John Ma: It’s Like a Pawn Shop, But With Houses

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
My name is John Ma.
We're in the real estateinvestment niche.
I've got a brand called BlueTrust House Buyers.
And what we do is we buy olderhomes from people who just want
to sell as is.
What we do on the back end iswe'll renovate them, flip them,
and that's how we monetize.
We could say that we serve likethese homeowners, which is true

(00:22):
on the business to consumerside.
But in reality, in thisindustry, it's such a saturated
industry.
And to be honest, it's a, Irealize it's a commoditized
business, meaning myself, I'm areal estate investor, and
there's another real estateinvestor just everywhere, right?
Like they're everywhere.
And what I offer probably isn'tthat much different from anyone

(00:43):
else.
A lot of businesses are likethat.
And say lender, not to knock onlenders, like how different is
one lender from another lenderand from one agent from another,
right?
You have a gradient of crappieragents to better agents, but in
terms of that upper echelon ofbetter agents, they're up, they
all offer the same services,right?
So that's what I mean by it's acommoditized business.
So one thing that I really tryto focus on is building, either

(01:07):
building community or helpingother businesses that align with
what we're doing.
Like for instance, me goingdirect to seller is we spend
marketing dollars to find theseopportunities.
When in reality, I think thebetter value add or the better
thing to spend my time on ismeeting other agents, because I
can talk to, let's say, fivedifferent sellers on a given

(01:30):
day.
Let's assume I talk to oneagent, an agent's doing the same
thing, right?
He's talking to five othersellers.
What if I just talk to fiveagents instead?
So almost like building a giantpyramid scheme, right?
But in a good way.
So one thing I really want tofocus on is establishing
relationships with variousagents, other real estate
wholesalers, which areessentially they're on the
streets looking for deals forinvestors, right?

(01:53):
So building some sort ofcommunity and educating and
offering value to these people,right?
Because a lot of agents, a lotof wholesalers, they're not
everyone, but a lot of them arein the beginning of their
journey.
They're trying to figure it outas well.
And if you can help enable themand accelerate their growth
path, you know, whenever theyfind opportunity, they not

(02:13):
always, but they'll probablythink of you once in a while.
And that's how you can get thesedeals flowing.
And you make it into a team gamerather than all right, I'm just
gonna spend money on marketingand find these opportunities
myself.
It just goes a much longer way.

SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
That's amazing.
However, I would like to know,take me back to the beginning.
Like, how did you get started inall of this?

SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
Man, I always look back on life and you could
always pinpoint or you can comeup with like a journey or a
story of, hey, I had thispassion and this and that, and
that's how I got started.
But in reality, I think a lot ofthings, a lot of times we miss
the the perspective of it justhappened in your life, right?
If you didn't meet a certainperson, maybe you would have

(02:55):
never come across a certainthing that that that started
everything off, right?
Uh whether it's like a career orsome sort of hobby.
Right.
So I'd say a lot of it is luck,right?
And I know we hate to say,especially entrepreneurs, they
hate to say success, it's on thebackbone of luck, but in
reality, like a lot of thingsare just completely based on

(03:16):
chances and luck, right?
But here's the thing though, themore opportunities you take, the
higher the more opportun what'sa good way of saying this.
Rather than saying success is abyproduct of luck, like the more
you do it, the luckier you get,right?
Say you roll a dice and you'rehope or like a like two dice and
you're hoping to hit like doublesix or something, right?
Or double ones.

(03:37):
The chances of you hitting thaton roll one roll, you know, it's
fairly low.
And I wouldn't bet on your allof your money on it.
But I can tell you, if you justroll that over and over
throughout the day, you're gonnahit that double one pretty
often.
So that's what I mean by a lotof things are a byproduct of
chance and luck.
And I guess to get back on youroriginal question, what was it?

