PODCAST
How to Become a Real Estate Tycoon, Even After 50
Episode 36:
Bill Manassero (pronounced “MANNA+ SARROW”)is the host and top dog of The Old Dawg’s REI Network, a web site, blog, newsletter and new weekly podcast for people 50 years and older who are using real estate investing as a means to fund their retirement years and create a legacy for their children and grandchildren.
At 60 years of age, he came off the mission field with very little retirement funds and the dilemma of going back to work or finding another way of making money. He chose real estate investing. As he pursues REI he is also committed to helping others who are in the same situation by sharing his journey via the Old Dawg’s REI Network. In addition, he will feature knowledgeable guests and other investors on his weekly podcast. Bill’s goal is to own/control 1,000 units/doors in less than 6 years. He plans to double the number of units/doors of each prior year. He is currently at 28 doors and in year two.
Prior to forming the Old Dawg’s REI Network, Bill and his family were missionaries to orphaned, abandoned and at-risk children living on the streets of Port-au-Prince Haiti. Prior to Haiti he was a professional musician and, prior to that spent over 20 years in business on the corporate and entrepreneurial side. A few highlights of his career include meeting Ronald Reagan, running an annual event for actor Jimmy Stewart, being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and having CNN produce a documentary on their work in Haiti.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Bill’s background and why he started The Old Dawg’s REI Network
- The economies of scale Bill noticed when buying properties of different kinds
- Bill’s goal of 1000 units by 2020 and how he’s going to get there
- The markets Bill owns in
- How to become a real estate tycoon, even after the age of 50
- Stealth tennant marketing: how Bill turned around an area that wasn’t as occupied as it should have been
- Why Bill likes multi-family over single-family
- How to find a lot of buyers and renters
- How Bill find his properties
- How Bill funds his properties — and the opportunities to partner with Bill
- Bill’s podcast The Old Dawg’s REI Network
- Why you should never let an offer die on your side of the table
Resources:
Transcript:
Mitch: This is Mitch and welcome to the Real Estate Summit Investor Podcast. I have a really special guest today, it is Bill Manassero. And we are going to be his plans to financial freedom, very interesting guy and my gosh, did he ever volunteering to give his life, if everything deserves to have success, it would be this guy because he has given and given and given, I think its over 80 different places, where help is desperately needed and he spent years helping people below the poverty line. We are going to talk to Bill but, right now, I got to pay homage to my sponsors. We’re gonna message from Livecomm.com and from our friends at Fund and Grow, who will help you find the money to do your deals. So, we’ll be right back after these 2 little commercial breaks.
This is Mitch and we are back. Thank you for my sponsors. I love them. I love them. Without them, things wouldn’t happen the way they do. All right. We got Bill Manassero on the line. And the link for today’s show is gonna be 1000houses.com/dawgs, its 1000houses.com/dawgs, D-A-W-G-S all lower case. So, I wanna tell you why that the tag. It is because, Bill has a podcast where he helps investors over 50 achieved their goals, so he’s been–you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, D-A-W-G-S.
So, with no further I do, hey, Bill how are you doing today?
Bill: I am doing great, Mitch. It’s really exciting to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Mitch: Tell us a little bit about this Podcast and how are you helping people over 50, gain financial independence.
