March 5, 2025 • 39 mins
Joe McCall is a seasoned real estate investor, creative financing consultant, and expert in outsourcing and marketing. With years of hands-on experience, Joe has established himself as a trusted authority in the real estate investing space. He is the host of the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast, where he shares valuable insights and actionable strategies to help others succeed in the industry.
As an accomplished author, Joe has written four impactful real estate investing books that guide both beginners and seasoned investors toward achieving success. He is also a sought-after speaker, presenting at conferences and workshops nationwide, where he educates audiences on creative real estate strategies and effective marketing techniques. Joe regularly hosts webinars focusing on automation, marketing, and delegation to help investors streamline and grow their businesses.
Before embarking on his real estate journey, Joe had an engineering job, but his entrepreneurial spirit led him to transition into wholesaling, where he found his true passion.
Outside of business, Joe is a devoted family man. He enjoys quality time with his kids, whether it’s exploring the zoo, hitting the golf course with his boys, or swimming with his girls. Joe’s faith and family are his top priorities, and he strives to balance both a successful career and a fulfilling personal life.
During the show we discussed:
- Joe's Transition From Engineering to Wholesaling: What Inspired the Shift?
- Key Skills and Strategies for Success in Wholesaling
- The Process of Finding and Evaluating Wholesale Deals
- Negotiation Tactics When Wholesaling Properties
- The Importance of Marketing for Success in Wholesaling
- The Direct Link Between Offers and Earnings in Wholesaling
- Targeting the Right Market: Who to Market to for Maximum Results
- Using Postcards for Effective Wholesaling Marketing
- Choosing the Right Markets for Your Wholesale Deals
- Why Freedomsoft Is the Best Resource for Lists and Direct Mail Campaigns
- Finding Buyers for Your Wholesale Deals
- Common Pitfalls When Scaling Your Wholesaling or Flipping Business
- Streamlining the Deal-Closing Process Without Getting Overwhelmed
- The Role of Marketing in Attracting the Right Leads for Wholesaling
- Advice for Beginners: Finding Your First Wholesale Deal
Resources:
https://www.realestateinvestingmastery.com/
https://joemccall.tv
https://joemccall.com/saturday
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today, we're gonna help you make some money
with real estate.
(00:42):
As a matter of fact, we're gonna be
talking about one of the most lucrative ways,
a couple of the most lucrative ways for
you to get money quickly, maybe not quickly
in real estate, but pretty quickly, and to
be able to get the money you need
for even longer-term investing, like long-term
rentals and short-term rentals.
So today, we're talking about mastering wholesale, and
we're talking about mastering flipping.
And with us today is like, really, one
of the most well-known experts in the
(01:03):
space, Joe McCall.
Now, Joe is a seasoned real estate investor,
creative financing consultant, and expert in outsourcing and
marketing as well.
So with years of hands-on experience, he
has established himself as a trusted authority in
the real estate investing space.
Now, he's the host of the Real Estate
Investing Mastery Podcast.
That's Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast, where he
(01:24):
shares valuable insights and actionable strategies to help
others succeed in the industry.
Now, as an accomplished author, Joe has written
four, four, impactful real estate investing books that
guide both beginners and seasoned investors towards achieving
success.
He's also a sought-after speaker presenting at
conferences and workshops nationwide, where he educates audiences
(01:45):
on creative real estate strategies and effective marketing
techniques as well.
Now, Joe regularly hosts webinars focusing on automation,
on marketing, on delegation, to help investors streamline
and grow their business.
And before embarking on his journey in real
estate, he had an engineering job, but his
entrepreneurial spirit led him to transition into wholesaling,
(02:07):
where he found his true passion.
Now, outside of business, Joe is a devoted
family man.
He enjoys quality time with his kids, whether
it's exploring the zoo, hitting the golf course
with his boys, or swimming with his girls.
Joe's faith and family are his top priority,
and he strives to balance both a successful
career and a fulfilling personal life.
Joe, you freaked out when I even mentioned
golf.
Is that for you or is it for
(02:28):
the boys?
No, I'm freaking out because that bio is
awesome.
Like, can you send that to me?
I will, I'll send that to you.
Well, I've said so much, it's hard to
condense it, like it just to, like a
short synopsis of what you've done.
So congratulations, man, on your success so far.
Wow, thank you so much.
Seriously, send me that bio, because like, I
hate writing bios, and every time I get
(02:48):
a request to be on a podcast, or
they ask me to send them a bio
or something like, and I try to find
the old one that I did, and then
it's just outdated, but I don't care.
But that was awesome.
Well, I'll send it over to you, and
I can relate.
It's very uncomfortable sometimes talking about ourselves, but
man, you've accomplished so much.
So like, let me ask you this, like
my son has an engineering mind, and probably
(03:08):
go in the engineering space.
I've kind of tried to do my part
to get him into real estate.
So maybe to help me here, how did
you make the transition going from engineering to
jumping in to wholesaling and flipping?
Man, I tell you, it's not as easy
as you'd think, because as an engineer, you,
I'm speaking in generalities here, but I think
(03:29):
a lot of people would relate.
I was good at math, I was good
at school, and I like having exact answers
to exact questions.
Like, so when you're, no, I worked on
a lot of power plants.
We were building, I was project engineer, project
management for these power plants.
And so you have all of it designed,
you have specifications three inches thick, and you've
(03:51):
got drawings of the underground utilities, and then
the foundations, and then the steel structure, and
then all of the mechanical electrical plumbing, and
then the finishes, and then all of the
heavy, the equipment, and the piping, and then
the exterior.
And that's like, you can see the project
from beginning to end.
And when math, when you're doing math in
college, it's like, there is always one answer
(04:13):
and one way to get to that answer.
So I liked order.
I liked like, okay, everything has to be
done this way.
But when I got into real estate, I
wanted to be an entrepreneur.
I wanted to work for myself.
I liked the idea of cashflow, because that
just made sense to me.
Like, okay, cool, you can own this asset
that generates generational wealth, that has all these
(04:34):
tax advantages, that you can create good cashflow,
you can make fast cash, and you can
make, I call it piles of cash and
streams of cash.
And so I wanna get into real estate.
So I started down that journey, but then
I realized, wow, when you're dealing with a
seller who owns a property, every seller is
different and every house is different.
So it was not easy transitioning from engineer
(04:56):
to investor, business owner, because there's so many
variables out there and every situation, every deal
is different.
So I really had to work.
And I was not good at sales.
I'm still not good at sales.
Like, an engineer is more fact, like analytical,
right?
But somebody who's really good at sales is
more motion led, like is maybe more relational.
(05:19):
And it's a different thing that I had
to learn how to negotiate, how to, that
book was really valuable to me, how to
win friends and influence people.
Like how to be a nice guy, not
to be a data nerd.
So, but it also has helped me in
some ways too, because like, I like to
analyze deals.
(05:40):
I like to analyze markets and drill down
into, okay, which areas of the country are
the best areas to do deals in and
which areas of the country are, have the
best cash flow.
So I use my engineering brain to kind
of analyze areas of around the country to
find the best cash flowing markets.
But I think what's important is if you
have, if somebody listening to this has a
(06:02):
drive and a desire to be an entrepreneur
and to work for themselves, call their own
shots, then you'll figure it out.
You'll find a way to do it.
Because I knew when I was working my
engineering job, I was making good money.
When I quit my job in 2009, when
I was working for a big electrical contractor,
doing scheduling and planning for a huge power
plant, $500 million power plant.
(06:23):
Like I knew it was more dangerous, more
risky to have a job than to actually
work for yourself.
