May 19, 2025 • 43 mins
Join Nick Lamagna on The A Game Podcast with our guest Chris Zubrycki, a full-time investor friendly real estate agent and active Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt fighting out of Arizona by way of East Rochester NY! He has made a name for himself on being a valuable resource for real estate investors and has carved out a niche in probate! After graduating with high honors he moved to Chicago, IL and worked for Hewitt Associates & Health Care Service Corporation as a database administrator before finding his calling to the Phoenix-Metro area in 2001, where Chris started his real estate career.
Having a white belt mentality with a black belt skill level not only on the mats but in life and business he recognized true intelligence is knowing you can always know more and has been on a never ending quest to educate himself on all aspects of real estate specifically learning about wholesaling, subject to and other creative finance deals. Chris realized there is a disconnect between many agents and investors and lack of understanding. He is now bridging the gap and helping not only homeowners but now investors find on-market deals and have a trusted realtor to help in their search who understands both sides. He also is making an am
When Chris isn’t helping his clients reach their real estate goals, he can be found teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at The MMA Lab Phoenix, AZ. Chris received his black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from John Crouch in 2016 and trains alongside such legends as Benson Henderson. This is a great episode for investors to understand how to work better with agents, and how agents can work with investors.
Topics for this episode include:
✅ How A Real Estate Agent Can Help An Investor With Probate Real Estate Deals
✅ How Investors Can Get Real Estate Agents On Their Side
✅ Why Constant Learning Is Important In Real Estate
✅ How Jiu Jitsu Can Help To Deal With People Better
✅ A Way To Deal With Clients Who Don't Agree With Your Price + More
See the show notes to connect with all things Chris and The MMA Lab!
Connect with Chris:
AZ Probate Real Estate on Instagram
Email chris@bjj-broker.com
Connect with The MMA Lab:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
Welcome to the A Gamepodcast with Nick Lamonia.
Digging into the minds and experiences ofsome of today's brightest entrepreneurs
in real estate and business, alongwith Hollywood Stars, UFC fighters
and your favorite rock bands, peoplethat have figured out how to over.
Come obstacles, take chances.
Live boldly.
And no matter what they do,they always bring their A game.
(00:48):
Alright, my guest today, theA Game podcast is Chris Zub.
Ricke came highly recommended.
From the one and only, only BenardSmooth Henderson of the MMA lab.
And Chris is the broker, BJJ Black Belt.
So he checks all the boxes for thispodcast, of course, as a jujitsu
guy and a real estate guy, and awhite belt mentality with the black
belt strategy and skill level.
(01:09):
And this is the A Game podcast, thereal estate investing for entrepreneurs.
And the whole point of this podcast isto show ordinary people every day that
they can achieve extraordinary things.
Just the 350 plus episodeswe've already done with some of
the top athletes, performers.
Business people and entertainersin the world, you can go back into
those and see the path that they havelaid out for themselves to achieve
amazing things and their highestpotential and hit their goals in life.
(01:31):
In business, you can also look backand see the things they did wrong, so
you do not have to make those mistakes.
And if in those 350 episodes youcannot find somebody to tell you
how to get where you want to go.
We have another bangertoday with Chris Rikke.
Now guy is hitting 50 on the matsevery day and always still learning.
And what I like about this is thefirst perspective of somebody who is
not only investor friendly, but he'son the agent side so he can pass on
(01:53):
some of the lessons and things likethat that we've learned in the past
for guys that do juujitsu or fight orcompete in athletics on a high level.
And some of the disciplines thatthey bring over into their business.
But what I like about this isthe mentality of always learning.
And instead of working againstinvestors, he's constantly trying
to educate himself so he can figureout and understand what they're
doing and try and bridge those gaps.
And we finally have somebody on thisweek that can really be somebody
(02:15):
who brings both sides of this.
To listen to about how an agent thinksabout wholesalers or investors and some of
the things they get and some of the thingsthey hear from their side that maybe we
don't really take into consideration,and some of the things on maybe our
side that we can educate them on.
And what I really feel like is this opensup a lot of communication for people.
Try to figure out how todo more deals that are.
(02:37):
On market, get some things or havesome investor friendly agents and
how to figure out how to get themto want to work with you instead of
work against you, which will bringway more deals into your pocket.
If you can figure out how tofigure out leveraging real estate
investor friendly agents like Chris.
It will absolutely put more deals in yourpipeline and more money in your pocket.
(02:58):
I think I said there in the episode,for the first few years I ever did this
business, all I did was work with investorfriendly agents and do on market deals.
And you hear people say they don'twork, but you can find people to help
you work 'em and get great deals.
And Chris talks all about how to do that.
So fantastic episode for anybodybeginning, intermediate or advanced
in their real estate journey tofigure out how to get some good
agents and some good on marketproperties, including some probate.
(03:19):
In your pocket.
So a lot of really coolstuff we talk about there.
Chris goes deep into what it's likeon his side and gives you guys some
takeaways that you can start doing rightaway to get some deals in your pocket.
And of course, the only fee forthe show is to please subscribe
anywhere you get your podcast.
Please search for the A Gamepodcast, real Estate Investing for
entrepreneurs with Nick La Mania.
And if you cannot find it on any of theplaces you search like YouTube, Spotify.
(03:41):
Or Apple Podcasts.
All you need to do isgo to www.nicknik.com.
That is www.nik.com/links L-I-N-K-S, andyou will see all the ways to find us.
And of course, you willalso see us on social media.
Please interact with us on social media.
I cannot ask it enough if you guysare scrolling anyway on social media.
(04:01):
Just connect with us on any of ourplatforms, whether it's Twitter,
Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and theway that Chris tells other people.
He had a great experience here.
And have them come on and tell their tale.
For free for you guys is just forhim to see that you guys got value.
So like share, post, subscribe, interact,ask a question, tag a friend, whatever
it might be when I post the clips onthis episode, and of course the big thing
(04:22):
here is I want to do deals together.
So either message me the words realestate on any of my social media
platforms or just text me the wordsreal estate 2 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3.
That is 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3,and we can start a conversation.
I will personally reach out to you andwe can talk about if you would let to.
Bye.
An investment property from me.
Sell an investment property to me or finda way to partner on deals on some level.
(04:46):
So thank you so much for Chris coming on.
Thanks Benson Henderson for linking us up.
Thank you guys for supportingthe A Game podcast.
Go buy some real estate, go dosome Jiujitsu and have a fan.
Fantastic day.
Thank you.
All right.
My guest today on the A Game podcastis a jujitsu black belt who has.
Fumbled through all the bad times tolearn how to do tough things and focusing
(05:08):
on the details because in business weknow that the dollars and the details
that he trains alongside the world.
Famous Benson Henderson andteaches Juujitsu at the MMA lab
in Glendale, Arizona, and he isalso a black belt in real estate.
He's been doing stuff on the brokerside and has also been having a
white belt mentality to educatehimself on the investor side.
And has found a niche in listing probatesand learning how to deal with investors
(05:29):
so we can basically help us at both ends.
So we're coming out today with a veryunique, interesting perspective on the
other side of the fence, for somebody whocan take some of the lessons for Jiujitsu
and learn how to have an open mentalityto work with everybody, I. Monetize his
business and always grow and always learn.
He comes very highly recommendedfrom the One and only.
Benson Henderson, I've heardnothing but great things about him.
Please welcome to the A Gamepodcast, the BJJ broker, Chris Zub.
(05:53):
Welcome sir. Thank youso much for having me on.
It's pleasure, dude.
I'm really excited to have you on.
As I was telling you before we startedrecording, I had so many compliments.
From Benson Henderson about howgreat you were with details.
And immediately I waslike, man, with juujitsu.
Like when I go and I travel and I tryand find like the best black belt in
the area, they don't gimme big things.
They gimme these little tiny adjustmentsto these things, and those little
(06:14):
things make such a huge difference.
And in real estate, I telleverybody it's not what you
know, it's what you don't know.
It's these little things that you don'tcatch that you only know from experience
that can cost you a ton of money.
So the second I heard that you were adetail guy, a real estate guy, a jujitsu
guy, I was like, man, this is my guy.
So I had to have you on.
So for somebody who maybe isn't ahundred percent familiar with your
story yet, can you update the audienceon who you are and where you came from?
(06:35):
Sure.
I, um, was born and raisedin East Rochester, New York.
I. Which is in western New York,in between Buffalo and Syracuse.
Grew up playing sportsand everything like that.
Big wrestling town.
Sadly, I was an average wrestler, wasable to, you know, kind of love the sport.
Never translated into competitionsuccess and that's kind of
what got me into Jiujitsu.
Went to college, uh, SUNY Binghamton,graduated from SUNY Buffalo, moved out to
(07:00):
Chicago for a while as a system analyst.
Yeah, met, met a friend of minethat moved to Phoenix, so like,
Hey, you wanna do real estate?
And I was just.
Really tired of sitting behinda desk for 90 hours a week.
So in 2001, I think it was October1st, 2001, moved to Arizona, did a 90
hour broker course, and was licensedin November, 2001, ready to go.
(07:20):
And, uh, just like anything else,you know, you're a white belt.
In jujitsu, you're a white beltin, in real estate as well.
You gotta kind of fumble aroundand make mistakes and, and
figure out what's going on.
And then kind of fast forward tomarket falls apart in 2006 and
seven, everything freezes up.
I've got a little extra time onmy hand and super outta shape.
250 pounds smoking cigarsevery day at a cigar bar.
(07:42):
And I drive by and there's this bigsign on this building that says,
makes martial arts training sign.
And that was the lab.
And, you know, really, really nervous.
Walked in there not knowing what toexpect, got the whole, you know, rundown
of what they train and everything.
And then took my first class thenext day, and then that was it.
And I'm still doing it today.
So that was February, 2007.
(08:04):
I started jiujitsu.
And, uh, still going strong.
A little less strong as I getcloser, closer to 50 and everything.
But Ben sent a lot of nice thingsabout me, but my introduction to
Ben was the first jiujitsu coachat the lab was not John Crouch.
It was a guy named Kendall Goo.
I think he was a hoist black belt,but trained mostly under sen. And
(08:24):
then Crouch came in about ninemonths later to run the MMA team.
And I had just gotten my bluebelt and he comes with this
guy with real long hair and.
Glasses.
And he's like, well, Ben'sjust gotten his blue belt.
Why don't you guys roll together?
And that was kind of the beginning oflike, wow, this guy's kind of special.
You know, when you get your blue belt,you think you kind of know everything.
You're like, oh, I'm, I got this now.
(08:45):
And then some, you know, divisionone or division, or I think it
was an NAI wrestler two, likea runner up, or All American.
Just comes and destroys you.
And that was kind of the beginning of thefriendship of, you know, Benson and I, I
think he was one in one or two in one asa pro at that point, and then crouching
him, moved to Arizona and then everythingjust kind of blew up from there.
(09:07):
That's very cool, man.
There's always been some bubbling upof like MMA or Juujitsu in my life.
When I wrestled in highschool, one of the guys that.
Our high school wrestleagainst was Frank Trig.
Ah.
So Frank Trig was a local guy fromRochester who fought in the UFC
for a while and is now a MMA ref.
I think a lot of people know himas a ref now, but they don't know
how good of a fighter he was.
I think Mark Kerr was a camp counselorof mine at the Gene Mills pinning
(09:31):
camp in Syracuse University whenthey still had a wrestling program.
'cause that's when hewrestled or where he wrestled.
And then when I was at SUNYBinghamton, this was 93 to 94.
Sky would come to our dorm and show theGracie and action videos and he is like,
you know, I train in Torrance, Californiaand turns out fast forward, that's 1994.
I don't think anything about it.
