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Student Success With Jose Luis Hinojosa

Mitch Stephen|By October 22, 2020

Episode 422: Student Success With Jose Luis Hinojosa

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Success comes easier when you do things with a mentor’s guidance and it can never be truer in the world of real estate. Joining Mitch Stephen in this episode is one of his rockstar students, Jose Luis Hinojosa, a real estate investor from Dallas, Texas. Starting off in the industry without knowing the first thing about real estate, Jose invested in his learning and eventually teamed up with Mitch for a one-on-one mentoring in 2018. In this conversation, Mitch catches up with him on his recent successes and the top takeaways that he learned during his growth in the industry. If you’re relatively new to the real estate investing game, you are definitely in for a treat as Luis shares some beginner’s tips for real estate success.

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I’d like to introduce you all to Jose Hinojosa. We teamed up together around February of 2018. He jumped in with both feet and got on board with the one-on-one mentoring. Jose and I have talked many a day. I’m going to talk to him about his coaching experience. How are you doing, Jose?

I’m good. Thank you for asking.

You’re minimalizing time at the office because of the COVID so you’re showing up in your office.

We’re doing it by appointment because we don’t need to be in the office. We can do everything from home. I have kids in my house and I was able to do the interview with you so I came to the office by myself here. We’re trying to minimize the time here. Here in Dallas, everything has started getting better. It’s getting to a new normal now. Hopefully, by the beginning of 2021, we’re going to start coming back to the office.

Tell me how you first found out about real estate. What was your connection with real estate?

I do have a business that has nothing to do with real estate. I buy merchandise in Mexico and I have that business for many years. My parents had the business for many years. They teach me how to do it. We bring it to the United States. Most of them are candles, religious stuff, and then we wholesale it to these stores like supermarkets and stuff like that. They taught me how to do that. I was doing it in my garage and I got to a point that my garage was too small. I rented a place and the guy that I was renting to, he’s like, “Do you want to buy it?” I’m like, “Yes, of course, I would like to buy it.” I didn’t know anything about real estate. That was several years ago. He gave me the opportunity to buy and owner finance. He asked me for a $5,000 down payment, 6% interest for fifteen years and I jumped on it. The office where I am now has a warehouse at the back and I’m renting the warehouse and he’s paying for the whole building. I’m cashflowing on that one. That’s when I started. I’m like, “If I do this a couple of times a year without quitting my job, I’m going to be cashflowing good without doing any maintenance or anything like that because it’s a commercial building.”

You lowered your overhead.

I started going to the real estate meetings. I went to a couple of them. All of them seem nice. They tell you that everything is good. I paid another coach a few years ago. He told me about real estate like how to do marketing, how to buy houses on subject to, a little about everything.

This is what city and state?

It’s Dallas, Texas. That was in October 2005. We joined the program. We have the other business, we took it slow and it took me six months to get my first deal. I remember that deal. We bought it back then for $16,000. I sold it three days later for $25,000. I didn’t know what wholesaling was. What I did is I purchased it. I didn’t know how to put on the contract and then wholesale it. Back then, I used money from my pocket to buy it. I went to the meeting all excited, I’m like, “I did my first deal with this group that we have.” They told me, “Can you get me a buyer?” That’s how I started doing the owner finance. I started selling other people’s property because to me it was easy, I speak Spanish and I’m a salesperson.

Other people started asking you, “Can you help me sell my property?”

Yes. “I have the property. I bought it subject to, can you get me a buyer?” I remember I was selling properties for 3 or 4 months, once a week for all the investors.

What was your average income from that?

I usually charge 3%. In the beginning, I was charging like, “Just give me $1,000 or $500.” They’re like, “I love to learn. I don’t mind driving. I don’t have my real estate license. I don’t mind spending my time.” Back then I was doing an open house. I never thought I was a realtor but it worked. I put on Facebook, “I’m going to be here from 3:00 to 5:00 or 12:00 to 1:00 or 2:00.” A lot of people started coming. It was not an open house because the houses needed a lot of work and I was sending them owner finance.