Because I was one paycheck away from complete
financial devastation, right?
Like I was, even though I was making
good money, I was living paycheck to paycheck.
No matter how hard I worked, I got
paid the same every two weeks.
And if I was lucky, you know, I
(06:43):
did a really good job.
I'd get a 3% raise.
I was not worried I wouldn't be able
to find another job if I got fired,
but I'd have to probably move my family
somewhere around the country there.
So it's like, I didn't want that anymore.
And I also, when I was working my
corporate engineering job, looked at the middle managers
and what they were doing.
And like, oh my gosh, I do not
want that.
They were the first ones in the job,
(07:04):
the last ones to leave.
They were working 70, 80 hours a week.
They had tons of pressure on them.
And they had a bunch of people underneath
them that weren't happy and a bunch of
people over them that were not happy.
And I thought, I just don't, that does
not look appealing to me at all.
So I really liked real estate.
I spent a ton of money on my
education.
And because of my engineering brain, I was
(07:24):
a, I like to call myself, I was
a professional student for three years before I
actually started doing deals.
And it wasn't until I stopped asking all
of the what if questions and stopped wondering
or worrying about having all my eyes dotted
and all my T's crossed and just started
trusting the system and knowing, okay, I'll figure
it out as I go.
That's when I started having success and started
(07:45):
actually doing deals.
And I finally quit my job in 09
and haven't looked back since.
I hope that answered that question.
Yeah, no, that's great.
And I think one of the things that's
interesting that you mentioned is you like the
engineering skills that you have and being able
to apply those to really evaluating deals.
So when you're teaching your tribe, like what
are some of the things that you're teaching
them regarding finding the right wholesale property and
(08:07):
then evaluating that to make sure it's actually
the right deal?
Yeah, well, I think learning how to find
deals is the most important skill in real
estate, being a deal finder.
And I've gone, I've done all kinds of
deals, lease options and wholesaling and buy and
hold and BRRRR strategy and fix and flip
and for houses and for land.
And I'm mainly doing land right now, vacant
(08:29):
land.
So you need to learn how to find
the deals.
And I realized this early on, we're not
in the real estate investing business.
I'm not in the land business.
I'm not in the house business, not in
the commercial business.
I am in, or not in the multifamily
business, right?
I am in the marketing business.
And when I realized that, like that, everything
changed for me because I realized, okay, well,
(08:50):
if my goal is to make 100 grand
a month, 10 grand a month, well, that
means like one deal a month or 10
deals a month, what is it?
Or does that mean like I need to
have 200 doors or, so you take your
income goal and you break that down into,
what does that mean?
Like, what do I have to do every
day to get to that 10,000 a
month goal?
Or maybe it's a thousand dollars a month.
And that means, okay, well, if I'm wholesaling,
(09:12):
which is my favorite strategy, it's the fastest
way to make money in real estate.
Wholesaling, period.
I'll argue and win every single time that
wholesaling is the best way to get started
in real estate.
Not just, it's not just a good strategy
for beginners.
Everybody needs to learn wholesaling.
I can't tell you how many rehabbers I
have found and know over the years.
(09:33):
Rehabbers, you know, they started wholesaling, they got
tired of it.
This is like for kindergartners.
I wanna be a real professional investor.
I wanna own a bunch of doors.
I wanna own a bunch of storage units
and et cetera.
I wanna do fix and flip.
Instead of making 10 grand on a deal,
I wanna make 50 grand on a deal.
How many rehabbers I've met that go back
to wholesaling after a few years?
Rehabbing is like adult daycare.
It's completely frustrating.
(09:54):
There are so many challenges with that.
Owning a bunch of rental properties, I hate
that.
Managing tenants who don't care about your property.
So many, you think you're getting two or
$300 a month cashflow in that, but you're
not.
One vacancy means three months of no rent,
means three months of paying a mortgage payment,
means replacing the water heater, means cleaning everything
(10:16):
up, replacing the carpets, painting the walls, paying
the property management company another month's rent as
a tenant finder's fee.
So it's like, I love wholesaling.
It's the fastest way to make quick cash.
And sometimes it's better to make a quick
nickel in a slow dime, as I say.
So being a deal finder is the most
important aspect of this.
And when you understand we're in the marketing
business, all right, so if I wanna make
(10:37):
10 grand a month, that means I need
to do one deal a month.
And if I need to do one deal
a month, that means I need to make,
I don't know, 20 offers.
And if I have to make 20 offers,
that means I need, I don't know, 50
leads.
And if I need 50 leads from my
marketing, well, that means I need to send
maybe for land, it means I need to
send about 500 postcards a week.
And if I send 500 postcards a week,
(10:59):
I'm gonna get this many calls.
I'm gonna reach this many people.
I'm gonna make this number of offers and
I'm gonna get one out of 30 accepted.
And it's a marketing business.
And I always argue whether you're doing commercial,
residential, whatever, it all comes down to marketing.
And leads are the lifeblood of your business.
Even if you're buying deals off the MLS,
you're still marketing to realtors.
(11:21):
You're still, every day you've got to, if
you're not doing it, you need to get
somebody else that's going on the MLS every
single day looking for deals and making offers.
And final thing I'll say to this is,
I say this all the time, your speed
to income in the real estate business is
directly proportional to the number of offers that
you make.
There's a direct correlation to how many offers
are you making.
(11:42):
So if you want to make 10 grand
and you're struggling and you're like, I don't
know, Joe, I've been at this for six
months.
I've not done a deal yet.
I'm gonna ask you a real simple question.
How many offers?
There's two metrics that will tell me immediately
the health of any real estate investing business.
How many offers have you made in the
last week?
How many offers have you made in the
last month?
Those are the, that's it.
And I preach that over and over and
(12:03):
over again, because I've seen it in my
own business.
When I'm dipped, when I'm struggling and I'm
not making as much money, I turn around
and I look at it and I say,
all right, well, how many offers have I
made?
Oh my gosh, I've not made any offers
in two months.
Maybe that's why I'm having a financially tight
season right now.
So that's super important.
So Joe, when you're talking about that and
you talk about the marketing aspect, are you
(12:23):
typically trying to target like distressed homeowners directly?
Is that kind of your target market who
you're going after?
Yeah, I like direct to seller.
I don't like dealing with realtors or listed
properties that a million other people have looked
at.
I wanna go directly to the homeowner or
the landowner who, you know, it's a numbers
game.
So I go directly to them and I
(12:44):
don't want a middleman.
That's the easiest way.
And for me, for land specifically right now,
I like to target people who own vacant
land.
I go see where the, this is the
engineering mind in me.
Where are the hot markets where there's a
ton of activity going on?
A lot of people are buying land right
now, okay, in the last six months.
I find those hot zip codes and then
(13:05):
I pull a list of everybody who owns
land in those zip codes, who has owned
it over five years and they live outside
the area.
So they live outside the zip code.
And I just download that entire list.
I send them an ugly postcard that drives
them to a voicemail and they, you know,
I get maybe 5% response rate on
that postcard, 5% of the people who
get it call.
So if I send a thousand postcards out,
(13:26):
I get 50 calls.
And of those calls, I might reach half
of them.
I reach, I call back and talk to
about 25 people.
And I know over time, I'll do one
deal out of every 25 to 30 leads
that come in.
So yeah, I send postcards to the owners
and you could spend a lot of time
like drilling down and really narrowing the list.
(13:47):
And instead of sending a thousand, then just
send maybe 250 to a real specialized list
of people that might have some signs of
distress like probate or delinquent taxes or foreclosures
or whatnot.
But I just send everybody.
I think it's easier and faster.
