All right, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Game Changer Show. I'm your host, Mike McKay based in Jacksonville, Florida for anyone in the Jacksonville market. Feel free to reach out to me if you need help on anything. And we are actively buying rentals in the Jacksonville market. So reach out to me if you have anything that you wanna sell, we could shoot you over our buy box each and every Friday at 4:00 PM Eastern. We do this live show and we dive deep with guests from all over the country who are changing the game in real estate. And this is a live show, like I mentioned. So please comment with any questions for our guests to answer. This week we've got Ryan Rice on the show. Ryan is based in St. Augustine. He started investing in 2020. Since then has done over 130 deals with the majority of them being virtual deals in all different markets. So Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan:Thanks man. Thanks for having me.
Mike:Of course. So let's take it all the way back to when you got into real estate so long ago, Tell me the story of how you first got started in real estate.
Ryan:Yeah, man. So I was basically was working construction full-time. I had some type of deal going with a buddy of mine to take over his construction company. Eventually so I was like, listen, I'll come work for you I'll learn everything. I'll do every role and I'll take over your company. And he was essentially like, okay, sounds good. So I came on as a grunt and did this literally hard construction work with for 17 bucks an hour. And while I was doing that, I would get on Zillow and roam through. and just dream of the days of being an investor if I ever could, listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast a lot. So just dream in every day, working a nine to five. One night I was scrolling through a Zillow with the Multi-Family Filter on, and I came across a four unit property in Luda Wii, Georgia. But I was big on, like, all I knew about real estate was the 1% rule. I just knew if you're buying something for a 30 and he used to rent for 1300 a month. Simple. I looked up this deal and it didn't have the numbers on it, it had crappy photos. He was asking like one 50 or something. I called the realtor and she's it's listed. It's a renting 2,800 a month. I was like, oh, that's all I needed here. Called her right away, like at nine o'clock at night and was like, I wanna come see it this weekend. Bought a bing, went and saw it negotiated a lower price. It needed a ton of work. It was in the hood. All the tenants were low income not even qualified to even be at the property paying the rent they were playing. Two of them were drug dealers, so half of the, all the tenants were drug dealers. Two out of the four, they pay yes, but one of'em was a drug dealer and a tattoo artist. We ended up kicking him out, his whole entire unit was like, I guess when you do tattoos, there's a back spray like you do a tattoo and then you like you to empty the gun, you spray it, you're supposed to like spray it into the garbage. It's like this black ink, the leftover, nah, dude. He'd spray it on the cabinets, the walls. It was a nightmare. But, so anyways, yeah, that was my first deal. It was a nightmare. Worst deal I ever bought. But it was the best deal because it taught me patience. And it taught me like how to go through the suck of things. I was working from six 30 in the morning to five 30 at night, ripping, stucco off the side of buildings, like true like labor, hard labor. And then every weekend I would spend the whole weekend working on the property I bought. And I'd bring a lot of the workers that were construction with me on the weekend. So all the money I made that week, I would pay out to all them on the weekend to come work for me at my property. Like I was just a maniac. I had no life. And I put blood, sweat, and tears into a place. And through that I vetted, I got to vet a lot of property managers and a lot of people. And yeah, that was the start of things. From there I That job ended up coming to an end. Essentially the owner told me, Hey man, I just really running the place. Sorry, I'll offer you 50 k. He offered me at the end, he's I'll offer you a 50 K year salary plus a, a small percentage commission on any new construction you get or something like that. No hard feeling. Super cool dude. I'm still friends with him today. And I was like, are you cool if I like piece out? Do I need to even give you a notice? He's no, I mean I respect it. Like you're good to go. So we shook hands, all good water on the ridge and I was like, listen, I'm moving it into real estate.
Mike:you bought a cash or you used financing, or what'd you do?
Ryan:So I used financing. It's a four unit now. It was technically a five unit at a time cuz it was like two duplexes plus a mobile home. Okay. So I was able to actually get commercial financing on it. I had put 30 K down on a purchase price of one 20 or something. I had the seller concede like five grand to me. So ate up a lot of the closing costs, but I think I was all in it for 30 grand. And yeah, that's how I got the deal initially. I still own it. It's still like a thorn on my side in a lot of ways. But now we have all stabilized tenants. I actually threw those weekends. I renovated every unit, basically called, got all the bad things out. And now I think it brings in like 4,700 a month or something like that. And I deleted one of the units. It was a five unit with the mobile home. I deleted the mobile home and it still brings in I think like 4,700 or something a month. So yeah, it's, it came, turned into a win, but it's still it needs random repairs. It's still a thorn in my side and takes up too much brain real estate for me to logically keep, but I only keep it as a reminder and a token of, Hey, this was my first deal. I pour my blood, sweat and tears and I go to the property. Once I've been to it once in the last year mean, when I went to it, it was like such a reminder when I drove through it of all the time and hours I had poured into this piece of real estate and how it, this is exactly like, you need to do it in the beginning, I feel to really learn and just go through the suck. You need to suffer. It makes you stronger, it makes you better. So it just reminds me of the time I got to suffer and get stronger as a person. And now I think that, that was like the perfect thing to harden. Into the real estate investor. I am now because the perfect trial, working a nine to five, you have no money, you have no time. You just have to figure it out. You like go to Home Depot with a trailer and stack it 10 feet high with drywall and figure out how to use a, the freaking little latching the strap. Just all this you need to like I don't, I wouldn't say you need to do it, but it certainly helped me. It was very hard and it was good for me early. So yeah, man, that was my first deal. I did that working that job. Like I said, that job didn't work out. So from there I was still interested in real estate. I didn't really know where I wanted to go, so I I had gotten my real estate license previously and never really used it. So I was like, listen, I got my real estate license. I'm gonna go and work for one of the real estate sales teams. There was a big team. I live in St. Augustine, Florida, one of the local big teams, big names, I went and was like, Hey, I wanna be one of your sales agents and learn everything. And I went and worked for them for I think six months. And through that six months, I realized how much I hated being a realtor. I'm very authentic and honest. I'll never lie to anyone. Like I'm as straightforward as it gets. And genuine. And their approach to getting listings was literally, Get your phone out, I want you to call every contact in your phone and I want you to say hey Jason. Hey, it's Ryan from high school. How you doing? And then this is what I did. I would call everyone and ask'em how they're doing and they would be so happy to hear from me, oh my gosh, I'm doing so good, blah, blah, blah. They'd get all excited and I'm trying to get to the point, but I'm following what they tell me. So I listen, we have a five minute talk and then it ends with, hey, I just got my license, became an agent. And cuz it's so ingenuine I'm calling them not cause I care, but I'm calling them because I want money and I want to be a real, you know what I mean? I'm trying to build a relationship for money. And so they're, if they think it's a genuine thing and at the end I hear in their voice like, oh, basically, oh, this was all fake. You only called me to tell me you're a realtor. And so that was their process and I absolutely hated that. And I couldn't do it anymore. And I got listings and I was making some money, but it was not me. And I wanted to be more in control of my own destiny. So December of 2020 I went on a snowboarding trip. And in that snowboarding trip I went alone to Snowshoe, West Virginia and a little studio, 200 square foot and a four week I, all I did was snowboard and game plan, my future in real estate in dream big. And I wrote down exactly what I wanted in my office to smell like and feel like, and what I wanted my people to talk, like what I wanted the vibe to be. What my goals and aspirations where I wrote down every single thing and. That's when I came up with Yellow Card properties and I decided I wanted to be a wholesaler, be an investor. I wanted to be in control of the deal. I wanted to be looked at as an expert and not someone that you can call at seven o'clock at night and say, Hey, show me this house. I'd be at like a church events, like with my church family, who I love, and I would get a call at six o'clock right as we're about to eat dinner. And it's Hey I need to see this house on the beach and it's a million dollar house. And I'm like, oh, okay, that's a lot of money. I guess I'll leave all my friends now. And I hate that. So from there I started Yellow Card properties. And yeah, here we are. It's almost two years later.
