Trustee Sale Investing After SB1079 with Greg Clark, Green Leaf Properties #ddre28

Greg Clark is a Bay Area professional football player turned trustee sale investor. He and his brother have successfully flipped over 400 properties over the past 17 years. California's SB 1079 went into effect on January 21, drastically changing the risks associated with trustee sale foreclosure investing. In this show, Sean and Aaron explore alternatives for trustee sale investors looking for other opportunities and ways they can bring their very unique skills (chocolate) to other strategies, right here in California. 

Get your questions answered on the upcoming show by posting your questions in our community: https://bit.ly/ddre-28

Trustee sale investor clients, please feel free to use the community for questions. Also email [e-mail] to reach Sean.

00:00 The Data Driven Real Estate Podcast Welcomes Greg Clark, of Green Leaf Properties.
01:24 Greg's journey from a professional football player to trustee sale buyer
06:25 The importance of data in the trustee sale game
09:56 How SB1079 and the redemption period is impacting real estate investors?
17:26 California rents are the lowest in the nation?
23:01 What will strategies will trustee sale buyers use if they exit foreclosure investing?
24:48 Importance of title research, risks, and how that translates to other opportunities
26:34 Unique skills that trustee sale buyers bring to other strategies
30:40  How many houses a trustee sale buyer researches to buy just one investment
33:26 Leveraging existing systems into new strategies
46:33 Working with wholesalers and where to find them
42:38 Have they tried to jump to other states?
53:04 Driving for dollars and finding real estate deals

Episode Transcript

Aaron Norris (00:06):
Welcome back to the Data Driven Real Estate
Podcast, the podcast for realestate professionals dedicated
to driving business using data.
I'm Aaron Norris, along withSean O'Toole with PropertyRadar.
And today we have Greg Clark,he's a trustee sale buyer out of
the Bay Area who has done over400 transactions over the last
decade at the courthouse steps,and of course, California Senate
Bill 1079 has really changedstrings as of January 1 of this

(00:28):
year of the new redemptionperiod, we've covered in an
entire show an hour long acouple months ago, I'll make
sure to put that in the shownotes. But what happens when
your cheeses moved? And you areforced to look at new ways of
doing business when things outof your control make that
happen? Today, that's what wetalked about, trustee sale
buyers has a completelydifferent skill set than a lot
of other investors, one of thehardest strategies for you to

(00:49):
deploy in the real estateinvesting realm. What do you do
when you can't do that anymore?
We talked about chocolate andpeanut butter. Chocolate is what
you bring to the table andtrustee sale buyers, you have a
lot of very unique skills thatnot all real estate investors
have. And when you realize whatthose skill sets are and what
you're passionate about whatyou're good at how it transfers,
we can back it up with data tofind you other things to do

(01:12):
right here in the Golden Stateof California. You won't want to
miss the show. Hey, Greg,welcome to the program. It's so
nice to have you here. Who isGreg Clark?

Greg Clark (01:24):
Hey, well, thank you. What's up, fellas, it's
great to be here. Greg Clark isjust a guy out there trying to
make a living, you know,ex-football player, dumb
Stanford Graduate, trying tofigure it out. And, you know,
it's, I got in this businessafter I retired from football

(01:44):
kind of fell into financing. Andpretty quickly after that, in
2004, I was like, I gotta getinto real estate investing. I've
experimented a little bit withit in 2001-2002, trying to find
some some people that werewilling to sell their home. You
know, didn't have a ton ofsuccess. But anyways, long story
short, I had a guy that bought ahouse next to me, in

(02:07):
foreclosure. And that was kindof my introduction to and I was
like, wow, this is, this is whatI was playing. And next thing I
knew.

Sean O'Toole (02:13):
I didn't know you're playing football.

Greg Clark (02:15):
Yeah I'm playing football

Sean O'Toole (02:16):
And who did you play for?

Greg Clark (02:20):
Arena League team, the San Francisco 49ers, you
know.

Sean O'Toole (02:23):
Just a little, yeah, just just a minor. Yeah.

Greg Clark (02:26):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
So, I did that and when I got Ihad a career ending injury. And
when I had a back surgery Ijumped into doing finance and
then it just kind of neverlooked back and.

Sean O'Toole (02:40):
So you've been in the real estate investing pretty
much full time since when?

Greg Clark (02:44):
So, I started the investing part of it in right
January 2004 was my first was myfirst purchase and it was I
knocked on a door right it wasjust not a door got the tenants
got the owner and she was great.
She sold me the property at agood price she doesn't want to
deal with it anymore. And I wasoff to the races and then next
thing was I started going downto the court steps in Oakland
and just started like watchingthe guy started tracking stuff

(03:06):
I'm like this is interesting howrisk, is so naive completely
like oblivious to what I wasdoing.

Sean O'Toole (03:14):
The foreclosure trustee sales right, so?

Greg Clark (03:19):
Yes, so, Trustee sales, non warranty sales you'll
have title insurance you betterknow your stuff you got, you
better know you're buying itfirst I can tell all kinds of
stories around trustee sales andthe risk involved in them. But I
just kind of kept, I caught thebug and I hooked up with a guy
down there he kind of likeshowed me the way you know how
to pay some, some strong fees tolearn I did some crazy flips in

(03:42):
like Parkchester village andsome pretty rough areas that
kind of earned my stripes so tospeak. And I kept some as kept
some properties as rentals andkind of went that route. And so,
that's kind of how I got intoit. And then the downturn
happened and holy, it was just,I can't even, I still have

(04:03):
trauma from that downturn,seeing it and realizing I'm nine
months away from completebankruptcy, how to make some
really, really hard decisions.
One of my proudest moments ofbeing able to make it through
that, but it took years off mylife. And so, I'd already
understood the business. So, Iwas tracking every city, every
county, so, when I saw, I had acertain indicator, and when I

(04:23):
saw that flip in April of 2008.
No one was buying and.

Sean O'Toole (04:31):
Drop bid.

Greg Clark (04:33):
Yeah, I, no one's buying and they start dropping
the bids. And I was like, I'mgoing and I was down, I was
literally down to probably$500,000. But if you counted
every, that's liquid, if Icounted all the debt, I was
negative. So, I was negative.
And I just like I'm going to goforward, I'm either going to
lose it all or I'm going to besuccessful. And you know, the
rest is history, right? It was agreatest investing error that

(04:54):
we'll ever see in our entirelifetime. And, you know, it was
super hard, super risky. Youknow, you're trying, you're
doing anyways, I could I couldgo on.

Sean O'Toole (05:06):
What kind of volume are you doing? And, you
know, did you do how many deals.

Greg Clark (05:10):
So, from 2008 to present, you don't really slow
down, 2017 you know that type offrame. But during that time we
did over 400 deals.

Sean O'Toole (05:21):
Yeah.

Greg Clark (05:21):
And, and that's just me and my brother. So, it wasn't
like we were out there raising afund, we weren't, we were doing
our bootstraps, doing itourselves, building our own
system, and then leveraging itwith as fortunate to have some
commercial lines alreadyestablished. And so, we're
leveraging with commerciallines, it wasn't like we were
dealing with hard money oranything like that. So, it was

(05:42):
personal guarantees, short termballoon notes, and just trying
to go through this revolvingline of credit as fast as we
could, because we really, thisis going to last is this going
to be two years, it's gonna be18 months. And we're going to be
back to when mortgages, youknow, lending again, what's the
opportunity here. And becausethere was such a slow movement
by the feds and by thegovernment to try to cure the

(06:05):
system try to help the system,it seemed just got like,
prolonged out and out and out.
I'm like, I can't believe worsein 2014, still buying, you know,
defaulted Fremont loans or newcentury loans, or some of these
Stern, Bear Stearns loans. Andso that was kind of the route we
went, and it was a great, it'sbeen. And what I have to say is,
Sean and I, I've sent you amessage before, that your

(06:30):
software, I got, I was one ofthe early adopters, like I think
it was late 2007, somewherearound there, someone put me in
touch really early. Yeah, we'resuper early is probably the last
time we actually spoke, you'relike on the phone trying to
explain to me, hey, so this iswe're just kind of learning
we're beta version, you know,it'll get better it was, here's
your free service for the next12 months, or 18 months, or
whatever it was, might even beentwo years, you gave it to me, I

(06:52):
can't remember. But that waslife changing. For me, that
software literally changed mylife, it allowed me to have some
independence, some freedom, itled me to build it build a
system that I felt was gonnawork well for me. And it was
incredible. So, it was able torebound, my rebound my way back,

(07:14):
you know, I'm in a super goodposition now. And, you know, I
can't, I can't personally giveyou enough props, or gratitude
or things, and, honestly, thatyou're still around doing this,
I thought you're gonna go, Ithought, I thought you're gonna
go down when the trustee sellsso, so I feel bad for Sean and
all these investments. And so,the way you've transformed it,

(07:35):
and gone national, the way thatyou're mining data, it's just,
it's, kudos to you the way yourbrain works. It's just really
brilliant. And, you know,congratulations on all your
success. So, thank you from aguy that you probably don't get
enough props enough for it.