It’s not a traditional open house, but you’re calling for people so you didn’t have to spend one person one time. You were trying to get them all through in two hours.

I was happy. I was learning the process and I started noticing that you can make good money with the owner finance. A lot of people start telling other people that I was able to sell their houses quickly. I was getting a lot of qualified buyers. Back then it was when we started doing the RMLO, it was five years. When I started, it was a little bit easier because we didn’t need an RMLO. We were just getting, “Put on the contract,” which will go to a title company in a week, we close and then I collect my money. I was having between $1,000 to $3,000 per house. I feel good. It paid off for the program fast. I then started acquiring my own properties, but after twenty that I sold from other people. I didn’t feel comfortable, I didn’t want to jump like, “Let me do this,” and lose my money.

You started working for knowledge, getting paid to learn and you were watching all this stuff come through. True entrepreneur, you’re a guy who sits there watching everything going on and go, “Why can’t I do that?” Something else then opens your eyes like, “I can do that.” You’re selling these houses, what made you decide to buy your first house?

Real Estate Success: You need to focus on marketing. You can hire somebody to sell for you, but getting the properties is when you make money.

Other opportunities. Since I was with this group, a lot of people were telling me, “Do you want to partner up?” I’m like, “What do you mean?” “I can buy this house and then you can sell it.” I was like, “I don’t want to give you the $3,000 upfront because I’m upside down.” Back then, we were doing the subject tos and you know how that work. I don’t like them anymore but it was a great tool for me to learn because there are many pieces on the subject to that you can learn that you don’t want to make mistakes. I was counting to tell you I partner up with more than 25 people in five years. I partnered with one guy for 40 houses. Then I partnered with other people after that one partnership, we never have seen each other. I partner with a lot of people and it took me a lot of knowledge.

They will bring me the deal and my expertise was selling the houses. That’s what I focused on. When I decided to do my first house owner finance, I saw it from a wholesaler that was selling a house on the same block that I sold for $90,000. He was selling it for $40,000. I’m like, “Let me buy it.” I start asking for money. It was hard for me to find hard lending money. I didn’t know there was hard lending money out there. I started asking for private lending. I got the money, I bought it, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I sold the note which was not a mistake. I don’t call it a mistake because I learned not to sell the notes anymore but it took me a while.

You bought a house, then you sold an owner finance with a down payment, and then you went ahead and sold the note.

That’s to pay my private lender because I’m like, “Now, what?”

You have a short-term loan.

I had it for a year.

That’s not a long time. You keep collecting the payments because you had that issue of, “I’ve got to pay this guy back.” Do you remember the numbers that you buy it for?

I bought it for $50,000 and I didn’t even change the locks on it because I already had a buyer before I even put it on the contract. You don’t want to do that. I was going to sell it to him for $90,000 and they brought me $90,000. We did the RMLO because the note buyer wants me to get the RMLO. On the same day that we closed, I sold it to the note buyer for 87%. It was good because we needed money.

When everybody starts outputting that cash in the bank and giving yourself some confidence and some cushion is a good thing to do.

With the closing costs and pay my lender and everything, I probably net $20,000. It was great because I was like, “Now, I can do this by myself. Let me start going with another wholesaler and go start looking for other properties.” It got me the confidence that I don’t need partners, which to this day, I have partners.

You saw light. It’s always the power of the first deal that you do that you make $20,000 or something to make a good hit on. It’s like, “I can do this. It works. I have the money in my bank account.” The second revelation of every entrepreneur, “How do I do that again? How do I do it better?”

I’ve made $20,000, how can I make it $20,000, but collect that $200 or $300 a month? That’s when I saw your portfolio and I started reading your books. I bought the first one. I was in the middle of it and I bought the other two hard books.

You bought the Failing Forward to Financial Freedom, the autobiography where I progressed from not knowing how to do anything to buy at one point 150 houses a year. This is another traditional entrepreneurial flag. You got halfway through and then you said you buy the other two books.