Bill: Well, — I did consciously go into starting a Podcast. I actually was a guy over 50. I am a guy over 50. And as I was kinda approaching the end of our term in Haiti. We were missionaries over there for almost 12 years. I was kinda faced off the reality, “Oh, my gosh. You know, i’m gonna go retire”. And move back to the states and I really didn’t have any formal retirement plans set up or anything like that. And I had to kind of figured out myself, what am gonna do and how am I gonna do this. I look at all kinds of ideas. And I’ve been an entrepreneur before I went into the mission field.So,I know how to start businesses. I toyed around with different things, tried online businesses and while in Haiti, I actually set up like an eBay type business and till I kicked off eBay. And then, unsuspectedly got a check in the mail for an inheritance amount and I just took these funds and I was kind of concern because there’s a tax consequences and so forth. And I was looking at, “Well, i’m gonna put it in the market. The market’s been very volatile and so forth”. And so I just said i’m just gonna buy rental properties and make that just part of my investment portfolio. And that’s how it kind of how it started. Initially, I just wanted to do an investment, but as my retirement got close and closer I said, “Gee, if I just grow this. This will be a great income I will retired at the same time I will have funds to be able to help the — continue to go on Haiti”. And that’s where it started. And as I begin–got more involved in it. People would ask me, you know. “What are you doing here”? And I would share with them, before I know it, people are writing to me, they wanna get involved, they wanna do things. And I just really started sharing information with the people that I knew that were close to me just to help them out, because they were facing similar things, they are approaching retirement or they are already in retirement and they didn’t have the funds that they needed to be able to do–what they do in retirement. So, it just kinda grew, I opened a little website and started writing articles and blogs and so forth and then the Podcast just came out of that. And I have been doing this since about April. It is called. The Old Dawgs REI Network, really geared for those folks who are approaching retirement or are already in retirement that are looking at a way of either supplementing their pensions or the funds that they have, Social Security or whatever it maybe. And we create retirement that they always dream about doing. And real estate was the way that the– I’ve been doing it and that’s the way I’ve been encouraging others as well.
Mitch: Man, you know Podcast is a good way to reach out to people. I know firsthand that there’s a lot of reasons to have a Podcast. A lot of it has to do with helping other folks, mine has to do with keeping the lines of opportunity open. What is your plan to solve this financial freedom issue?
Bill: Well, when I made a decision to purchase properties while I was still in Haiti. I started doing research and started looking at you know, what can I do. Could I flip houses? Can I wholesale? And being in Haiti, I thought it will be difficult to do either those and I thought, “Let me just buy little rental property”. I look at some turnkey properties, where I didn’t have to do anything other than sign on the dotted line and pay the money and you have the house. And I bought 2 houses and a duplex in Memphis and in Atlanta. So, I caught and hop in a plane and flew to Memphis and flew to Atlanta and back to Haiti and I had 3 properties that is under my belt. And in that process, I just kind of saw some really simple things happening. I saw that the– I paid about the same for each property. But, yeah, I had a duplex. I had 2 single family and a duplex. And I said, “Gee, I paid the same amount for this duplex but I made twice as much I make with the others”. And yet, I still only have 1 insurance bill a year and 1 property tax bill and 1 roof to repair that needed. And I just kind of saw the beginning of the economy of those scale and realized, “Gee, you know if I had 4 units, or 8 units or 16 units, it would have been better”. And so, that’s really where I have it going. I set a goal for myself when I first started that I would reach 1,000 units by 2020. So, now they are now tail end of 16 moving into 17, I got 3 more years to go and I am at 28 units currently.
Mitch: Wow. 28 units. And so, how does it take you to get to 28 units?
Bill: Well, I started in 2014. Probably, mid-way through the year in 2014 bought those 3 property and I’ve been adding to that since then.
Mitch: Man, we have some people that might help you find financing with that kind of stuff. I want you to check out the Podcast, I think it is Lance Edwards and go back and listen to what he has got to offer and also, — what part of the country are you in?
Bill: Am currently in Memphis, Atlanta, Indianapolis but looking a lot at Texas. And I love Texas, just trying to find the right property. Everybody else love Texas, too, which is part of the problem.
Mitch: [LAUGHTER]
Bill: You know there’s a lot there and so I am been looking to San Antonio, North Metroplex area and Dallas and you know other smaller areas, like Waco and Sephora. So, yeah I always look at new and emerging markets and where good opportunities to invest.
Mitch: You were telling me interesting story before the call here. You have 28 units, where is–
Bill: I have 22 units in Indianapolis.
Mitch: 22 units in Indianapolis and it wasn’t doing so hot. It took some action and I want people to hear what kind of action you took. You called it Stealth Tenant Marketing and I want you to explain the situation there and how you handled it.