2007, 2008, crouch comes into townand he is showing pictures of him
(09:53):
training at the Gracie Academy and.
That was the person, his good friendJohn Burke from Orlando, Florida.
I think he's at six levels, juujitsu,who came to my dorm in 1994 to
try to get people interested.
So there's always been like thisbubbling up Juujitsu or MMA in my life.
Now, I've never fought or anything likethat, but I've done a ton of Juujitsu
training with pretty high level.
(10:14):
MA fighters and stuff likethat, and it kind of merged
into, you know, real estate.
You have a little bit more flexibleschedule and can kind of, you know,
play around with your schedule andthe two just kind of merge together.
But there's a lot of things that I'vetaken from the mats that have helped
me in my real estate career too.
You know, it's, don't get fancy withstuff, you know, just do the basics.
You know, I tried my hand at lapelguard and all these things and it's,
(10:37):
it's good to know it, but if it doesn'tkind of fit into what you're trying to
do, it's good to have that knowledge.
So you Yes, I know whatyou're doing right there.
So, um, and then one of the things thatI've been doing now is I voluntarily
took over the kids program at the lab.
So, and I know a lot of peoplelike your face right there.
It's just like, what is wrong with you?
(11:00):
I, I turned 50 this year and comingup on 19 years in Jiujitsu and
coming home at nine 30 at nightafter teaching classes and training
is, is just, just kind of gets old.
So one of my motivations for takingover the kids program was having
more time with my wife at night andjust not coming home at like nine 30
or 10 at night every single night.
And it, it's been great.
One of the reasons I got into Jiujitsu isbecause I was very disappointed in how I
(11:23):
would compete in high school and I justwould get on the mat and just not engage.
So I always promised myself thatif I did anything physical or
anything competitive that I wouldjust not half-ass it or be afraid.
It's just go do it.
You know what I mean?
Just get out there and tryyour best and let it fly.
It doesn't matter if you lose.
Um, and I think that's one of thethings that's kind of translated
into real estate as well.
You know, we talked previouslybefore is I'm kind of re scrubbing.
(11:46):
All my prospecting and gonna getinto social media and some YouTube
videos, and it's, I'm not worriedabout being perfect, you know?
Perfect is the enemy of good.
We're just gonna put it out there.
And that's what I try to tell my studentstoo, is these kids are like, well, I
don't want to do it and get submitted.
I'm like, no, I want you to get submitted.
You need to go out and getsubmitted as many times as you can.
I'm gonna, you know.
(12:06):
Prospect as much as I can and getsubmitted by nos as much as I can too.
But you just can't stop.
You know, one of the sayings in Jiujitsuis it's not who's best, it's who's last.
You know, I think Chris Hower saidthat he's one of the dirty dozen out
in California, the first AmericanBlack belts, and it's just, there
were guys that would just absolutelydestroy me on the mats at Blue Belt.
And at Purple Belt and at Brown Belt,and they just, you know, life gets
(12:29):
in the way, something changes and,and they just don't do it anymore.
And you just gotta keep doing it.
And, and that's one of the things thatI've taken off the mats from real estate
too, is you just gotta keep going.
You know, just keep doing, stickto your plan, stick to your
prospecting, go from there.
And in addition to that, a lotof it is educating yourself and
things you don't know about.
Which I am starting to fall into moreof a listing, probate properties on
(12:54):
market, probate deals, and if you'renot used to the type of buyers in
that sphere, you might just be like,oh, I don't wanna do this anymore.
So you've gotta reach out andeducate yourself on what's going on.
One of the things that hashelped is podcasts like yours is.
Especially the real estate industryhas changed a lot since Covid and
what we're seeing in the Phoenixmetro area is there's, the wholesaling
(13:17):
activity has just exploded.
I'm sure that's everywhere.
And the way that people buy realestate is different as well.
You know, I would list a propertythat maybe wasn't, you know, needed
a lot of work, and then I'd getall these strange offers like.
You know, you get a, a hard moneycommitment letter and, and, or you
get people with creative financingand it's like, what is this stuff?
And that, that startedhappening kind of 2016, 2017.
(13:39):
You know, I kind of put myself out thereas I'm an investor friendly listing agent.
Like I'll talk to everybody nomatter how strange the phone call is.
The only thing I ask as a realestate agent with on market deals
is that you're honest with me.
Okay, so this is kind of a, like wewere talking about before, maybe getting
a view of what it's like as a listingagent on market to work with wholesale
(14:04):
buyers or end buyers for that matter.
And then how can I use that tobenefit my clients and to get the
deal done quickly depending onwhat the estate's situation is.
You know, uh, what I was sayingbefore is I had just put a a
on market property on about.
I think it was about three weeks ago,a state was struggling with some funds.
(14:26):
You know, they're getting theinvestor offers and they reached
out to me and said, Hey, you know,what do you think the home is worth?
What can be done about it?
We don't have a ton of money to dothis, but we'd like some representation.
Go take a look at the property, figureout what the A RV value is or a RV
is, this is, and then come up witha target list price and then prepare
my client for what the range of.
(14:46):
Offers is gonna be okay becausethis one was definitely gonna
be more of a wholesale dealjust because of the condition.
Prepared my client for what it wasgonna look like, what we're gonna list
it at, how to prepare the property, ifthere's any preparation needed, and then
what they should expect in terms of,uh, realistic offers from investors.
Now, obviously if we can get anend buyer, that's great too, but
(15:08):
this property just did not, itwouldn't qualify for financing.
It was either gonna haveto be cash or hard money.
Got the deal wrapped up real quick.
I think it was three weeksfrom listing to sale.
Estate got their money.
It was sold to a wholesaleinvestor who did reassign it.
But my clients were prepared for thatbecause when you know you get the
final settlement statement, you seea little bit of a reassignment fee.
(15:31):
Where the buyer ends upselling it to someone else.
And that's okay.
And, and the, the thing is though, isthere's a cost that sometimes that the
estate has to pay to get that money fast.
Now they definitely got more money if Iwasn't involved, I think, in my opinion.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
They had somebody who wasguiding 'em through the process.
It was still assigned, therewas still an assignment fee and
(15:52):
investors still did make money.
So everybody's happy.
My client got as much money as they could.
They got it as quickly as possible, and.
We assessed the house and figuredout what needed to be done and
more importantly, what did not needto be done, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
'cause uh, you know, a lot of times,and I don't know what it is, with
some agents, I, I'll have propertiesthat, you know, there might be
(16:14):
tons of personal debris in there.
I'm still gonna do professional photos.
We're still gonna do full marketingfor it so that the end buyers
know what they're getting into.
When I fly the drone, I have 'em flyit low over the house so they can see
the condition of the roof, let's flyit around the air conditioner and it
just saves everybody a lot of time.
Opinion there was something in the waterwith this past property because, you know,
white belt mentality, I can, there's a lotof people getting into wholesaling now.
(16:38):
I had one person.
I don't answer my phone a lotbecause it just rings off the hook.
Now if I recognize thenumber, I'll answer it.
If you leave a voicemail,I'll call you right back.
I get a call from somebody that says,is this property still available?
And I said, yes, it is.
Can I ask who I'm talkingto, and then I get this long.
You don't need to know who I am.
(16:59):
I'm a buyer.
You need to respond.
You're the listing agent,and I just don't respond.
And then I get two phone calls insuccession from this, this number.
I don't answer it because theywon't tell me who they are.
And then I get this long text.
All caps that he is going to reportme to the Department of Justice.
(17:19):
And basically he said, this isthe agent that's on your case.
And he basically just went online andpicked the head of the Department of
Justice, said that I'm reporting to this.
So kind of, you know, this is what somelisting agents might deal with now that.
Is not indicative of allwholesale buyers, right?
I've worked with really good wholesalebuyers and really good end buyers,
(17:41):
and they don't act like that.
But think about when you're a whitebelt and you're trying to get an arm bar
and you almost have it and you end upkicking somebody in the face by accident.
It's like you've gottagive people time to learn.
You know what I mean?
So the fact that somebody's calling methat because they're interested in my
client's property, that's awesome, andI'm gonna give you the time of day and
(18:01):
we're gonna try to work out a deal, but.
If you're gonna waste my time and threatenme, because you won't tell me your name.
I'm definitely gonna block your number.
You know what I mean?
I'm not gonna, I kind of get a chuckleoutta it, you know what I mean?
Or same property.
We got an offer for $0.
It was a $0 offer.
I've never had that before inalmost 24 years of real estate.
(18:23):
So I call the guy and I say,you know, the offers we have are
considerably higher than yours.
And I kind of chuckled a little bit totry to make, and he was not having it.
I don't think he wasunderstanding what I was doing.
He said, I started all ofmy, uh, offers at, uh, $0.
And I said, okay.
So I presented a $0 offer.
Now they did not get accounted.
Obviously because at that point we hadhad a good amount of offers in there.
(18:46):
And then the other thing was I gotthree offers from three different bird
dogs, from the same end buyer with thesame hard money loan commitment letter.
Hmm.
Three different people.
So I kind of was like, okay,somebody's probably doing training.
So I looked up the LLC, looked up in theArizona Corporation Commission, found
(19:07):
out who the end buyer was, and sureenough hooked up with him on Instagram.
And I said, Hey, can we talk?
And I just said, I just wanna let youknow I got three different offers from
three different, or your trainees.
He goes, I told them not to do that.
You gotta coordinate.
And I was like, dude, it's okay.
So then we end up hooking up togetherand now they're looking at my Instagram
(19:28):
account if we have any on market deals.
You know what I mean?
I think listing agents couldget a little bit frustrated.
Kind of dealing with that.
But number one, somebody's calling youfor something you're trying to sell.
You can't get mad atthat in, in my opinion.
And there's good there.
There's people that, I shouldn't saygood or bad, there's real estate agents
that are more educated than others, andthere's real estate agents that are not
(19:50):
more educated than others, you know, thatare not very educated in certain aspects.
Same thing with wholesale buyers,and same thing with investors.
That doesn't mean if you,if you give them a little.
Time in a little respect, you know,that might result in them buying one of
your client's properties down the road.
You know, I think as I get olderin the industry, I'm a little
more like, okay, you know, let's,let's see if we can help you out.
(20:11):
Let's see if we can getsomething going here.
And I, I, I just think, you know,a lot of agents, they just don't
understand kind of the wholesaleand the investing part of it.
We'll get some questions sometimeswhere somebody will put a message and
they'll say, Hey, has anybody used this?
LLC buyer, the agent just accepts thehighest offer because we'll get a lot
of properties that are on the market fora while and somebody will, a wholesale
(20:34):
buyer will put it on under contract forasking price, and that's probably not
gonna go through, you know what I mean?
They're, I think it, they might be slow,they just try to put it under contract
to see if they can assign it to somebody,if you know what they're trying to do.
You know what the after repair value is,you know what the market is and you know
that they're trying to make a littlebit of money on the assignment fee.
(20:56):
It can save your clients a lot oftime and it can save you as an agent
a lot of time and effort as well.
I enjoy this part of the business.
It's very fast, it's very competitive.
You know, as I get older, I, I'mnot competing on the maths as much.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but it's just another part ofreal estate and the way that real
estate is bought and sold is rapidlychanging if you're not up on leg locks.
(21:18):
To use a good analogy.
Somebody's gonna destroy you onthe mats, and if you're not up on
what wholesale buyers are tryingto do, you're gonna get left.
In the past, and I've, I've takena lot of these courses online and
everything, and they just, it's justlike open season on real estate agents.
To just bash real estate agents.
And I'm like, dude, I'mlike, I'll work with you.
(21:39):
You know, if it works for my clients.
And that's the funny thing too, isit's kind of like real estate agents
only care about their commission.