Sean O'Toole (07:51):
Well, thank you for that, because that's exactly
why I do it, right? Like, at theend of the day, you know,
hearing that story is what getsme up in the morning. And, you
know, we've been fortunate we'vehad, we've done that for
thousands and thousands ofpeople, and, you know, not just
at the trustee sales, either,but with all kinds of different

(08:12):
investing sides. And then, youknow, the number of Realtors
that, you know, were basicallyout of business in 2008, but
then found us and were able tomine for short sales, and, you
know, not only survive, butthrive and have a bigger
business than they had before.
Yeah, it's definitely what keepsme going. So, thank you very

(08:34):
much for that.

Greg Clark (08:36):
Yeah, people don't understand what other people
were doing to get that data,right? You had people that
literally were sitting in roomscutting newspaper, notice of
default, and notice of, wellexcuse me notice of sells, well
actually notice the default andnotice of sells and putting them
into their Dos program, and thengenerating lists. I mean, it was

(08:59):
so what you did was so much moreharder, I think, than what
people can appreciate. And thendoing it at the scale that
you've done it being able tomonetize it the way you've done
it. It's really it to be honestwith you you should be a case
study for like a HarvardBusiness School case study it's,
it's, it's, you seriously youshould it's one of those crazy
incredible stories of datamining and now I hear stuff that

(09:22):
guys are doing I'm like, 'What?
virtual assistant in thePhilippines mining data for'
what is go, what is going on inthis this world?

Sean O'Toole (09:32):
It always we have a map right, that shows where
our users are logging in from.

Greg Clark (09:36):
Oh my god!

Sean O'Toole (09:37):
It's incredible, the number of folks that are
logged in from the Philippinesand India working on behalf of
some investor here and doingstuff on a very daily basis. So
yeah, you're totally right aboutthat.

Greg Clark (09:50):
Yeah, it's wild to see so it's, it's that's a whole
new world to me that I haven'tyou know, I haven't even dived
into yet.

Sean O'Toole (09:56):
So, we're here today because your world changed
January 1, like you've had thisbusiness trustee sales, it's
been down the pandemic reallyput a slow down with the
moratoriums, and the evictionmoratoriums, that was already
hard. And then California camein with this crazy law, SB,
Senate Bill 1079. And reallykind of just threw the whole

(10:22):
foreclosure thing up into theair, it's a really poorly
written law, lots of uncertaintyaround it. Lots of uncertainty
for trustees, lots ofuncertainty for title companies,
and a lot more than uncertaintyfor guys like you who've been
down there. You know, I justwant to frame this up, like, I
don't think most people, peopleare like, 'Oh, those investors,

(10:43):
those guys that go down and buyforeclosures', you know that the
Moms 4 Housing thing in Oaklandand the rest and like their,
houses just sitting vacant, whatwas sitting vacant, because the
freakin' City of Oaklandwouldn't approve, you know, it
takes forever to get approvalsto fix the thing up, right?
That's the only reason it wassitting vacant. It's not like
it's some evil corporatio. Thenumber of properties that

(11:08):
investors like you havepurchased, right, with no title
insurance, for all cash, like nohomeowner can buy this property,
right? It's, It's a mess, it hasit still has the owner or an
occupant living in it, it has tobe dealt with, I mean, the
number of issues there and youclean all of that up, and put it
back on the market for firsttime homebuyers, for folks that

(11:31):
need financing, etc, right? It'sthis really valuable service.
And for some reason, you know,10 years what, but more than
that, you know, 13 years afterthis crisis is over, they
decide, oh, we need to go changethis whole thing and mess it all
up, and, and really kind of putyou out of business January 1.

Greg Clark (11:55):
Yeah. So, it's really you've hit the nail on
the head. And I appreciate theway you frame that, because
people don't realize the servicethat a lot of people like me
would do for the process. Andpeople don't understand, like
how clouded title would get. Andso, people would do all kinds of
things, to play the games tocircumvent the system to delay
the sell to delay the eviction.
BK filings going from the state,you know, then filing in the

(12:19):
federal system for the BK andthat takes a superiority to the
state system. So, the statedefers and you're they play this
game going back and forth,right. So there's, there's a
lot, a lot of risk involved. Andyou have to really know what
you're doing have a goodattorney that can help you
navigate through that, that butit but more importantly, the
trustee sale process is aprocess to clean up a bunch of
muck, you know, you talk to areally good title officers or

(12:40):
title, people in the plans. Sothey say, we love the
foreclosure process, because itgives us a blank slate, it's a
clean slate, to expungeeverything and just start over
people throw all kinds of lienson it trying to, you know, get
as much money as they can in thesystem, you know, trying to
attach to the property, and itjust cleans the whole thing. So,
you're right, that's the hardpart is this new law has

(13:02):
complicated a system that wasset up to help alleviate a
problem that occurs in thebackground of all the different
ways you can try to beat thesystem and navigate it. And and
so it's hard to be in a sense.

Sean O'Toole (13:17):
Not investors trying to beat the system
homeowners.

Greg Clark (13:19):
Oh, yes. Yeah.

Sean O'Toole (13:21):
You know, the homeowners that end up in this
situation, a lot of timesthey've done all kinds of crazy
stuff to try to extract as muchvalue.

Greg Clark (13:28):
Yes.

Sean O'Toole (13:28):
And you know, I am a firm believer in homeownership
and I don't even lowdownpayment, things I believe
should be available. But, but onthe other side, we need to be
realistic that if somebody putvery little down or nothing
down, and they stop making theirpayments, they don't really

(13:49):
truly have some right to saythat this is my home and that I
should get to stay here even ifI don't make the payments,
right? The contract when theywent in was right? I am. I'm
going to get the opportunity tobe a homeowner in exchange for
making these payments. If Idon't make these payments, I'm
losing my opportunity as ahomeowner, right? And not only

(14:13):
that, but we have the bestsystem in the world, right
period. Like it's the mostconsumer friendly, not best,
most consumer friendly system inthe world that says okay, if I
get in there, and I don't makemy payments, I still get to live
there for free for quite awhile, right? As I go through
this whole process, I still geta ton of notices, I still get

(14:35):
opportunities for mediation, Istill get a million things
before I even lose thehouse,right? So, all of that
existed and SB1079 now comes inand says that's not enough.
After the house is sold at theauction. We're going to do this
whole other process after theauction that 'Oh, by the way, we

(14:57):
didn't document or make clear atall', right? so, I should let
you talk. But obviously, I'mclearly fired up about this
SB1079. And not in a good way.

Greg Clark (15:07):
Yeah, you've hit it, you've hit the nail on the head
so well and your description ofit, you had a clean process. And
people don't really appreciatewhat we go in there and do
because most of these propertiesare not like clean properties.
Most of these properties areproblematic properties, they
haven't been maintained. Theyhave code violations, they have
maintenance, you know, you'rethere's already fines from the

(15:28):
city because they're notmaintaining the yard, they're,
they're lived in hard. Sometimesyou have like 20 cats. And
these, you know, you see it all,and he's, and so, we're going in
there, and cleaning up the wholesituation beautifying the
property, if you look at a flipfrom most flips from the
beginning to the end, it's apretty big transformation that
takes place. And it's abeautiful transformation that

(15:49):
helps the community, it elevateshome values, it helps the
neighborhood, it brings in agood homebuyer generally. And
even if you make that property,a rental, which is I know what
they're worried about is allthese rentals by corporations,
is people deserve to rent asingle-family house, people who
rent just shouldn't have to rentapartment complexes, and you

(16:11):
know, two bedroom condos, afamily who makes money but
doesn't have good credit shouldhave the right to be able to
rent a home that has fourbedrooms, that has a yard that,
their kids can be part ofintegrated into a community. And
that gets alleviated withoutthis process, and so now you
throw up in the air and so our5013 you know, the people who

(16:33):
become the the ability thebonafide secondary bidders in
this process, you know, primaryoccupants and 5013c's Are they
really, do they reallyunderstand the magnitude of what
they're going to take on bybuying uninsured trust deed,
that doesn't have insurance,they're paying all cash, then

(16:53):
they got to go evict and dealwith the tenant did did, my big
thing is I get what they'retrying to do. But the
legislature's should havebrought some people in and said,
ground, on the on the groundfloor and really understood
better, kind of the problemswe're creating, because I just
don't see 5013c's coming in anddoing all this rehab and then

(17:15):
running out to it, you know,especially if you're paying,
we're all time highs, rightvalues, values to rents right
now are way wacky in the BayArea.