Mike:So you decide to take the jump. You spend a week writing out what you want your business to look like, what you want it to be. You decide on your path, right? But now you gotta go get a deal, right? If you wanna be a wholesaler, if you wanna be a investor who buys off market properties, you gotta get your deal. And your first one you bought on straight off the MLS or Zillow. What did you do? You get back into St. Augustine, it's after this trip, and you're like, all right, I'm doing this. What's the next thing you did?
Ryan:So right when I got back, it was funny. So I had all these plans to start my own company, right? I already built the vision. And I had attended a seminar the day before I left for snowboarding, f a Jax Ria seminar with this lady, she's known as the queen of flipping. She's a beast. She gave a two day conference. So I did that right before I trip and she was all about direct mail. So when I went to this, it of opened my eyes and I was thinking of direct mail, these different things. So when I went on my snowboarding trip, that was really all I had in mind. Cause I didn't really know there was anything else. So I get back from my West Virginia trip, and I'm looking up deals on Facebook, and I see a couple deals, a couple rentals. A local guy had in St. Augustine and he was my age. He was a kid like literally my exact age, maybe a little older than me. And I hit him up about, asked him questions about a couple of the deals he had posted. Reached out to him about his deals and was very interested. And he had told me, he's yeah, I owned 17 rentals or something. And I was like, oh my gosh. It blew my mind. And mind you, later on I found out he owned them in partnership with other people it was more of a flex than it was reality. But either way it was impressive for a young guy to, and it blew my mind. So the kid actually took me to dinner and basically was like, I want you to work for me. And mind you, I had already set up my dream for my business, but I'm like, okay, this is an opportunity. So the guy told me Hey, I want you to work for me. It's a 30 day trial period. Essentially, come on. So I came on work with him. It was like I went to his office and basically he had me hand dialing people that owe money on their taxes, and seeing if they'd sell it or whatever. Either day one or two. I started on a Wednesday, I believe it was like Thursday morning, I got a lead, a really strong lead and the kid Central came to me my quote unquote boss at the time or person I was thinking of working with and was like, all right, I can see you've proved yourself. I want you to come on board with me. And I was like, oh, okay I thought it was a 30 day trial period. And essentially there was back and forth on that. He's the 30 day was for me. I'm like, nah, it was for me too. I have decided if I wanna be here. Basically turned the heat on me and he had his lawyer send me like a, basically a lawyer version of DocuSign, like a really fancy e-signature thing that was like a non-compete sign this and let's get the ball rolling together. And I was just like, nah, dude, like I need more time. And then he kept putting the heat on. I was finally like, no dude, I'm gonna figure this out on my own. I can figure this out on my own. So second I bailed from that. I went home, I had a little condo on St. Augustine Beach that I bought for 120 grand the year before. And I sat in that condo and started grinding. I started figuring out, I started sending mail. I sent some mail based on the lady's advice from Jack Rio. I don't remember what she said. It was like absentee owners minimum seven years. They've owned it. Like she has this exact list and I sent it with like yellow letters, like they're super cheap mail and I got nothing from it. And, from that and I, this whole time I was so hungry. Like I just remember the hunger and my eyes. I wanted deals. I didn't know what to do. So me and my girlfriend now a wife, we would go driving around. Like I would sit all day at the computer and like search Zillow cuz I didn't know anything. I didn't know how to get deals. So search Zillow, search, Facebook Marketplace, call for rent by owners. And then the afternoon I would spend listening to podcasts with my wife. And then we'd drive by and look for basically bad properties. And I'd have her handwriting with her, pretty handwriting. Infinitely prettier than guy handwriting. My handwriting's garbage. My wife has this like really pretty handwriting. So I had her handwriting all these like notes for me and we were going to doors and knocking on'em and leaving em there.
Mike:You put the notes on the doors. You weren't mailing'em.
Ryan:Yeah. I didn't work at this point. I was just going up to old houses that look like crap. Like driving for dollars, basically leaving notes. I had the driving for dollars app where I'd skip, trace a bad one, try to call'em. So just hustling. I came across one of the podcasts I mentioned texting for deals. I spent most of the money I had at the time, it was like 3,500 bucks for a course to learn how to text for real estate. And there was nothing real significant in the course. It was literally just like how to use the software and like what to do. Super simple stuff. Like here's how you skip tricks. Like I could have went to a meetup and asked someone and I could have got all this for free but I was like I spent the 3,500 bucks and it was almost good cause it's hey, I spent this money, now I gotta figure something out. And essentially it was like, step one, here's how you skipped trace, here's what you use. And at the time it was like batch leads, right? It's like use batch leads, do this. And I remember I spent 30 minutes inside the course. Like total, I just needed to know what website to use, how to skip trace. and that's it. She had way more stuff in there about like organizational stuff that I didn't care about, and I literally spent 30 minutes in this whole course and from there started texting and I got my first deal from texting. I would text them And then I remember before I even got my first deal, I had been texting for a week. And I hated seeing the negativity, so I hated seeing Thebus kill yourself and all this stuff. I just knew intrinsically that it was bad for my psyche and my brain to read this negativity. So I remember I didn't know how to hire a va. I just typed it in on Google, like how to hire a va. And luckily Upwork came up, right? And so I go on Upwork knowing nothing about hiring, like nothing about personalities. Just Hey, I need a human to press send on the text messages and the really nasty ones I need them to delete. That's all I need this human to do. I hired a gentleman. He's in Pakistan and my day two or three of this gurney into the texting world to send my text and. and filter out all the bad ones. He wasn't perfect, right? He'd be like, he'd texted me and be like, Ryan Hot lead. And I'd click it and it would just be a really unique cuss word that he just didn't know. Like someone calling me, like just a really bad name that he just wouldn't recognize. He's it's a really good one. I'm like, Manuel, like that. That means I'm an idiot. He's oh, sorry. But yeah, that, and that was a huge thing initially, right as I got a VA to just start siphon through the negativity. And then the day I locked my first deal is when I got an office.
Mike:So how far in was this? You start the business, you're day two or three, you hire my renewal. And then when's the first deal?
Ryan:I think it was about probably like a month in. I don't remember my first deal because they all started coming really fast in the beginning. But I wanna say it was like a dude I had texted and he was like, Hey, I come to my house, I'm trying to sell it tomorrow or something. And at the time I was so scared I didn't even have a contract. I didn't know and I remember driving up to the house and luckily I had spoken to Kyle Pastor Goz a couple times and like I didn't know him that and I called him, I'm like, listen dude, I know you don't know me, but I'm about to pull up to this house. Here's the address. I don't know if it's a deal, but apparently there's three other buyers pulling up behind me that want to buy this thing. Like the guy told me on the phone, he is yeah, there's you better get here quick. There's three buyers behind you. And sure enough, when I pulled up a big black truck pulled up behind me with two people who were like cash ready to go. And the guy told me wanted at 60 grand and I think the ARV on it was like 1 40, 1 50. But I just didn't know anything about rehabs. It was a 60 built house. I live in St. August in this house in Jacks. And I remember Kyle was like, it's a deal at 60. I'm like, are you sure? Cuz I'm gonna go lock it. He's like running and lock it right now. I started hung up on Kyle. I ran inside this house and I had literally, like the car had parked right behind me as I was getting outta my truck. I ran up to him and I was like, we have a deal at 60. Stuck my hand out. And I knew he was like one of those old, like southern gentlemen, A handshake means a lot, right? So I stuck my hand out and he's we have a deal at 60. Done. Shook it, have him sign the agreement. And he was nervous about signing the agreement, but we're talking about that. Then the other buyers walk up. Then these guys had way more money than me. They were a lot older than me. I think he said they owned a construction company. It's like these guys literally we're the real dude. They're gonna buy the thing for 60. They walked up and I respect that dude to this day. He looked at them and said, sorry guys, it's sold. And they were like, they're all pissed. They're like, yeah, I told'em it sold and they left. And that's when I was like, okay, I think I have a chance here, but I still hadn't got it signed, right?
Mike:But he kept his word. He kept his word on a handshake.