I don’t read books. I just listen to them because it makes me fall asleep. I finished yours in three days. I was already doing the owner finance but I didn’t know how to do it for the long-term. I was just doing it and then sell the note. To me, it was like, “I make $20,000. It was good.” When I saw your portfolio, I’m like, “I need to know how to keep these notes.” I remember one of your books you said that you have a stack of business that you open and you close. Since I was in high school, I was a pizza driver. I used to work on cable. I used to be a carrier. I used to be a waiter, the list goes on and on. I started doing a lot of stuff, and it got me connected with you and I’m like, “This guy did it. I think I can do that too.” I was already doing it on the real estate. I was already halfway through, I just have to know how to keep the notes and do it the right way. Back then, I was doing subject tos and you’ve got no control of it.

They always said, “Do on sale clause looming in the background.” There’s always the guy who you saved his butt one day but two years later, he’s screaming at you to pay off the loan or he’s going to sue you, call a lawyer or something.

The realtor calls you, “I know what you did. My buyer wants to buy another house, even though he was broke months ago, you need to pay off the loan.” You’ve got no control over it.

There is always something more, something better in real estate. Share on X

You then took a big step. You hired a coach before. How was your coaching experience then? It sounds to me like you got your money’s worth out of it.

Yes, but it’s one of those deals that it took me a while to understand and I’m glad I did and joined that group. I paid that coach because I understand a lot of it. The only mistake that I made is that I was focusing on selling the houses for the people, which is good but I never learned how to market. On to this day, I’m still having problem marketing for buying houses. I’m an expert on selling the houses, but it’s hard for me to translate it from selling the houses to go and buy the houses from other people. I will suggest to a lot of people that are reading that you need to focus on marketing. Selling, you can hire somebody like me and just pay them $1,000 or $3,000 but getting the properties is when you make the money.

That’s where the rubber meets the road. Nothing happens until there’s a property in play. May I ask what’d you pay the first coach you had?

I paid $12,500. I put it on my credit card because I had the money, but I didn’t want to use it. I used two credit cards and I paid them off in less than a year because it took me six months to get my first property. It was frustrating at the beginning. Me and my wife are doing this business. She was telling me like, “Did we make a mistake paying these guys? We don’t see any results.” I’m like, “No. Let’s wait.” I’ve got to tell you a story. I used to drink a lot of Monster, the energy drinks. I used to drink one a day and then on Saturdays, I used to drink two. I told myself one day and I don’t know if you want to call it God and I say, “If I promise myself to stop drinking Monster, I need to find a property to buy it because I’m not going to fail this business.” My sister used to be a real estate agent and I love it. I love helping her out, finding properties, and stuff like that. I knew that the business was good. I quit on Tuesday and I bought the property on Thursday. That was my first property. I don’t know if it was chemistry. I don’t know what was it.

Divine intervention but whatever it is.

It was six months after I joined that group. It got me motivated when I sold the property. I put it on the contract on Thursday and it was the same day I already have a buyer. I didn’t know you can wholesale it, put on the contract and stuff like that. I learned after that. I bought it and then sold it. I went running to this group with the coach that I have and I started telling everybody, “I did this. I made $60,000.” From there, I started selling for all other investors, but until this day I have a Monster in my office, the white ones that I used to drink.

Did you decide that those were bad for you?

Yes. My grandma died because of that. She got heart problems and everything, but she used to drink Red Bull a lot. She got a stroke and every time that I had a Monster in my hand and my mom sees me like, “Your grandma died because of that.” I said, “I know they’re bad,” but I was hooked.

You can be addicted to anything. You can be addicted to food. You can be addicted to Coca-Cola. You can be addicted to anything that you’re habitually doing every day that’s not helping you.

That happened and until this day I haven’t touched a Monster.

Where did Mitch Stephen come into the picture? You read the books and everything. One day what happened?