Just send mail to everybody because you're gonna
find people that others are missing.
(14:10):
Where do you find the best, in your
world, do you, you talked about finding a
market, right?
And especially with land.
Do you usually focus just on one market
or are you focused on multiple markets nationwide?
Do you find that to be too overwhelming
and confusing and you just focus on like
one, two, three select markets?
That's a good question.
Cause it's more, it's better to be an
inch wide and a mile deep, but at
(14:31):
the same time, you don't wanna have all
your eggs in one basket.
I wanna be like in maybe two or
three markets.
And when I say markets for me, for
land, I first look at, okay, which states
have the most land activity right now, right?
And then I look at the state and
which county in these states have the most
activity.
And I tend to stay away from like
the number one, number two, most popular markets
(14:51):
cause it's just too competitive maybe.
And then I'll look at the secondary, third,
fourth counties.
And then I go into those counties and
I say, all right, what zip codes in
these counties are most of the land activity
have?
Where are the home builders building new homes
right now?
And they're still building a lot of them.
You know, like I just saw the other
day, we need 7.2 million homes to
(15:12):
meet current demand right now.
So there's home builders looking for land.
Well, where are they building the homes right
now?
And so like I go into maybe three
different counties and then go to the top
zip codes in those counties and just pull
lists.
And so because of that marketing plan I
have at the beginning, I wanna know, all
right, who am I gonna send marketing to?
If I wanna do 20 grand a month,
(15:34):
I need to be sending a thousand postcards
a week.
So I'm just sending a thousand postcards every
week.
I'm trying to at least into those areas.
And I only mail the same area every
three months.
So at any one time, yeah, I'm in
four or five different markets because I just
need that many records to mail to.
So when you do that, where are you
getting your list from?
(15:55):
Right now, FreedomSoft, right here you see my
cup.
I love FreedomSoft.
I don't own it.
I wish I did.
My friend Rob Swanson does.
I have a custom signature edition of FreedomSoft
that I've kind of customized with them for
land, but I get my lists of vacant
land owners from FreedomSoft.
I also can find the top zip codes
in a county from FreedomSoft where the most
(16:16):
land activity is happening.
I get my list from them and I
do my direct mail from them.
And they help me with, they give me
the phone numbers, the voicemails, the websites.
They help me organize all the leads.
When I get a lead that comes in,
it's all managed inside of FreedomSoft.
And then I send my offers from FreedomSoft
to the seller.
Sometimes I send offers before even talking to
the sellers.
But generally it's better to talk to them
(16:36):
first.
I send all the offers from there.
And then the automated follow-up happens from
FreedomSoft.
So it'll keep on sending them letters and
postcards and text messages and emails.
And so the follow-up is really important
that I operate under like this philosophy of
no lead left behind.
Every single lead that comes in gets an
offer.
And then I follow up with every single
(16:57):
offer every 30 days until they tell me
to stop or they sell the property or
they die.
FreedomSoft, is that just for land or does
FreedomSoft work to be able to get lists
and do any kind of wholesale?
FreedomSoft is mainly built for houses.
And so, but I'm friends with Rob Swanson.
And I said, hey, I wanna use this
because I was using it for houses.
I said, I wanna use this for land.
And so they, in the last year or
(17:19):
two, have added in the ability to get
land lists for sellers and for buyers.
They have other tools in there that kind
of like, you know, you could, if you
wanted to put a QR code on your
postcards or on your letters and then the
seller goes to that website from their phone
and it's called like, it's called a deal
negotiator.
And it's a bot that just asks them
(17:40):
questions.
And then they put information about their property
in the, on that bot.
And then it comes into your FreedomSoft.
I would rather just get them on the
phone.
I just wanna go directly on the phone
as soon as possible with the sellers.
I don't wanna make them jump through a
bunch of hoops.
So just call this 24-hour recorded voicemail.
That's what I do.
My postcard says, hey, text or call this
24-hour recorded voicemail and we will call
(18:02):
you back.
And so then when they call that voicemail,
the voicemail just says, hey, thanks for calling.
We're investors.
We buy land.
If you wanna sell your land, leave your
name and number and the reference ID on
that postcard and we will call you back
and send you an offer.
And that's what our voicemail says.
And at that point, we just keep on
calling them back until we've talked to them.
(18:22):
And then we keep on sending them offers
until they tell us to stop or they
sell it to somebody else or they die.
So FreedomSoft you use to go in and
find the lists.
And then it sounds like it's marketing automation
completely where then you're able to, from there,
put in the list or actually already has
the list and then spit out the actual
postcards to them and then push them to
a prerecorded number, which is in FreedomSoft.
(18:44):
Then the person comes into FreedomSoft, they leave
a message, say, hey, I'm interested.
And then you're getting them on the phone,
following up right away, talking to them more.
And then- Or texting them.
Sometimes it's just a text conversation back and
forth.
And then from there, you're making them an
offer based on your evaluation.
Yeah, I look at the, what can I
sell the property for?
And if it's land, I'm looking at, okay,
(19:04):
well, similar properties here are selling for 50
,000.
So I'm gonna sell mine for 40.
And then if I know I'm gonna sell
mine for 40, I subtract my profit and
I pay realtor commission and I subtract maybe
if I'm borrowing private money and closing costs
and pictures.
We don't do anything to the properties either.
We don't do anything to the land.
We don't subdivide it.
We don't entitle it.
(19:24):
We don't add utilities.
We don't do anything.
We don't clear it out.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with Credit Suite.
Many of our subscribers wanna get the most
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So give us a call at 877-600
(19:45):
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And we just get it under.
So like if everything in there is selling
for 50, I'm gonna sell mine for 40.
So I'm gonna offer usually around 40 to
50%.
I'm gonna offer maybe 20 grand for that
(20:05):
property.
And I know it's a numbers game.
One out of 30 gets accepted.
So I just send an offer out.
I like to say we're deal finders, not
deal creators.
So I'm talking to them on the phone
for a few minutes just to establish a
little rapport to get them to know, like,
and trust me.
But I'm always, I call it, I'm the
reluctant buyer.
When I have them on the phone, I
need them to convince me of why I
(20:26):
should wanna buy their property, right?
I'm not trying to sell them on anything.
I'm not trying to convince them to sell
their property to me.
I'm just like, hey, tell me about your
property.
You know, what's going on?
What's your situation?
What would you like to see happen?
When would you like to see that happen?
Okay, so how much do you want for
your property?
What's more important to you, you know, to
sell it fast or to sell it for
the highest price possible?
This looks like a nice property.
Why do you even want to sell it?
(20:48):
Why don't you just list it with a
realtor?
You should just list it with an agent.
So I'm always like, I'm just, that's how
I'm talking to them.
And I tell them, listen, I'm not, if
you want full retail, I'm not your buyer,
right?
I can give you the names and numbers
of four or five realtors that are selling
land in the area, and you should just
call them.
But if, I'm the easy button.
If you just want to get cash, I
can close in 30 days.
(21:08):
I can probably help you with that.
But I, so that's my approach with them.
They know I'm an investor, and I know
that I'm just gonna, I'm gonna make a
lot of low ball offers.
I'm gonna make a lot of people mad,
and I'm okay with that.
If I haven't made somebody mad by 12
o'clock, I'm not doing enough marketing.
I'm not making enough offers.
I love that strategy.
It is a good strategy.
I love what you do too.
(21:29):
I think it's, I think it's brilliant in
so many ways.
I love land.
I mean, I'm one of those guys where
I've flipped, I'm not a ton of land,
but what I've always done is always done
it completely backwards.
