The reason why most investors lose money is not because they are lazy. It's just because of the fact that the tools at our disposal, the tools we all know, are not designed to protect you.
If you're within three feet of me, we're probably talking about real estate, much to my family's chagrin. But here's the thing, most people see 7% rates and freeze. I see opportunity. They're waiting for the perfect deal, and well, I've analyzed thousands of them, and perfect just doesn't exist. So I talk to operators across every asset class, flippers, multifamily syndicators, note investors, and whatever else is working. No sales pitches allowed, just real lessons from people actually doing it. I'm Ed Mathews, and this is Real Estate Underground.
Greetings and salutations real estate undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day today. So today we're gonna geek out a little bit on artificial intelligence and real estate technology, and how professionals like the gentleman that I've invited onto the show today use technology to advance both his business and the folks that he works with. Jeff Imelaba, thank you so much for joining us. I can't wait to talk about Invest Fusion. This is gonna be really cool.
Jeff EmalabaThank you for having me. Thank you for having me.
Ed MathewsAbsolutely,
man. 25 years ago when you were young, y- a young man, you appeared on CNBC Africa. So tell me about that experience. And really what I'm curious about is, what you knew about markets back then, what do you see today- i- in terms of the US market and how you're working with real estate professionals like myself?
Jeff EmalabaI love that. I love that. Before we get started, let me first of all acknowledge what you're doing. Yes. It's a lot of work that goes behind the scene. I want to say you're doing a great job massively, and I'm honored to be part of this show. For those who are listening to this podcast right now, if you get anything of value, please go leave Ed here a five-star review on any platform you're watching this from. Please go do that, and I don't mind, and I will see you on the inside as well doing that as well. So 25 years ago exciting time for me. I love the markets. I love to analyze financial markets, and back then I was the guy, I was the go-to person when it came to understanding derivative instruments, commodities futures. I was also a licensed option trader in 21st Century Options in Florida, so I love financial markets. I love interpreting risk, and everything that formed the bedrock of what I do today is as a result of mitigating risk. As a matter of fact, I have somebody on LinkedIn who sent me a message and said, "Coach, do you know that 30 years ago you taught me on how to trade the markets but looking at risk?" And he said, "Today, you're also on real estate analyzing markets but based on risk." So risk is something that's, risk transference is all what options is all about. And so for me, when it comes to the financial markets, it's understanding how do investors play the market safely while mitigating risk, and why some might have risk appetite, but you want to look at those who are not in the level of having risk appetite to play the market. So we'll understand both sides of the coin. The US market right now, we've seen what's happened with interest rates. We see what's happened in the entire financial markets. There's always gonna be chaos. There's always gonna be inflationary pressure. However, investors must gauge carefully, "What do I want to go into to get the best out of my buck?" And then you j- you want to play the game very cautiously, and that's the whole premise of why we are here. Why? Yeah. You want to en- ensure that if you put in a dollar, you're getting 5, 10, 15, $20 back on any, any investment you are getting into, and that's the goal of this.
Yeah. And where I discovered you is actually on LinkedIn, right? And and I became fascinated with Invest Fusion and one of the things that I believe about the way you operate is very similar to the way we operate Clark Street Capital, and that is I'm looking for reasons not to invest, right? That is my first... W- we go f- as I c- as we call it here, we go for the no, right? And the, the object being I wanna stress test before we even spend, a, a significant amount of time on the deals that we analyze. And as you said before we hit record, I've analyzed a whole bunch of them. And I'm pretty good at saying no. Walk me through Invest Fusion and your philosophy around a- approaching risk and how you manage it.
Jeff EmalabaSo let's, let me understand. So let me tell you how this whole story began, how I started this whole thing. So again, like you've mentioned, my name is Jeff Imelabe. I'm the founder of Invest Fusion. Now, what I do is to help real estate investors protect their deals before they lose thousands to non-refundable fees on properties they are never going to own.
Now, there's something most investors are not aware of. There is a $4 billion problem happening in real estate right now every year, and it's happening quietly. This is according to the data released by Redfin. As on average, over 40,000 deals collapse every single month. In February, we had 56,000 deals collapse. Buyers, regular people, they lose thousands to deposits, inspections, and non-refundable fees. I've watched people, individuals I know, who've lost over $5 million on one commercial property, one deal. So the question now is, how many- I've lost
Ed Mathewsmoney on that s- scenario, absolutely.