Sean O'Toole (17:26):
I put it this way.
And I think it's important westart using this. And I think
I'd like to see every investorstart to say this, like rents in
California are the lowest in thenation.

Greg Clark (17:38):
That's mind boggling.

Sean O'Toole (17:40):
Per function, per function as of the value of the
property, right? It's some ofthe lowest returns in the
nation. So, if you own aproperty that you put up for
rent, you are getting some ofthe worst returns in the nation,
right. So, I would say rents arethe lowest in California that

(18:01):
they are anywhere in the nationas a function of home price.

Greg Clark (18:06):
Yeah, you've hit it real. And that's exactly what
happened to me in 2007. I hadthese rentals. I had had them
over leveraged because in myworld, everybody was saying,
hey, Real Estate's never gonedown back to back here. It'll
never even in the savings alonescan, you know, this, this and
this. And, you know, you alwayshad an I'm talking like smart
economists, like people I wasgoing to listen to that were

(18:27):
economists for big companiesthat were saying that real
estate companies and so what didI do? I'm like, Okay, I'll go
and just leverage this up and dothis and do that. And then when
the downturn happened, itreally, um, what's, what's,
what's the word I want to usefor it? It's basically stung by
high leverage, you know, I waslike, stung mentally. And I will

(18:49):
never, I will never do thatagain, right? I will never go
there again. And it's probablyhurt me. I'll do some short term
debt to get through a propertybut in terms of math, going out
and leveraging and do notbecause I can see how fast
something can turn. And thenyou're in a difficult situation
like right now, if the federalgovernment wasn't just writing
checks like crazy for peopleunemployment, it would be a

(19:11):
complete nightmare, because inApril, May, there's a lot of
landlords that were freaking outover what was happening, local
landlords, right? And rentsweren't coming in and then all
of a sudden those checks came inand things got better and people
are still able to keep in thehigh 80 to 90% range on their
collections depending on theirarea and their demographics. But

(19:33):
yeah, it's it's so hard.

Sean O'Toole (19:38):
I'm just gonna come back. So, SB1079, we did a
whole separate podcast on that.
And people that want to learnmore about that should go listen
to that bottom line, your worldchange. January 1st, not...
doesn't look very good for youfor your business have gone down
to the trustee sales, cleaningup these properties, putting

(19:58):
them back on the market, thatbusiness may be over, at least
and tell. I mean, this SB1079has what? It's two years or
three years, but for the nexttwo or three years, we'll see
how it goes. We're watching itclosely.

Greg Clark (20:12):
Isn't it five? The only two or three?

Sean O'Toole (20:14):
We might be five?
Yeah.

Greg Clark (20:16):
I thought it was five when I think folks, I
listen that podcast before,which was super, super
informative. Yes. So, my life,my life has changed. I kind of
went up into the mountains,when, when COVID hit and have a
house up by Yosemite Half Dome,grew, I've never had a beard
like this grew five inch beard,became like a meditation

(20:37):
mountain man, and then came backto civilization, and was just
like shocked to see this newbill and to read through it. And
then and then then to reallyunderstand it, and try to
understand it. And now seeinghow it's playing out. Everyone
I've talked to who's been doingthis business for a long period
of time, is taking a wait andsee approach. You know, right

(21:03):
now, we still have so many moremoratoruims, I think on all the
federal related loans, thatyou're not seeing a lot of stuff
coming to sell at the steps. Butthere's definitely things that
need, go ahead.

Sean O'Toole (21:15):
No, I said, but you have cash. Yeah, you're
ready and willing buyer, right.
And you want to keep investing,you want to keep cleaning up
houses, you want to keep makingthem available to folks, you
want to keep going? And so, thebig question, and I think the
primary reason we're having thisconversation today is to do some
brainstorming about what doesGreg do tomorrow? Like, what

(21:36):
were you? How do you shift nowthat this has happened, right?
And how do we help you if wecan, right, in that shift and
and make it happen and get youback in business when the
trustee sales or perhapsshutdown are a little higher
risk than you want to go with?

(21:57):
Is that? Right? That's what wewant to do. Right?

Greg Clark (22:00):
That's a fair assessment. So, to give you the
answer, right, this very secondis, I'm just gonna, I'm not
afraid to say I don't know. Andso what I'm doing right now, and
what I've done for probably thelast four to five days is I have
absorbed myself in reading andlearning and understanding

(22:21):
difference, different segmentsof the business, the
opportunities that might arisefrom going out and networking
with wholesale guys, guys, thatI can go build a relationship
with that I think aretrustworthy, they're ethical,
they're just good people. And goout there, my big thing is, if
you work hard, you'rerelentless, you're a good

(22:42):
person, you're kind of people,eventually things are gonna work
out in your favor, right? Itmight take a little bit longer,
but things are gonna work outand they're gonna, and you're
gonna, and you're gonna do well.
So, for me right now.

Sean O'Toole (22:54):
We've got hundreds of customers that have been
going to trustee sales that arein exactly the same boat as you,
it used to be thousands, right?

Greg Clark (23:01):
Right.

Sean O'Toole (23:01):
The trustee sales have slowed down, and it's
whittled down to hundreds,right? So, but there's hundreds
of guys trying to figure outexactly the same thing as you
right now. And so, I want towalk through that. And I want to
talk through, like some ideasand the rest and what we can do
there. We talk a lot aboutchocolate and peanut butter,

(23:23):
right? Like, so, we've got data,which we call the peanut butter,
right? But, you know, everybodywants that, like secret list,
like, oh, if I just mailed tothis list, I'm going to make
$100,000 a house right? And itdoesn't exist, right? It's you,
you are gonna have to bringsomething to the table. And one

(23:43):
of the things I love abouttrustee sale investors is you
bring some unique stuff to thetable right off the bat, right?
That almost nobody else does.
And and so, I want to start byjust kind of walking through
those things right? So, one isyou buy every house without
title insurance. Yeah.

Greg Clark (24:04):
Huge risk you got to be able to know what you're
doing with title you got toeither have someone that you
really trust in a title plantthose relationships and you got
to do some educated decisionmaking right? and, and the best
that you can.

Sean O'Toole (24:19):
And how long does it take you from the time you
have an address, the time youmake a determination on whether
what you're willing to buy thathouse on a title side.

Greg Clark (24:28):
You know, I've been fortunate that i've i've been
pretty good at developingrelationships. And so, I've been
able to get pretty high up in,in, in title plants and with
different people. And alsohaving volume helps and I've
been able to get in there and soI can typically get a pretty
good answer fairly quick. Butsometimes I'll send my list out

(24:50):
and try to narrow it downbecause they don't want to spend
a ton of time doing that kind ofstuff. And then if I'm still
unsure, I'll do a secondarycheck with someone higher up on
a particular property. Just tomake sure someone that I really,
really trust and I really valueand I kind of get the green
light

Sean O'Toole (25:04):
Same day, right?

Greg Clark (25:05):
They can, yeah, they can still make mistakes, right?
They've not been, you still haveissues even with that stuff that
pops up. They're like, Oh, Ididn't, yeah, that was harder to
find document.

Sean O'Toole (25:16):
My point is, is you can look at a property.

Greg Clark (25:19):
Yeah.

Sean O'Toole (25:20):
You know, in the morning and that afternoon, make
a decision, whether you'rewilling to take the risk on
title to buy it or not.