(03:57):
How to get into real estateinvesting.
Man, like I stumbled into it.
I was working agovernment-related job, and
honestly, I recognize thatthat's like a great opportunity.
Not everyone had thatopportunity coming out of
college, having a pretty decentjob and everything.
So that's what I mean by it wasuh there's a lot of luck element
behind it because I know a lotof people work pretty hard at

(04:19):
their nine to five day job.
Say they worked at Walmart, andwhen you're working at Walmart,
not only do you get you don'tget paid that much, but also
like you you gotta be on top ofthings, right?
It's customer service all thetime.
Like it's a harder job.
So I would say there's anelement of luck to that.
Because I had agovernment-related job, there's
a lot of downtime between likedifferent projects and stuff

(04:40):
like that.
And that allowed me to justresearch things online.
Like I was a huge internet nerd.
I like to look up internet formsand get into different topic
groups and learn about things,right?
And I was at that point where Ijust want to look into, hey, how
do I build wealth?
Right?
How do I build wealth?
How do I increase my income andall that?
And I came across sites likeBigger Pockets, which is a

(05:01):
really common community or formthat a lot of people come across
and get into real estate or usethat as a resource to meet other
agents or wholesalers or otherinvestors, right?
From there, it just became ajourney, just buying my first
house and kind of house hackingit.
House hacking is this term whereyou buy a house, you finance it,
obviously, and you have likemultiple rooms and you just rent

(05:24):
them out to your buddies or towhoever.
And I was in my mid-20s, so itwas easy to do that.
Just have my buddies live withme.
It was really easy to do.
It was a no-brainer.
I like having roommates, like Iwould have done that anyways.
That's what got everythingrolling.
And then one thing goes toanother and you get into flips,
right?
And then you learn about okay,how are people doing flips?
How are they buying these,buying these projects with cash,

(05:46):
right?
Like that was like a hugequestion mark in my head.
So I started going to meetups.
I started meeting other peoplewho were doing house flips and
that type of stuff.
And I can tell you some of theearlier meetups I went to was
that was Causa.
Rob Chavez runs a really goodgroup.
He calls it Grid Now.
But that was one of the earlierones.
There was another one calledAlpha.
I'm not sure if it's stillaround.

(06:07):
I met some people that werewilling to let me follow them
around on their projects.
And I think just that personalone-on-one introduction, or I
call it a mentorship, eventhough they weren't there to
say, okay, first you do this,then you do that, right?
But it was more so building apersonal relationship.
And it was like like proof,right?

(06:27):
It was proof that, okay, this isa normal person that kind of did
this, and I can probably do thatsame thing, right?
You step foot into someone'sproject and it becomes real in
your head.
It's like these internet gurus,they talk about this kind of
like a law of attraction typething, right?
They're like, oh yeah, I just gointo an expensive dealership and
sit in the car and it becomesreal, right?
It sounds hokey.
If you've never been in likethat thing and you step foot in

(06:51):
it, now your imagination startschurning in a different way,
right?
You start coming up with newideas, you start thinking, how
do I get to this?
And that kind of had a similareffect when these people were
willing to let me come alonginto their projects and see,
okay, this is a real projectthis person's doing.
And here's how they did it.
They went off and got a hardmoney loan, they got their

(07:13):
contractors lined up and put thepieces together.
So that's what got me startedand in all that.

SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
That's beautiful because it like made this huge
monster of a dream.
Like, like you said, when you gosit into the car at the
dealership, the luxury car, itmakes it real.
That's why uh what is it called?
Vision boards are so important.
Yeah.
And being able to break it downinto like baby steps.

unknown (07:36):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Here's how to accomplish it.
Now you said that your goal isto provide white glove service
to homeowners.
What does that look like inpractice at Blue Trust?

SPEAKER_00 (07:44):
Yeah.
One thing I realize when we'retalking to a lot of these
distressed homeowners is firstoff, people who aren't familiar
with the business or theindustry, they always wonder,
okay, why the heck would someonesell their house for half the
value?
You're ripping them off, you'restealing their equity, you're
taking advantage of old people,whatever it is.
In reality, a lot of people havethey have a problem going on,

(08:06):
right?
It might be a financial problem,or maybe it might just be an
emotional problem, or they havesome sort of circumstances where
they just don't want the house.
Like you value the house becauseyou're a younger person, you
want to build wealth, but theyactually don't really value that
house anymore.
They've had enough of it.
To them, it's a problem.
So it's important to recognizethat to understand what the

(08:30):
problem is you're actuallysolving.
It's because it's not just theywant the house sold.
They could have contacted arealtor and got more money for
it if you list it on the market.
I always tell them thatactually.
But a lot of them don't want towork with the realtor.
They don't want to deal with thehassle of getting it listed,
having pictures of their houseand having people walk through
it.