I've sent out offers to begin with, then
they're mad, you know, you have a relation
with them.
But then what I'm trying to do is
find retail buyers.
It's freaking hard, man.
It's like freaking hard.
You put them on all the retail sites
(21:50):
and stuff, but I love what you're doing.
So when you're looking for your buyers, who's
buying?
Is it retail people that are looking to
buy land to build, or are you just
pretty much strictly selling it to builders, to
construction companies?
It depends, right?
So like, I, first of all, I only
go into the markets, into the areas where
there's already a lot of buyers, right?
(22:12):
And so I'm, you can go in, and
there's a ton of properties going on in
your area of Florida.
And I could go in and I can
see, all right, so in this county, these
are the top four zip codes, right?
And these are who the buyers are that
are buying all the land, and this is
what price they're paying for them.
So if I know somebody, I don't care
if they're a builder or an owner, just
a regular retail buyer, if they're an investor,
(22:34):
I don't care.
I don't care.
I just know that everybody's buying lots in
this area for $30,000.
So I'm gonna sell mine for $27,500.
And I know if they're buying, if they're
paying 30, I should be able to sell
mine pretty quickly with just a few phone
calls, if I can sell it for 27,
28,000 bucks.
(22:54):
And so that means then, if I know
I can sell it with a few phone
calls for 28 grand, and it will remind
me of this letter that I like to
send out to the buyers that works like
mad, it's crazy.
You'll never have a problem selling a property
again, if you understand this.
So I know if I wanna, if I
can sell it for 28 grand with just
a few phone calls, I'm gonna, now, depending
(23:15):
on the market, if it's a really hot
market, like where you are in that part
of Florida, I'm not gonna make an offer
at 50 cents on the dollar.
I might make an offer at 60 cents,
maybe 70 cents on the dollar.
I just wanna make a quick five, 10
grand, be in and out real quick.
So if I know I can sell it
for 28 grand, I'm gonna offer 18 grand,
that's it.
I'm gonna offer $18,000.
I know I get one out of every
30 of them accepted.
(23:35):
I get an offer accepted for 18 grand.
I'm gonna call, I'm gonna do a couple
of things in Florida specifically.
I'm gonna, I can get a list of
everybody who's owns, I can do this in
FreedomSoft, everybody who's bought land recently in that
area in the last year.
I'm gonna download that list.
I'm gonna skip trace them.
I'm gonna call them all.
I'm gonna say, hey, I see you bought
(23:56):
this land, quarter acre lot for 30,000
bucks.
I'm a wholesaler.
I got another piece of land in that
area and I'm trying to sell it, if
you want, for 28.
Bought that one for 30, I'm selling this
one from 28.
It's cool if you don't want it, because
I got 10 other people right here I'm
calling right now.
So I'm gonna sell this thing in the
next few minutes.
So you could do that.
The second thing that works really, really well,
(24:17):
and I learned this from somebody, you're in
Tampa.
I learned this from somebody in Tampa probably
15 years ago.
And in fact, the funny thing is, he
taught me this strategy, was one of the
founders of FreedomSoft before Rob Swanson bought FreedomSoft.
And he told me this.
I started my podcast in 2011.
This must have been 2012 when, 2011 or
2012, it was one of the first guys
(24:37):
I interviewed on my podcast.
And that's so funny.
He takes a, if you get a yellow
legal pad, I got one over here, but
he gets a red sharp and he writes
on this thing.
Urgent, help, exclamation point.
I've got this property that I need to,
and then says, don't throw me away.
He writes in there, don't throw me away.
He says, help, I've got this property near
the one you own at address.
(24:58):
I've had it on the market for some
time now.
I can't wait any longer.
I need this thing sold today.
Please make me an offer.
The title is clear.
Taxes are paid.
I need this thing sold today.
Help, exclamation point, underline, right?
And he puts his name and his phone
number, his cell phone number.
That's important.
When they call you, you want to answer
(25:19):
it.
Please help.
And then he crumples the letter up and
then folds it back into fourths, puts it
in an invitation envelope, hand addresses, 50 to
100 of these, invitation envelopes with a real
stamp.
And he makes the stamp a little crooked
and then sends those out to all the
active buyers in that area.
Phone rings off the hook.
This guy taught me this thing back in
(25:39):
2012.
So this is 13 years ago.
Is that right?
And every time I've done that, I've never
had a problem finding buyers for my deal.
As long as it's a good priced deal,
right?
So like what that letter does is they
get this letter invitation envelope and there's a
little thickness to it.
This is weird, right?
And it's not a thin letter and they
open the flap.
It's handwritten.
So they're going to open it.
And there's this crumpled up letter in there
(26:00):
and it says, do not throw away.
Don't throw me away.
And it's a handwritten red Sharpie pen that
pretends to be this desperate, motivated seller.
And when I get calls from these guys,
they'll call me like, yeah, I'm interested, tell
me.
And then a lot of times they'll tell
me, hey, listen, I'm a wholesaler too.
I'm an investor.
I love this letter.
I don't want this property.
(26:20):
I'm just telling you, I like the letter.
Thanks for sending it.
You know, I get that all the time
too.
But that letter works like crazy.
And so you could just, now keep in
mind, I'm sending this to investors.
So they're going to expect a little discount
but I can sell them quickly like that.
If I want full retail for the property,
I'm going to put it on the MLS.
I'm going to list it with a realtor,
right?
And then instead of selling it for 28,
(26:41):
I might sell it for 30, 32,000.
But that also means I'm going to have
to probably take it down.
I'm probably going to need to close on
it and buy it and own it for
a little bit while I then turn around
and list it and sell it on the
MLS with a realtor.
So you can go directly to the buyers
who are already buying land or you can
go ahead and take down the property and
then list it on the MLS and sell
(27:03):
it up with a realtor.
That's where you'll get the most money but
that takes a little longer.
Yeah.
Joe, I'm curious.
So I got into land myself a while
ago because nobody's in it.
I thought it was, it's so much fun.
Like I just absolutely loved it.
I don't talk about it a lot, but
I do it.
I love it.
Like there's this town in Nevada.
I say that I own that town like
hundreds and hundreds of acres in this town
(27:24):
I own.
I just loved it.
I've never really heard of anybody wholesaling or
flipping a land.
I've never even heard of them.
So it makes me wonder like how much
competition do you have?
Because flipping everybody's getting into flipping, right?
Real estate, actual properties.
And to be honest with you, when you
came on I didn't even really dig in
enough to know that land was your specialty.
So, but I've never really been doing this.
(27:44):
So like, do you run into very much
competition or is it just kind of, you
can grow as much as you want to
grow because there's not a lot of people
doing what you do.
This is why I stopped doing houses because
I just got tired competing with every other
YouTube wholesaler out there.
I felt like plowing through concrete, doing houses
especially in some markets.
It's just insane.
It used to be back in the good
(28:06):
old days.
By the way, ever since 2011, when I
know 2006 when I got started doing real
estate everybody's always complained about competition, right?
Like even back then.
And then when the market crashed people were
complaining about not being able to find sellers
or not being able to find buyers.
So either people are complaining about not being
able to find the sellers or the deals.
Not people complaining, not being able to find
the buyers.
People complaining about the market being too cold
(28:27):
too hot, too competitive.
That's nothing's new.
But I started complaining about, hell, there's too
much competition for these houses.
And I love direct mail because the quality
of the lead from a direct mail piece
is way better than a cold calling lead
or even with PPC, pay-per-click or
PPL, pay-per-lead.
Those guys who are putting their information on
(28:47):
the website they're also putting it into about
three or four other websites.