Greg Clark (25:26):
Actually quicker than that. Sometimes I'm looking
at a property that sells comingup, we're just barely getting
there. We're doing thatevaluation, why it's being write
off. You're trying to make thatassessment, you might still have
title on the other on a separatephone, where they're just
checking something somethingout. And you're it can come that
close to the, to the timeframe.
And so, you're making decisionsback in the day, you're making

(25:48):
decisions within seconds, itseemed like like, go go, go go.
And then that would be thedifference of you making an
extra 50 to 100 grand versusnot. So, the, so the benefit is
today, if there's someone outthere that wants to offload a
property, or there's awholesaler that says, hey, I
want to, I want a guy that justcan make a quick decision. I
don't want to deal with this,this and this, and all these

(26:09):
inspections and all thesenuances that are going to come
from someone that wants to bemore careful that you come to a
guy like me, who's been doingthis for 17 years, make super
fast, quick decisions can lookat a property say yeah, I'll
take it for this amount ofdollars, or you want to give me
for this and the decision can bemade pretty quickly, right? It's
not like they're having tohem-and-haw, or worry about it.
And I'm used to that.

Sean O'Toole (26:34):
There are some differences, though. So, we need
to be like so if you're going togo out directly to a homeowner
and say, 'Hey, listen, I canmake this decision right now
today', right? Like, becausewhat I'm getting at here is
trustee sale, investors havethis ability to do this quick
due diligence, right?

Greg Clark (26:50):
Right.

Sean O'Toole (26:50):
And they're willing to take on some risk.
And they do it at pretty lowmargins really, right, when you
look at what they do. And prettymuch everybody else that's
coming in with an offer is gonnaneed a 30 day escrow is gonna
need inspections, right, eventhese iBuyers and these folks
that are coming in, they all arestill planning to come in and do

(27:12):
all their inspections and nickeland dime that owner later and
all the rest, right?So, I mean,this is a huge advantage for the
trustee sale investors. And Irealized they like just going
down to the auction and therest, but they have a huge built
in advantage. There is one keydifference, though, is like,
okay, you decide you're going todo a deal, you're going to buy

(27:34):
that place from that owner,you're going to do it today,
right? It's a little differentthan getting a trustees deed
because a trustees deed cleansup a bunch of stuff, you're now
you're going to do like a grantdeed, and it's not going to
clean up that stuff.

Greg Clark (27:47):
Yes.

Sean O'Toole (27:47):
So, it is there is a little risk there. A new risk.
There are different risks,there, you know, for a trustee
sale buyer to go buy directlyfrom homeowners. But there's
also this huge advantage theyhave over pretty much every
other investor out there andthat they can make decisions
quickly. You can make decisionsquickly.

Greg Clark (28:07):
Right. Yeah. So, you've hit you've nailed it
pretty good. I think that'strue. There's some quick
decisions. Obviously, ifsomeone's selling their property
in a different, in that type offorum, you don't have a trustee
sell that cleans it up, youknow, you want to open up the
title and have a quick titlesearch, done. So, it's done,
kind of in an efficient way, aprofessional way.

Sean O'Toole (28:28):
I gotta tell you, though, I did multiple deals. As
a trustee sale investor, Istarted doing direct mail. And I
did multiple deals, or I did agrant deed, and a cashier's
check the same day the personcalled me.

Greg Clark (28:44):
Really? That's fascinating.

Sean O'Toole (28:47):
And nobody else can do that other than a trustee
sale investor, right? And yes,the title has to look okay, and
you got to do all that stuff.
But like, and I'm not suggestingto all of our trustee sale
investors that they go do that.
But if you think about thedifferentiator, that is, right,
and how much of that process youalready have as being a trustee

(29:10):
sale investor, it's not astretch, to get to that
position.

Greg Clark (29:15):
That's a great avenue, it's a great way to look
at it, just making sure theperson you're giving the check
to is actually the person ontitle.

Sean O'Toole (29:25):
There's multiple important things to do there.
For sure.

Greg Clark (29:28):
Yeah. I could see someone being like, hey, yeah,
and then you realize thatthere's another person on title
right? And and then all of asudden you have you could be in
a pickle or a predicament. Bu,tyeah, you know, if you're
someone that's super diligentunderstands that you've vetted
the person. There are somedefinite advantages that you

(29:48):
could do that. If in fact,

Sean O'Toole (29:51):
And you do have relationships with title
companies. So, you might be ableto do set up a quick close
program with your title companywhere they do at least check,
you know certain things and giveyou some sort of insurance
policy maybe with some moreexceptions than their normal
policy. But that's somethingelse I think is worth looking at

(30:11):
for you as a, as a past trusteesale investor now looking for
other alternatives.

Greg Clark (30:17):
Yeah, it's a great option. It's a it's an option.
That's certainly there certainlyavailable. Yeah. So, it's it's
trying to explore that wholeavenue and trying to absorb all
that information. And then tryto narrow down, my big thing is
like taking as much as you cantry to understand it, and then
figure out what you're good atbecause.

Sean O'Toole (30:35):
I'm going to keep throwing ideas that you here. So
that's what we're going to spendthe next 30 minutes doing.

Aaron Norris (30:41):
Greg, I've got a question for you, I think it
says a lot about you that youstuck around at the trustee sale
investor space, because it hasbeen more difficult. And what
people might not know is, thisis a question, how many houses
did you have to see to buy oneat the trustee sale?

Greg Clark (30:53):
Oh, geez. Whew, that's a, I would say, you know,
sometimes people say 50, I'deven say maybe more than that,
maybe even like 75 to 100. Idon't mean just like see, I'm
talking about do all theresearch on you all the title,
do everything that you have todo and inspections. It is

(31:16):
laborious. It is a lot of work.
It is time consuming. And that'swhy people can't stick with it.
Because they're like, 'Oh, thisisn't worth it'. And I'm like,
you know what, you have to goout every single day. You can't
miss a sell, you can't miss anopportunity. And if you do that
consistently all the time.
That's why I tell people youcan't be a part time worker

(31:38):
here. You can't be a part timeRealtor and a part time real
estate investor I'm in but I'vebeen a real estate broker since
2002. And you can't do both. Youcan do it maybe when there's a
ton of stuff. But when when it'sa situation where you're, you
have to be out there everysingle day, every day. And it is
like people who don't do trusteesales they think that 'Oh, you
just go down to the court stepsand sit around and wait for a

(31:59):
property and you're buying itsight unseen. It's, it's super
easy'. You guys understand whatit's like to do the work. I'm
like, 'Are you kidding me? Thisis like, so hard to do'. And to
do it relentlessly andconsistently every day. So yeah,
you're right, probably 100, Isay probably 175 to 100
properties to one.

Aaron Norris (32:16):
I wanted to bring that up.

Sean O'Toole (32:16):
You've taken a photo of each of those. You've
done comparables on each ofthose to figure out value.
You've done a title research oneach of those, right?

Greg Clark (32:27):
Or, or you kind of get out to the property you see
you're like it's off the list,you know, so you kind of like
weed them out pretty quick. Oryou can do a Google Drive. I've
made the mistake right before Ido a Google Drive. I'm like, Oh,
geez, that's a disaster. Andthis is how, this is one that
just happened a few months ago.
I was like, Oh, that's adisaster. I want to go on that.
Well, unbeknownst to me, I justdid a Google search. I didn't

(32:47):
even take the time to look it upon the MLS. It's this beautiful
remodeled property. And I'mlike, Are you kidding me? What
was I thinking? Someone? Youknow, it was still was kind of a
little bit of a thin risky deal.
But I was just kicking myself.
I'm like, how did you not liketake the time to just look on
the, so, sometimes you get yousee something you don't do the
complete work, because you seeso many of them that you get,

(33:09):
get a little lazy. Does thatmake sense? He's kind of like
mark it off. Because you onlyhave so much time to look at
look at stuff. Yeah. But yeah,you do a lot of work. So, I
agree with you a lot of workthat goes into it, but you try
to weed them out as fast as youcan, because you only have so
much time when it's.

Sean O'Toole (33:26):
Just turn that around right? And which is you
already have the systems inplace to go out and take photos
and do due diligence and to goto a next level on a list,
right? That your averageinvestor doesn't do most. So,
let's just step back. mostinvestors like to do direct mail
or cold calling or whateverthey're calling on a list. But

(33:48):
they haven't taken the time tolook through a photo, they
haven't taken the time to driveby the property. They haven't
done any title research, right?
They're waiting to hear firstfrom the owner that they're a
willing seller.

Greg Clark (33:58):
Right.

Sean O'Toole (34:00):
You know, and then they'll go do that research. So,
they're doing a research onlywhen they have somebody on the
hook. It's a, it's a completelydifferent business in a lot of
ways. And you could go all theway over here. But what I want
to talk about is with you as atrustee sale investor, how do
you leverage these things thatyou are uniquely good at that

(34:22):
differentiates you from everyother investor? So one is you
can do title insurance reallyquickly too. You can do the
inspections really quickly andand you're willing to buy a
house just looking at theoutside not even going on the
inside? Not getting a pestreport. Not getting right, all
of that right. It's what you'vehad to do all these years. All
100 deals.