Ryan:Here's what the legendary part of this story was. or the funny part was he felt weird. He didn't trust me. And I get that. I had a branded shirt with my logo and had a website. I got those things up and running, like initially. But he just didn't trust me. I didn't know a lot about real estate. I had no money. And he had never anything trust me, so I had no money. Of course. And I was listen, like I use Title America and and I only said that cause I knew Kyle, like used Title America and that's who I put on the contract. He's do they know you there? I was like, let's just go there and trust me, like it'll be okay. And he's oh, okay. And I remember he felt so weird and he was gonna get in his truck and we were gonna drive to the title office. So he goes to get in his truck and I really felt like a vibe from him that he was just gonna bail. Like he was just gonna u-turn, call the other guy, other buyer and just be like, dude, this kid was weird. Hey, I'll sell to you. So I remember telling the guy, I'm like, listen I was like, how about you ride with me? He's what? I'm like, just ride with me to the title office. We'll get there together. We need to get to know each other anyway. And so I get car and mind you, title America doesn't know me. I hadn't really yet no clue who I am. I'm just a guy. So I get in the car now I have this guy in my little red Honda, just me and him, and it's dirty. I did not expect someone, there's top of Chico bottles, like right down his feet and like throwing him in the back. So he gets in feeling super uncomfortable. Mind you, this guy's 67. So we have nothing in common with each other. And so I'm just making small talk and I don't remember which part of Jacksonville we were in. I don't really know Jacksonville. But anyways, we're 30 minutes away from Title America. And it was like five o'clock at night probably. And I called Kyle and it was the night of his birthday. And Kyle's so what happened? I'm like, I think I'm gonna get it signed. I'm like, but I need you to call down to Title America and just let him know I'm coming, like trying to be signed. He's what do you mean? I'm like I'm just trying to. make the seller comfortable. He's what do you mean? And I just don't say anything. He's is the seller in the car with you? I'm like, dude, yeah. He's right here. And at that point I took it off the car mode and put it like, I was like, yeah dude, he's right here next to me. And he, Kyle started busting out laughing. He's that's hilarious, blah, blah. I'm like, dude, ah, that's cool. I'm like, alright, thank you Kyle. Just basically trying to get off the phone cuz the dude next to me is what is this kid doing? And I guess Kyle called down to Tyler America and I showed up. They were like, Hey Ryan, it's great to see you. They were just like primed and ready him up for me. And then I see the guy's face, he smirks up like every, he's just like stoked. He's perfect, where do I sign? So he signed the deal. And I remember I got back in the car and Kyle called me and he's did you get it done? I'm like, dude, got it done at 60. And then he invited me to his birthday party to go out with him and all his like rich friends. It was like my first deal ever. And like at the time, oh my gosh, hang out with Kyle and all his friends at this. And I remember we got in like a, his like Mercedes van. I thought I was like so cool. And, but yeah, it was just crazy like that one day, me being hungry enough on that deal turned into spending a full night with Kyle who's like a beast and all his friends, pat and learning more about real estate and it was just, yeah, that's the story. Yeah, my first deal, man, it's wild.
Mike:I love it. So you get the, you get that first deal. That's a crazy story, man. I love getting making the guy get in the car with you cuz you feel like he's gonna bail. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're feeling.
Ryan:And I'm a very logical person, so I'm weighing. All right. Worst case, dude, he gets in the car and it's a little awkward. He's not gonna hurt me, he's not gonna hit me. Like where it's gonna be an awkward ride and it's gonna be cringey, whatever. I'm like, the best case I get a deal sign, so like I'm risking it all.
Mike:You get that first deal done, assuming you've end up Jing or wholesale to Kyle,
Ryan:Yeah, we did JB on it.
Mike:and then, all right. You got the first off market one. You got 129 more to go. So what'd you decide to do at that point, after you got that first one under contract?
Ryan:Yeah. Within the first two or three months of being in business I made a decision. I was like, I need an office. Cuz I was just working all day from my condo. And I always would have random roommates cuz you know, I was big on hey, my mortgage is 700 bucks. I get a roommate, like price reduction, baby, getting that cash flow that$50 cash flow. So it was always awkward every day. Every day I'd get up, I'd get on my computer right next to my bed, roll out of bed from 7:00 AM to 7:30 PM and then I'd go to my girlfriend's house and she would make me dinner or my wife now she'd make me dinner and take care of me and I would then I'd go back to my place after she made me dinner. And that was pretty much my life. And I realized that I needed to get an office cuz I was getting jaded, just sleeping where I work and working so much time. And then had, I would have random roommates, I just wouldn't understand. I feel really awkward like doing cold calls and there's some like, dude I met four days ago in the other room, just so what's going on? I'm like, yeah, I'm just calling random people who don't know me and seeing if they'll sell me their house. And it's just oh, that's the weirdest thing I've heard ever. Thanks probably shouldn't, should change where I work. Yeah, man, within the first two or three months I made the change to get an office and still at the same office I have now a very humble little spot. And rented that out and then I would go there every day and then just start grinding. So a month or two into being in the office, I hired my first employee to come in and help me with all the detail work that I didn't wanna do.
Mike:So between that, did you get any other deals between hiring your first employee
Ryan:Oh yeah. After I got that first one, I was rolling I think the next one I got up got done after that was a two pack. A guy texted a guy and he like didn't wanna sell to me. But he, the way he talked to me and the text, he had multiple properties and I was super hungry, so I called him and I convinced him to sell me two of his houses that he owned in Jacksonville. So I ended up doing a two for a deal and getting both houses. So that's when the ball started rolling really quick for me. As far as getting deals, we just started doing, initially I was pretty much all in Jacksonville, just doing a ton of Jacksonville stuff.
Mike:So you're just hammering text messages, calling people when they get back to you. Is that pretty much the extent of the business for the first six months?
Ryan:Yeah, I would say it's texting. I was doing like other stuff too, like doing bandit signs sending out the occasional mail, but still never got a deal from it. Stuff like that, but mostly, yeah, it was texting and getting on, trying to get'em on the phone. I never took any sales training. I still haven't, I've never read a sales book. It just came really natural to me. And I just knew if I just get someone on the phone, it's butter. If there's a chance they're selling, like they'll sell to me, why wouldn't they
Mike:You're doing a lot of stuff in Jacksonville, but you've also jumped into a lot of different markets virtually. So when did that start happening?
Ryan:Yeah. So I made the decision pretty early that I didn't want to go on in-person appointments. When I was envisioning this company, I wanted something that was scalable. I didn't like the idea of having to go to every house. I didn't want to go to any houses. I wanted to be able to not be limited to my market. Like anything, I wanna be able to go anywhere. I wanted to get deals done from anywhere. And that's how I pictured it from the beginning. Obviously my first couple, I'm so excited of course I'm gonna come walk your ass. I don't have a deal yet. But at once I got a couple deals under my belt, I decided to make it a thing where it was like, I don't want to go to houses. So that was basically the principle of it is scalability and being able to go where I want.
Mike:But a lot of people they're in the Jacksonville market and they don't go to houses in Jacksonville or they, whether they send someone once, they obviously contracted on the phone, but you've jumped into multiple different markets. In Gainesville, some areas in Georgia I don't even know where else, like what made you decide to do that versus focusing on Jacksonville or St. August.
Ryan:So I'm a big proof of concept guy. I have to see it and feel it for it to be real. I don't just believe what people tell me. I gotta like really experience it. So as for locking down deals, it was more proof of concept. It was like fun for me. I was like, okay, lock down deals in Jacksonville. Can I lock down a deal in St. Augustine? Okay, if I can do Jackson, I can do fina. If I can do St. Alex, I can do Palm Coast. Okay, let me try Gainesville. Lemme try Orlando. Let me be crazy and try Georgia. Let's try Panama City and Tampa and Daytona or wherever. So it was more of proof of concept for me. I needed validation that not only is this scalable and can I go wherever I want, let's see if I actually can go wherever I want cause I don't wanna just have the secret sauce for Jacksonville or St. Augustine Northeast. I want to be able to on at a whim, clo lock down a deal anywhere I can. So that for me was just fun. I was just like, oh, let's try this new market. It was literally because I just liked the excitement of trying something new and I wanted the proof of concept that I could do it. And we locked a deal and every market we've advertised in, we've locked a deal.