Bill: Sure. Well, one thing about my blog and my Podcast, is I really sort of bare it all. I mean, I share with people– every mistakes that I made and as well as the successes. So, when I blow it, people know why. And I share it very openly on my Podcast. It is like true confession for real estate investors, you know. And I, in that, one of the things that I was faced with, was a property that we had purchased. We had a plan to– it was called “Value Add Play”, which means you go in there and there are certain things that you can do to tweak it, by upping rents by upgrading the units and just fine tune it to boost the value of it. And with multi-family, as opposed to single family one of the advantages is you can control the value of the property, where as you buy single family, you are subject to the market and people do comps and so forth to buy or access what prices are for single family. Whereas for multi-family, they look at your business plan. And so, I had a very aggressive business plan to increase rents and to boost the value of the property. Our plan was really about 3 months after I purchased to have about 80 percent of it up to where I wanted to be, and over the next 2 years we would release programs where the tenants would share more the utility costs, our rents would increase significantly, around 16% or so. And then, within about a 3 year period, with the hopes of that property doubling in value. So, you know, we were getting passed this sort of the third month and I was noticing you know, we were not producing the cash flow that we were supposed to be producing for this property. And there were a lot of factors and there was a tragedy, in the life of my property manager, which was really a tough thing, and he was trying his best to deal with that. And so, I look at the situation and I said, “The only one thing that I think I can do here”. And again, I learn by just jumping in sometimes. Sometimes, you know I make big mistakes sometimes it works out well. But, I decided that I had to go out there. And not just for a quick visit but I need to go there, we were at 68% occupancy, we should have been at least 80-85% somewhere around there. And my goal was to go out there and within a very short period of time to be able to boost it up to 90% occupancy.
And so, I went out there and moved into one of the empty units, I started working in the units, upgrading the kitchen, and doing things while I was there. At the same time, a very aggressive tenant marketing program. And you know, there’s a lot of factors here. I don’t wanna go into too much details but, you know, primarily, we were getting tenants from drive-by’s or walk-by’s, because people would see our sign now and so forth. But, the problem is, this is an area in transition and there’s some transient people, there are some people that in general vicinity that we were really trying to upgrade from it and out of it. Some of the other properties near in our area are successful in doing this as well. So, I switched everything to online and so, someone have to have a computer, be able to access it and see our property listed online. That was part of the process. The other part was I went to large employers in the area and I started hitting up on special flyers with nice colored pictures of the property, that they could post on their employees’ posts and boards, we give a free month grant for anyone from that company and so, we worked with local organizations nearby that also were placing people, maybe they have overcome something, maybe it is a recovery program or something, in that nature, that you know somebody is getting their start. And so, you know, I set up these relationships. We set up this online funnel and so forth and the good thing is when the challenges sometimes with properties is having somebody there to show the property, and I was living there and so, if somebody wants to come and see it 12 o’clock midnight, I would be there[LAUGHTER] And so, I was very available and was able to show people and within 30 days, we left– I left there and hopped on a plane, we’re at 95% occupancy.
Mitch: Wow, it is a great job. I wanna talked about it in depth more about what you were doing. I do wanna make a suggestion. One of our sponsors was Livecomm.com. L-I-V-E-C-O-M-M and what they do is they sell phone numbers, not pretty phone numbers, just regular phone numbers and you can fix the area code that the phone number is in. And you can pick how many that you want. But, I give you an example and let’s see if we can make it work for your issue their or plug it into your system and help you. In Livecomm, I sold houses and owner financing. So, I have signs around the city, I was just trying to build my list of people, who wanted a home that needed to be owner financed. Because, they couldn’t fit into traditional living institutions, box, they didn’t fit. They won’t quality for traditional loans. And so I had signs up around the neighborhood that [INAUDIBLE] free list of owner financed homes, and that has one of those Livecomm phone numbers. And I could track how that sign did. Because, it would capture the incoming phone number, every caller. If it is a cell phone, it would put it a text distribution list for me, and I could text that list at will, for not very much money, pennies. Also, when I have a house for sale, owner financed, I put 20 signs around the neighborhood and I would assign that house a specific phone number. That costs only about $2 a month to have a phone number, it is really nothing to be able to track the success of the Ad that you put that phone number in. And so, for $2 you can tell which one is working, which one is not working. Which is, you know, the number one rule of marketing, you have A/B test, and you have to know what’s working. Put one against the other, take the best one and keep it, sold the other one away and then we do another B to compete with your best A’s, keep redoing B until you find another B that beat your best at. Then, it becomes your best, that’s A/B A/B testing.