I'm like, well, yes, I, I don't work forfree, but you're also doing this to try to
make an assignment fee, so let's stop thiswhole real estate agents are terrible.
You know what I mean?
Now, some agents are easier to work withthan others, and I'm trying to, you know,
(22:02):
I think I'm starting to gain a reputationwhere I'll do a deal with somebody and
they're like, Hey, this was a great deal.
You, you, you werestraightforward with me.
And I'm like, the same goes for you.
You were straightforward with me.
Every deal's not gonna work out.
Just don't gimme a line of crap.
And that's kind of what happens a lotof the times with some of these buyers.
Um, I might get a bogus proof of funds.
(22:23):
You know, and, and I'm just like,Hey, listen, I need a full bank
statement or a hard money commitmentletter, and I'll get pushback on it.
It'll be a screenshot orit'll just be something.
And I mean, listen, you know how easy itis to get a hard money commitment letter.
I got one the other day just forthe hell of it, for $15 million.
You know what I mean?
It's, it's not, so I understand wherethat's coming from, you know, but if
(22:47):
you're not even gonna learn enough aboutit, kind of give me the information
I'm asking so that I can help my clientmake it, uh, an informed decision.
We're just not gonna work together.
You know?
What, what has been yourexperience kind of with.
From hearing wholesale buyers workingwith agents, is it kind of the same
thing where they're like, oh, theywon't gimme the time of day, or, or what
do you think if you have been kickingyourself that you didn't start investing
(23:09):
in real estate sooner, whether you'rebeginner, intermediate, or advanced,
any way you're looking to get it on aresidential, commercial, land development,
wholesale and fix and flu, whatever it is.
Let's find a way to get you involved insome projects, get you some properties,
whether you wanna sell some propertiesto me, whether you want to buy some
properties from me, whether residential,fix and flip, cash flow, multi-family,
whatever it is you're looking for.
Let's figure out a way to getyou involved or find a way for
(23:31):
us to partner up on some deals.
Reach out to me on any ofmy social media channels.
If you go on www.nic.com/links, you willsee all the different ways to connect
with me and figure out how we canstart to work together, make it happen.
Everybody that invests inreal estate always just says
they wish they did it sooner.
Best time to start is today.
Yeah.
You know, so I think itcomes down to, to both sides.
(23:53):
I, I always tell everybodythis is the dance we do.
Like you have to go, well, youknow, I call up and I'm like,
I'm a real estate investor.
And sometimes the agent's like, well,I don't like working with investors.
Why?
Well, a lot of 'em waste my time.
They gimme fake proof of funds.
They tie stuff up under contract,it falls through they low ball me.
And I go, great.
I work with agents all the time, andthe ones that I work with that do a good
job, they're worth their weight in gold.
(24:15):
Like so there's a lot of bad onesout there, like you're saying,
but there's a lot of great ones.
Just like there's a lot ofreally bad wholesalers, but
there's a lot of great ones.
Yeah, and I think we both see both sidesof that where your phone's ringing with
a bunch of people that waste your time.
So when they go.
Well, I get my timewasted by investors a lot.
I go, I get my timewasted by agents a lot.
Exactly.
We have to just go on the firstdate and hope that we are not the
people that waste each other's time.
(24:36):
Yeah, and I think as you said,that really comes from setting
the expectation up front.
I used to spend a lot of time, I.Trying to change agents' minds who
did not want to work with investors.
Yeah.
And then the second it came to, I put anoffer in below asking, they cursed me out.
They yell at me.
So I've started now, like when I geton the phone with somebody, if an
agent's like, yeah, I don't wannawork with investors, I go, why?
(24:57):
They go, 'cause investors are idiots.
They waste my time, and they'remorons and they're hard to deal with.
I go, great.
Is there anybody in the officethat maybe doesn't think I'm
a total waste of their time?
And yeah, they, they get methe new guy, you know, and
I'm like, I love the new guy.
He's not.
So I think it really is like, there'sgonna be agents that are just not
investor friendly and there's gonna bewholesalers that are just spending $99
for the year to go watch a YouTube course.
(25:17):
They're getting trained by peoplewho don't actually do deals and in.
Your market, dude, Phoenix is probablythe mecca of real estate wholesale gurus.
Yeah.
So you probably have morethere than anywhere, so I
cannot imagine what it's like.
But I think part of what you're sayingtoo is I think it's interesting because
I'm listening to you take people thatare maybe calling you and they're
(25:38):
aggressive and they're emotional.
And they really need a deal, or theyreally paid this money for this training
and they just want this to work.
Yeah.
And the second you start asking'em questions, they're not
prepared for what they don't like.
They get aggressive, theywon't give you their name.
And you being a juujitsu black belt,I think you're used to, when people
come at you with aggressive, you'reable to kind of like, Hey, hey, hey.
Here's why I'm doing this, and,and you stay calm in that chaos.
(26:00):
So I feel like most don't, theymeet aggression with aggression.
So I think you mm-hmm.
You know, kind of wrapping up thewhole premise here is I've always
been a big believer of, if you're easyto work with, I'm easy to work with.
If you're difficult to workwith, I'm difficult to work with.
Just kind of like, yep, you want totrain hard and beat each other up.
You want to beat me up,I'm gonna beat you up.
You wanna have a good time.
You wanna learn from eachother, we can do that.
(26:20):
So how much has maybe dealing withsome tough times or aggression or
problems on the mats helped you dealwith difficult people as an agent when
you're dealing with investors and noone kinda when to walk away or when to
turn it up, you can't judge a book byits cover first and foremost, because
there's been people that have comein that are 120 pounds soaking wet.
(26:43):
And they just mop the mats with you.
I remember, this is kind of aold story, so Ben was promoting
the first Pettus fight.
This was, I think 2010 maybe.
Just got my purple belt.
We go out to Vegas, he's doingpress and we're training and it
was the Faber Mki fight, so it wasthe second to last WEC fight ever.
And we had palms.
(27:04):
They put us up there.
We trained the wholeweekend with Dominic Cruz.
Um, we ended up going to Cobra HighJuujitsu, which was the old Mark
Layman gym in Vegas, but I don'tthink he was associated with it.
There.
It was Sim Go Simpson Go.
He is about 130 pounds and that's thefirst time I ever felt like real side
(27:27):
control pressure from somebody that small.
And he's like, oh, you're from Phoenix?
And I said, yeah, yeah.
He goes, oh, I compete in, uh, youknow, Gustavo Dantes tournament.
I go, oh, I do too.
I go, who'd you compete against?
And he goes, Hobson, Mora.
I was like, okay.
So Hobson, Mora is a multiple time oldschool Jiujitsu guys remember him, right?
First of all, it's, you can'tjudge somebody by their.
(27:47):
You just gotta take everybody who theyare, and then there's just gonna be some
people you just don't get along with.
I mean, we've got some verytalented grapplers at the lab.
I'm turning 50 next month.
If you're 280 pounds,we're not rolling together.
You know what I mean?
So, and, and it goes to the same asI get on in my real estate career.
I'm, Hey, listen, we're notmeshing together as clients.
(28:10):
We, we started off really good.
You know, the role was good.
You've elbowed me in the face fourtimes, figuratively speaking real
estate wise, it's just not working out.
So it took me about 20 years in realestate to start, you know, we'll go under
contract if it's a buyer, you know, we'regonna sign a buyer broker agreement.
If it's not working out or we'renot doing it, I am not gonna put
you in a head lot to work with me.
(28:30):
I'm like, Hey, I reallyappreciate the opportunity.
Here's your full unconditionalrelease from your, your contract.
You're free to use another agent.
I, I. Really appreciate the factthat you wanted to work with me.
It's just not working out.
So it's kind of, you gotta know whenit's gonna work out and when it's not.
You gotta cut your lossat a certain point.
Like, I'm not gonna hold onto thatKimora like you're, you know, forever.
(28:51):
Because the Kimora, if you holdonto it too long, it becomes,
they can use it against you.
So it's kind of the sameway with real estate.
It's, it's, it's really helped me be like,listen, you're not gonna win everything.
You're not gonna win every bull,but you're gonna learn something.
You're gonna learnsomething from every client.
It's like, Hey, you know what?
This is something that the clientsaid and that maybe, and then I could
(29:12):
have maybe handled that differently.
I could have maybe educated them a littlebit different, or I could have maybe
seen that we might not be compatibleas client broker, you know what I mean?
So it not being afraid to saylike, Hey, this isn't working out.
We can't work together, andthat's okay because I'm not
gonna roll with everybody either.
It's just not, how old are you?
(29:32):
43. 44. Somewhere around there.
So you're, you're, you're still there.
You know what I'm saying?
But like, it's just one of those thingsthat's kind of learning from everybody.
Like I'll talk to anybody.
You know what I mean?
Just like I said, I'll talkto any investor that calls.
As soon as I figure out that you'regonna elbow me in the face, we're
probably not gonna talk anymore.
Yeah.
Or I'm gonna be like, Hey,let's start over again.
Let's pretend I know what I'm doing.
(29:53):
Okay.
And I've done that a coupletimes and I'm like, listen,
I, it sounds like you're new.
Let's just reintroduceourselves and see what happens.
And, and sometimes it's workedand sometimes it doesn't.
But, you know, I certainly don't wanna benegative and, you know, discourage anybody
from trying to be a wholesale person.
'cause it is hard.
I mean, everybody, we've gotprobably 10 people at the lab
since Covid hit and they're alllike, get my real estate license.
(30:16):
I'm like, oh cool.
Where are you gonna hang your license?
They're like, I'm gonna wholesale.
They're all wholesaling.
So like there's business foreverybody, you know what I mean?
So learning how to work together, it,it's just gonna benefit everybody.
Just like you said, a lot of agentshave a bad rep, you know, they don't
wanna work with wholesalers or, anda lot of wholesalers, like this agent
was a real, you know, a-hole to me,so I don't wanna work with them.
(30:38):
Yeah.
But.
You just gotta try, you know?
Yeah.
And, and I don't know, I'm justkind of rambling on about that.
No, it's good stuff, man.
It's good stuff.
I, I know we're getting a littletight on time, but I, yeah.
There's two things that Idefinitely wanna make sure, yes.
We talk about one of them being probate.
Yes.
And the other one is a lot of peoplesay, Hey Nick, there's, there's no good.
Deals on market and mm-hmm.
I think the first three or four yearsin my business, all I did was work
(31:00):
with investor friendly real estateagents that found me great deals.
And so I think, like you're saying, andpart of what you just said, I thought
was fantastic because I tell people thatwhen they first start out, they start
calling a bunch of real estate agentsthat are on the first page of Google
and they say, Hey, I'm a wholesaler.
And they discourage themfrom doing that business.
And I'm like, both of 'em are hard.
Like they're upset because theirjob's hard, but like everybody's
(31:23):
just trying to make money.
And I think the fact that even ifsomebody's not for you, you don't tell
them this doesn't work and you don'tdiscourage them, you're doing them a huge
service because they, they gotta learn.
And when they're new, yougotta figure that out.
And just keeping that like,Hey, just because we're not
working together doesn't, it'sthe same thing with Jiujitsu.
You can go to a Jiujitsu gym.
And maybe that Juujitsu gym isn'tright for you, but that doesn't
(31:43):
mean that you shouldn't do Juujitsu.
So my big question here isfor people that are listening
and they're getting into this.
And they're intimidated to call realestate agents and they're new and
they think that you're not gonnawork with them 'cause they're new.
It's usually because they're notputting the right expectation
or they're not being honest.
So for your side of it, for investorsthat are listening right now, what
are some things on your side of itthat they could be doing or saying?
(32:05):
That would make them easier towork with or make agents more open
to working with a new investor?