I read the books. I’m like, “I’m just like this guy.” We have a lot of similarities. I love the way that you say that, “You have to think as an immigrant all the time.” I’m an immigrant. I came to the United States when I was sixteen. I’m from Monterrey. It’s not like I was poor or anything like that, but most of my family was already here. I’m already thinking like that so I think I can do this. I was already halfway when I read the book. I called you and you started the mentorship with me. I knew that I was going to make it. I knew that I was going to do it well, but I don’t know if it was going to take me a couple of years. With your help, it took me less than a year to figure everything out.

What was the comfort for you? I had a lot of years of experience and I know that was one of the things that you calculate or anyone would have calculated. When you and I started talking, what are some of the comforts that you get from that?

I knew how to buy and I knew how to sell them right. I just need somebody to tell me, “Come on, you can do it. You need to do it this way.” Nobody had told me that before.

Paperwork-wise, rules, regulations, and staying out of trouble. Is that the part that gives you peace of mind so you can say, “This is how I think I’m doing it. This is how I’m doing it?”

I was doing okay, but I knew that I was going to do better. You taught me how to do it. That was my comfort when all this happened.

I enjoyed talking and working with you because I don’t have to tell you something twice. If tell you, you’re off on it, which is one of the elements that I’m looking for. As a coach, I don’t want to take someone’s money if I don’t think that I can get them where they’re going. I’d rather not have the money. I don’t want to have grief. I don’t want to have the failure in my call and I would look at it like that. You’re a heavy-duty doer, and you also understand concepts fast. Some of them are even foreign to you but it didn’t take you long to catch the concept. When you’re doing these deals now, you don’t call me nearly as often, but you do call when you bump into things.

Real Estate Success: Credit card debt is only bad if you’re not using it right.

I don’t have to call you for every house because I know how to do it. I know how to buy the house and how to sell them but insurance-wise, or when I’m dealing with the bank, the interest rates, talking to lenders, I do want to make sure that I’m doing it right.

One of the goals you had was to find more private money and better private money and then to go to community banks and we started working on that. Talk to us about that.

When you told me that, I started getting more private lending and I know how to structure it for them. It was like, “I’ll give you a 10% for six months.” That’s it. What you told me is that, “You need to talk to the private lenders. You need to do it in a different way.” Lower interest rate, long-term, and stuff like that.

If you’re going to hold the notes, you have to have the right money underneath because these deals aren’t over in six months, they’re not over in five years.

Especially now that you have to seize for at least six months if you want to sell it to a note buyer for even 87%. If you don’t seize on the notes, they give you 70%, 75%, which is not good. It got me the confidence by not using a broker, just going straight to the people and say, “This is what I’ve been doing for the past X years. This is how I’m going to invest in your houses.” The questions that they have for me, I didn’t have to tell them, “I need to get back to you.” I already have the confidence to tell them, “No. This is how we’re going to do it. This is how much you’re going to make. This is how much I’m going to make. This is how secure your money is going to be.”

That got me the confidence to go out there. It’s like you say, “If you need to go to a bank, you’re not going to go just to the first bank.” It was my mistake. I went to Bank of America and asked them for money. They’re like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I went to Wells Fargo and then I went to Chase. You don’t go to those banks. You go to those banks that understand and think outside the box. I went to twelve of them. Finally, the 10, 11, or 12, I don’t remember how many of them, but they opened the door for me.

Those were community banks. I said, “Don’t go to these big banks. They’re not going to understand. You need to talk to small banks.” Whereas the owners of those banks are the people that run those banks have a large say so on what goes on. They can understand what you’re talking about or want to understand. They want to sit down and listen to you and understand your business. There are people that are well versed in what we do. They’ve done it before. We don’t have to explain a lot to them. They might want to ask you some questions to make sure that you’re doing it exactly right or how you’re doing it, but they know what you’re talking about already. That’s what happened. You walked into the twelfth bank or whatever it was, and they knew what you were doing. They looked at the way that you were set up. Because you’d been doing it right with the RMLOs and your numbers were in line and everything was in line, they say yes to you. If you hadn’t walked in there the way you were before 2018, you won’t make it.