And so, I put 20 signs around the neighborhood, with this phone number of that house, and I have it in Livecomm allow you to forward that number to a recording. I want you to imagine, you know, you have 15 houses out there for sale and you got 20 signs around each house. So, that’s 300 signs out. And them, you got 1 sign in the front yard, of course, that will get 315 signs, okay. That generates, and this is from personal experience. This could generate,depending on what season it is. 25 to a 100 phone calls a day. 100 phone calls a day is usually that income tax season, where everyone’s getting their income checks back in their mail. There’s a lot more activity, and the sales people just can’t answer the phone that much. They certainly would get sick of telling, this is a 3 bedroom, 2 baths and has a big backyard and all that stuff. So, that’s why you have the recording. You say it once and you put everything on it. Electric water heater, electric stove, gas, composition shingle room, built in 1999, whatever. The school districts, the lot dimensions, the square footage of the lot, the square footage of the house, everything that you can think of. And you put it there and you say it one time and people can call back and listen to it as much as they want to. But, the point is, it captures their phone number. And so, it is really a unique system, then, what we did because we were getting so many calls. That many phone calls would like ruin a sales person. I mean, I used to think these guys are being lazy, so I said, “Am gonna forward the phones to me, and am just gonna take the calls for a week”. Boy, it wasn’t 3 days and I was sick of that phone. I even don’t wanna answer. I hang it up, and it just ring again. And kept having to repeat all the same stuff over and over again.
So, that’s when I got smart, and now what we do at the end of the recording, because in the season when we are getting tons of calls, we don’t even give our phone number at the end of the recording. We tell them, if you think this might be the house for you, drive to your house, get out of your car and walk around the house, look into the windows, check out the neighborhood, and if it is still the house for you and your family, and you have a substantial down payment, call the red phone number in the front window. Now, we are only getting about 8 to 10 calls a day. The sales guys are fighting over them. Because, they embedded themselves that this is a serious buyer. And it worked really good for us. I am wondering how you might use Livecomm.com, or did you use a system like that in helping to increase your rent?
Bill: Yeah, I wish I had that kind of volume, that totally make sense if you are getting that many calls, you know we didn’t get anywhere near that number of calls, it is only 22 units and we only have a handful of them to fill, but there might be a way. I could see having multiple properties, I do have another property in Indianapolis but I could see having multiple properties were–that kind of system would work, you just have to kinda cater it to. The problem is you still need that body to show the property that would take them inside, and they actually look at the actual unit. So, it have to be something that would coordinate those lines but, it sounds like it could work, especially we are looking at 2017 buying a 100 plus units. So, as we getting more units, I could see we are something like that could have an appeal.
Mitch: Well, let’s just keep on running with it, because there’s other things that I wanna use it for, that might still be able to plug in. So, when my salesman would get an appointment to show one person a house that he thought was interested, I mean that was qualified and everything. Then, say he was gonna show the houses, 6 pm. He would send out a text to the 100 people or the 4 or 5 people that called the house. Whatever–how many people are on the list, he would send out a text message,”Hey, i’m gonna be over at 123 Main Street at 6 o’clock, the lights will be on, the door will be opened if you wanna come and see it”. And it show up, there’ll be multiple people in the front yard, so he wasn’t just showing the house to that 1 person, but he was showing the house to multiple people from the text. Because, see the text is immediate. People look at texts. Almost within seconds, you know, some of them. And as opposed to an email. So, I was thinking it is a way to, when your guy was around, he could send a text say, “I’m gonna be on the property from 12-5 o’clock today. If you are showing the apartment, if you wanna come by, you know it is more like an invitation, if you wear it right, it sound–it can sound personal. The other thing is, you could also send out text reminders, and I know landlords that use Livecomm for this. They send out text reminders 2 or 3 days before the rent is due, “Hey, just a reminder”. You know, ’cause he has a list of all his tenants in one distribution text, text distribution list, and he can send that,”Hey, don’t forget. Your rents is due on 2 days, just a friendly reminder”. If there’ll– also, if they use it for maintenance, you know. “It’s the 15th of month, have you checked your air conditioner’s filters to see if they are clean”? I mean, that is some of what I am using it for. I need to revisit to see if they come up with any new ways but, it is a pretty neat concept, to be able to text a mass just for couple of pennies, or it could be the number that you are talking, to be able to send messages and like I said, if your word in carefully, they sound pretty personal.