I would say just being honest.
You know?
Just saying like, Hey listen,I'm pretty new at this now.
Not everybody's gonna react that way,but that goes a long way with me.
If I ask if it's hard money or cash, I.
And you say both.
I said, okay, where areyou getting your funding?
Like just tell me, Hey, I getmy hard money funding here.
(32:27):
I have an actual way toto do cash deal as well.
But if you're gonna wholesale it, justtell me, just be honest, because I'll hear
from other agents in the office and I gotthis cash deal and I said, send me the
proof of funds and it's a hard money loan.
And I'm like, that's not cash.
It kind of goes both ways.
Maybe the, the wholesale buyer is newenough where they don't know where
they, they can say that, and thenthe real estate agent doesn't know
(32:49):
that that's not cash, you know, sothe offer is written and a lot of
real estate agents that representwholesale buyers don't know that.
They'll say, cash, and then I'll get it.
And I'm like, but that's not cash.
Which is okay, but it's a loan.
It's a, it's a short term loan.
So I think it's just being honest andit's not gonna work with everybody.
(33:10):
You know what I mean?
Some people, no matter what you're gonnado, they're just gonna hang up on you.
There's people like mewho won't hang up on you.
You know what I mean?
I'm looking to get a pool of, youknow, Hey, here's some buyers.
I have a distressed property here.
We're gonna put it on the market.
I can reach out to these buyers.
Let's see what's going on.
But it's also the agent kind ofknowing what they're doing as well.
(33:33):
You wanna pick somebody that's like,okay, I know what you're trying to do.
I can tell by what the RV is, whatthe list price is, and what, what
the contract is and how it's writtenif, if there's a high probability
about it going through now, that tooka long time to get to that point.
But I think if you're aninvestor, just be honest.
Not everybody likes me.
You know what I mean?
(33:53):
Not everybody hires me to sell theirprobate properties, and that's fine.
There's plenty of deals out there.
It's just don't give up.
You gotta drill those arm bars.
Yay.
You've gotta show up.
It's not who's best, it's who's last.
The longer you're in this game,the more chances you have of.
Getting a deal and then figuring it outand then cultivating these relationships
(34:13):
with agents and or other buyers.
You know, it's a fantastic answer, man.
I love that.
And again, I'll tell people as muchas investors beat up agents, the
ones that are willing to play ball,I would not be in this business
right now if I didn't find investorfriendly agents like yourself.
Mm-hmm.
That were willing to work withme and put my offers out and.
They knew they were gonna have towrite a lot of offers to get them,
but over the course of the year,we closed 10, 15, 20, 25 deals.
(34:36):
Yeah.
And a lot of it, like I keep sayingis that first date, it's kind of
like, am I actually gonna put in anyoffers that are worth your time that
are gonna get accepted this year?
And then it becomes like, areyou gonna have the patience
to work this out with me?
Mm-hmm.
And when you can find that, like over thecourse of the year, you will make money.
And you know, I think, uh.
Another interesting question here isfrom your perspective, I deal with
a lot of people where I go, look,this is what your house is worth.
(34:58):
Like I can tell you rightnow in this condition, I sold
a house around the block.
You're not gonna get more than two 50.
You want two 90 and the houseyou're comping it against is a
bigger, nicer house than yours.
Like, not gonna happen.
But then they go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But this real estate agent told me theycould sell it for three 50 in 30 days and
they just wanna believe this bigger price.
And I go, send me the listingthat they're comping that against.
(35:18):
They go, it took themnine months to sell that.
They had to drop the price,80,000 like so you also have
an obligation to your seller.
So as an agent.
Is there a happy medium there?
Because I would think that sometimesyou don't want to go to your seller
and be like, look, you're gonna have tosell this at a discount to an investor.
Because then they might go, yeah,but the other agent around the
block told me they can get more.
(35:38):
Now.
You know, they're not gonna get more,but the person that's giving you
the listing is gonna wanna believewhatever the highest price is.
So how do you deal withthat on the investment side?
For agents that are listening to this andthey're like, well, I want the listing.
But if I tell 'em I'm gonna have tosell it below market, they're not
gonna gimme the list and they'regonna give to somebody and then maybe
in nine months they call you backand they go, Chris, you were right.
This happened to me last year.
(35:59):
Okay.
This exact same scenario.
Okay.
And I'm just gonna go back to, it's justwhat I expect from investors I work with.
I expect honesty.
I'm not gonna inflatethe price of the home.
So I go into this house, it's in SunCity, so it's a retirement community here.
So.
Sometimes investors don't like to gointo that community 'cause there's an
immediate $5,000 capital preservationfee that you pay immediately.
(36:22):
So that cuts into what you're gonna make.
Okay?
So I go into the property.
It's not a hoarding situation, but there'stons of personal property in there.
Comp it out, meet with the client, say.
This is what your houselooks like, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
I would price it at 2 25.
It's probably gonna sell between 202 10.
Don't do anything to the house becausewhen I was there, I did a video, sent
(36:46):
it to my, uh, personal property removalcompany, and the guy goes, that's gonna
cost you $15,000 to trash that out.
So she goes, well, I got anotheragent who just said it's worth 2 99 9.
Why would it be that?
That high.
And I said, okay.
He or she doesn't know what they'redoing or they're trying to do
what's called buying your listing.
They're trying to tell you whatyou want to hear and then they're
gonna work you down on the price.
(37:06):
Mm-hmm.
So we sit there and we look at properties.
We went across the street to a, ahome that was priced at 2 99 9, and I
said, does this look like your house?
She goes, no, it doesn't.
Okay.
It's not worth 2 99.
Still hires the agent for 2 99.
Pays $15,000 to trash out theproperty and a whole bunch of other
work to it, which was not gonna doanything to the her bottom line.
(37:28):
It's just gonna take money outta herpocket four months later in a hot market.
What's it sell at 200,000?
Exactly.
Where I told her was, and they probablypaid another $20,000 to get that done.
Now I can.
Shoot my shot.
I can set up thatsubmission the best I can.
If they don't tap to it orthey don't, they don't agree to
it, there's nothing I can do.
Like I said, I'm gonna tell everybody,I'm not gonna put you in a headline
(37:49):
to try to get you to do business.
I'm gonna present all the data to you.
It's up to you in the end.
I firmly believe this is what it is.
I'm gonna show you in black and white thecomps, and then we're gonna go from there.
Some people are receptiveto it, some people aren't.
You just gotta keep doingyour reps. That's it.
That's a great answer, man.
And one of the, the final thingshere, kind of as we're wrapping
up is, I know you're golden gooseright now is you're excited about
listing probates and I mm-hmm.
(38:10):
I don't know if I've had anybody onthat's been doing that, but explain
a little bit of that process.
'cause from what I understand, I've donea bunch of probates in the past, but I
haven't done them directly with the owner.
They go through the probate process andthen the family hires an agent like you.
Correct.
And then I wind up buying it fromthe agent and usually they're
at that point a year or two inand they understand like, hey.
We're doing this forspeed and convenience.
(38:30):
We just wanna make our moneyand call it a day, and that's
usually where the deals happen.
But, so talk a little bit about yourrole in the probate process and why
investors might want to be looking at thattoday to potentially get a great deal.
You know, what happens is I have apretty good network of attorneys,
fiduciary companies, estate sales, and,and, and my name's kind of getting out
there with, Hey, if you need some helpand you're a personal representative
(38:50):
and don't know what you're doing,you, you know, you're gonna get.
A ton of people coming at youat once and I kind of do a
little bit of extra added stuff.
I'll go ahead and coordinate estate sales.
We'll ship stuff acrossthe country to people.
We'll do anything that's needed andthat's all included in that service.
There's no extra fees or anythinglike that, so I get a lot of my deals
from referrals, from past clients,attorneys, I've worked with, stuff
(39:11):
like that, and every deal is different.
I've had some deals where there'snothing that needs to be done.
The home is spotless.
You just list it as another one.
I've had one where it wasdown in Tui, south Phoenix.
It's a real nice area down there.
Had to ship a car to New York, hadto ship a car to Seattle, had to
ship half of the house, pack it up,get professional movers, pack it up,
(39:32):
ship it to Seattle, and then get ridof the rest of the furniture inside.
So each one is different.
So every deal is different.
You kind of go in sometimesyou're like, yeah, we can do this.
You know it, it's howdo you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
So a lot of times these personal reps,they're dealing with a loss in their
life and then they're just like, Idon't know what to do with this house.
(39:53):
And then, you know, that's whereI kind of come in and can help.
Now the other thing toois just one last thing.
I got a call from somebody on thatlast deal and the guy goes, you know, I
don't even want to tell you the offer.
It's so low.
And I said, then like, I kind ofjoked and I'm like, why did you call?
You know, it's like, okay, itjust tell me what you wanna offer.
And he goes, I wanna offer this.
I go, okay, that's fine.
(40:13):
Just be honest.
Just tell me what you wanna offer.
Because I prep my clients.
The highest offer's, notnecessarily the best.
And it depends, do you need thismoney fast or do you have time?
All that goes into whoit's gonna get sold to.
And a lot of times if you need that moneyfast, the wholesale route or somebody
who's gonna flip it is the best wayto do it, and that's the best way to
(40:33):
maximize what my client's gonna get.
It's gonna work out for the investor too.
It's just kind of a case by case basis.
It's a really enjoyable process becausepeople, they need help and they're being
overwhelmed by people and it's just like,Hey, I can help you with these people.
I can help you ship all thisstuff and, and everything.
So it's kind of a probateconcierge idea and stuff like that.
And, and the probate processin Arizona is very fast.
(40:55):
It's not like other stateswhere it can take years.
It, it's a very fast process in Arizona.
That's very cool, man.
I've done a bunch of deals in Arizona.
I think it's a great state and obviouslythe prices have gone up forever.
People always retire.
Yeah.
There and you know, so there'salways gonna be, I think, a
pretty strong market there.
I tell everybody, you guys have abuilt-in buyers pool known as California.
Yes.
Where every week somebody's like, I'mso sick of California, move to Arizona.
So there's always gonna begreat opportunities there.
(41:17):
And I think the key isfinding great people to work
with on those opportunities.
And I think you are somebodythat everybody should be looking
at as a massive resource there.
Especially, there's so many people thatdo remote investing, and what I tell them
is, you don't have to be an expert onan area, but you need somebody who is.
And these little things that you're goinginto like, Hey, in this area you gotta pay
an extra $15,000 for preservation fees.
(41:37):
Or this is like that.
Local knowledge is so importantand a good real estate agent
that has that is invaluable.
So for people listening, ifthey're saying, you know what?
I wanna get in the real estate game.
I wanna find investor friendly agents,and I wanna maybe even invest in Arizona.
How can people work with you more,find more of what you're doing, hear
some of your analogies, or maybeeven just learn juujitsu from you.
Or both.
(41:57):
I'm redoing all myprospecting social media.
So I have just a small Instagram account.
It's AZ letter a z probate real estate.
Uh, that's on Instagram.
My email is chris@bjjbroker.com.
And, uh, if you wanna learn some,uh, jiujitsu from really cool
fighters and uh, have a greattime with the family, it's at.
(42:18):
The M ma lab.com.
Very cool man.
I have had a great experience over there.
You and I are definitely overdue to getsome lunch and to share some mat time.
For sure man.
Uh, again, you're known as the detailguy, so I'm obsessed with the details
later and uh, it's funny, I didn'trealize that you had a similar journey
for New York, Chicago, and Arizona.
You know, I started out in New York.
You went to Binghamton?
I went to SUNY Albany.
(42:38):
Okay.
And, uh, it's funny 'cause I'm wearingthe Matt Sarah shirt who fought Frank
Trig and Frank Trig came up in the thing.