That’s one of the reasons that I joined your program because I need that fast knowledge to, “I need to go to a bank.” I didn’t want to just buy the houses and sell the note. I know it was more than that.

Cashflow is king now. You could get $20,000 or you could get $10,000, but the $20,000, you don’t get any more. The $10,000, you got a $500 income for 30 years or whatever. You’re like, “I can do that math. I want the $10,000 and the payments.”

I was those people in school that was having trouble with all my classes, but math, I was good at that. I was getting 95s or 100s. Sometimes I don’t need a calculator.

I don’t need one either. Sometimes when a deal is good enough, I go, “I don’t know what percentage it is, but it’s good enough. Let’s do the deal.”

Thanks to the people that I help and they helped me at the beginning when I was selling these houses. I know what the houses can sell for owner finance in this type of neighborhood. One of my lenders asked me if I can give them a resume or what I get in the past years. I started counting all the houses that I helped sell. I was involved in and it passes 100 and that was 2019. It’s either for other investors or people that have nothing to do with investments, but I was there helping. Thanks to that and this house from a wholesaler or from people that want to sell the house, I can tell in my head it was like, “If they want $50,000, I know how much I can sell it for without fixing it.” I don’t need to do the math in my calculator. I’m like, “There you go. That’s the deal.”

That’s the benefit of experience. You don’t have to work every number all the time because you know these neighborhoods now. You know your business, your buyers, your sellers, the culture of your town, and the culture of those neighborhoods. I want to tell you that you have been an extreme pleasure to coach and you’re a winner. You won. I especially like it that you got where you’re going. To be bold and right out there, the amount of money you paid me to get coaching, was it worth it?

In the first two deals, yes. I got my money back and I knew that from the beginning because I didn’t even ask my wife, “Can I hire this coach?” I just went for it. I used her credit card too. I had the money. I just like to use credit cards so I can get money.

I can tell you why you do it. I’m going to tell you why you do it. Tell me if I’m right. You like to keep score and you’re going to hold it over there to the side until you see the business pay the credit card back because that’s how you get your piece of mind.

That’s exactly what I do.

Don’t quit your job to become a full-time investor because it’s not going to work. Share on X

You have your money to make money with.

I also can use credit cards to increase my line of credit and stuff like that. I read the book and my wife didn’t.

I had the same issue when I was buying houses on my credit cards. I didn’t tell my wife and this upset my wife. I’ve talked to a lot of people about that particular situation. A lot of people said, “Why didn’t you talk to your wife?” I’m saying the same thing that you’re saying. It’s like, “There was no way that she could say yes with the amount of knowledge that she had because she didn’t know what I knew.” I could go ask her out of courtesy, but then I’m going to scare her and we’re going to get in a debate about it. Then I would have to spend all this time to bring her up to speed to where I’m at. The problem is it’s taken me five years to get where I’m at mentally to know, to feel in my heart, to understand, to own the concept in my heart of hearts. I know what I can do.

I cannot teach that to someone so I can make a decision the next day on what to do. I had to jump out there, commit the crime. There’s no taking it back. There’s no talking me out of it. Let me just make it right but show you that I know what I’m doing. It wasn’t a lot of pressure for me because I knew what I could do. I had $250,000 worth of credit card debt, but I knew that I had $500,000 worth of houses free and clear. There was no lien on them because the debt was all on my credit cards. It’s hard to explain that to someone at first, all they see is credit card debt is bad.

It is a bad way if you’re not using it right. That’s how I do stuff.

Now, your wife’s fully on board I know because I talked to her sometimes.

I’m not just doing this, I’m doing other stuff too. She’s like, “I know you can do this and if not, you try.”

Are you starting to systematize things or do you have an assistant now? Are you moving that direction or you like where you at?

I was going to start to systemize everything. Start hiring more people and do it as you told me that, “I need to hire these people to buy the house. I need to hire somebody to sell them,” but the Coronavirus hit.