Jeff EmalabaI can tell... exactly. So the question right now I'm going to ask you now, Ed, is how many times can our listeners go through that kind of a, an a mistake like that? And I'm going to be very blunt with you. There's something that nobody's saying out loud, and for 100% I'm going to tell you this, most real estate investors are blind, irrespective of how experienced they are, even the real estate agents. Why? Because without the right tools, they are guessing. And it's not because they made a bad decision. No. It's because they made those decision with bad data. So if you are currently now listening to this and you're looking at deals across, from various platforms, you're looking at deals, and, or to your... As, as a buyer, you thought you've done everything right. The deal looks solid on paper. Your agent is saying all the right things. But at the back of your mind, there's this quiet voice telling you maybe I'm missing something." And the shocking part is actually you are.
Now, there is something most real estate investors have never heard of. It's called the no representation loophole, where sellers can legally hide things like foundation cracks, structural damage, mold or mildew under the crawl space, and still keep your money when the deal heads south. So you wire money on a deal you thought was solid, only to discover that right after the deal is bad, your fees is gone.
And the reason I'm so passionate about this is because that was me. So I lost over $11,000 on a deal I've done my homework, a duplex here in North Carolina. Hidden issues nobody revealed. And then you know what happened, Ed? After that incident, I began to second-guess myself. I realized that I was afraid of not making the same mis- the same mistake twice. And so every deal I see- Amen I second-guess, I'm scared, my, I lost my confidence, and then I realized that the problem wasn't me.
The problem was the tools our, at our disposal. You see something, the tool most real estate investors are using right now, the Zillow of this world, Crexi, LoopNet, spreadsheets, your YouTube guru flavor of the month. None of these are designed to protect you. They are designed to help you browse, not to make a decision. And for the past few months, I've tried to do this manually. I got nowhere. I got burnt. And I realized something, Ed. No one in our space has created anything that can reveal the landmines before those non-refundable fees leaves your account. And so we built one. Today, investors are using Invest Fusion to analyze a deal in under 60 seconds, uncover hidden risk, and validates the numbers before, the keyword here is before, they spend their dime. That's how convinced I am. And so when people hear me talk about this, they say, "Jeff is always, Jeff will always have this level of confidence and certainty." No, that's not true. I only did this after I got burnt, and I'm gonna be very blunt Ed. I'm saying this on record. I cannot go into any deal right now without running it through Invest Fusion first. It would be insanity on my part. Despite my years of experience, despite the success I've had in this industry, despite the coaching from my mentor, we've closed several deals. I'm going to tell you, 100%, I cannot go into any deal without running it through the platform first. That's the p- that's just the definition of insanity. And why is this because if there's a loophole in this industry, Redfin has seen the data. Yeah. 56,000 buyers' deals are canceled every single month, monthly. If no one has stepped up to do anything about this, I'm... I said, "Jeff, I love real estate. I love this industry. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life." I said, and I... So already you asked me, 25 years ago, I was the guy on CNBC Africa analyzing global financial markets. I understand risk transference. So when it comes to risk, I have to find a way of transferring that risk or s- resolving that issue or that loophole that exists in this industry, and that's how this whole started
for me.
Ed MathewsThat's great. Y- yeah, I could... I see the same thing you do and the folks that I mentor I can't tell you how many of them, and even sellers for that matter, have have come to me and said the Zestimate," dot. And I was like- Yeah. "Oh, my goodness." All right. Zestimates are... A- and my research says 7% off. I actually think it's way more than that, especially here in the Northeast. Absolutely. Those estimates are based on paper, and they're created by algorithms th- for or, and/or human beings, neither of which have any insight into local market information, right? Absolutely. And those numbers, not only are they inaccurate, they're dangerous.
Jeff EmalabaAbsolutely. I agree 100%. 100%. 100% on that.
Ed MathewsSo one of the things that I've heard... i've been watching you on YouTube and whatnot, and, one of the things that you always talk about is that time is your biggest resource. And I've seen you say it a- multiple times, so it's obviously very meaningful to you. Also, couldn't agree more. I'm that person as well. What's that single decision that an investor makes today manually that kind of takes the most time, and what do you think about, What's the best way to put this? What do you think will be that one-click answer five years from now? Like, how do we get to the point where we can leverage technology whether that be, Claude, a, an app, ChatGPT, whatever. H- how do you think that we get to the point where we can take in an o- offering mem- memorandum or a listing off of realtor.com or Zillow or LoopNet or whatever, depending on the asset class, right? And how can we get to the point where we're actually looking at real information, not just data, but information, usable information?
Jeff EmalabaExactly. Practical information that you can utilize.