So you're competing really, it's very fierce but
the quality of a direct mail lead is
way better.
If they're calling me, they got my postcard
and they're just like, all right, I want
to get done.
I want to get rid of this thing.
And then I'm calling them back.
So the positioning is way different on the
floor.
But like, I started, when I was doing
direct mail for houses, I was lucky if
(29:09):
I got half of 1% response rate
on my letters or my postcards.
But with land, I was getting two, 3
% response rate with letters.
I was getting five to 10% response
rate with some of these postcards that I
use.
And the higher response rate postcards are more
generic.
They're more like, hey, I need to talk
to you about your two acre property.
Call me, it's important.
Doesn't say why, it just says, call me.
(29:31):
I got a 24 hour recorded voicemail.
So I'll get five to 10% response
rates with that.
But anyway, there was virtually no competition.
And unlike a house where you have to
close, like you get one week inspection contingency,
you've got to close right away in 30
days.
And in some markets, you got to close
in two or three weeks if you want
that deal.
Well, with land, nobody else is really talking
to that seller.
(29:52):
I can close in three months.
And so my offers, when I was first
getting started it was 90 days.
Now I'm doing.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today, we're gonna help you make some money
with real estate.
(00:42):
As a matter of fact, we're gonna be
talking about one of the most lucrative ways,
a couple of the most lucrative ways for
you to get money quickly, maybe not quickly
in real estate, but pretty quickly, and to
be able to get the money you need
for even longer-term investing, like long-term
rentals and short-term rentals.
So today, we're talking about mastering wholesale, and
we're talking about mastering flipping.
And with us today is like, really, one
of the most well-known experts in the
(01:03):
space, Joe McCall.
Now, Joe is a seasoned real estate investor,
creative financing consultant, and expert in outsourcing and
marketing as well.
So with years of hands-on experience, he
has established himself as a trusted authority in
the real estate investing space.
Now, he's the host of the Real Estate
Investing Mastery Podcast.
That's Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast, where he
(01:24):
shares valuable insights and actionable strategies to help
others succeed in the industry.
Now, as an accomplished author, Joe has written
four, four, impactful real estate investing books that
guide both beginners and seasoned investors towards achieving
success.
He's also a sought-after speaker presenting at
conferences and workshops nationwide, where he educates audiences
(01:45):
on creative real estate strategies and effective marketing
techniques as well.
Now, Joe regularly hosts webinars focusing on automation,
on marketing, on delegation, to help investors streamline
and grow their business.
And before embarking on his journey in real
estate, he had an engineering job, but his
entrepreneurial spirit led him to transition into wholesaling,
(02:07):
where he found his true passion.
Now, outside of business, Joe is a devoted
family man.
He enjoys quality time with his kids, whether
it's exploring the zoo, hitting the golf course
with his boys, or swimming with his girls.
Joe's faith and family are his top priority,
and he strives to balance both a successful
career and a fulfilling personal life.
Joe, you freaked out when I even mentioned
golf.
Is that for you or is it for
(02:28):
the boys?
No, I'm freaking out because that bio is
awesome.
Like, can you send that to me?
I will, I'll send that to you.
Well, I've said so much, it's hard to
condense it, like it just to, like a
short synopsis of what you've done.
So congratulations, man, on your success so far.
Wow, thank you so much.
Seriously, send me that bio, because like, I
hate writing bios, and every time I get
(02:48):
a request to be on a podcast, or
they ask me to send them a bio
or something like, and I try to find
the old one that I did, and then
it's just outdated, but I don't care.
But that was awesome.
Well, I'll send it over to you, and
I can relate.
It's very uncomfortable sometimes talking about ourselves, but
man, you've accomplished so much.
So like, let me ask you this, like
my son has an engineering mind, and probably
(03:08):
go in the engineering space.
I've kind of tried to do my part
to get him into real estate.
So maybe to help me here, how did
you make the transition going from engineering to
jumping in to wholesaling and flipping?
Man, I tell you, it's not as easy
as you'd think, because as an engineer, you,
I'm speaking in generalities here, but I think
(03:29):
a lot of people would relate.
I was good at math, I was good
at school, and I like having exact answers
to exact questions.
Like, so when you're, no, I worked on
a lot of power plants.
We were building, I was project engineer, project
management for these power plants.
And so you have all of it designed,
you have specifications three inches thick, and you've
(03:51):
got drawings of the underground utilities, and then
the foundations, and then the steel structure, and
then all of the mechanical electrical plumbing, and
then the finishes, and then all of the
heavy, the equipment, and the piping, and then
the exterior.
And that's like, you can see the project
from beginning to end.
And when math, when you're doing math in
college, it's like, there is always one answer
(04:13):
and one way to get to that answer.
So I liked order.
I liked like, okay, everything has to be
done this way.
But when I got into real estate, I
wanted to be an entrepreneur.
I wanted to work for myself.
I liked the idea of cashflow, because that
just made sense to me.
Like, okay, cool, you can own this asset
that generates generational wealth, that has all these
(04:34):
tax advantages, that you can create good cashflow,
you can make fast cash, and you can
make, I call it piles of cash and
streams of cash.
And so I wanna get into real estate.
So I started down that journey, but then
I realized, wow, when you're dealing with a
seller who owns a property, every seller is
different and every house is different.
So it was not easy transitioning from engineer
(04:56):
to investor, business owner, because there's so many
variables out there and every situation, every deal
is different.
So I really had to work.
And I was not good at sales.
I'm still not good at sales.
Like, an engineer is more fact, like analytical,
right?
But somebody who's really good at sales is
more motion led, like is maybe more relational.
(05:19):
And it's a different thing that I had
to learn how to negotiate, how to, that
book was really valuable to me, how to
win friends and influence people.
Like how to be a nice guy, not
to be a data nerd.
So, but it also has helped me in
some ways too, because like, I like to
analyze deals.
(05:40):
I like to analyze markets and drill down
into, okay, which areas of the country are
the best areas to do deals in and
which areas of the country are, have the
best cash flow.
So I use my engineering brain to kind
of analyze areas of around the country to
find the best cash flowing markets.
But I think what's important is if you
have, if somebody listening to this has a
(06:02):
drive and a desire to be an entrepreneur
and to work for themselves, call their own
shots, then you'll figure it out.
You'll find a way to do it.
Because I knew when I was working my
engineering job, I was making good money.
When I quit my job in 2009, when
I was working for a big electrical contractor,
doing scheduling and planning for a huge power
plant, $500 million power plant.
(06:23):
Like I knew it was more dangerous, more
risky to have a job than to actually
work for yourself.
Because I was one paycheck away from complete
financial devastation, right?
Like I was, even though I was making
good money, I was living paycheck to paycheck.
No matter how hard I worked, I got
paid the same every two weeks.
And if I was lucky, you know, I
(06:43):
did a really good job.
I'd get a 3% raise.
I was not worried I wouldn't be able
to find another job if I got fired,
but I'd have to probably move my family
somewhere around the country there.
So it's like, I didn't want that anymore.
And I also, when I was working my
corporate engineering job, looked at the middle managers
and what they were doing.
And like, oh my gosh, I do not
want that.
They were the first ones in the job,
(07:04):
the last ones to leave.
They were working 70, 80 hours a week.
They had tons of pressure on them.
And they had a bunch of people underneath
them that weren't happy and a bunch of
people over them that were not happy.
And I thought, I just don't, that does
not look appealing to me at all.
So I really liked real estate.
I spent a ton of money on my
education.
And because of my engineering brain, I was
(07:24):
a, I like to call myself, I was
a professional student for three years before I
actually started doing deals.