Mike:And how do you know what to offer in these markets? Because I know Jacksonville I know this area right? And if you're wholesaling, you know what the buyers are gonna pay. You know what stuff costs to get done. But going into a new market you don't, there's some markets where people wanna buy 50%. There's other markets where people buy at 80, even 90 for certain houses. Like how do you know that
Ryan:Yeah. So I use the M AO formula and when I go into a market, I have a backend strategy. So if I go into Gainesville, I already am gonna have a try to build a relationship with a good flipper there who's buying a lot of houses and can handle my volume, and I'm gonna quiz him initially Hey, like where are you? How are you funding your deals? I want to know if he has like a strong hard money lender or multiple lined up. I want to wanna know, he's a professional. I wanna find out what his formula is, what he's paying, and then from there everything's negotiable. But I basically go off the AO formula and deduct my fee. My AO formula does, it's 75% of arv. So whatever the house is worth, fixed up, take 75% of that off the top. Now you're left with taking out repairs. So whatever the repairs are, deduct those and then from there, that's what a flipper will pay. Okay, so the flipper's here, I need to obviously be lower, right? So I want to get that as low as possible. And then that spread is what the profit is.
Mike:how Do you find these guys in all these different markets?
Ryan:So I'm pretty loyal. I only sell to a couple people. I only sell to two people. I sell to a gentleman, one guy in Gainesville, and I sell to one dude in Northeast Florida. And then if it's any other market, I close on it, so I'll close on it myself. I'll get hard money. I'll flip the house if I need to, or I'll keep it as a rental. But yeah, pretty much anything in other markets I'm gonna close on. Unless it's a really good wholesale deal and if I was to get a deal in an outside market, I would wholesale it just because of the state of the economy. Right now, in my balance sheet, I don't wanna take on too much risk right now. So I'm gonna wholesale most things We just closed a deal on Ponte Beacher Beach, which is like a super easy cosmetic flip that's a minimum, like 140 k profit. Something like that. It's okay, I can handle that. It's nearby, it's not sketchy. It's 47 minutes away from St. Augustine, so it's up there. It's practically Jacksonville, but it's like an old neighborhood. Everything's built in like the seventies, but Steph sells like nice, decent stuff in that neighborhood. Sells for six 50. We got it for 3 85 and it needs like 50.
Mike:Nice. So you're gonna do that, you're gonna flip it or you wholesaled
Ryan:I'm gonna flip, I'm not swinging the hammer, but I have a contractor, I have a really good with. who's gonna be doing the full rehab? Yeah.
Mike:Got it. So you went into all these different markets you figured out a key person in each one. You close on'em if you're outside. Talk about your rental portfolio in Georgia and cuz I know you've been building a rental portfolio up there and I'm curious like, why do you decide to do it there when you were in Insane Augustine and like how you've, how have you gone about let's start with why you decided to do it there
Ryan:it starts with that initial deal I told you about the one I randomly found on Zillow scrolling through that deal's in the market. And through suffering through that deal, if there was no strategy behind it, but it worked out and through that I found a good property manager to take that property off my back. Someone who was super hardworking smart and had the grit to say, I'll take on this. I had some people walk that property. Some property managers get out and they're pretty little high heels and literally a chick gets out in her nice look pink high heels and steps on like my gravel road I had poured and she was really like, we don't manage stuff like this. Gets in her little Hyundai and like tribes off. I'm like, oh, sick. And I'm big loyalty guy. I love when people doubt me and it energizes me. Like when people want me to fail, like that makes me happy. Just like I smell blood in the air. I love that. So that pissed me off. So it encouraged me to find a good, proper manager and I did. And Once I started locking deals down in all these markets, I was like, listen I want rentals. I want to own things. I want to build a portfolio. I started deals up there
Mike:How did you find that? I think a lot of people struggle with that. Jacksonville's fortunate, there's some great property managers here, but in other areas, I know people have trouble finding a good property manager. So how did you go about finding a property manager in that market, and how did you know that they were good? Because sometimes they're a property manager, you don't know for a few months that that they frankly suck. And then by the time that happens, they can be disastrous.
Ryan:yeah. So the main thing was, is like I went with some of the big box ones, like the re maxes of the world. Like in the smaller towns, those like named brokerages are like the big property managers. And so I had tried multiple of those and they were very slow. They just weren't pushing up, rinse the way they were supposed to. They wouldn't like help with repairs. They wouldn't help with anything. And like some of'em, like I said, wouldn't even I interviewed'em, they wouldn't even come they'd step out and be like, okay, bye. This isn't a property. And I had this one her name's Angela, but I call her Miss Angie cuz she's older than me. She's sweet. And I just love her. So I call her Miss Angie. She gets out of her car and she looks at the place and she looks at me and she's this is how I knew she was good. She's this place needs a lot of work. And I'm like, okay. And she essentially was like I'm interested, but I need to know that you're willing to put money into this place to make it nice. To make it like livable and. She's the type of tenant you're gonna attract with what it is right now is not like anything that you even want long term. And I was like, and I respected that she had the balls to be like, yo, are you gonna fix this up? Or am I wasting my time? And I was like, of course I'll do whatever you want. I will, I trust you more than me tell me what to do. I'm not prideful in that way. Whatever you tell me to do. And she's okay. So she came in and we worked together on managing the the repairs, because I didn't trust her yet. She didn't trust me and she didn't want to take on the whole boat. And then once she saw that I was willing to pay for everything she requested. she was requesting the smart stuff and not just being crazy, she was being conservative with my money. That's when I was like, okay, the reins are to you. And she was like, done. And she took that property out of my pocket. She got the rents even higher than I had got'em to at the time. She got all the rest of the bad tenants out. She has really good connections. It's like a military tenant market. So a lot of the best tenants are military families and she has a really good connection with that. So she loaded the place up with military families and it was great. Great. No issues. And and yeah, man, anyone willing to take on that bad of a project has my respect. It doesn't mean they're good but they have my respect. And then from there, through how she acted and what she did with the place, I was like, okay that's when I bought it, right? And a little bit after, so a year and a half later when I decided to start buying rentals, it's okay, I already have a beast property manager who managed my rehabs, who will fix'em up and get the contractors, get the tenants, do everything I need to do the walkthroughs. It's it's practically plug and play. So that's why I chose that market based, solely based on my property manager.
Mike:It's smart. I think a lot of people miss that hack, right? Where it's if you find the good property manager, like you don't need to renovate, you don't need to manage. It's like you buy the property, give them the keys, get the money, handle the financing, right? And then they roll
Ryan:yeah, they're incredibly valuable. And it's funny cuz now they've reaped the benefits of being so loyal to me and helped me on that first one cuz now every single property I buy, they get to manage. And now I think we have 30. Close under ownership. We have 34 or something now that they manage that they're making, the average rent is probably 1700 a month, so do the math. They're making at least five, six k a month in management fees from me. And they're booming business now because they now have this giant portfolio of meat. So it's just awesome to see. And it makes me snicker at the other lady who was too prideful to let me to manage my place. It's like you just missed out. You didn't realize that like this young kid who bought this place and we're gonna keep buying more. We have, I think another, eight or nine under contracted clothes in the next three weeks. So we're rolling full, steaming ahead with it.
