that I do my signature sign off. I have multiple people messaging me about this now, so I guess I kind of created a thing. So if you're listening on iTunes, leave me a five star rating. If you don't want to leave me a five star rating, take your four or below star rating and give it to someone else. I only accept five star ratings. If you're listening on YouTube, give me a thumbs up, get to subscribe in the notification. So you know, when we have new videos come out. That's our show for this week, guys. We'll see you all next week. Thanks so much for listening to the titanium vault with your host R J base that there are more imposing. To stamp the date, visit www dot podcast on the titanium vault dot com and on facebook dot com slash the titanium vault. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate in review. Well, can't you next time on that time? No.