That’s only if that’s what you want. Systematizing or going big is not for everybody. Some people are happy. I’ll do ten deals a year and make my money. Over a ten-year period, I’d be in another place. Other people want to ramp it up and there are different levels you can take it to. You could get a personal assistant and take a lot of work off that you don’t need to do.

Now, it’s only my wife, my sister-in-law, and me that work. My sister-in-law is the one that does a lot of QuickBooks. She gets buyers on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, $3,000 is not bad and I’m not a realtor, but I still sell properties for the people. My sister-in-law’s the one that helps me filter those buyers and I go and close the deal. My wife is in charge of paying the lenders, asking for money from the lenders, and make sure that people are paying.

Collections and paying the bills. I know COVID was weird but how many transactions are you doing a year?

It’s hard to tell because I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t count at this point. I’m like, “We need to do three.” It’s not like that. Just like I was telling you at the beginning, it’s hard for me because I never do marketing to buy houses and to get them. I depend a lot on wholesalers, and wholesalers call me all the time. “I know you buy properties. I’ve got this property in this neighborhood for $100,000.” I’m like, “That’s too much.” “The ARV is an X amount of money.” I’m like, “That’s too much for me to pay because I’m going to do owner finance on it. I can only do owner finance in that neighborhood for $130,000.” This is the wholesaler for 1, 2-year even experienced wholesalers. They’re like, “The ARV is $160,000.” I’m like, “I understand the ARV. I understand what you’re saying, but I know that I can only sell it for this much.” It’s hard for me to get it for wholesalers nowadays in Dallas. The market is hard. People are buying as crazy. I have to find them harder. I have to find properties. When you tell me, “How many you did?” In September we put on contract six to sell, and then we buy three more.

You’re going to be over 40, 50 houses anyway. It seems like somewhere between 30 and 60 houses. It doesn’t matter. It’s not a volume game.

It’s not a competition. If you start like, “We need to do three houses a month minimum.” I need to start buying those properties at $100,000 that I know that I’m only going to sell it for $130,000 and it’s not going to make sense. I’m like, “Why am I going to do that?” In my head, I have a number that is three per month.

People ask me, “How many are you going to buy this month?” I said, “I’ll buy as many as it makes sense.” Just because I have all the money and I have all the private lenders doesn’t mean I start going out and buying houses at bad deals. I still can only buy as many deals as I can find a great deal on. My point is, you’re not a one-house a month guy. You’re a bigger guy. With a small team, some experience behind you, which means you have a legacy and a reputation that’s helping you now. It’s harder to find that many houses in the first year because fewer people know who you are and what you do. You then go in the sixth year, more people know who you are, what you do, and there are repeat people. They know, “I’ve got another house. This one’s for Jose.” They go out there. I want to thank you for taking the time to come on. Any last words of encouragement you’d like to say, maybe there’s someone out there thinking about starting or thinking about getting a coach. What would you say to them?

The first thing to say is that don’t quit your job. Before I started into real estate, I have my own business. It was not from 9:00 to 5:00. It was 7:00 in the morning until 9:00, sometimes all weekend and then I’ll go to Mexico for a week and then be back. I used to rent back then. I was making my payments. I have money in my pocket and I started this business on real estate. I’m not telling you that I see that I make it already. I don’t think you never make it on real estate because there’s always something better. There’s always more. One thing that I’m going to tell people is that don’t quit your job to become a full-time investor because it’s not going to work. Look at me, I still have my other business. I don’t run it, but I make the big decision. I have people that run the other business. I don’t make that much money anymore in there but it’s okay. I still have a cushion if something goes wrong like COVID.

Real Estate Success: Love the process and celebrate every single little win.

Most of the people, me included, started doing it in the background until it proved itself. You have your own business. You see no reason to shut it down because it’s a business, it’s established and it runs, you’ve just got to keep it greased, oiled and going down the track. It doesn’t make any sense to close it down. What I hear you saying is, in the beginning, keep your day job and then work off hours to prove that the business works for you and to get your confidence and your education level up. There is a lot to learn, isn’t there? There’s more than you think.