And you know, Chicago,I'm out here now, man.
So we have a lot of similarities and.
There's a lot of things that wedidn't even get to yet that I would
love to have more of a conversationwith you on the agent's perspective
so we can start to bridge thatgap between agents and investors.
Mm-hmm.
And really start to set those expectationsso everybody can work together, man.
(42:59):
So I would love to have you onfor report two at some point.
That'd be awesome.
Thank you so much.
It was a great time.
This has been awesome, man.
You sir, bring your A game toeverything you do on and off
the mats in life in business.
And this interview has been no different.
You definitely push your A gameto the A Game podcast today.
Sir, any final thoughts before Ilet you go about your busy day?
Keep drilling.
White belt mentality, black belt results.
Thank you so much.
(43:19):
Krista Brickey, thank you forcoming on the A Game podcast today.
Have an awesome day served.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Welcome to the A Gamepodcast with Nick Lamonia.
Digging into the minds and experiences ofsome of today's brightest entrepreneurs
in real estate and business, alongwith Hollywood Stars, UFC fighters
and your favorite rock bands, peoplethat have figured out how to over.
Come obstacles, take chances.
Live boldly.
And no matter what they do,they always bring their A game.
(00:48):
Alright, my guest today, theA Game podcast is Chris Zub.
Ricke came highly recommended.
From the one and only, only BenardSmooth Henderson of the MMA lab.
And Chris is the broker, BJJ Black Belt.
So he checks all the boxes for thispodcast, of course, as a jujitsu
guy and a real estate guy, and awhite belt mentality with the black
belt strategy and skill level.
(01:09):
And this is the A Game podcast, thereal estate investing for entrepreneurs.
And the whole point of this podcast isto show ordinary people every day that
they can achieve extraordinary things.
Just the 350 plus episodeswe've already done with some of
the top athletes, performers.
Business people and entertainersin the world, you can go back into
those and see the path that they havelaid out for themselves to achieve
amazing things and their highestpotential and hit their goals in life.
(01:31):
In business, you can also look backand see the things they did wrong, so
you do not have to make those mistakes.
And if in those 350 episodes youcannot find somebody to tell you
how to get where you want to go.
We have another bangertoday with Chris Rikke.
Now guy is hitting 50 on the matsevery day and always still learning.
And what I like about this is thefirst perspective of somebody who is
not only investor friendly, but he'son the agent side so he can pass on
(01:53):
some of the lessons and things likethat that we've learned in the past
for guys that do juujitsu or fight orcompete in athletics on a high level.
And some of the disciplines thatthey bring over into their business.
But what I like about this isthe mentality of always learning.
And instead of working againstinvestors, he's constantly trying
to educate himself so he can figureout and understand what they're
doing and try and bridge those gaps.
And we finally have somebody on thisweek that can really be somebody
(02:15):
who brings both sides of this.
To listen to about how an agent thinksabout wholesalers or investors and some of
the things they get and some of the thingsthey hear from their side that maybe we
don't really take into consideration,and some of the things on maybe our
side that we can educate them on.
And what I really feel like is this opensup a lot of communication for people.
Try to figure out how todo more deals that are.
(02:37):
On market, get some things or havesome investor friendly agents and
how to figure out how to get themto want to work with you instead of
work against you, which will bringway more deals into your pocket.
If you can figure out how tofigure out leveraging real estate
investor friendly agents like Chris.
It will absolutely put more deals in yourpipeline and more money in your pocket.
(02:58):
I think I said there in the episode,for the first few years I ever did this
business, all I did was work with investorfriendly agents and do on market deals.
And you hear people say they don'twork, but you can find people to help
you work 'em and get great deals.
And Chris talks all about how to do that.
So fantastic episode for anybodybeginning, intermediate or advanced
in their real estate journey tofigure out how to get some good
agents and some good on marketproperties, including some probate.
(03:19):
In your pocket.
So a lot of really coolstuff we talk about there.
Chris goes deep into what it's likeon his side and gives you guys some
takeaways that you can start doing rightaway to get some deals in your pocket.
And of course, the only fee forthe show is to please subscribe
anywhere you get your podcast.
Please search for the A Gamepodcast, real Estate Investing for
entrepreneurs with Nick La Mania.
And if you cannot find it on any of theplaces you search like YouTube, Spotify.
(03:41):
Or Apple Podcasts.
All you need to do isgo to www.nicknik.com.
That is www.nik.com/links L-I-N-K-S, andyou will see all the ways to find us.
And of course, you willalso see us on social media.
Please interact with us on social media.
I cannot ask it enough if you guysare scrolling anyway on social media.
(04:01):
Just connect with us on any of ourplatforms, whether it's Twitter,
Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and theway that Chris tells other people.
He had a great experience here.
And have them come on and tell their tale.
For free for you guys is just forhim to see that you guys got value.
So like share, post, subscribe, interact,ask a question, tag a friend, whatever
it might be when I post the clips onthis episode, and of course the big thing
(04:22):
here is I want to do deals together.
So either message me the words realestate on any of my social media
platforms or just text me the wordsreal estate 2 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3.
That is 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3,and we can start a conversation.
I will personally reach out to you andwe can talk about if you would let to.
Bye.
An investment property from me.
Sell an investment property to me or finda way to partner on deals on some level.
(04:46):
So thank you so much for Chris coming on.
Thanks Benson Henderson for linking us up.
Thank you guys for supportingthe A Game podcast.
Go buy some real estate, go dosome Jiujitsu and have a fan.
Fantastic day.
Thank you.
All right.
My guest today on the A Game podcastis a jujitsu black belt who has.
Fumbled through all the bad times tolearn how to do tough things and focusing
(05:08):
on the details because in business weknow that the dollars and the details
that he trains alongside the world.
Famous Benson Henderson andteaches Juujitsu at the MMA lab
in Glendale, Arizona, and he isalso a black belt in real estate.
He's been doing stuff on the brokerside and has also been having a
white belt mentality to educatehimself on the investor side.
And has found a niche in listing probatesand learning how to deal with investors
(05:29):
so we can basically help us at both ends.
So we're coming out today with a veryunique, interesting perspective on the
other side of the fence, for somebody whocan take some of the lessons for Jiujitsu
and learn how to have an open mentalityto work with everybody, I. Monetize his
business and always grow and always learn.
He comes very highly recommendedfrom the One and only.
Benson Henderson, I've heardnothing but great things about him.
Please welcome to the A Gamepodcast, the BJJ broker, Chris Zub.
(05:53):
Welcome sir. Thank youso much for having me on.
It's pleasure, dude.
I'm really excited to have you on.
As I was telling you before we startedrecording, I had so many compliments.
From Benson Henderson about howgreat you were with details.
And immediately I waslike, man, with juujitsu.
Like when I go and I travel and I tryand find like the best black belt in
the area, they don't gimme big things.
They gimme these little tiny adjustmentsto these things, and those little
(06:14):
things make such a huge difference.
And in real estate, I telleverybody it's not what you
know, it's what you don't know.
It's these little things that you don'tcatch that you only know from experience
that can cost you a ton of money.
So the second I heard that you were adetail guy, a real estate guy, a jujitsu
guy, I was like, man, this is my guy.
So I had to have you on.
So for somebody who maybe isn't ahundred percent familiar with your
story yet, can you update the audienceon who you are and where you came from?
(06:35):
Sure.
I, um, was born and raisedin East Rochester, New York.
I. Which is in western New York,in between Buffalo and Syracuse.
Grew up playing sportsand everything like that.
Big wrestling town.
Sadly, I was an average wrestler, wasable to, you know, kind of love the sport.
Never translated into competitionsuccess and that's kind of
what got me into Jiujitsu.
Went to college, uh, SUNY Binghamton,graduated from SUNY Buffalo, moved out to
(07:00):
Chicago for a while as a system analyst.
Yeah, met, met a friend of minethat moved to Phoenix, so like,
Hey, you wanna do real estate?
And I was just.
Really tired of sitting behinda desk for 90 hours a week.
So in 2001, I think it was October1st, 2001, moved to Arizona, did a 90
hour broker course, and was licensedin November, 2001, ready to go.
(07:20):
And, uh, just like anything else,you know, you're a white belt.
In jujitsu, you're a white beltin, in real estate as well.
You gotta kind of fumble aroundand make mistakes and, and
figure out what's going on.
And then kind of fast forward tomarket falls apart in 2006 and
seven, everything freezes up.
I've got a little extra time onmy hand and super outta shape.
250 pounds smoking cigarsevery day at a cigar bar.
(07:42):
And I drive by and there's this bigsign on this building that says,
makes martial arts training sign.
And that was the lab.
And, you know, really, really nervous.
Walked in there not knowing what toexpect, got the whole, you know, rundown
of what they train and everything.
And then took my first class thenext day, and then that was it.
And I'm still doing it today.
So that was February, 2007.
(08:04):
I started jiujitsu.
And, uh, still going strong.
A little less strong as I getcloser, closer to 50 and everything.
But Ben sent a lot of nice thingsabout me, but my introduction to
Ben was the first jiujitsu coachat the lab was not John Crouch.
It was a guy named Kendall Goo.
I think he was a hoist black belt,but trained mostly under sen. And
(08:24):
then Crouch came in about ninemonths later to run the MMA team.
And I had just gotten my bluebelt and he comes with this
guy with real long hair and.
Glasses.
And he's like, well, Ben'sjust gotten his blue belt.
Why don't you guys roll together?
And that was kind of the beginning oflike, wow, this guy's kind of special.
You know, when you get your blue belt,you think you kind of know everything.
You're like, oh, I'm, I got this now.
(08:45):
And then some, you know, divisionone or division, or I think it
was an NAI wrestler two, likea runner up, or All American.
Just comes and destroys you.
And that was kind of the beginning of thefriendship of, you know, Benson and I, I
think he was one in one or two in one asa pro at that point, and then crouching
him, moved to Arizona and then everythingjust kind of blew up from there.
(09:07):
That's very cool, man.
There's always been some bubbling upof like MMA or Juujitsu in my life.
When I wrestled in highschool, one of the guys that.
Our high school wrestleagainst was Frank Trig.
Ah.
So Frank Trig was a local guy fromRochester who fought in the UFC
for a while and is now a MMA ref.
I think a lot of people know himas a ref now, but they don't know
how good of a fighter he was.
I think Mark Kerr was a camp counselorof mine at the Gene Mills pinning
(09:31):
camp in Syracuse University whenthey still had a wrestling program.
'cause that's when hewrestled or where he wrestled.
And then when I was at SUNYBinghamton, this was 93 to 94.
Sky would come to our dorm and show theGracie and action videos and he is like,
you know, I train in Torrance, Californiaand turns out fast forward, that's 1994.
I don't think anything about it.
2007, 2008, crouch comes into townand he is showing pictures of him
(09:53):
training at the Gracie Academy and.
That was the person, his good friendJohn Burke from Orlando, Florida.
I think he's at six levels, juujitsu,who came to my dorm in 1994 to
try to get people interested.
So there's always been like thisbubbling up Juujitsu or MMA in my life.
Now, I've never fought or anything likethat, but I've done a ton of Juujitsu
training with pretty high level.
(10:14):
MA fighters and stuff likethat, and it kind of merged
into, you know, real estate.
You have a little bit more flexibleschedule and can kind of, you know,
play around with your schedule andthe two just kind of merge together.
But there's a lot of things that I'vetaken from the mats that have helped
me in my real estate career too.
You know, it's, don't get fancy withstuff, you know, just do the basics.
You know, I tried my hand at lapelguard and all these things and it's,
(10:37):
it's good to know it, but if it doesn'tkind of fit into what you're trying to
do, it's good to have that knowledge.