(08:51):
I think a lot of people justwant it done without, you know,
having nosy neighbors, being intheir business, that type of
stuff.
And sometimes maybe their houseis a little bit messy.
And to them, it maybe it's alittle bit embarrassing and they
don't want to say it.
So, whatever the reason is, theyjust want someone that can just
give them an offer and just makeit just a done deal.
So part of that white gloveservice is just understanding

(09:15):
what it is you're trying tosolve for them, like what the
actual problem is, because a lotof times it's a problem that you
know they're not saying, right.
And just making it a really easytransaction because they came to
you because they wanted a quicksolution.
So because they trusted you inproviding that, you don't want
to make it more complicated.

(09:35):
There's a lot of people outthere, a lot of wholesalers
operate this way where they'lltell a seller, hey, we'll buy
your house for let's say acertain amount, 400,000, right?
And then they want to go off andresell it to another cash buyer
for 450.
And that's fine.
But a lot of times they justcomplicate the transaction.
It was supposed to be a veryeasy transaction, just cash

(09:57):
deal, and then we close in 30days.
But now they're going off andbringing a whole bunch of people
in for inspection, and then theycan't find another buyer for it.
So now they're giving excuses tothe seller, hey, for this and
that reason, hey, we got to dropthe price.
And this is like a week beforeclosing, right?
So you're not really servingthem anymore.
Although we wholesale dealssometimes, we try to make it as
tr we make it as transparent aspossible, let them know exactly

(10:20):
what's happening.
If we're not gonna be the endbuyer for it, we'll tell them,
hey, we're gonna bring ournetwork of investors, we're
gonna take a look, and we mightend up sending up selling it to
someone else if you know they'reokay with it.
And usually they don't care.
They just want to know theentire they which they just want
to know what's happening, justbeing transparent with the
transaction.

(10:40):
That's that's what I mean byproviding a white glove service
to them.
And uh same with agents.
Say an agent or anotherwholesaler brings another
opportunity to us, and we feellike if we end up being the end
buyer, we'll tell them.
Hey, if we need uh some sort ofinspection period, just two,
three days, we'll tell them.
Or if we feel like, hey, maybeit's not a good fit, but hey,

(11:00):
maybe we'll bring a buyer, we'lltell them.
Hey, I think we'll have anotherbuyer for it.
At the end of the day, you justgotta keep that transparency
there so that people haveconfidence in you that you can
take it to the finish line.
And I always equate real estateinvesting closer to a pawn shop
business, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 (11:17):
Stuff like thrift stores and pawn shops exist.

SPEAKER_00 (11:19):
Yeah, I really equate it to a pawn shop
business.
I think a lot of people tryingto get into the business, they
often they overcomplicate what atransaction might look like
because there's all sorts ofcourses out there and you know,
all sorts of coaches sellingprograms and they're trying to
sell you some sort of service.
And there's just a lot ofcontent float floating around
and it can be confusing for alot of people.

(11:41):
But at the end of the day, it'spretty simple.
It means it's a pawn shopbusiness.
Just talk to people, and if thatopportunity doesn't work, then
it just doesn't work.
There's nothing, there's nomagic script you can say to
convince anyone to sell ifthey're selling.
Yeah.
There's a lot of opportunitieswhere it's a maybe, right?
You can tell, okay, they'regonna sell to a cash buyer
investor, but maybe not with youand maybe not yet.

(12:04):
And those are like the maybecategory, right?
Those are the ones you cannurture for a period of time and
or maybe forever until theysell.
But there's gonna be a segmentof people that's just it's gonna
be a no and it's always gonna bea no, and it's really not worth
talking to them.
There's gonna be some peoplethat are just a low-hanging
fruit, it's a slam dunk, it's ayes just right off the bat,
right?
Because they're phenomenal ifyou find them.

(12:25):
But most of them are just gonnabe in that middle zone, right?
They're just a maybe.
And there's no magic line youcan really say to get them to
sell, but just nurturing andbuilding trust.

SPEAKER_01 (12:37):
You have a background as an in the Navy,
correct?

SPEAKER_00 (12:40):
I've worked for a Navy contractor.
Okay.
Yeah, I used to work in theNewport News that we we built
ships for aircraft carriers.
Yeah, I I refueled the Rooseveltand the Lincoln.

SPEAKER_01 (12:49):
Very cool.
Do you feel like they had acertain like level of service
that they ran you guys through?