Mike:Yeah. Cool. Got it. So you do that where, so you just respected her because she was straight up with you and then you took a chance on the first one? Or did you have any other way that you vetted her to know Hey she can do this,
Ryan:See, I'm a feel guy, right? Which can screw me or I can get super lucky. So with her, I respected the straightforwardness. I respected the, Hey listen, we're not gonna take this thing on unless you're willing to do work and make it nice. Cuz what some of the big companies would do, they'll come and be like, oh yeah man, the place looks great. We'll manage it. And they would just barely manage it, take their fees and they didn't care. And then we had the other end where people who didn't wanna touch it cause it was crappy. And I respect them too. If that's their business model, it's n no harm, no foul. But it was her who was like, Hey listen, we're newer property manager. Like they were a little newer in the business. They had just broken off from one of the bigger box people and it was like, Hey, we will manage it, but you need to be willing to pay the money. Get it done. And for the straightforwardness I respected that she was willing to go in with me. And I was like, okay, we'll figure it out and if you suck, I'll fire you and if I suck, you'll fire me and move on to the next house. As simple as that. And I'm pretty and I scored with them and then I've been able to mentor them in a lot of ways and boom, grow their business. And they've obviously helped me grow mine with how easy it is to plug and play with rentals. So it's been a, it's been a win-win and we are very appreciative of them.
Mike:Yeah, for sure, man. Having the right partner on the property management and renovation side is everything. You're, you've obviously grown your business a ton since you started almost two years ago, a year and 10 months ago, whatever that is. How would you say that you're able to do that, but that a lot of people who've been trying to wholesale or trying to invest in real estate for two years and maybe done two or three deals, they just can't get it. What do you think makes you able to do that?
Ryan:For one there's multiple things. I would say it's my ability to humble myself and realize that I'm not the best at most things and there's a lot for me to learn. So going into real estate, it was like, Hey, I know nothing and I want to learn from the best. So I hung around the best and I took what they said as basically gold. Couple things I would tweak just cuz of personal preference, but. in terms of core things to push in a real estate business or in a business in particular. It was like, I will follow it to a T. So I wasn't stubborn. I wasn't prideful. There's a lot of guys and I've talked to a ton of them friends with a ton of them. Do you know, 20 deals a year or just started or whatever it is, and it shocks me. Just the stubbornness, right? And like you have to be stubborn to really grow something giant. You have to be stubborn a little bit, like I'm sure I come across as arrogant to a lot of people. And that's not the worst thing. But when you're in a room with someone significantly better than you at the thing you are trying to grow your whole life in ak, a real estate business and you're not willing to listen to them. It's so foolish. It just makes no sense. Just pride. What do you know? That's my mindset. Like I just started going to a new gym where all these guys are freaking S sw and the trainer's been trained for 50 years. I listen to everything the dude says, I'm not cocky. I can deadlift 400 pounds. But if he tells me the other day, your deadlift forms off, yes sir, more than me, it is off. You're right. You have no reason to lie. I'm gonna correct my deadlift, freaking twice my weight. Like people don't realize that translation to life and real estate, like you have to humble yourself and know that every nana is a superior to you in some way, and you have to recognize that and be willing to learn. So I'm just always been willing to learn. I've always been willing to say, okay, that makes. I'll do that. Of course I'll never change on my values. I'll never budge on those. But when it turn comes to aspects of a business and how to run it, like I'm gonna trust the people making$10 million a year versus Ryan Rice, who in the beginning made, was making zero money. Why do I have a say? That's why it kills you. And these guys who have done maybe 10 deals in the last two years or whatever, and they haven't gained traction. They come talk to me and I'm like, Hey, you're doing this wrong. This makes no sense. You need to do this. And then they're like, what? It's what do you mean? Just listen. Shut up. Just do it. I have no reason to lie to you. I don't have a loser mindset. I want you to be great. I want you to crush it. Honestly, like to the dude department, I want you to do amazing in life and I want you to crush out your real estate dreams. Listen to me. I know what I'm talking about. I'm better than you right now in this way in terms of real estate. But many conversations like, dude, you're so freaking cocky. So I think that's a lot of people's problems. Stubbornness. They think they come and think they know it all. I came in knowing nothing. If you read my Instagram right now, my bio literally says a businessman with a lot to learn or something like that. People see me as some expert, but I still have a ton to learn. And I love learning. I love growing. But I think the ability to humble yourself and know that you got a lot to learn. And of course, natural like talent, like being a talented individual in terms of scaling your business. But I don't think you even necessarily need talent. That's just one thing that's helped me kind of skyrocket. But you don't even need that,
Mike:it helps. It certainly doesn't hurt, but it's not the main thing. It's a lot of it's learned. I think it's interesting, the ability to take that beginner's mindset and then like how fast you implement something, right? That's always something I'm always like, keep in my mind. It's okay we learned about this new tool, someone who's doing really well shared it with me. Okay. How fast can we implement this thing? If it's something that's gonna be a driver, right? Versus people will sit on stuff forever. It's just roll.
Ryan:And That makes, no sense to.
Mike:And you're an way faster implementer than I am, man. I maybe implemented in a week or two weeks. You probably implemented the second you get home.
Ryan:Yeah. I have a couple employees now. One of them's he's basically my operations coordinator role, like just helping me with operations, hiring business strategy stuff for him to implement. Very smart guy. And I had this idea for how I wanted to change how we're doing some of our marketing. And it was like, Hey I want to do this. And he was like, okay. And he starts thinking about it. I want to start now. So let's figure everything out now because I wanna start now. I don't delay. Maybe that's one of my strengths and I don't spend a lot of time in self-reflection on this stuff, but I'm the type of guy who analyzes almost. right? There's a lot of very analytical, smart, methodical guys. You're very methodical, right? And I talked to you and I asked you detailed questions cuz you just know you're ish, right? But a lot of people I think, analyze too much and they spend so much time planning. It's like the book Bluefish he says there's people that have analyzed things over and over a hundred times and by the time you've made your spreadsheets and analyzed and done all these things, I have tried it 40 times and I have failed almost all of'em. But I figured it out because I just kept trying and, oh, that doesn't work. Let's try this. That doesn't work. Let's try this. And I just figured it out. So I accomplished what most people want to accomplish. By just doing, and spending almost no time realizing it. It would probably scare you. How little thought process I put into my new marketing campaign I'm gonna do, or my new like area I'm gonna go to. When I tell you it's a thought for three seconds. It's a three second thing. I'm like, yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll just go. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else, but we're gonna do it. And I would say probably the one thing that ties with the ability to be humble and listen and learn is I've truly always believed in myself. And I've honestly believed that I'm going to just do it. I'm gonna get it done. I'm gonna grow this into a giant business. Sometimes I didn't feel that way. Sometimes it was like, there was hard times where I was like, oh, am I gonna get a deal? But in the back of my head, I always knew, when you walk into my office, when I went to Snowshoe and when I went snowboarding, I wrote on a piece of paper. I want it to feel like like a Brooks Brothers vibe, right? Until this day, yeah. You walk into my office and it's like a Brooks Brothers swag vibe. It's just very, just like sharp dressed, good looking dude. I like First Brothers by the way. more loyal, but from the beginning I had this vision of, okay, I'm going to grow something big and it's going to be great, and I'm just not gonna fail. Whatever it is, I'm gonna figure it out.