So you Yes, I know whatyou're doing right there.
So, um, and then one of the things thatI've been doing now is I voluntarily
took over the kids program at the lab.
So, and I know a lot of peoplelike your face right there.
It's just like, what is wrong with you?
(11:00):
I, I turned 50 this year and comingup on 19 years in Jiujitsu and
coming home at nine 30 at nightafter teaching classes and training
is, is just, just kind of gets old.
So one of my motivations for takingover the kids program was having
more time with my wife at night andjust not coming home at like nine 30
or 10 at night every single night.
And it, it's been great.
One of the reasons I got into Jiujitsu isbecause I was very disappointed in how I
(11:23):
would compete in high school and I justwould get on the mat and just not engage.
So I always promised myself thatif I did anything physical or
anything competitive that I wouldjust not half-ass it or be afraid.
It's just go do it.
You know what I mean?
Just get out there and tryyour best and let it fly.
It doesn't matter if you lose.
Um, and I think that's one of thethings that's kind of translated
into real estate as well.
You know, we talked previouslybefore is I'm kind of re scrubbing.
(11:46):
All my prospecting and gonna getinto social media and some YouTube
videos, and it's, I'm not worriedabout being perfect, you know?
Perfect is the enemy of good.
We're just gonna put it out there.
And that's what I try to tell my studentstoo, is these kids are like, well, I
don't want to do it and get submitted.
I'm like, no, I want you to get submitted.
You need to go out and getsubmitted as many times as you can.
I'm gonna, you know.
(12:06):
Prospect as much as I can and getsubmitted by nos as much as I can too.
But you just can't stop.
You know, one of the sayings in Jiujitsuis it's not who's best, it's who's last.
You know, I think Chris Hower saidthat he's one of the dirty dozen out
in California, the first AmericanBlack belts, and it's just, there
were guys that would just absolutelydestroy me on the mats at Blue Belt.
And at Purple Belt and at Brown Belt,and they just, you know, life gets
(12:29):
in the way, something changes and,and they just don't do it anymore.
And you just gotta keep doing it.
And, and that's one of the things thatI've taken off the mats from real estate
too, is you just gotta keep going.
You know, just keep doing, stickto your plan, stick to your
prospecting, go from there.
And in addition to that, a lotof it is educating yourself and
things you don't know about.
Which I am starting to fall into moreof a listing, probate properties on
(12:54):
market, probate deals, and if you'renot used to the type of buyers in
that sphere, you might just be like,oh, I don't wanna do this anymore.
So you've gotta reach out andeducate yourself on what's going on.
One of the things that hashelped is podcasts like yours is.
Especially the real estate industryhas changed a lot since Covid and
what we're seeing in the Phoenixmetro area is there's, the wholesaling
(13:17):
activity has just exploded.
I'm sure that's everywhere.
And the way that people buy realestate is different as well.
You know, I would list a propertythat maybe wasn't, you know, needed
a lot of work, and then I'd getall these strange offers like.
You know, you get a, a hard moneycommitment letter and, and, or you
get people with creative financingand it's like, what is this stuff?
And that, that startedhappening kind of 2016, 2017.
(13:39):
You know, I kind of put myself out thereas I'm an investor friendly listing agent.
Like I'll talk to everybody nomatter how strange the phone call is.
The only thing I ask as a realestate agent with on market deals
is that you're honest with me.
Okay, so this is kind of a, like wewere talking about before, maybe getting
a view of what it's like as a listingagent on market to work with wholesale
(14:04):
buyers or end buyers for that matter.
And then how can I use that tobenefit my clients and to get the
deal done quickly depending onwhat the estate's situation is.
You know, uh, what I was sayingbefore is I had just put a a
on market property on about.
I think it was about three weeks ago,a state was struggling with some funds.
(14:26):
You know, they're getting theinvestor offers and they reached
out to me and said, Hey, you know,what do you think the home is worth?
What can be done about it?
We don't have a ton of money to dothis, but we'd like some representation.
Go take a look at the property, figureout what the A RV value is or a RV
is, this is, and then come up witha target list price and then prepare
my client for what the range of.
(14:46):
Offers is gonna be okay becausethis one was definitely gonna
be more of a wholesale dealjust because of the condition.
Prepared my client for what it wasgonna look like, what we're gonna list
it at, how to prepare the property, ifthere's any preparation needed, and then
what they should expect in terms of,uh, realistic offers from investors.
Now, obviously if we can get anend buyer, that's great too, but
(15:08):
this property just did not, itwouldn't qualify for financing.
It was either gonna haveto be cash or hard money.
Got the deal wrapped up real quick.
I think it was three weeksfrom listing to sale.
Estate got their money.
It was sold to a wholesaleinvestor who did reassign it.
But my clients were prepared for thatbecause when you know you get the
final settlement statement, you seea little bit of a reassignment fee.
(15:31):
Where the buyer ends upselling it to someone else.
And that's okay.
And, and the, the thing is though, isthere's a cost that sometimes that the
estate has to pay to get that money fast.
Now they definitely got more money if Iwasn't involved, I think, in my opinion.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
They had somebody who wasguiding 'em through the process.
It was still assigned, therewas still an assignment fee and
(15:52):
investors still did make money.
So everybody's happy.
My client got as much money as they could.
They got it as quickly as possible, and.
We assessed the house and figuredout what needed to be done and
more importantly, what did not needto be done, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
'cause uh, you know, a lot of times,and I don't know what it is, with
some agents, I, I'll have propertiesthat, you know, there might be
(16:14):
tons of personal debris in there.
I'm still gonna do professional photos.
We're still gonna do full marketingfor it so that the end buyers
know what they're getting into.
When I fly the drone, I have 'em flyit low over the house so they can see
the condition of the roof, let's flyit around the air conditioner and it
just saves everybody a lot of time.
Opinion there was something in the waterwith this past property because, you know,
white belt mentality, I can, there's a lotof people getting into wholesaling now.
(16:38):
I had one person.
I don't answer my phone a lotbecause it just rings off the hook.
Now if I recognize thenumber, I'll answer it.
If you leave a voicemail,I'll call you right back.
I get a call from somebody that says,is this property still available?
And I said, yes, it is.
Can I ask who I'm talkingto, and then I get this long.
You don't need to know who I am.
(16:59):
I'm a buyer.
You need to respond.
You're the listing agent,and I just don't respond.
And then I get two phone calls insuccession from this, this number.
I don't answer it because theywon't tell me who they are.
And then I get this long text.
All caps that he is going to reportme to the Department of Justice.
(17:19):
And basically he said, this isthe agent that's on your case.
And he basically just went online andpicked the head of the Department of
Justice, said that I'm reporting to this.
So kind of, you know, this is what somelisting agents might deal with now that.
Is not indicative of allwholesale buyers, right?
I've worked with really good wholesalebuyers and really good end buyers,
(17:41):
and they don't act like that.
But think about when you're a whitebelt and you're trying to get an arm bar
and you almost have it and you end upkicking somebody in the face by accident.
It's like you've gottagive people time to learn.
You know what I mean?
So the fact that somebody's calling methat because they're interested in my
client's property, that's awesome, andI'm gonna give you the time of day and
(18:01):
we're gonna try to work out a deal, but.
If you're gonna waste my time and threatenme, because you won't tell me your name.
I'm definitely gonna block your number.
You know what I mean?
I'm not gonna, I kind of get a chuckleoutta it, you know what I mean?
Or same property.
We got an offer for $0.
It was a $0 offer.
I've never had that before inalmost 24 years of real estate.
(18:23):
So I call the guy and I say,you know, the offers we have are
considerably higher than yours.
And I kind of chuckled a little bit totry to make, and he was not having it.
I don't think he wasunderstanding what I was doing.
He said, I started all ofmy, uh, offers at, uh, $0.
And I said, okay.
So I presented a $0 offer.
Now they did not get accounted.
Obviously because at that point we hadhad a good amount of offers in there.
(18:46):
And then the other thing was I gotthree offers from three different bird
dogs, from the same end buyer with thesame hard money loan commitment letter.
Hmm.
Three different people.
So I kind of was like, okay,somebody's probably doing training.
So I looked up the LLC, looked up in theArizona Corporation Commission, found
(19:07):
out who the end buyer was, and sureenough hooked up with him on Instagram.
And I said, Hey, can we talk?
And I just said, I just wanna let youknow I got three different offers from
three different, or your trainees.
He goes, I told them not to do that.
You gotta coordinate.
And I was like, dude, it's okay.
So then we end up hooking up togetherand now they're looking at my Instagram
(19:28):
account if we have any on market deals.
You know what I mean?
I think listing agents couldget a little bit frustrated.
Kind of dealing with that.
But number one, somebody's calling youfor something you're trying to sell.
You can't get mad atthat in, in my opinion.
And there's good there.
There's people that, I shouldn't saygood or bad, there's real estate agents
that are more educated than others, andthere's real estate agents that are not
(19:50):
more educated than others, you know, thatare not very educated in certain aspects.
Same thing with wholesale buyers,and same thing with investors.
That doesn't mean if you,if you give them a little.
Time in a little respect, you know,that might result in them buying one of
your client's properties down the road.
You know, I think as I get olderin the industry, I'm a little
more like, okay, you know, let's,let's see if we can help you out.
(20:11):
Let's see if we can getsomething going here.
And I, I, I just think, you know,a lot of agents, they just don't
understand kind of the wholesaleand the investing part of it.
We'll get some questions sometimeswhere somebody will put a message and
they'll say, Hey, has anybody used this?
LLC buyer, the agent just accepts thehighest offer because we'll get a lot
of properties that are on the market fora while and somebody will, a wholesale
(20:34):
buyer will put it on under contract forasking price, and that's probably not
gonna go through, you know what I mean?
They're, I think it, they might be slow,they just try to put it under contract
to see if they can assign it to somebody,if you know what they're trying to do.
You know what the after repair value is,you know what the market is and you know
that they're trying to make a littlebit of money on the assignment fee.
(20:56):
It can save your clients a lot oftime and it can save you as an agent
a lot of time and effort as well.
I enjoy this part of the business.
It's very fast, it's very competitive.
You know, as I get older, I, I'mnot competing on the maths as much.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but it's just another part ofreal estate and the way that real
estate is bought and sold is rapidlychanging if you're not up on leg locks.
(21:18):
To use a good analogy.
Somebody's gonna destroy you onthe mats, and if you're not up on
what wholesale buyers are tryingto do, you're gonna get left.
In the past, and I've, I've takena lot of these courses online and
everything, and they just, it's justlike open season on real estate agents.
To just bash real estate agents.
And I'm like, dude, I'mlike, I'll work with you.
(21:39):
You know, if it works for my clients.
And that's the funny thing too, isit's kind of like real estate agents
only care about their commission.
I'm like, well, yes, I, I don't work forfree, but you're also doing this to try to
make an assignment fee, so let's stop thiswhole real estate agents are terrible.
You know what I mean?
Now, some agents are easier to work withthan others, and I'm trying to, you know,
(22:02):
I think I'm starting to gain a reputationwhere I'll do a deal with somebody and
they're like, Hey, this was a great deal.
You, you, you werestraightforward with me.
And I'm like, the same goes for you.
You were straightforward with me.
Every deal's not gonna work out.
Just don't gimme a line of crap.
And that's kind of what happens a lotof the times with some of these buyers.
Um, I might get a bogus proof of funds.
(22:23):
You know, and, and I'm just like,Hey, listen, I need a full bank
statement or a hard money commitmentletter, and I'll get pushback on it.
It'll be a screenshot orit'll just be something.
And I mean, listen, you know how easy itis to get a hard money commitment letter.