SPEAKER_00 (12:55):
A service?

SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
Or just like values?

SPEAKER_00 (12:58):
Yeah, I I think so.
And it's not something Irealized at the time, right?
Because it was my first job outof college.
We're just trying to figure itout and figure out where you
fit.
Like you're trying to figure outwhere you fit in the world, but
also like in the organization.
Because when you work for alarger enterprise, it's like you
start on day one and then you'renot too sure what you're doing,
and people give you assignmentshere and there.

(13:18):
You're not really sure if likeyou're doing enough.
But yeah, there were some, whatdo they call them?
Like mission statements.
Like, I don't remember exactlywhat they were.
I think one of them was likejust build good ships or do good
work, something like that,because it was important work.
Like we're refueling like theseaircraft carriers, and you have
a I don't know how I don't knowhow many, but there's a lot of
service members that work onthose aircraft carriers.

(13:40):
And not a whole lot of peoplesee one in person, but once you
see one in person, you're justlike, oh my God, this is a
floating city.
It's insane.
Yeah, you realize, okay, this isyou can't make any mistakes on
it.
And if you have any questions oruncertain about something, you
gotta bring it up and make surenothing slips through the
cracks.
I think I do take that with meoutside of since working for the

(14:04):
Navy and taking that into my ownbusiness and also into your
personal life as well, right?
Because for instance, uh, sayyou have an arrangement with
someone and you guys plan tomeet somewhere, even if it's
just for fun, right?
It's so you're gonna be there atthis time, if you not show up or
tell them last minute, oh, I'mnot gonna make it, it messes
everything up, right?

(14:25):
Even though it's not like thesestakes aren't super high, it's
still not a good look.
And in reality, you know,business is the same way, right?
Because all a meeting is like ameeting of the minds between two
people.
I told them, hey, I'm gonna meetyou at your house at this time,
and they're expecting me at thistime if I show up late or just

(14:46):
cancel on them last minute.
It's like dependent on you.
And there's times where sellers,like, yeah, that's common,
that's fine.
I think a lot of times you justgotta realize, okay, regardless
if they're serious or not, andthey probably have stuff going
on, that's fine.
Sometimes you just have to meetthem with meet them at where
they're at.
And that's part of providingthat that service.

SPEAKER_01 (15:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (15:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
Yeah, that's interesting.
How many people are on yourteam?

SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
So Blue Trust is my personal brand.
I work with a partner.
We have another brand calledInvestor Collective, where we're
working on this, it's a jointventure together.

SPEAKER_01 (15:20):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (15:21):
So it's just us, us two, and then a few virtual
assistants.
The virtual assistants, they'reout of South America and the
Philippines.
And we we try to treat them asjust like any other team member,
regardless if they're physicallylocated here or if they're
located elsewhere and workingremotely.
I think when it comes to I knowyou didn't ask this, but you
know, in terms of the question.

SPEAKER_01 (15:41):
Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 (15:42):
In terms of working with virtual assistants, I know
a lot of people treat them as uhlike a disposable asset, right?
It's like, all right, let mejust get a VA to do this.
And if it doesn't work out, justgo find another one.
In reality, a lot of VAs, theytreat it as their career, they
take it pretty seriously, right?
Because say you're only payingthem three, four, or five
dollars an hour doesn't seemlike much, but you know, where

(16:02):
they're from, that's actually areal living.
It's a real living.
It's it's insane to think abouthow ridiculous the cost of
things are here in the US, andyou don't realize like that
scale of where that goes in inin another country.
In fact, in most countries,actually, a couple dollars an
hour is that's a livable wage.

(16:25):
Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
Yeah.
What are some of the biggestchallenges that homeowners face
in the DMV area and how doesyour process solve them?

SPEAKER_00 (16:33):
I think this is where like the service element
comes in, right?
I think a lot of people try tobuild processes to do certain
things.
Like try to build a, I call itlike a McDonald's model, right?
Like you can build a McDonald'smodel and you plug people in,
they just follow theinstructions, and you the result
is like a deliverable orhamburger or whatever.

(16:53):
I think for this is somethingthat it it will always require
like that human element, thathuman touch.
Like you can probably automate afew things using AI tools we
have nowadays.
And I think that helps for likemass marketing and maybe
organizing information, but interms of actually interfacing
with a customer, you're alwaysgoing to require that that human
touch.