Greg Clark (34:43):
I nipped in the butt sometimes that's for sure it but
yeah, you you have to bake itinto the deal right. So, you
have to kind of bake in acertain element of risk. You got
to say hey, you can use itgenerally look at a property and
tell from the exteriorcomponents of it the yard, the
way the outside maintenance isand you can say, Okay, if

(35:03):
outside looks like this insideprobably is going to look like
this and just make that naturalassumption, where you get
yourself in trouble is when you,you realize, like, I have all
this H back a special situation,it's done, it's not functioning,
so I got to bring in a qualifiedperson to remove it, I've got
electrical, that's all outdated.
So, if I go update the kitchen,now I got to redo all the
electrical, and then all the,all the plumbing needs to go

(35:24):
from one type of plumbing to,so, there's all these things
that go through your head. So,you kind of have to bake that in
and say, 'Hey, here's my bestcase scenario'. But I can do
that pretty fast. So, there issome advantages to that to be
able to make that determination,that decision, say, 'Hey, here's
the value of this property fixedup back all the costs out,
assume if it's a certain agehome, you're going to have these
additional costs', and come upto a number pretty quick, you've

(35:45):
just done it so many times, youcan just ballpark it. And
sometimes it works out, you're alittle bit below that sometimes
you go kind of skyrocket aboveit, but that's part of the risk
of the business. And so, youkind of bake it in. And if you
go too thin of margins in thisbusiness, I've just learned, if
you're impatient, and you're soready to throw your money, which
a lot of guys right now aredoing, a lot of guys are very

(36:08):
impatient. And they say theywant to rush into a deal and
they want to buy it because theywant to be that guys, that
wholesalers number one guy, andso they might take on a level of
risk, or even leverage it in away that I see a lot of guys
leveraging leveraging propertiesnow on flips, that they're
leveraging their entire purchaseprice, and then they're having a
secondary person come in andleverage with an IRA the entire

(36:29):
remodel cost, I'm like, Wow,that is. That is that is, uh,
for the investor side of it.
That's pretty, pretty. I don'tknow what I want to say, but
it's you got some, you got somecomponents to, to be making
decisions. So, yeah, go ahead,I'm just in that formula sheet.

Sean O'Toole (36:49):
I'm gonna keep giving, I'm gonna keep going, I
want to first talk aboutchocolate, and then we're going
to talk about some ideas ofthings you can do that I think
might be, you know, mightactually you might actually find
you have a better year this yearthan you did last year in
trustee sales, that's my goalfor you, I want you to have
your, I want you to have one,it's gonna be hard to repeat
2009-2010.

Greg Clark (37:10):
It will never happen again.

Sean O'Toole (37:12):
Those will probably never happen again. But
I want you to have I want your2021 to be better than 2019 or
2020. And I want to help you getthere, okay? And every other
trustee sale investor, that'slistening, right? That that's,
that's our goal here. So, like,there's some of these things
that are just baked in, right? Ithink each of our trustee sale

(37:33):
investor customers, like youprobably also bring something
else kind of personal, right?
Like, I knew a guy was reallygood at, you know, doing cash
for keys and getting folks tomove out without having to go
through eviction. That's animportant skill right now,
right? Another guy really goodat like, you know, older homes,
and he buy the older ones thatnobody else wanted, because he

(37:56):
was a contractor and he could dohe knew how to do foundation
repair and those kinds of thingsthat are can come up and really
cost you on older homes thatkeep people away, right? Some
folks are really goodrelationship guys back on the
non trustee sale, folks, likemost of our trustee sale, folks
are over there because theydon't want to deal with people.

(38:17):
But on the other side, right,the wholesalers and stuff like
they're really good at talkingpeople up in the rest, right?
So, any, anything like that foryou, I just want to know, before
we get into ideation, anythinglike that, for that, for you
that you think like a personalstrength, you and your partner

(38:40):
or whatever that differentiatesyou from other investors, or at
least is is something unique,anything along those lines you
could think of other than allthe trustee sale stuffs.
Awesome. We're gonna count thatall in.

Greg Clark (38:53):
Right? Yeah, no, I so I have a brother who is
partner with me. He's been outhere since 2000, I think seven
summer 2000, maybe 2005 2006.
And he's, he's really, reallygood. I think we're both really
good at working with people. Sothe cash for keys, situation,
problem solving. No, really, youbecome if you want to be a real
estate investor, you got to be areal estate problem solver or

(39:15):
people problem solver. You gotto be able to help people see
things when their judgment isclouded by the turmoil of just
life circumstances. And we canlet people see things clearly.
And build a relationship andreport them. It's amazing the
things that you can do thethings that you can figure out
with, with a homeowner or with atenant, or working out an

(39:37):
arrangement. So, I think thepeople skills is an asset of
ours. I think it's an, it's anarea that I can really improve
on to right I'm not coming inhere saying I'm really good at
this because I haven't beendoing it for the last 15 years.
But so there's a humility factorthere where I realize the
biggest thing that I'm realizingin this process, Sea and in
Aaron is for me, I have to bewilling to be Be humble, to

(39:59):
realize there's a lot of stuff Idon't know. And there's a lot of
people out there that know a lotmore than I do in areas that I
don't know stuff. And so if I'mjust going to be an arrogant,
wealthy guy that can go outthere, and I've done it this
way, and I'm gonna keep doing itthis way, I don't think you're
gonna have a lot of success, Ithink you have to be super

(40:21):
humble, and be willing that youhave to almost go, but I feel
like I'm in 2004, again, whereI'm out at the court steps of
first time trying to figure itout and navigate and learn my
way. And so, I think if you havea dose of humility, and a
willingness to like embrace newconcepts, new ways, new
relationships, new ideas, andyou're gonna have to work on

(40:42):
different techniques and adifferent style than you have in
the past. And you.

Sean O'Toole (40:49):
I also think I totally agree with everything
you just said. But combine thathumility on the what you don't
know, right, the whole bunch offriggin swagger that you're a
trustee sale investor, becausetrustee sale investors are the
baddest ass investors out thereperiod, right, they take on more
risk, they do more, like I justI have more respect for trustee

(41:12):
sale investors, like just theamount of risk the number of
issues you take on and the restlike so. So, I think A. have
that humility, that you've gotto go do something ne, right.
And, and there's things tolearn. But also bring don't just
go do because guess what? Therearen't very many trustee sale

(41:33):
investors that have made thisswitch? Yeah, right.

Greg Clark (41:36):
Right.

Sean O'Toole (41:37):
So, there's isn't really anybody for you to go and
model and learn from are notvery many, right? And so, this
is a really interview, just gomodel and learn from the guys
that are wholesaling and doingthese other things. You're not
gonna bring all this stuff youlearned, right from trustee sale

(41:58):
investing to this side, you'regonna leave that behind. And I
think you can take one plus oneand make it five.

Greg Clark (42:04):
Yeah, no, you bring up a great point. And that's
kind of the process. Look, I'mnot too prideful enough to admit
that I'm in a formulationprocess right now. So, I'm
formulating how to merge the twotogether. And so, I have all
these, I have all these likeingredients. But I haven't
figured out the measuring cups,so to speak of how to put that

(42:24):
whole formula together to bake areally good cake. So, right now,
I might be missing sugar, Imight be missing flour, I might
be missing the eggs, or you knowall the dip or bake whatever it
is. And I'm in that process ofgo ahead.

Sean O'Toole (42:38):
Let me keep throwing, so I want to keep
throwing stuff at you andgetting your feedback or like,
'Oh, that sounds good. Or thatdoesn't sound good for me' like
okay, so some ideas that I have,right? So, now that we you've
got this relationship peopleskills, right? You've got your
trusty sales skills, that'sthat's your chocolate, right?
I've got data, I've got peanutbutter, like let's mix these
things up and make somethinggood and give you a great year.

(43:01):
So, big picture possibilities.
If you're a trustee saleinvestor in California, this has
happened to you what do you do?
Big possibility, right. Numberone, keep doing what you're
doing. But do it in otherstates, right? There's Arizona,
Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Texas,right? You go into the judicial

(43:22):
states, and that starts to besomething a little different,
but about half the country is istrustee sales. It's exactly what
you've been doing, right? Iwould say a couple challenges
there one, and I would love yourthought Have you thought about
other states? And what's keepingyou from doing that? Or are you
attracted to that? Where do youstand on that?