Let me tell you the story of Sarah. Sarah is a single mom, six kids, two jobs. Now, Sarah was able to put together over $15,000. She saved for over eight months to put that money down. She said, "Jeff, I want to get into a deal that is practical, a deal I can close. I cannot afford... You say you know my situation, Jeff. I cannot afford to lose a penny." Now, Sarah simplifies what other investors are going through. She came to me and we ran InvestVision through her ZIP Code. Now, when we ran the platform through her ZIP Code, the platform was able to do several things for her. Number one, it first of all flagged properties that are 30 or 40% below replacement cost. So number one, Sarah want to go into a deal that has built-in equity. Number two, the platform validated the appraised reports. So the appraisal report is what the le- loan officers use to give you the true valuation of that property. InvestVision tracks the appraisal report that was done previously on that property and lets you know, the buyer, the true valuation, not what the seller is putting as an asking price. Therefore, before you go into that deal, you want to know does it have built-in equity On that deal itself. Is it discounted? Now, on Sarah's situation, she found a property that was 30% below replacement cost. It has over $40,000 built-in equity on that property, meaning the asking price from the seller and the previous appraised value had a gap of $40,000 for her. Plus, the platform found no foundation issues, no structural damage, no big maintenance required, or what they call BTI. And so she was able to go ahead, call her agent, close on that deal, and she's now today she's the proud owner of a duplex that gave her... And not only is... Now, what about cash flow? She's able to rent out a part of the, of her property as the tenants is covering her mortgage, and that is the situation for most investors.
Ed MathewsYeah.
Jeff EmalabaWhy is Sarah's situation very unique? It's because once you can utilize the power of AI, there's certainty, there is clarity, and there's confidence. If you don't have those three-prong approach in p- at play, you are best guessing. And so if investors don't utilize the power of tools like this, they go into these deals blindly. Like I, like we said, the data is out there already. Yeah,
Ed Mathewsthey're guessing. Yeah, 100%.
Jeff EmalabaOver 40,000 deals are collapsing every, every day, every month. In a day, we are doing about 1,500 deals collapse every single day. Meaning, by the end of today, someone just listening p- and passively says, "You know what? Let me get on my way. Do, do the way, the old way I'm doing it." Over 1,500 deals will collapse today, and that's the reality.
So without asking you to violate your own intellectual property protection, right? Yeah. Where are you getting this data? Because, I'm interested in that, I use I use Claude to do our analysis. We've gone through an extensive effort really to build our buy box within Claude so that it understands exactly what we're looking for and, more importantly, what we're not looking for. That's right. And two different divisions in our world. We do residential through our homes company and commercial through our capital company. And, the data quality w- varies widely out there, and most of it is, in all candor, most of it's crappy. Of course. And so I'm curious how you stack that information, 'cause I assume what you're doing is you're pulling the gold nuggets that you know from the various data sources and then using that to make risk assessments. I'm curious how that works. Yeah. Like, how does that, how do you put that piece, those pieces of the puzzle together?
Jeff EmalabaI've been asked that a lot of times from a title companies when I'm closing deals. "How do you find this deal? How do you know about this?" They are curious. Now, we put together one of the best teams in the world to build Invest Fusion. Invest Fusion is a huge machine. It's not just a regular, People say, "Oh what about ChatGPT? What about..." No. This is a huge machine built together. Now, the way we built Invest Fusion, w- we trained it over two years plus to understand our search parameters. If there is any information on the planet about a property, let me give a simple example. A seller puts in a fills in the buyer's disclosure documents. The seller knows that if the previous buyer who tries to buy could not close, and then they did an inspection and the inspection report is already validated. Maybe, for example the, the report is online, either to the government site, whatever it's found, or whoever has that report. And the seller knows that, but selects no representation in the buyer's disclosure document. Guess what? Invest Fusion will flag it. Be- It understands that pattern. It sees the report, it reads the report, and interprets that report to let the current buyer be aware, who doesn't want to go in blindly. Because sellers are aware of these things. It happened to me. They knew that a previous buyer ran the report, did an inspection. They kept it under the wraps. They never
disclose it.
Ed MathewsYeah, so how do you a- so that's a great question, right? You, and earlier you mentioned gaining access to appraisal reports. I'm curious, how do you gain access to that information?