(17:14):
So the original question was howpercent of the people in this
area, homeowners face.
Okay.
So in terms of homeowners thathave a distressed property, a
fixer upper, I would always sayit's like it's an emotional
issue that they're having,right?
They feel like their home isold, it needs a lot of work, and
they've had enough of it, right?

(17:35):
Everyone has their story growingup.
Maybe it was a happy home, maybeit wasn't a happy home, maybe it
was a happy home, and now you'rein a new phase of life, and it's
time for a new chapter.
And they just want an easy sale.
And like I mentioned before, youalways wonder, okay, why does
someone sell the house for halfthe value or 70% of the value?
It's they just want thatconvenience.

(17:57):
And part of it is justunderstanding exactly what it is
that you know they're goingthrough and the real problem
that you're solving, right?
Because anyone can give anoffer, anyone can sell a house
for them.
That's not like that valuable.
Like I said, it's a commoditizedbusiness.
We're competing with otherinvestors, we're competing with
real estate agents, we'recompeting with big box buyers.

(18:19):
What we're offering is not thatspecial.
It comes down to that humantouch and really understanding
them and building that trust.
And building that trust to allowto allow you to provide that
deliverable.
Cause like any, like I said,anyone can provide that
deliverable, just a cash off ortaking it to the finish line and
closing.
But it's building that emotionalconnection and trust is what it

(18:40):
comes down to.

SPEAKER_01 (18:41):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (18:42):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (18:42):
Very important.

SPEAKER_00 (18:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (18:44):
Looking ahead, what's your long-term vision for
Blue Trust and the legacy youhope to build in Fairfax and
beyond?

SPEAKER_00 (18:50):
Yeah.
The vision here that we'reexecuting is building a network
of agents and other peopletrying to get into real estate
investing and showing them likewhat it takes, right?
Because like I said, there's somany coaches and influencers and
different sales systems outthere, and they're all trying to

(19:12):
get more customers, sell youtheir service, sell you their
data, whatever it is.
And the ones that are good pumpout so much content that you
just end up you're just takingso much content.
You got a direct mail vendortrying to tell you, yeah, direct
mail is the best way.
You got a Facebook marketing adagency trying to tell you, yeah,
you got to do it this way.

(19:32):
And there's just so muchinformation out there.
And we want to build up thiscommunity and show them, okay,
these vendors, these tools outthere, they're great to use if
you choose that path.
But at the end of the day,you've got to look at what
actually makes this businesswork.
Is like I said, it's prettysimple.
It's just a pawn shop business,right?
Just talk to more sellers.
And no matter how you generatethese leads, whether it's
through Facebook or Google Payper click or whether it's old

(19:55):
school direct mail or coldcalling door knocking, all these
methods, like they all work.
Like they all generate leads.
It's helping people see thatbigger picture rather than being
so myoptic on, you know, onecoach's or one vendor's content
and thinking, all right, this isthe only way.
And just seeing the biggerpictures to allow them to
choose, okay, which marketingmethod might work for me, right?

(20:17):
Maybe it's none of them.
Maybe it's just going out andnetworking with people because
that works also.
And there's investors out therethat just straight up look for
deals on the MLS, right?
People will tell you thatdoesn't work.
There's no deals on the MLS.
There are.
You just need to sift throughthe noise, just like you would
if you, you know, you'regenerating leads through Google
Ads or through Facebook orthrough direct mail.

(20:39):
You still have to sift through alot of noise, right?
Some marketing channels mighthave less noise than others, and
you just have to recognize thatsome of the lower cost lead
generation methods, like youknow, cold calling, you're gonna
sift through a lot of noise.
But, you know, that's part of uhthat's part of this bigger
picture, right?
We're building community, wewant to build awareness and

(21:00):
provide more educational contenton doing this the most effective
way.
And I'm always willing to sharelike my failures because a lot
of coaches and coaching programswill tell you about how great
they are and they'll tell youabout the wins, but it's like
all these stock traders, right?
They'll they'll only tell youabout the wins.
You don't see the losses andrealize they're actually a net

(21:21):
negative.
You shouldn't even be listeningto this guy right here.
I always tell people I'm willingto share the losses, all the
challenges.
There's so many flips where Ijust lost money on.
The funny thing about houseflippers is people never talk
about how much money they loston some of the projects because
it's embarrassing.
You got into it to make money,not to be in the hole.
But the reality is a lot offlippers have lost money on

(21:43):
deals and they just sweep itunder the rug and don't really
talk about it.
But I'm going to share thembecause I think it's important
because I think it's importantto study failure just as much as
you study success.
Because here's like the like thebias thing when it comes to
studying success.
There's so many self-helpcontent out there.
And I think part of the issue isa lot of it sounds really good.