So, there’s a 4 minute video on that Livecomm.com website, if anybody wants to go and look at it. But, I am just trying to see if– add to your–when you get more and more units, some of this stuff can, and if you can get more people that you can talk to, certainly, when you reached your goals, the thousand people can just be an effective way of communicating with people in mass and know that everyone got their message. Maybe, one of these day, we’ll explore, and I [INAUDIBLE] on it.
Bill: No, yeah. That’s a great idea.
Mitch: When you are looking for these apartments and stuff, what methodology are you using to find your golden nugget properties?
Bill: Primarily, there’s a lot of different ways to find places, but generally, what I do when i’m doing numbers and phone calls, when there is a target market that I am, like Indianapolis, I would, you know find a broker there that does a lot commercial properties that has a lot of experience and have those type of properties that I am interested in. And it is really relationship building more than anything else. It is building strong rapport with that person, so that they will contact me, when they have an off market deal, or something that hasn’t been publicized yet. And I get an opportunity to make an offer into somebody’s properties in advance of other– others that you know are waiting out there to come to [INAUDIBLE], realtor.com, or what have you. So, I do get opportunity, get access to–that seems to be the biggest lead generating source but, direct mail is also another win, even though, I haven’t used that yet directly but some activities are generated through referral, if it not from a broker, there could be realtors, title people, attorney’s, people that know that am looking and in what i’m looking for.
Mitch: Have you ever brought burn project? Something that has been on fire?
Bill: Hey, actually the one that am looking at the–it has 4 units that did have a fire, they cleared up most of the major issues on it, and they’ve already put up new studs and so forth. But, yes, the first one that I have really looked at this point. And usually I don’t wanna go that deep on the construction part of it. I would rather sort of have a face lift, brand new countertops, new appliances, new lighting fixtures, you know nice paint job, things like that, maybe a turn up the carpets and redo the floors, nice wood floors but, when I get into major work like that, generally do– it’s a smaller, it was only 4 units, I think only 2 had the major damages of the burn.
Mitch: Yeah, I was just curious ’cause it seems like you see apartments on fire more often, you know, every now and then. Now, this is the bigger odd that it gets on fire because there’s more people living on it.
So, you are looking for something that you can turn around obviously, because there’s got to be some upside, because it is an apartment complex is you know 98% leased, and there up correct rental level. They are trying to sell this apartment complexes for 5-6% cap rates, which i’m guessing, you need to do better than that, right?
Bill: Yeah, usually I don’t touch anything less than 8. And I usually target 10 and above on the cap rates and so, and our focus is cash flow. I mean, it is not really turning over the property, if I get a good solid property in an area that you know, that is stable and you know, there is job growth and there is healthy economy, you know that’s for the next 10 -20 years, I’d be perfectly happy to hold on to that property. But, sometimes, you only have a property which just make more sense maybe just double the value, and there’s another one where, probably wanna sell that so that I can take those funds to buy larger property and so forth. But, generally the idea is to generate good steady passive cash flow. And for those of us who are 50 plus, that have more appeal than full time job and are constantly you know, chasing after properties.
Mitch: So, you are buying these things like 8-10% cap rate but then the magic is the turn around, when you push it up to 10 or 20% cap rate or when you are buying in places that you could push up to 8-10%. So, you buy them at 8 and 10% cap rate and you buy them and you push them up, or you push them up to the 8-10%. Yeah. I usually buy them at 8-10%, it just makes more sense on cash and cash return, again cash flow is my primary objective, so, it’s gonna be–help their cash flow generally, you know, there are strange markets like where I live in Southern California. Where you know, where they got 4% cap rates, and you know, but the renters so high, that you can still generate cash flow, but this is really hard, because property values are just sky rocketing and probably peaking at this point. So, in those markets, I’d rather go to Indianapolis or Ohio, Texas, places like that, you know, you are just getting a strong steady return. Granted you can buy one place here for you know, $500,000 and sell it for $800, 00 after you fix it up. But, you know it is kind of a different animal, and the cap rates are so compressed.
Mitch: Yeah. Yeah. And so your favorite markets have more affordable housing? I guess, this is where you are going, right?
Bill: Right. Right. Exactly. And with the strong demand for rentals and you know, you can get property, I mean I think eventually, and my plan is obviously start looking at you know, 100 plus, 200-300 units, at a certain point and then, that is a different ballgame that started up with a small multi, like where I am in now.