I got one the other day just forthe hell of it, for $15 million.
You know what I mean?
It's, it's not, so I understand wherethat's coming from, you know, but if
(22:47):
you're not even gonna learn enough aboutit, kind of give me the information
I'm asking so that I can help my clientmake it, uh, an informed decision.
We're just not gonna work together.
You know?
What, what has been yourexperience kind of with.
From hearing wholesale buyers workingwith agents, is it kind of the same
thing where they're like, oh, theywon't gimme the time of day, or, or what
do you think if you have been kickingyourself that you didn't start investing
(23:09):
in real estate sooner, whether you'rebeginner, intermediate, or advanced,
any way you're looking to get it on aresidential, commercial, land development,
wholesale and fix and flu, whatever it is.
Let's find a way to get you involved insome projects, get you some properties,
whether you wanna sell some propertiesto me, whether you want to buy some
properties from me, whether residential,fix and flip, cash flow, multi-family,
whatever it is you're looking for.
Let's figure out a way to getyou involved or find a way for
(23:31):
us to partner up on some deals.
Reach out to me on any ofmy social media channels.
If you go on www.nic.com/links, you willsee all the different ways to connect
with me and figure out how we canstart to work together, make it happen.
Everybody that invests inreal estate always just says
they wish they did it sooner.
Best time to start is today.
Yeah.
You know, so I think itcomes down to, to both sides.
(23:53):
I, I always tell everybodythis is the dance we do.
Like you have to go, well, youknow, I call up and I'm like,
I'm a real estate investor.
And sometimes the agent's like, well,I don't like working with investors.
Why?
Well, a lot of 'em waste my time.
They gimme fake proof of funds.
They tie stuff up under contract,it falls through they low ball me.
And I go, great.
I work with agents all the time, andthe ones that I work with that do a good
job, they're worth their weight in gold.
(24:15):
Like so there's a lot of bad onesout there, like you're saying,
but there's a lot of great ones.
Just like there's a lot ofreally bad wholesalers, but
there's a lot of great ones.
Yeah, and I think we both see both sidesof that where your phone's ringing with
a bunch of people that waste your time.
So when they go.
Well, I get my timewasted by investors a lot.
I go, I get my timewasted by agents a lot.
Exactly.
We have to just go on the firstdate and hope that we are not the
people that waste each other's time.
(24:36):
Yeah, and I think as you said,that really comes from setting
the expectation up front.
I used to spend a lot of time, I.Trying to change agents' minds who
did not want to work with investors.
Yeah.
And then the second it came to, I put anoffer in below asking, they cursed me out.
They yell at me.
So I've started now, like when I geton the phone with somebody, if an
agent's like, yeah, I don't wannawork with investors, I go, why?
(24:57):
They go, 'cause investors are idiots.
They waste my time, and they'remorons and they're hard to deal with.
I go, great.
Is there anybody in the officethat maybe doesn't think I'm
a total waste of their time?
And yeah, they, they get methe new guy, you know, and
I'm like, I love the new guy.
He's not.
So I think it really is like, there'sgonna be agents that are just not
investor friendly and there's gonna bewholesalers that are just spending $99
for the year to go watch a YouTube course.
(25:17):
They're getting trained by peoplewho don't actually do deals and in.
Your market, dude, Phoenix is probablythe mecca of real estate wholesale gurus.
Yeah.
So you probably have morethere than anywhere, so I
cannot imagine what it's like.
But I think part of what you're sayingtoo is I think it's interesting because
I'm listening to you take people thatare maybe calling you and they're
(25:38):
aggressive and they're emotional.
And they really need a deal, or theyreally paid this money for this training
and they just want this to work.
Yeah.
And the second you start asking'em questions, they're not
prepared for what they don't like.
They get aggressive, theywon't give you their name.
And you being a juujitsu black belt,I think you're used to, when people
come at you with aggressive, you'reable to kind of like, Hey, hey, hey.
Here's why I'm doing this, and,and you stay calm in that chaos.
(26:00):
So I feel like most don't, theymeet aggression with aggression.
So I think you mm-hmm.
You know, kind of wrapping up thewhole premise here is I've always
been a big believer of, if you're easyto work with, I'm easy to work with.
If you're difficult to workwith, I'm difficult to work with.
Just kind of like, yep, you want totrain hard and beat each other up.
You want to beat me up,I'm gonna beat you up.
You wanna have a good time.
You wanna learn from eachother, we can do that.
(26:20):
So how much has maybe dealing withsome tough times or aggression or
problems on the mats helped you dealwith difficult people as an agent when
you're dealing with investors and noone kinda when to walk away or when to
turn it up, you can't judge a book byits cover first and foremost, because
there's been people that have comein that are 120 pounds soaking wet.
(26:43):
And they just mop the mats with you.
I remember, this is kind of aold story, so Ben was promoting
the first Pettus fight.
This was, I think 2010 maybe.
Just got my purple belt.
We go out to Vegas, he's doingpress and we're training and it
was the Faber Mki fight, so it wasthe second to last WEC fight ever.
And we had palms.
(27:04):
They put us up there.
We trained the wholeweekend with Dominic Cruz.
Um, we ended up going to Cobra HighJuujitsu, which was the old Mark
Layman gym in Vegas, but I don'tthink he was associated with it.
There.
It was Sim Go Simpson Go.
He is about 130 pounds and that's thefirst time I ever felt like real side
(27:27):
control pressure from somebody that small.
And he's like, oh, you're from Phoenix?
And I said, yeah, yeah.
He goes, oh, I compete in, uh, youknow, Gustavo Dantes tournament.
I go, oh, I do too.
I go, who'd you compete against?
And he goes, Hobson, Mora.
I was like, okay.
So Hobson, Mora is a multiple time oldschool Jiujitsu guys remember him, right?
First of all, it's, you can'tjudge somebody by their.
(27:47):
You just gotta take everybody who theyare, and then there's just gonna be some
people you just don't get along with.
I mean, we've got some verytalented grapplers at the lab.
I'm turning 50 next month.
If you're 280 pounds,we're not rolling together.
You know what I mean?
So, and, and it goes to the same asI get on in my real estate career.
I'm, Hey, listen, we're notmeshing together as clients.
(28:10):
We, we started off really good.
You know, the role was good.
You've elbowed me in the face fourtimes, figuratively speaking real
estate wise, it's just not working out.
So it took me about 20 years in realestate to start, you know, we'll go under
contract if it's a buyer, you know, we'regonna sign a buyer broker agreement.
If it's not working out or we'renot doing it, I am not gonna put
you in a head lot to work with me.
(28:30):
I'm like, Hey, I reallyappreciate the opportunity.
Here's your full unconditionalrelease from your, your contract.
You're free to use another agent.
I, I. Really appreciate the factthat you wanted to work with me.
It's just not working out.
So it's kind of, you gotta know whenit's gonna work out and when it's not.
You gotta cut your lossat a certain point.
Like, I'm not gonna hold onto thatKimora like you're, you know, forever.
(28:51):
Because the Kimora, if you holdonto it too long, it becomes,
they can use it against you.
So it's kind of the sameway with real estate.
It's, it's, it's really helped me be like,listen, you're not gonna win everything.
You're not gonna win every bull,but you're gonna learn something.
You're gonna learnsomething from every client.
It's like, Hey, you know what?
This is something that the clientsaid and that maybe, and then I could
(29:12):
have maybe handled that differently.
I could have maybe educated them a littlebit different, or I could have maybe
seen that we might not be compatibleas client broker, you know what I mean?
So it not being afraid to saylike, Hey, this isn't working out.
We can't work together, andthat's okay because I'm not
gonna roll with everybody either.
It's just not, how old are you?
(29:32):
43. 44. Somewhere around there.
So you're, you're, you're still there.
You know what I'm saying?
But like, it's just one of those thingsthat's kind of learning from everybody.
Like I'll talk to anybody.
You know what I mean?
Just like I said, I'll talkto any investor that calls.
As soon as I figure out that you'regonna elbow me in the face, we're
probably not gonna talk anymore.
Yeah.
Or I'm gonna be like, Hey,let's start over again.
Let's pretend I know what I'm doing.
(29:53):
Okay.
And I've done that a coupletimes and I'm like, listen,
I, it sounds like you're new.
Let's just reintroduceourselves and see what happens.
And, and sometimes it's workedand sometimes it doesn't.
But, you know, I certainly don't wanna benegative and, you know, discourage anybody
from trying to be a wholesale person.
'cause it is hard.
I mean, everybody, we've gotprobably 10 people at the lab
since Covid hit and they're alllike, get my real estate license.
(30:16):
I'm like, oh cool.
Where are you gonna hang your license?
They're like, I'm gonna wholesale.
They're all wholesaling.
So like there's business foreverybody, you know what I mean?
So learning how to work together, it,it's just gonna benefit everybody.
Just like you said, a lot of agentshave a bad rep, you know, they don't
wanna work with wholesalers or, anda lot of wholesalers, like this agent
was a real, you know, a-hole to me,so I don't wanna work with them.
(30:38):
Yeah.
But.
You just gotta try, you know?
Yeah.
And, and I don't know, I'm justkind of rambling on about that.
No, it's good stuff, man.
It's good stuff.
I, I know we're getting a littletight on time, but I, yeah.
There's two things that Idefinitely wanna make sure, yes.
We talk about one of them being probate.
Yes.
And the other one is a lot of peoplesay, Hey Nick, there's, there's no good.
Deals on market and mm-hmm.
I think the first three or four yearsin my business, all I did was work
(31:00):
with investor friendly real estateagents that found me great deals.
And so I think, like you're saying, andpart of what you just said, I thought
was fantastic because I tell people thatwhen they first start out, they start
calling a bunch of real estate agentsthat are on the first page of Google
and they say, Hey, I'm a wholesaler.
And they discourage themfrom doing that business.
And I'm like, both of 'em are hard.
Like they're upset because theirjob's hard, but like everybody's
(31:23):
just trying to make money.
And I think the fact that even ifsomebody's not for you, you don't tell
them this doesn't work and you don'tdiscourage them, you're doing them a huge
service because they, they gotta learn.
And when they're new, yougotta figure that out.
And just keeping that like,Hey, just because we're not
working together doesn't, it'sthe same thing with Jiujitsu.
You can go to a Jiujitsu gym.
And maybe that Juujitsu gym isn'tright for you, but that doesn't
(31:43):
mean that you shouldn't do Juujitsu.
So my big question here isfor people that are listening
and they're getting into this.
And they're intimidated to call realestate agents and they're new and
they think that you're not gonnawork with them 'cause they're new.
It's usually because they're notputting the right expectation
or they're not being honest.
So for your side of it, for investorsthat are listening right now, what
are some things on your side of itthat they could be doing or saying?
(32:05):
That would make them easier towork with or make agents more open
to working with a new investor?
I would say just being honest.
You know?
Just saying like, Hey listen,I'm pretty new at this now.
Not everybody's gonna react that way,but that goes a long way with me.
If I ask if it's hard money or cash, I.
And you say both.
I said, okay, where areyou getting your funding?
Like just tell me, Hey, I getmy hard money funding here.
(32:27):
I have an actual way toto do cash deal as well.
But if you're gonna wholesale it, justtell me, just be honest, because I'll hear
from other agents in the office and I gotthis cash deal and I said, send me the
proof of funds and it's a hard money loan.
And I'm like, that's not cash.
It kind of goes both ways.
Maybe the, the wholesale buyer is newenough where they don't know where
they, they can say that, and thenthe real estate agent doesn't know
(32:49):
that that's not cash, you know, sothe offer is written and a lot of
real estate agents that representwholesale buyers don't know that.
They'll say, cash, and then I'll get it.