Mike:There's tough times, right? What have you done? I love your mindset, right? You and I talk about this, I just love your mindset, but what do you do in those tough times? Or what do you do on a daily basis to cultivate that mindset of winning, right? Because there are freaking hard days, right? keep your
Ryan:Honestly, I think a lot of it's just in you. I think I'm a very competitive person and I think a lot of that is from how I was raised. I was the youngest of three boys. My brothers are six and eight years older than me. And I was the youngest. I always had to fight for everything. I had to prove that I was worthy to even hang out in my brother's room. I had to like, beg them if I could go hang out with them, watch a movie. I always had to prove myself and be competitive. My brothers were playing Halo too. It's like I'm gonna be in my room playing Halo. I'm gonna get way better than them. And it was just this undying competitiveness I've always had since I was a kid. But for people who don't have that naturally like I know what helps me is doing really hard things. Like doing hard stuff purposefully. So like I do a really hard workout Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a group of people like that guy who's been working out for 50 years where it's like really hard. It's the hardest thing I do all day. And it's from six 30 to seven 30 in the morning. So I'll have time to think. I wake up, I go do this really hard endurance workout, and at the end of that workout it's okay, that's the hardest thing I'm gonna do all day. Now I get to go fit in an air conditioned office and talk to a couple people on the phone and do some text. and get rich and make my employees rich. Okay, sounds like a great day. So for anyone who's not naturally that crazy competitive I'd say a lot to you, it's just not in you and you should probably go work for someone like me. And that probably applies to 90% of people, like not necessarily listening. We might have some hustlers listening, but n 90% of the people, if this was the whole world, was listening to this, I would say most of you would be better off finding a someone like me to work for or someone similar who's super hungry and you just hang onto their coattails and go to the moon. Obviously someone that aligns with your core values don't work for like a scumbag or anything. Rather than trying to be Superman yourself when it's or be this Grow this great business yourself when you're better off being a team member in someone else's system, and you'll be happier and better that way. So that applies the most to you. But for the, some of you who are super hungry, I would just say keep a routine work out in the morning. Have a moment of silence or something. But honestly, I think for most people it's just in you. Like you'll have bad days, but you're still gonna wake up hungry. I can have great days, like when I go on vacation with my wife, we'll go to Hawaii. She loves Hawaii, so we'll be on this beautiful beach in Hawaii. But the curse of being someone like me is you don't get to enjoy things like that. I'm sitting there on the beach, but all I'm thinking about, and you can attest to this too, all I'm thinking about is the future. I'm not worrying, it's not oh, what's gonna happen? That's a completely different. person. It's just, I'm excited for the future. I'm hungry. I have ideas. And I am everywhere but on a beach in Hawaii when I'm on a beach in Hawaii. And so for most of the people that would listen to this and aren't someone like me or Mike, you are very blessed because you can go get those days off and have that time in and guess where You are? You're on a beach in Hawaii. And I never am even when I am. It never, and it'll always be like that, but I'm happy because that's just how I am.
Mike:So where is your business today? You've done 130 deals, a lot of different markets all over the phone, but what does your team today and what does your business look like today?
Ryan:Yeah. So we own like 30 something rentals. I told you. I'm trying to get that number up a good bit before the end of the year. But the rising interest rates make it harder to find deals that cash flow to my standard. And I'm not one to buy a deal that doesn't cash flow just to hope on a later refi at a lower interest rate. I'm not one of those guys. I want it all and I want it now. And yeah, I'll suffer my cash flow a little bit, but I'm not gonna buy anything that breaks even or negative for the sake of just saying I have more properties. So how my business looks in general I'm the only owner and partner. It's just me. There's no one that gets a piece of the pie. There's no one that shares any ownership with any of my properties with me. I have five employees. Two are virtual. We have new kind of virtual sales assistants that help us with our day-to-day, getting our text messages sent, helping sort them, helping with some list pooling. So we have two VAs offsite that are super helpful. Awesome. And we treat them like part of the family. That's another thing. My VAs are treated like they're in the office practically. Like they're pictures on my website. Like you go, look, we pay for them to get professional photos done so that they can be a part of our website. So they feel like they're included and they're treated like every other employee. We don't throw them away. We only hire ones that are the best. If you even slightly suck, you're fired.
Mike:Big mistake people make is not treating their virtual employees the same as their regular employees.
Ryan:Yeah. Cause what people don't realize is your virtual employees are people, they're just like us. They're not lesser than us. We're not better than them. Like you are no greater than a 22 year old girl in the Philippines working for$6 an hour we're completely equal.
Mike:Some of them are probably better than you in a lot of things.
Ryan:Yes. Like I said, everyone's a superior in some way to you. And so we treat our VAs like family. I think that's key. But as far as our in-office employees we have a transaction coordinator who is middleman. So once I lock a deal down, get it under contract, it goes to my coordinator. He handles everything from all the way to close so I never have to touch the deal again. I don't have to do any paperwork. My transaction coordinator also helps me with my refinances. He does a million things for me, just all the detailed stuff I don't wanna do. So it helps me with all the paperwork on my refinances so that even when I'm buying a rental, it's as simple as me just closing a normal deal.
Mike:That's great. The refi paperwork's such a pain in the butt. I have a cc, but they don't do the refi paperwork for me, and that is, ugh.
Ryan:I've trained him on all of that and it was hard to get it all going. But now he's trained, so he books the appraisal, he handles the inspections, he handles all the refi paperwork, every little thing. Cause I don't want to do it and I know it's just not highest best use of my time. So when I lock down a rental, it's just like locking down any other house. It's treated the same way. I never have to touch it again. And then boom, it's added to the portfolio. So I created that system in that way. Then we also have our new sales guy. He's a beast. He just started a couple days ago, but he's hungry. He's got the right profile. We're giving him all the tools. So it's funny, we spend all this money advertising and vetting through, people on all the sites you advertise for. I don't pay for it. My operations guy handles it. But we spend a lot of time advertising, a lot of money advertising for people. And I found this guy from Facebook, he was a buddy I went to high school with hadn't talked in a while. So I have another employee, my operations coordinator who handles all my higher level operations. Anything involving managing rehabs, managing contractors hiring, firing, hr, random, like all the other detailed crap that I don't want to handle that's more outside of individual transactions and more higher level handles, all of that. Cause I don't wanna do that either. But but yeah, so I had him come in and help me with some sales and he still helps me with sales. And in one week he was able to close not lockdown three deals that were gonna net us around a hundred grand total. And so he was gonna get a commission of about 10 Gs. So I posted that on my Facebook and I was like, basically my new sales guy first. One of my guys just doing sales his first week part-time, cuz he has all these other duties, is locked down with 10, 10 Kane commissions. We're hiring essentially. And this old buddy from high school hit me up. We didn't treat him special in any way. He still got vetted through our process. He still did the culture index, which is like a personality profile. We still be do a spark hire interview, which is like a virtual interview where we're not present to see how he carries himself. And I knew him well. He already got my thumbs up, but we have to stick to our process. He did everything he was supposed to. We brought him in for an official interview. So that's really my, so my hiring process is culture index first, if that passes, we have'em do a spark. once they do those two things and they look good and they match the role, we do an in-office interview. If that goes good what's next is I'll do typically like a shadow day where you come in, hey, just shadow us for a couple hours, see what the role's and then from there we'll do and I think this is decently unique to us, but I'll take them out to dinner with their significant other and my wife and before they're officially hired, I will have dinner with them and their significant other. And it's a test. It's a part of the hiring process cause I want to see who they chose as a mate. Because it tells a lot about who they are. I wanna see who they choose cuz who you choose to spend your life with, whether it's your girlfriend, whether it's your wife who you choose for that role tells a lot about you. and it tells me almost all I need to know. So if everything looks good and then we go to dinner and my wife sits down with your wife and the whole time your wife's on her phone or looking down or doesn't ask any questions about any of us as self-centered or anything like that. I now know the employee I'm going to hire is going to have not the best counsel when they have a bad day at work and they come home to this person, say, yeah, Ryan, you know this. They're gonna get bad advice. Hey, yeah, just quit. Just do this X, Y, and Z, whatever it is. They're not gonna be providing that person with the council. They should be. And so I bet every single person's girlfriend or spouse, every employee I have, I know their girlfriend or spouse. They're lovely people. And it's someone they passed the chug test to. It's someone I'd go have a beer with today. They're here now, they're all downstairs chilling together with my wife having drinks and. having a great time.
Mike:you hire Single people. Is that noted?
Ryan:I do have a single guy, he's our seventh wheel or whatever. But yeah I think that's super unique about our hiring process is I wanna see who you as a spouse cuz if they suck, even if you're great, you're not hired. Like you're not in, and I don't tell'em it's a part of the hiring process. Hey, before everything's final let's just go get some dinner. And I take'em out to a really nice dinner and just see if this spouse is an enjoyable person and if they're not deuces and with that foundation, I think that's gonna grow a great just culture and it already has. Cause we all get along so well and we all come from such different backgrounds and and Jam Man. Yeah, that's the people,
Mike:So I know like your sales processor if you'd even call it a sales process, I, maybe you've changed it since we talked, but when you were doing it, you know me, I'm very sales process oriented. I've studied a lot of sales. You're the opposite, right? Like you have no sales process and I'm always fascinated because you still end up getting a ton of deals. So just are you still making offers over text, doing really short phone calls?