Mitch: So, where do you find your funding, or how do you finance these properties? Or how do you intend to find these projects?
Bill: Well, I’ve been really able to self-fund, I just leveraged those first properties that I purchased and that cash out [INAUDIBLE] get the funds that to be able to purchase the 22 units, but the really the next step is either getting a JV partner, maybe a sponsor or a syndication.
Mitch: Okay. So, is it, fair to say we can send out a message in the bottle out here to the world and let them you can get hold of Bill Manassero if you are interested in this kind of project or you got to handle one that one he might be interested in. If you know, a place that wants to do some funding or if you are a private lender and you are looking to loan some money, maybe this is the guy that you could hold of. You could email Bill at bill@olddawagreinetwork.com and that is Bill at olddawgreinetwork.com. And how about that, we’ll go and– message in a bottle in the ocean there, let’s see who picks that up. And–
Bill: I love it.
Mitch: Also, be sure to check out the Podcast, tell us the Podcast again.
Bill: Yeah, the Podcast is, airs twice a weekly, and usually we have an interview on Mondays, and it comes out on a Monday with people that all of different types of real estate investors and they share, we really try to dig into the applicable stuff that they can share on their successes. So, it’s gonna benefit our listeners. Then, on Friday, I have what I call, Fun Facts Friday, and that one that’s just me and talking about what i’m doing with real estate. And as soon as I covered terms and terminologies and various techniques and so forth, but I generally try to share, this is what i’m trying to do, am looking to do this, this and this, I’ll let you know next time we talk how it goes. And I really try to provide really practical stuff, the shorter program on Fridays usually, 10 or maybe 20 mins. Max.Where I’ll share the information against more educational purpose.
Mitch: Say, how do they get to that.
Bill: Again, that’s at olddawgsreinetwork.com we are also on iTunes, Stitcher, Google play, iheartradio.com, and you know you just have to type in, olddawgs, and you’ll be able to find and some of any of those various portals there for Podcast.
Mitch: Got you. I’ll be sure to check it out. So, I have an interesting story, I bought a storage one time, it might– we can certainly work for apartments in the right situation. Let me tell you about what I did one day. One day, I saw this mini storage complex, and it was kinda too big for me, you know, it was intimidating to me. The price range and the size, it was also very messed up, it was under 50% leased up, I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why, ’cause I didn’t think it should be that way, but, you know it was scary to think that it was under 50% lease up. I did come to the conclusion that it was mismanaged but, you know, I didn’t have any mother either, which was the problem. And but, you know, never let it that stop you, not having money is kind of pretty wreck to start in real estate career, I think, ’cause everybody I meet that started, never really had any money. So, I made an offer to this guy, and I told him, that I would buy his place, if I could get it up to 90% occupancy within the next 12 months, and if I did that, he would make some concessions to me, with my luck of money and that I would work for free, and if I didn’t get it to 90% in the next 12 months, then I wouldn’t buy it, he can keep all the customers that I put in there. You know, basically, I had the option. I had option, I had to augment my option to get the occupancy up and in any point that I got comfortable, I got to exercise my option, so, I told him, you know I probably wasn’t gonna be interested must I get you know, pretty high occupancy and the guy agreed.
Bill: Wow.
Mitch: And so, I’ve got nothing to lose, I was gonna go in. I was gonna [INAUDIBLE] but, I didn’t wanna, I didn’t wanna filled it up to 90% and do another cap rate assessment and change the price, you know I freeze the price right here, give me 12 months to get it up. And guy said, “Yeah”. And I end up getting it, probably not quite up to 90% but, I knew that I could, I got it up to 88% and I knew, I was very comfortable with the property just get mismanaged, they hadn’t put in time and effort into it, and I ended up owning it, and that’s got some owner financed terms. I became friends with the guy over the 12 months, when I was doing it. He certainly wanted out, I just took it off his hands for 12 months, and he just kept getting the check. And you know, it is very responsible, I don’t know, you might want to put that in your bag of tricks one day when you got some poorly messed up landlord and facility–
Bill: I think that’s great. It’s funny too because self-storage is one of the areas that I looked at as well. And but, you know, that’s what got me impressed by you, Mitch. Is that in reading your book, Falling forward, I think that just the creativity of being able to do those kind of deals, looking at seller financing is something a lot of people, they just don’t even think about, and so, I thought I would talk to you because you do come up with creative ways to do things, that are outside of the box, and I think that more of us should think like that, ’cause that really is a, you don’t wanna use all your capital, on buying things when somebody else could you know could provide those funds. And that’s a great great story.