Greg Clark (43:43):
Sure. So, certainly I did a whole evaluation on let
me tell you the first thing Idid the first thing I did that I
had not done is I went startedwatching all the tutorials on
PropertyRadar. I think that wasthe first step right I just was
like I don't need to listen tothis I got my system down I know
what I'm doing I got I know howI'm using the data. And so
that's the first step I did wasI went you guys have some really

(44:05):
really good stuff and so for allthe trustee sellers, I'd say
look, the first thing you needto do is don't be too prideful
to educate yourself on whatradar can offer set up tutorials
I got a tutorial right afterthis with you guys to try to go
through and to look at differentways and different avenues to
take what you're talking aboutthe the peanut butter, the
chocolate, whatever you guyshave, and be able to figure out

(44:26):
how I can incorporate that intowhat I want to do as I try to
formulate my path going forward.
So, that's the first thing Iwould say the second thing when
it comes to like going to otherstates sure we've looked at that
and then you look at thecomplexity like okay to go move
there to set up to set up shopto understand a rule area to
develop the relationships it's,it's a pretty big monumental

(44:47):
task when you kind of.

Sean O'Toole (44:50):
You like where you live you don't want to move your
kids family wife friends.

Greg Clark (44:54):
Yes, you have all that and so you really want to
uproot your your whole like,there comes a point in life
where you cherish just, justbeing alive and having friends.
And there's a lot more than,than making money. It's about
spending time with family. It'sabout spending time in the
mountains, hiking, biking, doingall those different things. And

(45:14):
so you got to evaluate thatwhole thing. And so, do you want
so what I did is I did a deepdive analysis on all other
states, I went to every singlestate, I went in and looked at
all their trustee sales for thepast 12 years, I broke down the
data, I looked at the points ofpurchase, I kind of did a quick
ABM on kind of where to see whatthe spreads and the margins
were, it taught me a lot aboutwhat those states were, if I

(45:36):
were to ever move, where I wouldwant to go, where I would not
want to go, there's definitelyareas I'm like, geez, I'm not
going there. Because those arethe compression ratio is like
the worst I've ever seen. Andthen you go somewhere else,
you'd be like, hey, there's someopportunities here. And but then
it comes down to the you want togo set up a JV venture with
someone else, and try to go thatroute. And again, the
foreclosure process is superrisky. So, do you trust someone

(45:59):
else in another state to do thatfor you? Kind of like a bigger
project, like some of the biggercompanies that do this do..

Sean O'Toole (46:05):
You're handing people checks for half million
million bucks a day to go downto the sales for you? It's
scary. So okay, so so, otherstates that's out for you? Not
doing that.

Greg Clark (46:14):
I want to say it's a, I want to say it's out. I
just know how complicated it isdoing it locally. And I'm just a
big, big believer, if you can'tfigure out how to do it in your
backyard. If you can't figureout how to do it, where you
live, and where you're at, your,your problems aren't going to be
easier just going somewhereelse.

Sean O'Toole (46:33):
I think another great one, right, just I'm gonna
keep us moving for time anothergreat one. And you've talked
about this, and I think you'reinterested in this is building a
wholesaler network, right? Andhaving guys bring you deals
because you can evaluate thosedeals quickly, you're good at
that. You've got the cash to buythose deals. And so if you've

(46:54):
got a network of guys bringingnew deals, there's plenty of
guys out there that want to getstarted in real estate, but
don't have the cash don't havethe sophistication you have, you
can teach them a lot, right? So,you have a lot to offer them.

Greg Clark (47:09):
Yeah, that's that's probably the avenue that we're
kind of honing in, in the shortterm anyways, trying to figure
out and I've done a lot ofresearch recently, I kind of
know who the players are, I'vekind of done some reverse
engineering, I kind of see whatthey're doing, how they're doing
it. There's some really goodpeople out there on a small
scale, there's some ones,there's a lot of small scale

(47:30):
people that a few bigger, butit's also going out and having
to develop a relationship withthose people, and being able to
have rapport and being able to.
So, you got to be able to havethat that element. But yeah, if
you can go in and add some, ifyou can bring some Moxie in
terms of experience and say,hey, look, I get this business,
I understand I get what you'redoing, I appreciate what you're
you know how you're doing this,it's pretty remarkable. I want

(47:52):
to be a part of this. And here'swhat I have to offer, I can
bring in this set of skills, andwe can either JV on a deal, or
we can actually just pay a feeand move on. And and you guys if
you want to go that route, ifyou want have a bigger piece of
the pie and want a JV on itgreat, you want to learn the
process, kind of how I see itfrom the very beginning to the
end, and learn that part of thebusiness because that's a hard

(48:15):
part of the business, rightpeople don't, don't really
appreciate how much it is tofind good vendors that can do
the work for you at a price.
That makes sense. Because if youjust go by a contractor and say
I need you to do this whole jobfor me, you're not going to make
very much money. So, you mighthave a contractor that you have
a relationship with that can bethe umbrella. But then you got

(48:38):
to plug in all these subs thatyou've used over the years who
you like, and you trust, andthey're going to be there on
time, they're not going to besniffing paint and gone one day
and there the next day. And youknow, you have all these, you
have all these, you know whatI'm talking about you we've all
had these experiences. So, youbring a certain skill set to the
table, that someone else who'syounger might want to learn or

(48:58):
someone else who's wholesalingsays, You know, I like this guy.
I want to be able to do businesswith someone where I have a
deal, he gets it, he sees thenumbers, and I want him on my
buyers list. And I probably wantto go to him first because I you
know I can make I'm gonna make acertain margin, I can be in and
out. And I can move on to thenext deal. Cuz there's guys that
just want to do that, right. So,there's a couple, there's a

(49:19):
couple different avenues thatwe're looking at. And we're kind
of exploring that right now.

Sean O'Toole (49:22):
So, I think wholesalers, right, you got to
build that network, right? It'sdefinitely a relationship
building thing. Have you haveyou tried yet going to the real
estate investor clubs, most ofthem have the haves and wants
and you stand up and say, hey,I've done 400 deals, I've got
cash, and I'll buy all thewholesale deals you can bring me
like, it's I you know, it's oneplace to go. Have you done that

(49:47):
yet?

Greg Clark (49:47):
That's one where we've we've actually been
aggregating that thatinformation. In fact, I was just
talking to Aaron yesterday islike, Hey, give me some because
Aaron speaks at a lot of thesedifferent groups. He kind of
knows them and so we're kind ofat It's funny, it's like I'm in
that point right now where Ikeep I have so many ideas in my
head. And I'm like an idea guy,and I gotta like, I'm in the
process of trying to like, Igotta narrow it down to a focus,

(50:11):
laser, focus on a couple things.
Focus on that, and then massagethe other areas as I'm going.
So, the number one thing is toget absorbed into, we're in
COVID-19. So, it's kind of hardto just go like, hey, go hang
out at a investor club, or.

Sean O'Toole (50:25):
Most of them have moved online to zoom calls. So,
yeah, I can totally do it.

Greg Clark (50:29):
So, that's the thing is we're starting to reach out
to some of those starting tounderstand who those people are
the people who are participantsin them, trying to find groups
on Facebook, you know, socialmedia, people that are trying to
push and promote and advertiseand network that way. So, we're
in the beginning.

Sean O'Toole (50:46):
We'll make sure any wholesalers listening here,
get your contact info and reachout to you as well.

Greg Clark (50:51):
Let me let me do a.
Let me do a shameless plug.
925-989-7800. There you go.
Greg, Greg,greenleafproperties.net. You
know, hit me up open forbusiness, ready to ready to go,
you know, hit 2021, and a fullstride so yeah, hit me up
anytime. I'd love to either tryto work a deal or just even if
you want mentorship, you want touse a lot of different avenues

(51:12):
that, I love teaching. I lovebeing a part of that. I love
developing relationships. I likegood people. You know, that's
one of the reasons why Sean andAaron, you guys are such both of
you are great people, greatpeople skills, just you're kind.
You have good hearts. And that'skind of what I like to mesh with
this people like that.

Sean O'Toole (51:32):
Awesome. All right, let's move on, get the
wholesaler thing. network at theat the real estate investor
clubs, get out there onFacebook, get a following, you
know, they're maybe maybeposting before and after photos,
people on all the deals you doas part of the deal. That's how
you're gonna get that....