Jeff EmalabaSo we've worked with, we're working with some of the top teams player, the top appraiser company database. Okay. And they've allowed us to give us access to their APIs. So with the APIs, we're getting the most accurate data. I'm gonna give you a simple example. The property I closed, yes, on November 25th last year, when I ran the platform through that property first, it scored a 65% score. Before I saw the seller, I've known everything about the property, everything about the report. Everything, it was there at my fingertips, but I didn't say anything until we went on close and I told them, "Guess what? My platform already told me everything, and I knew who you guys are. I knew everything about this deal before I came in here." So we've had that relationship with some of the top players. Also, so we have all these APIs, a lot which we are utilizing from all these top industry players, plus we have access to government data. So if anything is hiding on government data, w- we validate that data from government sites with the report. Okay. So there's... And what we've done, this is what we've done, Ed. Before we came to market, before we released InvestFuture to the public, last year, we ran a beta testing phase where we brought in all the top professional players in our industry, from loan officers, inspection agents appraisal officers agents, real estate agents. We asked them to beta test the platform. Go and verify your data with what the platform is giving you. They verified it. They validated it. In fact, they became the first testimonials we have on our platform. Okay. These guys have validated and verified the data. So what we're talking about right now is data backed and validated when it comes to InvestFuture. So we never l- rest on our laurels. We have the best team, irrespective of the f- huge financial costs. We said, because I am someone that's, this is what I want, l- want to do for the
rest of my life. Let me give us another example. You mentioned something I picked up on that before. When it comes to commercial property, you mentioned about the MOU. Guess what? Invest Fusion goes a mile apart when it comes to commercial property. Two things it's gonna do that you've never heard of before. One of the biggest losses we had in real estate is the $5 million loss I mentioned. What happened is a government tenant. Now, government tenants, th- first of all, it was a single tenant property. That was red flag number one. Number two was a government tenant. Now, government tenants, in the lease they signed, there's a clause in the lease that allows them to get up and go whenever they feel- or whatever if anything happens, they can go. Invest Fusion is built in a way to go and understand that lease that is signed by that, that tenant. It reads and interpret that lease, and it flags any negative or anything that can hurt you, the buyer, before you close on that deal. That is one. Number two, this something else again. I told you, you know my background. I'm in financial world We look at the past five-year financial history of whoever tenants is on that property. If they have 20 tenants on that property, Investiture is gonna go through their past five years, look at their gross income, their NOI. Are they profitable? Why? You want to know the buyer. If you buy that property, are your current existing tenants, are they credit worthy to keep on paying the rent? If they're not credit worthy, it's gonna flag and let you know, okay, this particular tenant has not been doing well financially. Go and discuss how you can secure your payments or your rent when it's due. That is just ama- that is seriously amazing, and it doesn't exist anywhere else. That's number two. Besides flagging all these other gray areas, the, the, the red flags, those red flags are the primary objective. So it's all about protection for the buyers. It's all about ensuring that buyers get protection at the deal level. The key word here is the deal level, and that's what we're, that's what we're trying to achieve with. So on a commercial property, because that's where the big bucks is, that's where I play all the time. And so we built this in a way, the advanced feature of Investiture can be captured only on the commercial property, and that's why we cover all three asset classes, from single family units, multifamily units, and of course, commercial property.
Got it. Yeah, that's a lot of ground to cover. You, for the single family, for instance, we typically use... We have access to a tool. I probably shouldn't name it. But the, it's a tool that that appraisers use. And because I don't really care what like we were talking about earlier, Zillow. I don't really care what Zillow thinks it's worth, right? What I care about is when the bank sends out an appraiser and evaluates that property, whether, single family, multifamily, commercial, whatever. I care what that person thinks about the money about the, the value. I don't care what the, I don't care what the offering memorandum says, right?
Exactly. 'Cause, 'cause a- as I love to tell all the brokers in my life, and I say it with love pro forma is Latin for bull hockey, right? And y- the fact is that i- I've yet to read an offering memorandum that wasn't how should I say, aspirational. And a- and y- getting through and sifting through the the reality, right- a- as you go through a due diligence process, and then getting to the end of that DD process- to make sh- And then knowing that the information that you're pulling is gonna be at least consistent with what an, a, a professional appraiser's going to find. The sooner I can get to that point where I can do my own due diligence internally, price it, and then weigh that against what a professional appraiser would probably come up with in terms of evaluation- Exactly The sooner I can get to that, the, the, the less risk for me because then I'm not spending money on all the things you're talking about.
Jeff EmalabaExactly. And then you're saving time. Time is our biggest res- Yeah time is our biggest resource.
Ed MathewsYeah. I just- What I just described ne- need, in my, in our house, what I just described should take 15 minutes max.
Jeff EmalabaAnd we do it in under 60 seconds right now.
Ed MathewsWow.
Jeff EmalabaWe...