Mitch: Well, you know it is not like that I think smarter than anybody else, you might not– I don’t consider myself brilliant, I just think, I just have this one theory that I try to live like, the first one, don’t ever let the deal die on your side of the table. You know, if someone pushes the offer back to you, or says, “You know, this is the price”. If it’s too high, they want so much money, at least put some kind of scenario that you can live with and push it back, and let it dies on their side of the table. So, am always, like, you know if I look at that place and say I really want that place, but, under the terms and conditions that we are talking about, am not getting–am not gonna be able to play. But, it doesn’t matter to me, am gonna write up a contract with some terms and conditions that I can live with and am gonna send it to him. And see what they say, and sometimes, they say yes, or sometimes we start viable conversation, and you know, when they are not staunched on that price and those terms, they appeared to be in the MLS, you know. And so, or wherever I see the Ad. If I might see something that I like, I just start writing terms.
One time, when I bought my first fourplex, it was a story in a book, a kid inherited his dad’s rental portfolio and the kids was very unequipped to handle any of it. You know, he didn’t grow it, he wasn’t involved in it when his father was live. He didn’t had any ideas about properties and all of a sudden he had this properties and they weren’t in a very good areas, and you know it is pretty tough, as a matter of fact, this is was so tough that they had a man in there who would take it over, flipping the rent of the fourplex ’cause he live there, and he was just a tenant. And he just took upon himself and start collecting everybody’s rent, keeping it, spending it. I mean, that’s pretty abusive, abrasive. And I was intimidated too, because I had to go and meet him and I knew that this kids was scared to death to that guy, and I told him, “Look, I wanna buy the place, but here’s the things, it’s gonna cost me a lot of money to fix this up, I got to get rid of this bad guy and then everybody’s got to go. And everyone has to live, because in order for me to fix the poor place up, I can’t have anyone in there. And you know, we are not really in legal to live in right now, we are in despair to that extent. So, they guys said, “Okay, what you wanna do”. I said, “Well, I take it but I can’t pay you anything for a year. But, during that year, i’m gonna kick everybody out, i’m gonna put my $30,000 into this. And am gonna put up, a little over $7,000 per unit. And in every into these units, am gonna get them fix up and am gonna rent them, I should have done these in 12 months, and I’ll start making you a payment of this, I’ll make up amortization schedule and he said, “Okay”. And I could have the money to fix them up, so I went and took off money from my credit cards, and you know, surprisingly enough, it didn’t take me 12 months to get this done. [LAUGHTER]. It just take me about 30 days. And I had it leased up, and then I started collecting the rent to pay back my $30,000 credit cards. Which was 0% interest rates. Which is by the way Fund and Grow is all about, 0% interest card. You know, when I launched my career on 0% interest credit cards. I bought my first 450 houses on credit cards. I am sorry, my first 100 houses. And then, I got into, I got a partner and we did 450 houses. So, what happens is I got another done deal, and it is 12 months with no payments, because I didn’t have a choice, Bill. I didn’t have any money, and so I just started– I just found people that were in bad predicaments and made offer that I could live with. So, that’s my theory. No matter how big the project is, no matter– if I like it or I don’t want it, I just started making offers that I can live with. And see what someone says. So, that’s my deal style on your side of your table, man. Just write what you need and push it over. I am gonna wish you the best of luck, Bill, in reaching your goal. It is quite a massive goals. Thousand houses by year 2020. I know for a fact.
Bill: Thousand units, yeah. As supposed to houses.
Mitch: Oh, am sorry. Thousand doors. Yeah. Thousand doors. You know, you could get there faster in mini storages, but you would make as much as per doors. So, it’s a whole different number.
Bill: Right, ’cause you don’t have to deal with the tenants. [LAUGHTER]
Mitch: No. You could get there faster, you know. A mini storage door may have only by 10 x 10 square behind you, so you could get a lot more doors faster in storages. A thousand apartments or you know rental houses or rental units is an aggressive pull, but am sure that the longer you stay in the game, the bigger bikes will take it a time, huh?