Ryan:Yeah, man. Super short phone calls. I'll only really get on the phone with someone if it's to close the deal, like they've already agreed on my number that I'm getting on the phone with you. Other than that, I personally don't get on the phone with them. Now, for a newer sales guy it may be worth your time to do follow up and to do these things. I don't do follow up. So if someone says no to my number, I don't follow up. I don't call them again. I used to, and what it did is just bogged my schedule down with a whole bunch of, just every day I would have 30 calls to make and it just hated it. I felt like a worker said every day I'd log in. It was like this big to-do list. And it just wasn't, worth it. I'm not saying it's not worth for new sales people, like my new sales guy, I'm having him do follow up cause you gotta go through the grind and you will get deals from it. But if I'm getting on the phone with you, it's to close the deal. I'm not talking to you. I'm not warming you up. And my process is super quick. Like I'll focus on your pain points and I do it very naturally. I'll make you laugh, make you feel comfortable get you and me on the same team, and then work a solution out together to get the deal done
Mike:So tell me about that. So you're texting them, they've already agreed to the ballpark number at this point, or what's the.
Ryan:So we have a lot of lead sources, so it's hard on one. It's like we have television ads, right? So a television ad comes in, that's a completely different conversation than the texting ad. I will get on the phone when it's an incoming like TV ad lead, right? I'll talk to them. But it's very quick and very brief. So the second I'll pull up the house and if I see that they just bought it last year for 200, and the Zillow says two 40 I'll be like, are you expecting to get more than what you paid for it last year? And they're gonna be like, oh, actually no. Okay. Yeah. If they say yes, then honestly man, we're not the fit. I'll cut it off pretty quick. I'll give him our pitch. Hey, just tell if you go with a realtor, you're gonna X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z, X, Y, z. If you go with us, it's completely as is, we can close quick, we'll even rent it back to you. I give them the sale before I say, Hey, it's not for us, but if you're stuck at this number, it's not for us. But, so I cut calls off very quickly I don't have this longer drawn out process, but it's highly efficient for my time. Because frankly, I don't wanna spend 30 minutes on a deal. That's It is just not gonna happen the whole time. And I spend 30 minutes
Mike:What are your lead source? They got tv, got texting.
Ryan:TV, texting, we do the Google accent stuff where we bring people to our website whatever that's called
Mike:Like when people search for it, or are the ones that are like the banner ads on the side? Paper click, I think.
Ryan:Something like that, which when they search for and then we have cold calling as well. So I have a VA who does cold calls and she does a brief script. And if it's a lead by our definition of a lead for her, she'll put it in our WhatsApp chat then the first sales guy to jump on it, gets dibs and calls him and gets it.
Mike:Let's say the text ones that come in, right? What's the flow with that? I think you make offers over text, right?
Ryan:Yeah, so I make all my offers over text. I advise my new sales guy to not make all offers over text. I want him to call them first once they've been vetted. And then once they're ready for it to receive the offer, I want them to call. Now I submit offers through text. I don't get on the phone with them unless they're like, Hey, we're closed on numbers. Or I offer and they're like, oh, we're not too far off, or, Hey we're right on the money. Boom. I'm gonna get you on the phone and we're gonna close that deal. Simple as that. Press for a new sales guy though, I advise him. I want him once the lead is ready to receive the offer, I want them to call them first, see if they can present the offer over the phone. If no answer, then I'll have next the offer and move on to the next.
Mike:What is ready to receive an offer? What does that mean?
Ryan:So they've answered a couple prep questions. I think we asked Hey can you tell us a little about the condition? And then is this a rental for you? X, Y, Z?
Mike:Just like couple basic questions about the property, nothing about their pain or anything like that on the text
Ryan:yeah. Yeah. Nothing about their pain. Just, Hey, can you tell me anything about the place? The pain often will come out when it's like, Hey, is this a primary home for you? Or a rental? We'll get the oh me and my wife just divorced, so I don't really know what it is. That's oh, okay. And someone's super vetted like that. Like I still won't call them, I'll still send them an offer over text. But I would advise most salespeople, highest and best use of the time is to call any highly vetted lead. If you go on the phone
Mike:Why do you think it works for you though? I know a lot of people who have tried making offers over text and they're not successful at it. Is it just that you're doing so many so much volume that something will stick?
Ryan:we're very consistent. So we send the same number of texts each day, every day, Monday through Friday. So this whole time we've done all these deals, it was like 2000 a day. Now we've just bumped it up. We're at like 8,500 a day. We just bumped it up in the last like week. Probably three or four months ago, started doing 2000 a day. And, I was doing a lot of TV ads. I cut down a lot of the TV ad stuff during this kind of economic downturn, didn't wanna spend too much, and then used some of that money being spent on that to be, to raise the tax volume. And so now we send, I think, 8,500 a day.
Mike:Wow. And then right now you're not focused on Duval County anymore. So where are you focused right now, Georgia? You buying rental? Somewhere else?
Ryan:we're doing one list and do all, like I said, I kind of hop around depending on what the balance sheet is calling for, like what I need, like right now a lot of people are lending me money, so I don't necessarily need a ton of cash right now. So it's more of, okay, we'll find some rentals to allocate some money. But like where I go and what I'm trying to do is largely based on what I'm feeling. Oh, I'll just go here. It's very loose and like what the balance sheet's calling for, like what's my cash flow needs? Do I need money? Do I need rentals? What can I do?
Mike:you'll go to areas that are better than to wholesale. Like you don't have buyers in Georgia, for example, you're gonna keep it as rental if you buy it.
Ryan:Yeah. In Georgia, I'm keeping as rentals in Gainesville, we have a really good presence there. We do a ton of tv. We just have a great presence in Gainesville, so it's really easy and a great wholesaler relationship with a flipper there. So it's very turn gainesville's super turnkey for us. So if I'm trying to make quick money, it's okay, Gainesville Rentals South Georgia. But we still do wanna do flips. I'm focusing Jacksonville, St. Augustine. We do a lot of stuff in Palm Coast. We just did a flip in Palm Coast that one of my guys got that was part of his commission. Like I said, we made like 70 K on it in we literally bought it. All we had to do was install a ceiling fan and put a mirror up. It didn't even need to be cleaned. It was brand new. It didn't even need to be deep clean cause the home was built two years ago. So we bought with first contact, I wanna say from first contact to purchase and then resold again was like a three week period. So from the first contact to profit made was like three weeks.
Mike:So you resold it,
Ryan:yeah, we listed on the mls, we closed on it in a week, bought it with cash, and then listed on the mls, sold to a cash buyer, made em close quick on us, and yeah, it was like a 70 Care, I'd say
Mike:So you were saying that you got a lot of people lending you money right now. Are those private lender relationships that you've built, or like how are you going about that?
Ryan:No, it's weird. I think words getting around that people like lend me money or something, or that guy, I'm a good borrower, so people like are just approaching me now. People that just not like business owners, just people who make great money are like, I wanna lend you money, essentially. I'm like, okay, I'll accept here. Yeah. Unrestricted, not tied to any real estate. Just cool. And I'll pay you interest on it, baby.
Mike:Oh, it's not even secured.
Ryan:No, it's unsecured.
Mike:Wow.
Ryan:yeah. It's just a sign. A personal guarantee, LLC and personal guarantee,
Mike:Got it. There's always like a couple questions I like to ask at the end. The craziest or most uncomfortable situation that you've ever experienced with the seller?