I’ve told you about the taquerias that I partner with another friend of mine. It’s crazy because we’ve been renting and now, we’re going to buy it. It makes sense. I’m like, “We need to buy this.” It’s getting to a point that in the next couple of years, we’re going to start looking into land with my experience, buy them, and then build a restaurant or the taqueria, whatever you want to call it, a MetroPCS or something so I can lease it to somebody else. That’s where I’m going because I remember you told me, “You have to invest in something.”

You have to have a forever play.

That’s going to be my forever because the taquerias is something that I don’t know if it’s going to be forever. It’s good but I know at least in those commercials, that’s going to be my forever money.

You want to specialize in restaurant locations that you can lease to a restaurant tour and that’s your deal. You may decide to move into yourself and expand to taqueria whenever they move out because they’ve got a big location. Whenever that population gets so popular, you can take over.

You’ll never stop learning. You never stop looking for that next lender. Nowadays, I have lenders that are like, “Can I have $500,000 because I have these deals?” “Yes, sure.” That’s because of my reputation.

What built that reputation? Paying people back on time.

That’s one of the main reasons. I think I’m doing it right. I got the right coach at the right time. I’m not afraid to get another one if I’m going to start going on a commercial like that. I needed it.

You don’t know what you don’t know. Find someone who has 100 taquerias and he’ll teach you something. I promise you.

I don’t run those taquerias. I’m a silent partner on those. Also, I was going to tell the people that are reading that want to be in the real estate business is that it’s not a competition. You need to love the status. If you don’t like it, just get out. If you don’t like it the first couple of months, 3 or 5 months, just get out because it’s always going to be hard. If you don’t enjoy the success, like let’s say, I put twenty buying signs every week for six months and I didn’t hate it. I’m like, “It’s going to happen.” I celebrate that step when I sold the house that I bought for $16,000. I sold it for $25,000 in less than a week. You have to celebrate every step.

When I make $16,000 where I collect $15,000, I still celebrate. You have to celebrate every little step and you have to love, especially when you’re with your partner. You have to understand when to stop and chill for a little bit. I don’t need to go and buy 100 houses because he did a $100,000 house when he was 30-something years old. It was one of those weird situations because you start at the same time when you were 30 something years old. I got me connected to it because I started when I was 25. You have to love the process and celebrate every single little win.

Make sure it’s a passion for you because if it’s not, it’s not for you. When it is for you, make sure you have balance. I hear you saying you need to have a balance between family and work and then celebrate your victories.

Count your mistakes too. I can tell you in all the houses that I have, I never lose money on them. I break-even on one of them. Those issues it’s hard to explain. I lose my time but not money.

Real estate is forgiving. If you play within a certain amount of rules, it’s hard to get smashed on these deals. I’ve lost on six deals in 24 years to a grand total of maybe $60,000 if you added them all up. Luckily, they didn’t all happen in the same week. They happened over a 24-year-period. Those decisions were more like, “I’m going to make this amount of money this month but I got this one loser in here. If I can sacrifice and get out from under it, I’m only going to make this much money.” It’s still a great month. I got my problem off my plate. It is down the road. It’s gone forever. I took a little hit on it, but it was still a great month and it’s still going to be a great year. One of my advice to everybody is, don’t let your problems build up. You handle them. Also, don’t be fast to dump and lose a lot.

When you know you have a loser, think about it for 30, 45 days unless there’s some opportunity that you have to make a decision and then decide what you’re going to do. Start to do it. Let it settle a little bit. Sometimes what you think is bad isn’t as bad as you think at first. It’ll lighten up a little bit if you just let it catch your breath a little bit. It’s like getting the wind knocked out of you. It’s like, “Damn.” Catch your breath and go, “I know how to fix this.” I appreciate you. I’d like to thank everybody for stopping by. I appreciate that you took the time to get you some Jose Hinojosa and please check out TaxFreeFuture.com. You won’t believe what your financial advisors are not telling you. Thanks, Jose. I appreciate you. Bye.

Thank you.