Bill: Yeah. I mean, if I had to double what I had each year, so you are talking getting in a year, you know, 5 and 6, we are talking buying you know, 300 units or large amounts, like that. And so, it does become different and the economy just do kick in. It is a whole different ball game, than where I am right now.
Mitch: Yeah. Yeah. Well, are you like me, do you find yourself sitting down with your beverage of choice, staring at the sunset and just imagining having it, and where you gonna find it, and putting it all together in your head and see that picture in your head. Do you do that?
Bill: Yeah. You know. I could you reached that point that, it takes on the prize there.
Mitch: Yeah. I never planned to do it. I never write a book, I just had to, I do. I did find myself posting pictures of things that I wanted to accomplish on my near incessantly day dreaming about it. And picturing myself winning. It wasn’t a plan. It was just something that I did. Looking back, I think it was very instrumental because, if you read a book called Cycle Cybernetics, when you learn to put what you want in your head and in your brain and keep that there and push out the negative in all that negative stuff. We tend to accomplish what we tell ourselves, we can or what we dreamed about. But, there’s gotta be action behind it, no doubt, Bill. Got to have some action.
Bill: I got to keep moving forward.
Mitch: I’d like to say there’s no neutral. If you don’t believe me, try as long how you stand still before you fall over. Either going backwards or you are going forwards. But, you’re burning energy, every second of the day. So, there’s no neutral. There is no neutral.
Man, I wish you the best of luck and I also just wanted to take of a personal note, I wanna thank you for being the person that went out and tell all those people for 10 years, I don’t know what a thank you from me means to you or anything but, I think the whole world owes you, thank you for being the kind of person you’ve been for 10 years. And you certainly, deserve to reach your goals some kind of chronic level, am sure, because you have given much of yourself, and almost to your judgment, because, you woke up at over 50, and didn’t have retirement income, because you have been helping so many people for so long. And I just have to tell you, I think that is admirable. And I honestly, don’t know how people like you give back much of themselves, because you know, I’d like to think of myself as a giver, and I do give and I do give to charities. Well, when I look at how much you gave, I fail in comparison. So, I wanted to say that I admire what you did over there, and am sure those people just appreciate the heck out of you.
Bill: You know, we have big God and he takes care of stuff like that. And he also takes care of us. And so, I am not worried you know, those are some of the best years of my life. The hardest years of my life but the best years of my life. It’s been the hardest of my life, but the best years of my life and I definitely would have done it any other way.
Mitch: Well, there you go guys, you are talking to a man in faith, for sure. I appreciate you, Bill. Thanks for being on the call, and if there’s anything I can do to help, please follow up on some those suggestions that I made. I think you’ll find some funding guy. I know a lot–
Bill: You can–you have some great ideas, Mitch. Am gonna take you up on it. [LAUGHTER]
Mitch: And second to that funding growth, too. Because, you know, I don’t know how to help you buying apartment complex but certainly will help you snag a duplex or a fourplex, or something that– some of my people are getting up to $250,000 with a 0% interest cards and some very low interest business lines of credit which don’t hit your own personal credit with your stand-alone business line of credit. And I probably have 90 students apply for them, all of them got some kind of money unless they were have to work on their credit scores. The credit scores where you can just start right off the bat running, 720. If you don’t have a 720 then, for those who are listening out there. If you don’t have a 720, give me a call. Because, I know some people that can help you get to that 720, that credit repair business is a treasurer’s business, got a lot of people making promises but don’t ever intend to keep, or that they can keep. So, I kind of weeded out to all those, and I found a couple of different choices that are really good and really dependable, so if you are in that boat, and you need credit repair, call me or get hold of me, somehow, anyhow, you know. Mitch@1000houses.com Mitch at 1-0-0-0 houses.com is a good place to get hold of me. Check it out, maybe they’ll help you. You know, maybe you need to call me or ask me something, feel free to call me anytime.
Bill: Thanks, Mitch. It’s been such a pleasure being here on your show. Thanks for having me.
Mitch: All right, Man. Much success to you and everybody out there, this is Mitch and we are out. Have a great day, go buy some stuff–