Ryan:I don't really get like uncomfortable people. I can think of one that was just like super cr. This is a good one. Like this one's actually funny. Not funny, it's sad, but it's just cringe. So I hired this guy to be my transaction coordinator. Nicest guy ever, right? He's just, he still works for me today. Ian, he's like the best. Like anyone who meets Ian's, just this kid's, the best guy in the world. And we go to this house and it's a house in Palm Coast, and it was still one of the first thing. I'd been in business three or four months at that point, like very new, right? And I still walking some property. Someone I wouldn walked this house seller her answer the door. And she's like she's older, she's bald, she's a sweet lady. And we get in and there's this joke with Ian where he gets uncomfortable, he laughs. And so it's talking to this lady and I'm like, oh, so what's going on? And she gives me the. absolute worst like scenario in life. It was something like her son had just killed himself. She was like suffering with like stage four, five cancer. It was like 10 awful things. Like it was so bad. And at the very end of it, like Ian, when he feels uncomfortable, he laughs So he's haha. And gave a laugh. And I remember oh my gosh, I wanted to melt my face. But she was super sweet, but I still make fun of him for that till this day. So was like one cringey thing with the seller. But I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. There's a lot of stuff that makes me happy. Like we've done a ton of times where like it comes down to the wire and people owe more than they thought. And they're like we've had deals with one where I knew we were gonna make the, like a good bit of money on it. And this lady comes and calls me like crying. She's I thought we owed so much less. She's doing the number, she's only gonna walk with 10 grand. And those situations are great cuz then I'll often give them an extra 10 grand or up the purchase price. We've done it like four or five times now where it's just been like those are awesome. Where you're able to like, look, one lady, we bought our house in Palm Coast and it was going about to be auctioned off foreclosure and we bought it and she was like, she just got diagnosed with cancer and she had left the house. She was just like leaving Florida. She got cancer, she couldn't pay for the house. And we agreed on a number and then on closing date, or like we went to walk it and I remember I just bumped the price up just to be nice for her. She didn't even ask. She was just so grateful. We went to walk it, we're gonna buy it. And the house looked so good. Like the house was so clean that she was like, are you gonna renegotiate? Like, all sad, like thinking. I was like, like a lot of the companies who renegotiate their deals and stuff. And I was like, no. I was like, would it change your life if I gave you an extra five grand? And she was like, she just do silence. All I hear is just like sobbing, like under a blanket. I'm like, what? Hello? And she just can barely talk. She's that would change my life. And it, for me, five grand means nothing to me. Nothing compared to this lady. So I was like, we're gonna increase the price. Five grand. And she's just head over heels, freaked out, woke up. Her husband was like, worried we're gonna cancel the deal. It was just so moments like that. But I don't get uncomfortable. I I like really tense situations and I like it, like I get energy from it. I don't really feel uncomfortable often, I like being in the room uncomfortable, really uncomfortable is going on, and everyone's like, uh, I'm just sitting there oh, this is hilarious.
Mike:Cool man. The second question, and the last question I always ask is if you could go back in time before you did your first deal and give yourself one piece of advice, knowing what you know now, what would you say to yourself?
Ryan:Oh, I didn't say anything. Cuz I would want to earn it completely on my own. Right now I owed all the success and had all the success, but I was able to get a whisper from the past two years ago that told me some secrets, then I would always owe it to that. and it wouldn't be myself, right? It wouldn't be me doing it it would be cheating. So I wouldn't do that. And that's also why I feel so bad for people that are born rich. Like I wasn't born rich at all. But I feel so bad for the people that are born pretty wealthy and then they go into business and they always have to be way better than their father or mother because if they're not, then they just get attested. Yeah, you were a rich kid et cetera, et cetera.
Mike:Ryan. Lee just wrote a comment. He said love how you guys are the opposite, and both crush it and are absolute legends. Thanks Lee.
Ryan:Thanks, Lee. Yeah, I lovely. And it's true, you and I are completely opposite, but that's why every time we talk, we both learn something because you're so smart and detailed and methodical and there's no way you fail. Like I truly don't think there's a way you fail because you just have it so dialed in. With whatever you do, there's no way you don't just win because you're just so smart, methodical. And I'm just like a, I guess a crazy ball of energy.
Mike:I'm gonna change that last question though before we go, cuz I wanna give some some help to people who are new and haven't gotten their first deal yet. So if you could tell one of them, I know you don't wanna tell yourself and cheat yourself, but if you could give one of them a piece of advice and they're looking for their first deal now, would you tell em?
Ryan:If you were looking for your first deal now I would ask them to look inside themselves and think, what is this really for you? Do you want to do are you hungry enough? Cuz for a lot of people the advice is, don't spend$20,000 or spend all your time or quit your job and go into this. So I would have them do a self-reflection and gauge themself on a couple things. Have you been a decently competitive person growing up? Have you play any high level sports? Did you do anything high level? Did you always want to try to be the best? And that doesn't necessarily mean with school, cuz I sucked at school. I didn't suck, I didn't care. I would have them do some self-reflection to see if it was for them and then stay disciplined and do the hard work and don't tell anyone what you're doing
Mike:Why? Why is that? Why do you say don't tell anyone what you're doing? I think I know what you're gonna say, but I want to hear you say it.
Ryan:yeah cuz when you start out, you're like a dimly lit candle and this giant dark room, you're just this tiny little flash and you're vulnerable. And any one word or phrase or one thing from a family member can put that flame out cuz you're barely confident in yourself at this point. You're figuring it out and you risk someone putting out your flame early by sharing anything with anyone. And I'm a very, confident person in my flame had almost gotten point put out multiple times when I had shared things with family and close friends that just didn't understand what I was doing and sharing it with them, thinking they would like, motivate me when they were really just what are you doing? What do you mean? You hired someone from Bangladesh named What do you, that's really weird, Ryan. And it's in my head I'm like, wait, that's a smart thing to do. And then I have someone telling me who I've trusted my whole life saying, Hey, that's weird. You risk getting your flame put out. And there's almost no I'm very logical. There's almost no good that comes from it, like sharing things. And it doesn't mean you don't share it with your spouse because if you've chosen a good spouse, they'll motivate you.
Mike:Sarah Hamlin said Ryan, bringing the wisdom.
Ryan:I love Sarah. Shout out Sarah. Yellowbird og. She made my life so much easier in the beginning. But yeah I would just really advise people to just be careful who they share their early success or wins with or visions with, because there's logically, there's almost no good that can come from it versus all the bad. Cuz most people have a loser in your mindset. If you start this new journey, most of the people you know are where you were, they're behind you. So when you share this vision with someone who's behind you they're not gonna see it like how you are. So there's almost like a 99% chance you're gonna get a negative bad comment and then a 1% you're gonna get an avo. And if you're the person you're supposed to be, if you're someone who's hungry, you don't need attaboys anyway. You don't need an attaboy, I don't need someone to say, Ryan, you did a great job. Like it happens at the Connects, oh my gosh, Ryan, X, Y, and Z. And it's just I sit there and I'm, I smile and I'm polite, but. it does zero things for my brain. It doesn't make me feel good. I don't, it doesn't boost my ego. So that's just my advice for that is just get your head down, get the work done. Don't share it with too many people. Just go for it.
Mike:Do it. Yeah. Awesome, man. If people wanna reach out to you they wanna hit you up, have questions, or if they wanna send you a deal or anything like that, how do they go about doing that?
Ryan:Just find me on Facebook or Instagram. I think Mike has it posted below. Just hit me up on either of those. Don't try to sell me anything. It's so annoying now that I've gotten slightly bigger in real estate. It's like all the people that look at me on Facebook will be like a mortgage loan officer. And they add me. And then it's just every day they spam me
Mike:don't you spam about 8,500 people a day, Ryan
Ryan:Yeah. They don't get on That's a good point.
Mike:I'm just saying I can't get mad at people for make cold call me cuz I'm like, we cold call thousands of
Ryan:know, I have the luxury of being able to tell your audience if they're gonna hit me up, do please ask. Because don't wanna be ever forget. But please don't add me if you're just gonna try to sell me stuff. Unless it's a deal. We're borrowing a lot of money right now, so Yeah, if you're private money, we would love to do something
Mike:Yep. Cool man. Thanks for coming on. It was awesome. Really awesome to have you. It's always great to have a conversation with you. I really enjoy it every single time.
Ryan:Dude, you're you're the best. Seriously, you've it's impressive what you're doing. You're an awesome dude. I always learn so much from you, and I really appreciate you. Have me on for real.
Mike:Yep. For sure man. Thanks for coming.