Look at what happened to Patrick. So Patrick is, Patrick is one of these, those students who said, "I like the manual way of doing things. I stick with the old way. I hate technology." There are people like that. You can't force them. Now, Patrick, this is what Patrick did. He's in Atlanta, Georgia. And just for those who are listening to this and who is in Atlanta, Georgia, the biggest council deals in the entire US is in Atlanta. This sits on 15.5% of the whole aggregate in the US. So Patrick, this is what Patrick did. Patrick manually went on Zillow because that's the tool he knows, and then he curated over 50 properties on his journal. And then he called his agent. For six months they would drive. He's uncertain, he's not sure. They would check, they would see, they would drive one hour, two ho- You know the traffic in Atlanta is crazy. So they would drive and f- six months he got nowhere, and the agent got frustrated and said, "L- listen, are you buying? Are you closing or no? What's happening? We cannot go like this." And then he forced himself because now emotions was involved. The human eye, we are humans, we're emotional. It's the emotion became involved and he closed on a deal, only for him to realize at the end of the day, that deal was a huge landmine for him.
Ed MathewsYeah.
Jeff EmalabaUp to today, Patrick never recovered. He lost over $45,000 on that deal Because by the time they realized that there's a structural problem, the maintenance required was more than he can plan for. He called a general contractor. That one came and said, "Listen, the minimum you're gonna spend is $30,000." But he could not recover from that losses. And so most investors go into these deals blindly. It affects everything there- thereafter, because time is the biggest thing you cannot take off once you lose it. And so for investors, you want to ask yourself, "Am I mitigating the risk involved here? Am I using my time wisely? Can I do my due diligence?" Because all those tools we mentioned before, Zillow, Crest, LoopNet, they're not due diligence, guys. They are for browsing. Yeah. Just go and... That's for browsing. It's for playtime. If you are serious about this game, if you are serious about real estate, you want to do your due diligence, but you want to do it at the speed of light and- Right without spending a penny.
Because by the time you spend, there are four fees I keep mentioning all the time. Two are primary, two are optional. Number one is your non-refundable due diligence fee. There is a reason why they call it non-refundable, because that's the that's the due diligence process. Yeah. Exactly. Money. Number two is the earnest money deposits. There's a world where you can lose both earnest money deposit and your due diligence fee. Why? Because it happens all the time, and the scenario is that at, on average, you spend about $8,000. If we're in a seller's market, God help you. Maybe $10,000. Then the other two fees are your inspection and your appraisal. Those two fees, while they are optional, they are... For us with our investors, always do your due process completely. You use Investfuture as the first key level of the deal verification process. Because you don't want to spend time, you don't want to risk over $11,000 on a deal. Let the platform do the work for you in your pajamas. Take a coffee. Run the platform on that, exactly, on that deal. Let it give you, let it do the undercover work for you as your own PI, your private investigator. When you see the deal, because what the platform does is think for you. It interprets that data and lets you know. If, for example, let me give you example. One time we ran a deal, it scored it 80%, and it said 80% means you're worth, you're sitting down on a huge gold mine. The deals I close are like 65%, 70. But when it saw a property and gave it 80%, it's flag and says, "Huge buy opportunity." It broke down everything you need to know. So you as a buyer, one, it's discounted To the market. And it tracks, again listen carefully now. It tracks the average household income in that area. So that average household income must beat the US national average and benchmark our quality standard. It looks at cap rates. It interprets all of this information and gives you a go, no-go. So you want that in seconds. There you can go ahead. That's what gives you confidence as the buyer to go ahead and say, "You know what? I think the platform has done the huge li- lifting for me. I can now proceed to close on these deals." And I- And that's the way we want investors to think
Ed MathewsYeah, I couldn't agree more. Jeff, this is fascinating, and I'm looking forward to digging into the platform myself. Awesome. I could talk about this stuff forever, man. But I... But unfortunately time is finite. Let's move on to the lightning round. One of the things that I've, that I know about you is that, y- you've been very successful in the financial markets, you've been very successful in the real estate markets, and now
you have a, a platform that that appears to be really successful. And so congratulations on all of the above. Thank you.
Jeff EmalabaThank you.
Ed MathewsNevertheless, Monday morning you showed up to work, man. And I'm curious, I look at that as purpose right? Yes. And I'm curious, how do you define purpose in your life? What gets you out of bed on Monday mornings?