And it wasn't until I stopped asking all
of the what if questions and stopped wondering
or worrying about having all my eyes dotted
and all my T's crossed and just started
trusting the system and knowing, okay, I'll figure
it out as I go.
That's when I started having success and started
(07:45):
actually doing deals.
And I finally quit my job in 09
and haven't looked back since.
I hope that answered that question.
Yeah, no, that's great.
And I think one of the things that's
interesting that you mentioned is you like the
engineering skills that you have and being able
to apply those to really evaluating deals.
So when you're teaching your tribe, like what
are some of the things that you're teaching
them regarding finding the right wholesale property and
(08:07):
then evaluating that to make sure it's actually
the right deal?
Yeah, well, I think learning how to find
deals is the most important skill in real
estate, being a deal finder.
And I've gone, I've done all kinds of
deals, lease options and wholesaling and buy and
hold and BRRRR strategy and fix and flip
and for houses and for land.
And I'm mainly doing land right now, vacant
(08:29):
land.
So you need to learn how to find
the deals.
And I realized this early on, we're not
in the real estate investing business.
I'm not in the land business.
I'm not in the house business, not in
the commercial business.
I am in, or not in the multifamily
business, right?
I am in the marketing business.
And when I realized that, like that, everything
changed for me because I realized, okay, well,
(08:50):
if my goal is to make 100 grand
a month, 10 grand a month, well, that
means like one deal a month or 10
deals a month, what is it?
Or does that mean like I need to
have 200 doors or, so you take your
income goal and you break that down into,
what does that mean?
Like, what do I have to do every
day to get to that 10,000 a
month goal?
Or maybe it's a thousand dollars a month.
And that means, okay, well, if I'm wholesaling,
(09:12):
which is my favorite strategy, it's the fastest
way to make money in real estate.
Wholesaling, period.
I'll argue and win every single time that
wholesaling is the best way to get started
in real estate.
Not just, it's not just a good strategy
for beginners.
Everybody needs to learn wholesaling.
I can't tell you how many rehabbers I
have found and know over the years.
(09:33):
Rehabbers, you know, they started wholesaling, they got
tired of it.
This is like for kindergartners.
I wanna be a real professional investor.
I wanna own a bunch of doors.
I wanna own a bunch of storage units
and et cetera.
I wanna do fix and flip.
Instead of making 10 grand on a deal,
I wanna make 50 grand on a deal.
How many rehabbers I've met that go back
to wholesaling after a few years?
Rehabbing is like adult daycare.
It's completely frustrating.
(09:54):
There are so many challenges with that.
Owning a bunch of rental properties, I hate
that.
Managing tenants who don't care about your property.
So many, you think you're getting two or
$300 a month cashflow in that, but you're
not.
One vacancy means three months of no rent,
means three months of paying a mortgage payment,
means replacing the water heater, means cleaning everything
(10:16):
up, replacing the carpets, painting the walls, paying
the property management company another month's rent as
a tenant finder's fee.
So it's like, I love wholesaling.
It's the fastest way to make quick cash.
And sometimes it's better to make a quick
nickel in a slow dime, as I say.
So being a deal finder is the most
important aspect of this.
And when you understand we're in the marketing
business, all right, so if I wanna make
(10:37):
10 grand a month, that means I need
to do one deal a month.
And if I need to do one deal
a month, that means I need to make,
I don't know, 20 offers.
And if I have to make 20 offers,
that means I need, I don't know, 50
leads.
And if I need 50 leads from my
marketing, well, that means I need to send
maybe for land, it means I need to
send about 500 postcards a week.
And if I send 500 postcards a week,
(10:59):
I'm gonna get this many calls.
I'm gonna reach this many people.
I'm gonna make this number of offers and
I'm gonna get one out of 30 accepted.
And it's a marketing business.
And I always argue whether you're doing commercial,
residential, whatever, it all comes down to marketing.
And leads are the lifeblood of your business.
Even if you're buying deals off the MLS,
you're still marketing to realtors.
(11:21):
You're still, every day you've got to, if
you're not doing it, you need to get
somebody else that's going on the MLS every
single day looking for deals and making offers.
And final thing I'll say to this is,
I say this all the time, your speed
to income in the real estate business is
directly proportional to the number of offers that
you make.
There's a direct correlation to how many offers
are you making.
(11:42):
So if you want to make 10 grand
and you're struggling and you're like, I don't
know, Joe, I've been at this for six
months.
I've not done a deal yet.
I'm gonna ask you a real simple question.
How many offers?
There's two metrics that will tell me immediately
the health of any real estate investing business.
How many offers have you made in the
last week?
How many offers have you made in the
last month?
Those are the, that's it.
And I preach that over and over and
(12:03):
over again, because I've seen it in my
own business.
When I'm dipped, when I'm struggling and I'm
not making as much money, I turn around
and I look at it and I say,
all right, well, how many offers have I
made?
Oh my gosh, I've not made any offers
in two months.
Maybe that's why I'm having a financially tight
season right now.
So that's super important.
So Joe, when you're talking about that and
you talk about the marketing aspect, are you
(12:23):
typically trying to target like distressed homeowners directly?
Is that kind of your target market who
you're going after?
Yeah, I like direct to seller.
I don't like dealing with realtors or listed
properties that a million other people have looked
at.
I wanna go directly to the homeowner or
the landowner who, you know, it's a numbers
game.
So I go directly to them and I
(12:44):
don't want a middleman.
That's the easiest way.
And for me, for land specifically right now,
I like to target people who own vacant
land.
I go see where the, this is the
engineering mind in me.
Where are the hot markets where there's a
ton of activity going on?
A lot of people are buying land right
now, okay, in the last six months.
I find those hot zip codes and then
(13:05):
I pull a list of everybody who owns
land in those zip codes, who has owned
it over five years and they live outside
the area.
So they live outside the zip code.
And I just download that entire list.
I send them an ugly postcard that drives
them to a voicemail and they, you know,
I get maybe 5% response rate on
that postcard, 5% of the people who
get it call.
So if I send a thousand postcards out,
(13:26):
I get 50 calls.
And of those calls, I might reach half
of them.
I reach, I call back and talk to
about 25 people.
And I know over time, I'll do one
deal out of every 25 to 30 leads
that come in.
So yeah, I send postcards to the owners
and you could spend a lot of time
like drilling down and really narrowing the list.
(13:47):
And instead of sending a thousand, then just
send maybe 250 to a real specialized list
of people that might have some signs of
distress like probate or delinquent taxes or foreclosures
or whatnot.
But I just send everybody.
I think it's easier and faster.
Just send mail to everybody because you're gonna
find people that others are missing.
(14:10):
Where do you find the best, in your
world, do you, you talked about finding a
market, right?
And especially with land.
Do you usually focus just on one market
or are you focused on multiple markets nationwide?
Do you find that to be too overwhelming
and confusing and you just focus on like
one, two, three select markets?
That's a good question.
Cause it's more, it's better to be an
inch wide and a mile deep, but at
(14:31):
the same time, you don't wanna have all
your eggs in one basket.
I wanna be like in maybe two or
three markets.
And when I say markets for me, for
land, I first look at, okay, which states
have the most land activity right now, right?
And then I look at the state and
which county in these states have the most
activity.
And I tend to stay away from like
the number one, number two, most popular markets
(14:51):
cause it's just too competitive maybe.
And then I'll look at the secondary, third,
fourth counties.
And then I go into those counties and
I say, all right, what zip codes in
these counties are most of the land activity
have?
Where are the home builders building new homes
right now?
And they're still building a lot of them.