And I'm like, but that's not cash.
Which is okay, but it's a loan.
It's a, it's a short term loan.
So I think it's just being honest andit's not gonna work with everybody.
(33:10):
You know what I mean?
Some people, no matter what you're gonnado, they're just gonna hang up on you.
There's people like mewho won't hang up on you.
You know what I mean?
I'm looking to get a pool of, youknow, Hey, here's some buyers.
I have a distressed property here.
We're gonna put it on the market.
I can reach out to these buyers.
Let's see what's going on.
But it's also the agent kind ofknowing what they're doing as well.
(33:33):
You wanna pick somebody that's like,okay, I know what you're trying to do.
I can tell by what the RV is, whatthe list price is, and what, what
the contract is and how it's writtenif, if there's a high probability
about it going through now, that tooka long time to get to that point.
But I think if you're aninvestor, just be honest.
Not everybody likes me.
You know what I mean?
(33:53):
Not everybody hires me to sell theirprobate properties, and that's fine.
There's plenty of deals out there.
It's just don't give up.
You gotta drill those arm bars.
Yay.
You've gotta show up.
It's not who's best, it's who's last.
The longer you're in this game,the more chances you have of.
Getting a deal and then figuring it outand then cultivating these relationships
(34:13):
with agents and or other buyers.
You know, it's a fantastic answer, man.
I love that.
And again, I'll tell people as muchas investors beat up agents, the
ones that are willing to play ball,I would not be in this business
right now if I didn't find investorfriendly agents like yourself.
Mm-hmm.
That were willing to work withme and put my offers out and.
They knew they were gonna have towrite a lot of offers to get them,
but over the course of the year,we closed 10, 15, 20, 25 deals.
(34:36):
Yeah.
And a lot of it, like I keep sayingis that first date, it's kind of
like, am I actually gonna put in anyoffers that are worth your time that
are gonna get accepted this year?
And then it becomes like, areyou gonna have the patience
to work this out with me?
Mm-hmm.
And when you can find that, like over thecourse of the year, you will make money.
And you know, I think, uh.
Another interesting question here isfrom your perspective, I deal with
a lot of people where I go, look,this is what your house is worth.
(34:58):
Like I can tell you rightnow in this condition, I sold
a house around the block.
You're not gonna get more than two 50.
You want two 90 and the houseyou're comping it against is a
bigger, nicer house than yours.
Like, not gonna happen.
But then they go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But this real estate agent told me theycould sell it for three 50 in 30 days and
they just wanna believe this bigger price.
And I go, send me the listingthat they're comping that against.
(35:18):
They go, it took themnine months to sell that.
They had to drop the price,80,000 like so you also have
an obligation to your seller.
So as an agent.
Is there a happy medium there?
Because I would think that sometimesyou don't want to go to your seller
and be like, look, you're gonna have tosell this at a discount to an investor.
Because then they might go, yeah,but the other agent around the
block told me they can get more.
(35:38):
Now.
You know, they're not gonna get more,but the person that's giving you
the listing is gonna wanna believewhatever the highest price is.
So how do you deal withthat on the investment side?
For agents that are listening to this andthey're like, well, I want the listing.
But if I tell 'em I'm gonna have tosell it below market, they're not
gonna gimme the list and they'regonna give to somebody and then maybe
in nine months they call you backand they go, Chris, you were right.
This happened to me last year.
(35:59):
Okay.
This exact same scenario.
Okay.
And I'm just gonna go back to, it's justwhat I expect from investors I work with.
I expect honesty.
I'm not gonna inflatethe price of the home.
So I go into this house, it's in SunCity, so it's a retirement community here.
So.
Sometimes investors don't like to gointo that community 'cause there's an
immediate $5,000 capital preservationfee that you pay immediately.
(36:22):
So that cuts into what you're gonna make.
Okay?
So I go into the property.
It's not a hoarding situation, but there'stons of personal property in there.
Comp it out, meet with the client, say.
This is what your houselooks like, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
I would price it at 2 25.
It's probably gonna sell between 202 10.
Don't do anything to the house becausewhen I was there, I did a video, sent
(36:46):
it to my, uh, personal property removalcompany, and the guy goes, that's gonna
cost you $15,000 to trash that out.
So she goes, well, I got anotheragent who just said it's worth 2 99 9.
Why would it be that?
That high.
And I said, okay.
He or she doesn't know what they'redoing or they're trying to do
what's called buying your listing.
They're trying to tell you whatyou want to hear and then they're
gonna work you down on the price.
(37:06):
Mm-hmm.
So we sit there and we look at properties.
We went across the street to a, ahome that was priced at 2 99 9, and I
said, does this look like your house?
She goes, no, it doesn't.
Okay.
It's not worth 2 99.
Still hires the agent for 2 99.
Pays $15,000 to trash out theproperty and a whole bunch of other
work to it, which was not gonna doanything to the her bottom line.
(37:28):
It's just gonna take money outta herpocket four months later in a hot market.
What's it sell at 200,000?
Exactly.
Where I told her was, and they probablypaid another $20,000 to get that done.
Now I can.
Shoot my shot.
I can set up thatsubmission the best I can.
If they don't tap to it orthey don't, they don't agree to
it, there's nothing I can do.
Like I said, I'm gonna tell everybody,I'm not gonna put you in a headline
(37:49):
to try to get you to do business.
I'm gonna present all the data to you.
It's up to you in the end.
I firmly believe this is what it is.
I'm gonna show you in black and white thecomps, and then we're gonna go from there.
Some people are receptiveto it, some people aren't.
You just gotta keep doingyour reps. That's it.
That's a great answer, man.
And one of the, the final thingshere, kind of as we're wrapping
up is, I know you're golden gooseright now is you're excited about
listing probates and I mm-hmm.
(38:10):
I don't know if I've had anybody onthat's been doing that, but explain
a little bit of that process.
'cause from what I understand, I've donea bunch of probates in the past, but I
haven't done them directly with the owner.
They go through the probate process andthen the family hires an agent like you.
Correct.
And then I wind up buying it fromthe agent and usually they're
at that point a year or two inand they understand like, hey.
We're doing this forspeed and convenience.
(38:30):
We just wanna make our moneyand call it a day, and that's
usually where the deals happen.
But, so talk a little bit about yourrole in the probate process and why
investors might want to be looking at thattoday to potentially get a great deal.
You know, what happens is I have apretty good network of attorneys,
fiduciary companies, estate sales, and,and, and my name's kind of getting out
there with, Hey, if you need some helpand you're a personal representative
(38:50):
and don't know what you're doing,you, you know, you're gonna get.
A ton of people coming at youat once and I kind of do a
little bit of extra added stuff.
I'll go ahead and coordinate estate sales.
We'll ship stuff acrossthe country to people.
We'll do anything that's needed andthat's all included in that service.
There's no extra fees or anythinglike that, so I get a lot of my deals
from referrals, from past clients,attorneys, I've worked with, stuff
(39:11):
like that, and every deal is different.
I've had some deals where there'snothing that needs to be done.
The home is spotless.
You just list it as another one.
I've had one where it wasdown in Tui, south Phoenix.
It's a real nice area down there.
Had to ship a car to New York, hadto ship a car to Seattle, had to
ship half of the house, pack it up,get professional movers, pack it up,
(39:32):
ship it to Seattle, and then get ridof the rest of the furniture inside.
So each one is different.
So every deal is different.
You kind of go in sometimesyou're like, yeah, we can do this.
You know it, it's howdo you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
So a lot of times these personal reps,they're dealing with a loss in their
life and then they're just like, Idon't know what to do with this house.
(39:53):
And then, you know, that's whereI kind of come in and can help.
Now the other thing toois just one last thing.
I got a call from somebody on thatlast deal and the guy goes, you know, I
don't even want to tell you the offer.
It's so low.
And I said, then like, I kind ofjoked and I'm like, why did you call?
You know, it's like, okay, itjust tell me what you wanna offer.
And he goes, I wanna offer this.
I go, okay, that's fine.
(40:13):
Just be honest.
Just tell me what you wanna offer.
Because I prep my clients.
The highest offer's, notnecessarily the best.
And it depends, do you need thismoney fast or do you have time?
All that goes into whoit's gonna get sold to.
And a lot of times if you need that moneyfast, the wholesale route or somebody
who's gonna flip it is the best wayto do it, and that's the best way to
(40:33):
maximize what my client's gonna get.
It's gonna work out for the investor too.
It's just kind of a case by case basis.
It's a really enjoyable process becausepeople, they need help and they're being
overwhelmed by people and it's just like,Hey, I can help you with these people.
I can help you ship all thisstuff and, and everything.
So it's kind of a probateconcierge idea and stuff like that.
And, and the probate processin Arizona is very fast.
(40:55):
It's not like other stateswhere it can take years.
It, it's a very fast process in Arizona.
That's very cool, man.
I've done a bunch of deals in Arizona.
I think it's a great state and obviouslythe prices have gone up forever.
People always retire.
Yeah.
There and you know, so there'salways gonna be, I think, a
pretty strong market there.
I tell everybody, you guys have abuilt-in buyers pool known as California.
Yes.
Where every week somebody's like, I'mso sick of California, move to Arizona.
So there's always gonna begreat opportunities there.
(41:17):
And I think the key isfinding great people to work
with on those opportunities.
And I think you are somebodythat everybody should be looking
at as a massive resource there.
Especially, there's so many people thatdo remote investing, and what I tell them
is, you don't have to be an expert onan area, but you need somebody who is.
And these little things that you're goinginto like, Hey, in this area you gotta pay
an extra $15,000 for preservation fees.
(41:37):
Or this is like that.
Local knowledge is so importantand a good real estate agent
that has that is invaluable.
So for people listening, ifthey're saying, you know what?
I wanna get in the real estate game.
I wanna find investor friendly agents,and I wanna maybe even invest in Arizona.
How can people work with you more,find more of what you're doing, hear
some of your analogies, or maybeeven just learn juujitsu from you.
Or both.
(41:57):
I'm redoing all myprospecting social media.
So I have just a small Instagram account.
It's AZ letter a z probate real estate.
Uh, that's on Instagram.
My email is chris@bjjbroker.com.
And, uh, if you wanna learn some,uh, jiujitsu from really cool
fighters and uh, have a greattime with the family, it's at.
(42:18):
The M ma lab.com.
Very cool man.
I have had a great experience over there.
You and I are definitely overdue to getsome lunch and to share some mat time.
For sure man.
Uh, again, you're known as the detailguy, so I'm obsessed with the details
later and uh, it's funny, I didn'trealize that you had a similar journey
for New York, Chicago, and Arizona.
You know, I started out in New York.
You went to Binghamton?
I went to SUNY Albany.
(42:38):
Okay.
And, uh, it's funny 'cause I'm wearingthe Matt Sarah shirt who fought Frank
Trig and Frank Trig came up in the thing.
And you know, Chicago,I'm out here now, man.
So we have a lot of similarities and.
There's a lot of things that wedidn't even get to yet that I would
love to have more of a conversationwith you on the agent's perspective
so we can start to bridge thatgap between agents and investors.
Mm-hmm.
And really start to set those expectationsso everybody can work together, man.
(42:59):
So I would love to have you onfor report two at some point.
That'd be awesome.
Thank you so much.
It was a great time.
This has been awesome, man.
You sir, bring your A game toeverything you do on and off
the mats in life in business.
And this interview has been no different.
You definitely push your A gameto the A Game podcast today.
Sir, any final thoughts before Ilet you go about your busy day?
Keep drilling.
White belt mentality, black belt results.
Thank you so much.
(43:19):
Krista Brickey, thank you forcoming on the A Game podcast today.
Have an awesome day served.
Thank you.
Thanks.
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