Jeff EmalabaI'm very driven. There are two things that drives me. Clearly. Two... I'm very driven. If you watch my videos when I was so s- skinny and young on YouTube, you'd be like, "Look, is it Jeff?" I'm so driven for two things. One is my my, my kids. I love my kids. I have two boys, and incidentally I've set them on the path. I've always tell them that, "Anything you do in life is a route to real estate." I said, "Whatever you do in IT, you're learning coding, you're learning development." They are editing. In fact, they are the ones editing my videos. I took my hands off it. They could do this in three days. They're very good. I say, "Whatever you do in life, it leads to real estate." So I set the primary guide for them. And so that motivation, that's drives me every time in my life to make sure that they see the example. You lead by example. They see me do it every day. When I first of all... In fact, let me tell you something, real talk. When I was trying to re- prepare for my my real estate exa- license they told me, "Jeff, you're a science person. How can you come and p- pass the real estate exam?" I said, "Listen," I say, "I'm a science student. I'll pass it in one sitting." And my son saw me Monday to Sunday going through all the material, studying the books, studying everything, and then I aced my exam and I got my license. And then I said, "Okay, that's what I've come here to do. I'm done." So the other
Ed Mathewsthing- And they
Jeff Emalabado pay
Ed Mathewsattention. They do
Jeff Emalabawatch. Exactly. 100%. The other thing for me is helping people succeed, and that is why till tomorrow pe- those, th- those testimonies I get on LinkedIn are people who have known me for years, 20, 30 years. They've kn- they've understood who I am as a person. When it comes to getting results for my clients, I am someone that will take all the bullets for them to make sure that they succeed. In, in other words, if there's a risk somewhere, I said, "Guys, don't put your money. Let me put my money first and see if that risk exists." So that's what drives me. That motivation to help people, av- ordinary people, regular people, get results. And when they get result, what happens is a transient effect. You feel the effect. They tell their friends, they tell their family, and it's also, it trickles down on their own family members, and that for me is the goal and why you see me every day nonstop. When I s- recognize this loophole, when I got burnt myself, because my mentor never mentioned this. When I got burnt and I said, "No, this is crazy, this cannot happen"- This cannot continue in the market. And so I told my agents, "We're gonna take a step backward until we solve this problem, then we can proceed." And that is what drives me every single day to move on. That's awesome.
Ed MathewsSo I'm also interested in the, the mentors you've had in your life. And so tell me about the best advice you ever had you ever received, and who gave it to you?
Jeff EmalabaMy mentor is no secret. It's Manny Khoshbin. Manny and I have worked together for years. He's one of the best in this industry. I first of all ran into him on Steve Harvey's show, and then I called his team, I called his people. Been together with him in California. So for me, one of the biggest advice, he's given to me is always buy on the low. There's this book called The Contrarian Blueprint, which is a
contrarian book.
Ed MathewsYeah, sure. It's
Jeff Emalabawh- it's first principles. There are three rules in real estate. Number one, buy low, sell high. Always buy low. So the premise of how we built Invest with Jeff is to go out and find those discounted properties first. You want to buy on the low. It's like every market. You play commodities, you play futures, you play f- real estate, whatever you're playing- Right you want to buy low, sell high. However, buying low, you want to buy low to ensure there's no undercurrent or hidden risk tied to that. So we built a platform that will flag those risks, give you low entry level, give you built-in equity, and also validates that property can cash flow. So you have all of that. It's like having a gold mine in your hand, and the biggest advice he's told me, "Jeff, you make your money on the buy," and that is just the principle we follow.
Ed MathewsAmen. So obviously this has been born... i... You mentioned the $11,000 mistake you made. Yes. I'm curious about, knowing what you know now, right? You've been at this for as long as I have. And I personally think that you learn way more from your mistakes than you do from your successes and I could fill multiple shows on the mistakes I've made over the years, right? A- And so I'm curious about a decision that you look back on and think, "Ugh, I would love to have that one back." How did you manage through it and, tell me a little bit about your thinking when you went into that situation.
Jeff EmalabaYeah, let me give some context as to the loss we had. So it's a duplex, 'cause I usually buy multi-family units and commercial property. So it's a duplex in Valdez, here in North Carolina. It took us about two hours of drive time to get there. When we got in there, myself and my agent from Keller Williams, we went in. Everything lo- it was covered, it was painting. You could not tell anything was wrong. We did our tour ourselves, physically with our eyes. We saw the property. We saw everything. Everything looked okay. The price looked n- of course, the price looked right already. And then I asked questions. I said, "Okay. The previous buyers who pulled up, what happened?" The seller says, "Nothing happened. They didn't have enough funds. They just could not have enough money, and then they backed out of the deal." I asked my agent, "Are you sure? Let's do some more digging." We did more digging. We did everything humanly... what they call the responsible investor could do. We still couldn't... got nothing right. Said, "Okay. You know what? Let's proceed." I gave them $5,000 for my non-refundable due diligence fee. I gave them another $5,000 for my earnest money deposit. I paid for inspection $675, and I paid for appraisal $700. Now- Exactly. So I did everything. Now, during the inspection period, the inspector came back to me and says, "Jeff-" One word, "Run." I said, "What do you mean run?" He said, "Jeff, everything is wrong with this property from foundation, from structural." Yeah. They had roofing issues they failed to disclose. They had mold and mildew in the cross. They had electrical problems.