You know, like I just saw the other
day, we need 7.2 million homes to
(15:12):
meet current demand right now.
So there's home builders looking for land.
Well, where are they building the homes right
now?
And so like I go into maybe three
different counties and then go to the top
zip codes in those counties and just pull
lists.
And so because of that marketing plan I
have at the beginning, I wanna know, all
right, who am I gonna send marketing to?
If I wanna do 20 grand a month,
(15:34):
I need to be sending a thousand postcards
a week.
So I'm just sending a thousand postcards every
week.
I'm trying to at least into those areas.
And I only mail the same area every
three months.
So at any one time, yeah, I'm in
four or five different markets because I just
need that many records to mail to.
So when you do that, where are you
getting your list from?
(15:55):
Right now, FreedomSoft, right here you see my
cup.
I love FreedomSoft.
I don't own it.
I wish I did.
My friend Rob Swanson does.
I have a custom signature edition of FreedomSoft
that I've kind of customized with them for
land, but I get my lists of vacant
land owners from FreedomSoft.
I also can find the top zip codes
in a county from FreedomSoft where the most
(16:16):
land activity is happening.
I get my list from them and I
do my direct mail from them.
And they help me with, they give me
the phone numbers, the voicemails, the websites.
They help me organize all the leads.
When I get a lead that comes in,
it's all managed inside of FreedomSoft.
And then I send my offers from FreedomSoft
to the seller.
Sometimes I send offers before even talking to
the sellers.
But generally it's better to talk to them
(16:36):
first.
I send all the offers from there.
And then the automated follow-up happens from
FreedomSoft.
So it'll keep on sending them letters and
postcards and text messages and emails.
And so the follow-up is really important
that I operate under like this philosophy of
no lead left behind.
Every single lead that comes in gets an
offer.
And then I follow up with every single
(16:57):
offer every 30 days until they tell me
to stop or they sell the property or
they die.
FreedomSoft, is that just for land or does
FreedomSoft work to be able to get lists
and do any kind of wholesale?
FreedomSoft is mainly built for houses.
And so, but I'm friends with Rob Swanson.
And I said, hey, I wanna use this
because I was using it for houses.
I said, I wanna use this for land.
And so they, in the last year or
(17:19):
two, have added in the ability to get
land lists for sellers and for buyers.
They have other tools in there that kind
of like, you know, you could, if you
wanted to put a QR code on your
postcards or on your letters and then the
seller goes to that website from their phone
and it's called like, it's called a deal
negotiator.
And it's a bot that just asks them
(17:40):
questions.
And then they put information about their property
in the, on that bot.
And then it comes into your FreedomSoft.
I would rather just get them on the
phone.
I just wanna go directly on the phone
as soon as possible with the sellers.
I don't wanna make them jump through a
bunch of hoops.
So just call this 24-hour recorded voicemail.
That's what I do.
My postcard says, hey, text or call this
24-hour recorded voicemail and we will call
(18:02):
you back.
And so then when they call that voicemail,
the voicemail just says, hey, thanks for calling.
We're investors.
We buy land.
If you wanna sell your land, leave your
name and number and the reference ID on
that postcard and we will call you back
and send you an offer.
And that's what our voicemail says.
And at that point, we just keep on
calling them back until we've talked to them.
(18:22):
And then we keep on sending them offers
until they tell us to stop or they
sell it to somebody else or they die.
So FreedomSoft you use to go in and
find the lists.
And then it sounds like it's marketing automation
completely where then you're able to, from there,
put in the list or actually already has
the list and then spit out the actual
postcards to them and then push them to
a prerecorded number, which is in FreedomSoft.
(18:44):
Then the person comes into FreedomSoft, they leave
a message, say, hey, I'm interested.
And then you're getting them on the phone,
following up right away, talking to them more.
And then- Or texting them.
Sometimes it's just a text conversation back and
forth.
And then from there, you're making them an
offer based on your evaluation.
Yeah, I look at the, what can I
sell the property for?
And if it's land, I'm looking at, okay,
(19:04):
well, similar properties here are selling for 50
,000.
So I'm gonna sell mine for 40.
And then if I know I'm gonna sell
mine for 40, I subtract my profit and
I pay realtor commission and I subtract maybe
if I'm borrowing private money and closing costs
and pictures.
We don't do anything to the properties either.
We don't do anything to the land.
We don't subdivide it.
We don't entitle it.
(19:24):
We don't add utilities.
We don't do anything.
We don't clear it out.
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And we just get it under.
So like if everything in there is selling
for 50, I'm gonna sell mine for 40.
So I'm gonna offer usually around 40 to
50%.
I'm gonna offer maybe 20 grand for that
(20:05):
property.
And I know it's a numbers game.
One out of 30 gets accepted.
So I just send an offer out.
I like to say we're deal finders, not
deal creators.
So I'm talking to them on the phone
for a few minutes just to establish a
little rapport to get them to know, like,
and trust me.
But I'm always, I call it, I'm the
reluctant buyer.
When I have them on the phone, I
need them to convince me of why I
(20:26):
should wanna buy their property, right?
I'm not trying to sell them on anything.
I'm not trying to convince them to sell
their property to me.
I'm just like, hey, tell me about your
property.
You know, what's going on?
What's your situation?
What would you like to see happen?
When would you like to see that happen?
Okay, so how much do you want for
your property?
What's more important to you, you know, to
sell it fast or to sell it for
the highest price possible?
This looks like a nice property.
Why do you even want to sell it?
(20:48):
Why don't you just list it with a
realtor?
You should just list it with an agent.
So I'm always like, I'm just, that's how
I'm talking to them.
And I tell them, listen, I'm not, if
you want full retail, I'm not your buyer,
right?
I can give you the names and numbers
of four or five realtors that are selling
land in the area, and you should just
call them.
But if, I'm the easy button.
If you just want to get cash, I
can close in 30 days.
(21:08):
I can probably help you with that.
But I, so that's my approach with them.
They know I'm an investor, and I know
that I'm just gonna, I'm gonna make a
lot of low ball offers.
I'm gonna make a lot of people mad,
and I'm okay with that.
If I haven't made somebody mad by 12
o'clock, I'm not doing enough marketing.
I'm not making enough offers.
I love that strategy.
It is a good strategy.
I love what you do too.
(21:29):
I think it's, I think it's brilliant in
so many ways.
I love land.
I mean, I'm one of those guys where
I've flipped, I'm not a ton of land,
but what I've always done is always done
it completely backwards.
I've sent out offers to begin with, then
they're mad, you know, you have a relation
with them.
But then what I'm trying to do is
find retail buyers.
It's freaking hard, man.
It's like freaking hard.
You put them on all the retail sites
(21:50):
and stuff, but I love what you're doing.
So when you're looking for your buyers, who's
buying?
Is it retail people that are looking to
buy land to build, or are you just
pretty much strictly selling it to builders, to
construction companies?
It depends, right?
So like, I, first of all, I only
go into the markets, into the areas where
there's already a lot of buyers, right?
(22:12):
And so I'm, you can go in, and
there's a ton of properties going on in
your area of Florida.
And I could go in and I can
see, all right, so in this county, these
are the top four zip codes, right?
And these are who the buyers are that
are buying all the land, and this is
what price they're paying for them.
So if I know somebody, I don't care
if they're a builder or an owner, just
a regular retail buyer, if they're an investor,
(22:34):
I don't care.
I don't care.
I just know that everybody's buying lots in
this area for $30,000.
So I'm gonna sell mine for $27,500.
And I know if they're buying, if they're
paying 30, I should be able to sell
mine pretty quickly with just a few phone
calls, if I can sell it for 27,
28,000 bucks.