Greg Clark (51:52):
I know, I know, I've mentioned that.

Sean O'Toole (51:53):
Especially in the wholesale world.

Greg Clark (51:56):
It's funny, being a, being a former professional
athlete, you kind of like, youget done with it, you're like, I
just like to live under theradar, and enjoy my life. And
you know, there's a lot whenyou're in that process, there's
a lot of people pulling you froma lot of different ways for all
kinds of things speaking events.
I could just go on for hours.

Sean O'Toole (52:17):
And so, that's a really good point, though, for
all of our trustee saleinvestors, because this, this
podcast is designed for trusteesale investors going through
exactly what you're goingthrough. So, it's a really good
point, like part of buildingthat wholesale network is really
putting yourself out there tofind those wholesalers, right.
It's not it's not show up at thetrustee sale, or have an agent

(52:37):
show up at the trustee sale andlive completely under the radar,
right?

Greg Clark (52:41):
Yes.

Sean O'Toole (52:41):
You've got to build and still put yourself out
there in a different way. So, Ithink that's one of the
downsides, you know, of reallygetting good at the wholesale
guy, you know, side, the guys Iknow, built large wholesale
networks and do a lot of dealsthat way. Like, they run clubs,
they do big events, even, and.

Greg Clark (53:03):
Bootcamps, you know.

Sean O'Toole (53:04):
Yeah, they're constantly on BiggerPockets,
podcasts and doing all that kindof stuff. And that's, and they
do bootcamps and trainings tolike, because you keep funneling
in new wholesalers to find that,you know, gem in the rough and
it is a whole, especially if youwant to do 400 deals, you know
it, it takes a pretty goodprocess to make that happen. So,

(53:26):
that's the downside ofwholesale. Let's talk about some
other things that I think youalready have. You've got folks,
somebody has gone around drivingand taking pictures of the
upcoming trustee sales. And backin the day in 2008. You were you
were doing that at scale? Youwere you were going out and

(53:46):
looking at probably 20, 30, 4050 properties a day. Is tha
right

Greg Clark (53:52):
Yeah, you'd have you get you get up at 6:30, 6

o'clock and go to bed at 2 (53:55):
30.
You know, you'll get up to, getup early, and you would start
sending drivers out, right. So,you usually have you know, one
point we'd have three sometimesfour drivers, you know, out
driving, looking at properties,giving their feedback, sending
pictures in giving you like whatthey think the, you know, basic
repair, repair list might looklike.

Sean O'Toole (54:17):
Hopefully you guys were using the PropertyRadar
app, and they're taking thephotos and having the app and
adding the notes and.

Greg Clark (54:23):
We weren't in the early days, that's for sure. And
I can't remember when we startedrealizing Hey, this is like a
pretty good function. It wasyears ago. But there was a point
where we started doing that andthat was a great add on to the
to the app and so yeah, it wassuper helpful. And so yeah, we
we did that so ramping up.

Sean O'Toole (54:41):
So, I think one of the things as a trustee sale
investor, it's something youalready do you know how to do
right now there's a new piece tothis is you put some drivers out
there driving for dollars, rightand looking for boarding palaces
and that kind of stuff andprobably also driving some lists
that you build, right whereyou're going and having them
target folks with potentialdistressed situations, right,

(55:03):
getting that photo and gettingthose notes put you were ahead
of the folk that's just blindmailing people.

Greg Clark (55:10):
Right.

Sean O'Toole (55:11):
That makes sense.

Greg Clark (55:12):
Yeah. So, that's kind of one of the things we're
looking at doing is being ableto segment a list. And you know,
and look, we're not the onlyones doing this, right? There's
a lot of people doing it. Youknow, we were talking earlier
that this whole new world ofhaving virtual assistants in the
Philippines and refining theselists and doing all these
different things in mining anddifferent ways that you can look
at the data. But again, if yougot to get someone out there,

(55:35):
generally, on the streetstalking to somebody, and so
we're evaluating exactly how wewant to do that. Do we want to
try that ourselves to try tolearn it to go through that
process? Do we want to developthat skill? And if so, you know,
what are we willing to do? Arewe willing to, you know,
another, another thing is, ifyou're willing to go that route,
it's like, you have the money,you know, you might as well take

(55:58):
some get some coaching. And youmight need to do some coaching
to really understand causethere's people out there who
have refined this in a reallyreal, tangible way, they have
really good skill sets, they'velearned how to build rapport,
they've learned how to ask theright questions, they. The
biggest thing I've learned inlife is get someone else to
talk. And let them share, youknow, their story, let them

(56:21):
share their thoughts, let themspeak and you'll build, you'll
be amazed how much rapport youcan build with someone by
letting someone talk and askingthem the right questions. And so
I think I think there's, there'sa level of where we're looking
at that to like, do we want todevelop that skill set? So, it's
kind of exciting, and to behonest with you, it's, it's
exciting and scary, and scary atthe same time, right? And, you

(56:43):
know, it's hard to, to bevulnerable. And to say that, but
it's true. It is, and I'm notto, you know, I'm not, I'm not
to, above saying that. And soit's, I'm excited to do it. And
so yeah, that's what we'redoing, we're meeting with you
guys, we're having sometutorials, we're gonna go
through stuff we're gonna havelike, he's gonna teach us some
different things. And we'regonna look at it and figure out,

(57:03):
Hey, is this an avenue, aresource that can be valuable to
us?

Sean O'Toole (57:07):
Just one thing to keep in mind, right? Even with
my support folks, internally,right? Like, we kind of helped.
We kind of help trustee saleinvestors, right with doing
trustee sales. And we've helpedthese guys out here that are
going and knocking on doors,driving for dollars, doing list
based marketing, I think thatthere's some one plus one equals

(57:28):
five opportunities that maybeeven my own team doesn't
understand yet, right? In termsof, I really want you even as
you're talking to Keith and andtalking about doing list based
marketing, right? And directmail, and custom audiences, and
all these things that we'vebrought to this group over here

(57:51):
that the trustee sale investorshaven't used at all, like, Come
learn all that, like, I totallywant you to learn all of that.
But I want you to think abouthow you can differentiate it
with what's unique about youcoming from trustee sales,
right? So, you know, rather thanjust making a list, right, think

(58:12):
about, Okay, everybody else isdoing direct mail, or it's I
want to buy your house.

Greg Clark (58:18):
Yeah.

Sean O'Toole (58:18):
You could do direct mail with you or one of
your guys like you send yourdriver's out, and they take a
picture of them in front of thehouse, right? And that's what's
on your postcard. And when thatpostcard comes in, and it's
their house, like they're gonnago What the heck, right? And
they're gonna look at it andread it longer than the guy who

(58:40):
just wrote the run that we buyhouses like, Hey, I was in your
neighborhood saw your house, I'msuper interested, can you please
give me a call? So, we can talkabout it? Like that's a big
differentiator, right? And youknow, how to deploy guys to go
take 50, 100 whatever photos aday and quickly do that and

(59:03):
systematize things right,because trustee sale investors,
as you said so eloquentlyearlier, you have to systematize
it because you're gonna look at100 deals, right? We get these
guys who want to start in directmail, they send out 100
postcards, and they're like, Isent out 100 postcards, and I
didn't buy a house with $100,000profit, right? And here's like,

(59:23):
I'd looked at 100 houses to flipone trustee sale with tons of
risk to make $25,000 profit,right? Like, you just have so
much more realistic as startingpoint.

Greg Clark (59:36):
Right.

Sean O'Toole (59:37):
Than most of these other folks and you understand
scale. So, I want you thinkingabout that as you're talking to
our team. And as you're workingthrough this, bring that
chocolate right that, thatspecial sauce that you have as a
trustee sale investor, to thiskind of new way of doing things,

(59:59):
right? And bringing get overthis other side. And there's a
lot of folks over here, youknow, knocking on doors driving
for dollars, certain postcards,not very many doing custom
audience and some of the moreadvanced things that we can help
you with. But I want youthinking about, okay, there's a
lot of these folks out there,how do I differentiate myself in

(01:00:19):
my message, right? You're abroker, you're, you can do
trustee sale investing, you canclearly do the regular thing.
So, imagine giving somebodythree options, right, I will buy
your house today, we can closetomorrow, it's this price, all
cash, we're done like and, youcan just walk away, it's this

(01:00:41):
price.

Greg Clark (01:00:42):
Right.