Everything was just wrong. I didn't believe him. I thought he was lying. So you know what I did? I called a general contractor to go in and see the... I said, "I'm gonna pay you to fix the issues. I'm sure this guy is just over, over-elaborate on what is wrong here." The general contractor went in there, came back to me, sent me a- an email, a 10-page email, giving me why I should never buy that property. Meanwhile, this is a GC I'm gonna pay to fix. He said, "Unless you have over $100,000, just step away from this." And then that hit me hard. That was a painful lesson for me. I went back and forth with the seller. They refused to refund. I called a lawyer, over $325 per hour. So the reality is I'm not the only one. This kind of a loss hit me hard. A lot of investors are going through this. And so the lesson I learned from this is, when I realized that everything the regular person is being told, what we know, even after closing so many deals, something is wrong here, and this is not corrected. This is a loophole. And, back and forth, I said, "No, this cannot continue." I said, "I will s- I will not spare any expense to get this resolved for the entire US market." Because real estate like I told you, my kids are my are my driving force. If they want to come into this industry, I have to make sure that the
industry is safe enough for them to know what they're getting into before they go and play in the market. And so that is the one of the biggest painful experience I've ever had in real estate. Of course, there's so many other losses. Those other ones, you know it's past the deal level. Because the, at the deal level, first of all, you want to know you are getting it right. Once you go past the deal level, you can make those other mistakes, which are like single tenant. One tenant o- holding more than 25% of your commercial property. That's a red flag. So you want to know all of this. Those are the kind of things we break down, which the platform has been built to identify for the average investor and, and avoid those, those what they call skeletal issues that you can avoid in the market.
Ed MathewsRight on. Right on. And we've all been there, man. All been there. I know. So tell me about how you learn. What's the book on your nightstand, and who are you paying attention to these days?
Jeff EmalabaI just talked about Dan Rocha. I've never... Rocha, and I want to call him out today because he sent me this book, Teach To Sell which is a book that works on principle. The principle is about the fact that you have to be able to educate before you sell. I think that's a lovely principle.
Ed MathewsYeah.
Jeff EmalabaI pay attention usually to Brian Tracy. Unfor- that is my guy. I love his book. I've read his book Goals. I can't count how many times I've read his book on Goals. It's an amazing book. And for our listeners, that's a book you have to listen to nonstop because it teaches you in the future present tense. There's a way you think. It's a mind transforming, transformation. So you think in the present tense, and I love that so much. For real estate, Manny's my guy to go to. I've read, read all his books, of course, for over the years, so it doesn't really read as new anymore for me. But I, like he told me, he was the one that said, "Jeff, go get your license. Go get your license in real estate. Even if you don't know, you should go get it." And of course, I did that as well. But for me right now, I think Brian Tracy is my go-to guy anytime, any day when it comes to books.
Ed MathewsI've read all his books myself mul- multiple times. Good books. Both when I was in technology learning, trying to figure out how the heck to sell that and since just as refreshers. I he is one- Yes of those authors I go back to very regularly. Absolutely. So how do you define success in your life?
Jeff EmalabaSuccess is getting the average investor who has zero experience in real estate, who is like Sarah's case, a single mom, six kids, two jobs, no experience, no background, nothing, no team of analysts, but wants to succeed. And if I can get that person in under 60 seconds to find a deal that they can close, and everything has been done for them, and they can go into a deal with con- And guess what? Even the agents are satisfied. The loan officers ask them, "Go and run it through the platform." That's what the loan officers are asking them to do right now. The agents are asking them, "Go and run it through the platform first." Why? It gives them peace of mind. So for me, success is getting the average investor who has zero experience to get into the game where they can start to see results. It's all about results. If they can see result, they can close a deal, and the deal has cash flow, has built-in equity. That investor, whoever they are, will not sleep at night. They'll be they'll be so excited because of the success they've achieved. And for me, over the years, that has been my premise, helping people, average people understand how to get it, get into light the right way and mitigating risk. Because all my life is about risk mitigation. How do you mitigate risk? How do you understand the difference between risk capital and risk tolerance? Once you understand those t- those two, you can understand how to play the game the right way. So helping investors get this right is all what I'm after all the time.