(22:54):
And so that means then, if I know
I can sell it with a few phone
calls for 28 grand, and it will remind
me of this letter that I like to
send out to the buyers that works like
mad, it's crazy.
You'll never have a problem selling a property
again, if you understand this.
So I know if I wanna, if I
can sell it for 28 grand with just
a few phone calls, I'm gonna, now, depending
(23:15):
on the market, if it's a really hot
market, like where you are in that part
of Florida, I'm not gonna make an offer
at 50 cents on the dollar.
I might make an offer at 60 cents,
maybe 70 cents on the dollar.
I just wanna make a quick five, 10
grand, be in and out real quick.
So if I know I can sell it
for 28 grand, I'm gonna offer 18 grand,
that's it.
I'm gonna offer $18,000.
I know I get one out of every
30 of them accepted.
(23:35):
I get an offer accepted for 18 grand.
I'm gonna call, I'm gonna do a couple
of things in Florida specifically.
I'm gonna, I can get a list of
everybody who's owns, I can do this in
FreedomSoft, everybody who's bought land recently in that
area in the last year.
I'm gonna download that list.
I'm gonna skip trace them.
I'm gonna call them all.
I'm gonna say, hey, I see you bought
(23:56):
this land, quarter acre lot for 30,000
bucks.
I'm a wholesaler.
I got another piece of land in that
area and I'm trying to sell it, if
you want, for 28.
Bought that one for 30, I'm selling this
one from 28.
It's cool if you don't want it, because
I got 10 other people right here I'm
calling right now.
So I'm gonna sell this thing in the
next few minutes.
So you could do that.
The second thing that works really, really well,
(24:17):
and I learned this from somebody, you're in
Tampa.
I learned this from somebody in Tampa probably
15 years ago.
And in fact, the funny thing is, he
taught me this strategy, was one of the
founders of FreedomSoft before Rob Swanson bought FreedomSoft.
And he told me this.
I started my podcast in 2011.
This must have been 2012 when, 2011 or
2012, it was one of the first guys
(24:37):
I interviewed on my podcast.
And that's so funny.
He takes a, if you get a yellow
legal pad, I got one over here, but
he gets a red sharp and he writes
on this thing.
Urgent, help, exclamation point.
I've got this property that I need to,
and then says, don't throw me away.
He writes in there, don't throw me away.
He says, help, I've got this property near
the one you own at address.
(24:58):
I've had it on the market for some
time now.
I can't wait any longer.
I need this thing sold today.
Please make me an offer.
The title is clear.
Taxes are paid.
I need this thing sold today.
Help, exclamation point, underline, right?
And he puts his name and his phone
number, his cell phone number.
That's important.
When they call you, you want to answer
(25:19):
it.
Please help.
And then he crumples the letter up and
then folds it back into fourths, puts it
in an invitation envelope, hand addresses, 50 to
100 of these, invitation envelopes with a real
stamp.
And he makes the stamp a little crooked
and then sends those out to all the
active buyers in that area.
Phone rings off the hook.
This guy taught me this thing back in
(25:39):
2012.
So this is 13 years ago.
Is that right?
And every time I've done that, I've never
had a problem finding buyers for my deal.
As long as it's a good priced deal,
right?
So like what that letter does is they
get this letter invitation envelope and there's a
little thickness to it.
This is weird, right?
And it's not a thin letter and they
open the flap.
It's handwritten.
So they're going to open it.
And there's this crumpled up letter in there
(26:00):
and it says, do not throw away.
Don't throw me away.
And it's a handwritten red Sharpie pen that
pretends to be this desperate, motivated seller.
And when I get calls from these guys,
they'll call me like, yeah, I'm interested, tell
me.
And then a lot of times they'll tell
me, hey, listen, I'm a wholesaler too.
I'm an investor.
I love this letter.
I don't want this property.
(26:20):
I'm just telling you, I like the letter.
Thanks for sending it.
You know, I get that all the time
too.
But that letter works like crazy.
And so you could just, now keep in
mind, I'm sending this to investors.
So they're going to expect a little discount
but I can sell them quickly like that.
If I want full retail for the property,
I'm going to put it on the MLS.
I'm going to list it with a realtor,
right?
And then instead of selling it for 28,
(26:41):
I might sell it for 30, 32,000.
But that also means I'm going to have
to probably take it down.
I'm probably going to need to close on
it and buy it and own it for
a little bit while I then turn around
and list it and sell it on the
MLS with a realtor.
So you can go directly to the buyers
who are already buying land or you can
go ahead and take down the property and
then list it on the MLS and sell
(27:03):
it up with a realtor.
That's where you'll get the most money but
that takes a little longer.
Yeah.
Joe, I'm curious.
So I got into land myself a while
ago because nobody's in it.
I thought it was, it's so much fun.
Like I just absolutely loved it.
I don't talk about it a lot, but
I do it.
I love it.
Like there's this town in Nevada.
I say that I own that town like
hundreds and hundreds of acres in this town
(27:24):
I own.
I just loved it.
I've never really heard of anybody wholesaling or
flipping a land.
I've never even heard of them.
So it makes me wonder like how much
competition do you have?
Because flipping everybody's getting into flipping, right?
Real estate, actual properties.
And to be honest with you, when you
came on I didn't even really dig in
enough to know that land was your specialty.
So, but I've never really been doing this.
(27:44):
So like, do you run into very much
competition or is it just kind of, you
can grow as much as you want to
grow because there's not a lot of people
doing what you do.
This is why I stopped doing houses because
I just got tired competing with every other
YouTube wholesaler out there.
I felt like plowing through concrete, doing houses
especially in some markets.
It's just insane.
It used to be back in the good
(28:06):
old days.
By the way, ever since 2011, when I
know 2006 when I got started doing real
estate everybody's always complained about competition, right?
Like even back then.
And then when the market crashed people were
complaining about not being able to find sellers
or not being able to find buyers.
So either people are complaining about not being
able to find the sellers or the deals.
Not people complaining, not being able to find
the buyers.
People complaining about the market being too cold
(28:27):
too hot, too competitive.
That's nothing's new.
But I started complaining about, hell, there's too
much competition for these houses.
And I love direct mail because the quality
of the lead from a direct mail piece
is way better than a cold calling lead
or even with PPC, pay-per-click or
PPL, pay-per-lead.
Those guys who are putting their information on
(28:47):
the website they're also putting it into about
three or four other websites.
So you're competing really, it's very fierce but
the quality of a direct mail lead is
way better.
If they're calling me, they got my postcard
and they're just like, all right, I want
to get done.
I want to get rid of this thing.
And then I'm calling them back.
So the positioning is way different on the
floor.
But like, I started, when I was doing
direct mail for houses, I was lucky if
(29:09):
I got half of 1% response rate
on my letters or my postcards.
But with land, I was getting two, 3
% response rate with letters.
I was getting five to 10% response
rate with some of these postcards that I
use.
And the higher response rate postcards are more
generic.
They're more like, hey, I need to talk
to you about your two acre property.
Call me, it's important.
Doesn't say why, it just says, call me.
(29:31):
I got a 24 hour recorded voicemail.
So I'll get five to 10% response
rates with that.
But anyway, there was virtually no competition.
And unlike a house where you have to
close, like you get one week inspection contingency,
you've got to close right away in 30
days.
And in some markets, you got to close
in two or three weeks if you want
that deal.
Well, with land, nobody else is really talking
to that seller.
(29:52):
I can close in three months.
And so my offers, when I was first
getting started it was 90 days.
Now I'm doing.
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