Sean O'Toole (01:00:42):
Or, I can buy it from you wholesale, you know,
and we're gonna do the repairsand stuff. And this is what we
think the after repair value is,and all the rest and I can pay
you, you know, this price,right? Or, I'd be happy to help
you with getting the propertylisted and the rest. And maybe
you don't want to be a listingagent, which I totally get. But

(01:01:05):
you can make 25 to 40% on areferral fee, referring that out
to an agent that only helps youbuild relationships. And by the
way, you can partner with thatagent and say, Hey, when you've
got somebody who's somethinghappened, and they need cash
tomorrow, you can pay them onthat deal.

Greg Clark (01:01:26):
Yeah.

Sean O'Toole (01:01:26):
They couldn't have done before. And so now you've
got this whole thing you can godo with agents, where you're
referring business to them,because you're doing all this
marketing. And then they end upevery once in a while running
into deals that they can't do,because it's a hoarder house or
whatever. And so, they bringthat deal to you and say, Hey, I
can't list this, right? It's gotproblems. It's got issues. But

(01:01:50):
they can sell it to you.

Greg Clark (01:01:52):
Yeah, those are great ideas. Great suggestion.
Some of them we've discussedbounce around thought about, but
I really think you're on theright wavelength of different
ways of being able to assessthis, I think those are
fantastic ideas. And that's onething that's that's helpful is
taking the time to brainstormtoo, because right, that's what
we're doing right now, we'rekind of brainstorming more in
this whole new world, we don'tknow how this is going to play

(01:02:15):
out in the state of California.
And do you want to take on thatadded risk of you know what this
legislation means. And so, youcan either do two things you
can, and this is really, I'vetalked to a lot of guys, and a
lot of guys are like, I'm goingto take the sit back and wait
approach. You know, I've donewell, I have money, I can
diversified into other things.

(01:02:36):
And you know, I can do whateverI want, you know, typing, or I
can go and start lending and dodifferent things like that. So,
or you can roll up your sleevesand and while you're waiting,
create a whole new skill set.
And so that's kind of where I'mat. I'm like, you know what, I'm
excited. I'm so excited to rollup my sleeves, put on the work
gloves, and create a creativeskill set, or maybe hone a skill
set that I had, that could bebetter. And so, is having these

(01:02:59):
conversations, being willing togo out into it, like you said
before, join these investmentclubs, get on with property
radar, figure out ways to dothings a little bit differently.
And hey, guess what, in sixmonths of all of a sudden a
trustee sales come back or ayear, and they kind of
reformulate how they want to dothis legislation. Fantastic. But
instead of just look, I justspent six months up in the

(01:03:22):
mountains basically fly fishing,hiking, growing this, this my
wife just can't stand thisthing. She's so, she's like, I
can't believe you're gonna go dothis podcast without think it's
gonna be like, talking all overwhile you're talking. And, and
so I've kind of done that,right, I kind of have this reset
mind, I, I never have taken abreak like that for the last

(01:03:43):
like, long for a long time.

Sean O'Toole (01:03:46):
Yeah. And you're ready to get after it.

Greg Clark (01:03:48):
Yeah, when you do this business, you kind of need
to have a reset. It's always agood thing. I value family time.
So, spending time with my kids.
One of the hardest things is mykid left for college this
morning. He's going back to playfootball, and they're doing this
and he plays in the Big Sky. Andso, they do this, they're going
to do this spring schedule. AndI'm like, giving them a hug. And
I'm like, kind of like trying tohold back the tears. Like, they
never gave you a manual, right?

(01:04:09):
That said, when you become aparent, it's gonna like pulling
your heart in these crazy waysthat you never thought of. And
so I value...

Sean O'Toole (01:04:17):
I sent mine off yesterday.

Greg Clark (01:04:19):
Yeah, it's so hard.
You know, I can see you're kindof like you kind of started
tearing up and welcome becauseyou're like, I never thought
this was gonna be as hard as itis. And, you know, they're
growing up and, and so you kindof start valuing your family
time, your work time as you getolder, but I've had that reset
for the last six months whereI'm like, Okay, look, I took my
time I spent this COVID time itwas super valuable. I appreciate

(01:04:41):
all the time I've spent with myfamily having my other son home,
both of them home for school,right? Because they came home
and when he came home onNovember and I have a kid that's
12, 13 that's in seventh grade.
So, you spend this time and it'sgood to rebalance and do that.
So, I've done that and now it'slike hey, let's get after it
again. Let's get let's, I don'twant to sit around for another
six to 12 months with the hopethat this might come back.

Sean O'Toole (01:05:06):
And my, my offer to you and to every other
trustee sale investor,successful trustee sale
investor, right? Like, there'sonly so many hours in a day and
I can only do so much of this,but I would gladly sit down

Greg Clark (01:05:20):
Can you put your cell, your cell phone on there
for us.

Sean O'Toole (01:05:22):
Yeah, for sure. I would gladly sit down and, you
know, give my cell phone numberto any of these folks. You know,
like I started out as a trusteesale investor, right, I was in
tech. And then I did trusteesale investing and then built
ForeclosureRadar. And, you know,those were, that was my core

(01:05:42):
customer base. And then we didexpand beyond that. And I've
learned all these other things,which is awesome. And all these
other ways to go about thisbusiness and, you know, go after
it. And I'd like to bring thatI've learned back to that this
group that I think is, you know,really got shafted, here with

(01:06:04):
SB1079. And unfairly so and soyou know, if you're a successful
trustee sale investor, andyou're struggling with what to
do next, you know, reach out toour support team
[e-mail], or,you know, click the little
support icon in the thing, andlet them know that, you know, if

(01:06:24):
you'd like to talk to me, I'mhappy to sit down with you and
talk to you about how you know,and ideate. And whatever, you
know, or as you have ideas, ifyou want to bounce them off
means and I can say, Hey, here'swhat's great about this and
here's the cons of that, right?
I'm happy to chat about that,you know, and happy to help
everybody figure out what theycan kind of personally bring to

(01:06:46):
the table and make it happen.
So, to degree, I have hours inthe day to do it. I will do that
for every trustee sale investortrying to make this transition
right now. And, Greg, Iappreciate you coming on today.
And kind of letting us talkthrough this with somebody
actually going through it,because it's certainly something

(01:07:07):
that we've got a lot ofcustomers facing right now our
support team is spending a lotof time with folks trying to
make the transition. And I justwant to let people know that I'm
here and happy to help as well.

Greg Clark (01:07:19):
Well, thank you. And I appreciate, you know, the
effort that you're making to,obviously you're creating a lot
more competition. But with that,with every situation, there's
always opportunity. And that'sthe way I look at it is I
appreciate whatForeclosureRadar, PropertyRadar,
what it's provided. For mepersonally, for my family, for

(01:07:42):
my kids, and it signed a lot ofways for my mental health, you
know, to be able to be in aposition that you might not have
been in 10, 15 years ago, Ithink Aaron could speak to this
as well. You know, having afather that's taught him the
business and, you know, and howto do things and build systems,
and now he's helping you elevateyou know, your company, it's,

(01:08:03):
it's, it's great when you'retrying to create an ecosystem
where everybody's trying to helpeach other. And you know,
there's some competition in it,but that's the way life is right
and, and the people who arewilling to work the hardest and,
and do their best. And again,like I say, be kind to people,
have good hearts, I think in theend, you end up doing well

(01:08:24):
working out for you. And so,from literally from the bottom
of my heart, I'm so appreciativefor everything that you and your
your skill set and your, yoursoftware has done for me and for
the time that Aaron has taken totalk with me and kind of point
me in a direction and and justrealize that and also for
helping us understand like we dohave a really cool skill set
that that you can leverage. Anddon't forget that and don't, you

(01:08:46):
know, let that go by thewayside. that's a that's a great
point. It's, it's people don'tappreciate how hard it is to do
what we did with the level ofrisk that we did. And so thank
you for, you know, everythingthat you've shared. Really,
really appreciate it.

Sean O'Toole (01:09:01):
Awesome.

Aaron Norris (01:09:03):
All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you for
listening to the Data DrivenReal Estate Podcast, you can
find show notes and links tosome of the resources mentioned
in the show atdatadrivenrealestate.com. Click
that join the community, andyou'll be forwarded to the
PropertyRadar community whereyou can ask questions about the
current show and even seeupcoming guests and ask
questions there. We'd love toengage with you in the

(01:09:25):
community. So check it out.
Please don't forget to like,favorite, subscribe and share on
your favorite platform whereyou're listening to the show. It
helps us out a great deal.
Thanks for listening, and we'llsee you next week.