Ed MathewsI admire that and I appreciate it because, there are so many gurus out there that charge, gosh, tens of thousands of dollars that I can't t- I've lost count, I truly have, of the number of people who want to get into real estate investing and have spent tens of thousands of dollars on training courses. And my response to all of them was, "You just spent your down payment on- Exactly on training that was okay." Exactly. And, so I make it a policy, and I think you have a similar policy based on your character and what you've been talking about here.
I'm a cheap date. I will buy a cup... You you... I'll meet you for a cup of coffee, virtual or in person. Yeah. I will give anybody half an hour of my time i- if only if I can save one of those people from spending $30,000 on a training program that they could turn around and buy a duplex with instead.
Jeff EmalabaAbsolutely.
Ed MathewsAnd, Absolutely 'cause it, real estate investing is difficult. It's hard, right? It's very hard work. But it's- Sure straightforward, right? The math is the math. The process is the process, right? None of it's easy, but- it is it is something that you can cr- clearly define. Hats off to you, man. Thank you so much. Thank you all right. So when you're not saving the world from bad real estate deals what do you like to do for fun?
Jeff EmalabaOh, I love soccer. I play soccer with my
Ed Mathewsboys. So it's gonna be a fun time in the next
Jeff Emalabasix to eight weeks, right? I'm telling you now. I'm looking at all the states they're running to now. You have Miami already. You have them in Dallas, Texas. I was in Dallas on May 20. So we have a lot of events coming up right now, the World Cup, so that's my f- my primary, fun time right now for the World Cup.
Ed MathewsYeah. Right on. I love the World Cup. Yeah, the Championship Cup just resolved this weekend, right?
Jeff EmalabaOh yes. With
Ed MathewsParis and PS- With Paris and Germany. PSG again. Yes, sir. Yes. So we're... So for you folks out there, we're recording this the first week of June. So it
is soccer, or as- as the rest of the world calls it, football. Correct and but, Yeah, it's an exciting time. My, I, the TV was pinned between the championship cup games and the World Se- baseball and softball wor- College World Series games. So-
Jeff EmalabaOkay
Ed Mathewsit's been nonstop sports in my house for, Okay and n- and now, actually tonight, is game one of the NBA championship. So it's, Okay it's a good time of year. Awesome so h- if people wanna learn more about you or Invest Fusion what's the best way to do that, Jeff?
Jeff EmalabaYeah. Thank you so much. Ed, one of the things, like I said before, one of the things I really love about what you do is how you continue to give value to your listeners. And so if you're listening right now, I want to do something I've never done on any show before for those who are listening. I'm going to give them two things that we only give inside of Invest Fusion. But before I let them know what those two things are, let me tell you who this is for. Now, if you're someone who is, who're looking at a deal right now, you're looking at all the deals and you're thinking at the back of your mind, "Maybe I'm missing something," then this is for you. But if you're somebody who have lost money before, then you already know why I'm doing this. The reason is simple. The reason why most investors lose money is not because they are lazy. It's just because of the fact that the tools at our disposal, the tools we all know are not designed to protect you. They are for browsing. Zillow, the CREX is the LoopNet. Your YouTube gurus, the spreadsheets you have, the manual process, all are just designed for browsing, not to help you make a decision.
So to close that gap, I'm gonna give you two things. Number one is the deal killing red flag cheat sheet. That is the same warning signs I wish I knew before I lost over $11,000 on a deal in North Caroli- North Carolina. It's one page, and it's ready for your next walkthrough. Now, the second is the 60-second vetted blueprints. That is the same framework I use in Invest Fusion to get a go, no go on any property in under 60 seconds, and it's still the same framework I used on November 25th to close on a deal that had over $12,100 of built-in equity, and that is ready for you to use. Now, just begin to imagine what will change when you get your hands on these two. You stop burning weekends on deals that were never going to work. You can tell a landmine from a goldmine in under 60 seconds. And when you stop burning weekends on those bad deals, you begin to move faster on the right deals than the investor who's sitting next to you. And if you can move faster than the investor who's sitting next to you, you stop playing defense with your money and you start playing offense. And that's the kind of investor you're trying to become, the one who just knows when you go into deals. So while you're thinking about this, what to do right now. Go to
underground.investfusion.co. Go grab the cheat sheet. Go grab the blueprint. Go and use it in your next deal flow. Again, the, the link is underground. This is exclusive, please. The link is underground.investfusion.co. Don't share this link with anyone as it's only exclusive for listeners on this podcast. Please go in right now and lock it in.
Ed MathewsJeff E- Imelaba, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm grateful for your time. I know how busy you are, my friend. Thank you. And congratulations on the launch of Invest Fusion, and continued good fortune.
Jeff EmalabaThank you, sir. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, man.