(22:07):
And a lot of it, it's like thispaints a rosy picture around
everything.
I call it like a the KimKardashian spirituality, right?
It's everything is just love andlight.
When reality, yeah, it is, butyou also got to look at the real
world because without thecivilization, without all this
advancement we've had, allhumans are is like we're not

(22:27):
that different from animals.
And without these rules, it'slike you come down to basics of
just killing and like dominatinganother person for their protein
and and nutrients.
I mean, I hope we don't evercome down to that, but that's
the nature of people.
Yeah.
So you just gotta look at theworld as it is.
There's the good and there's thebad, and you gotta study the

(22:49):
ugly side just as much as thepositive side.

SPEAKER_01 (22:52):
Do you have a space that you share, the ugly and the
positive?
You're talking about your group.

SPEAKER_00 (22:57):
Yes.
Our brand that we're building isthe investor collective.
And we have a Facebook groupthat I've I've helped my friend
Josh run.
It's called a DMV Dealmakershave helped him run that past
several years.
And before we were talking, Imentioned that we did like these
video episodes.

SPEAKER_01 (23:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (23:12):
Actually, so I realized so that happened during
COVID.
That's what it was.
We used to run meetups where wehad events in various spaces.
We brought investors in.
The whole purpose was fornetworking, for people to share
deals and that type of stuff.
And when COVID happened,everything shut down.
So we decided let's do a fewvideo episodes.
We invite a few guests and wehad some pretty cool guests on
there.

(23:33):
But it it was a lot of work andwe put a pause to that.
But that's something I like torestart again.
And I'm looking for guests tobring on that have a really good
story.
But uh, but yeah, I would sayInstagram is probably the best
one.
I not only share these skitsthat we're building, but also
just raw content as well, whereI just pick up the camera and
start talking about stuff.

(23:53):
I think it's important to haveboth the skits and the comedic
stuff that's fun to watch.
But I think uh it's good to havea mix, right?
Show a little bit of yourbusiness, a little bit of who
you actually are, and a littlebit of some words and ideas that
you might have going on up here,right?

SPEAKER_01 (24:09):
Yeah, that's smart.
So as we're wrapping this up, isthere anything specific that you
would like to touch on thatmaybe I haven't asked you about?

SPEAKER_00 (24:17):
Shoot.
I don't know how much time Ihave to think about to come up
with that answer.
Yeah, I think we we touched on alot.
I think my final takeaway is thetalking about the real world.
There's the good stuff that alot of influencers like to
share, positive messages.
I just want people to know youcan be inspired by some of the
success people have built.

(24:38):
But when you're watching stuffon social media, you have to
recognize that it is a highlightreel.
Like the whole thing is meant tobe a highlight reel to show you
how cool someone's lifestyle isor how I mean, sometimes they
exaggerate this, but how bigtheir business might be.
And you just have to realizethis is literally a highlight
reel.
And people who produce socialmedia, they treat it like a

(25:00):
business.
It's a business of it's almostlike I have my own TV show on
channel five Fox or whatever.
It's a produced piece ofcontent.
It's a produced, almost like anonline avatar.
I think that's how a lot ofpeople treat it.
Like they treat their socialmedia brand as almost like an
avatar of myself.
It's not the 100%, but it's likethe maybe just a piece of it.

(25:20):
It's kind of like the coolerlooking piece because they're
not showing you everything else,right?
Everyone in the morning goes tothe bathroom, sits on the
toilet, but no one's showingthat, right?
There's so much to there's somuch more behind the scenes.
It's important that peoplerecognize the difference, right?
It's entertaining and can beinspiring to watch people
online, but just understand thatthere's always the other side of

(25:42):
it.
Like an example is recently inthe news.
I don't know if you're heard TyLopez.
He's a business coach.

SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
And what's going on with that?
There are so many people rippinghim up right now.

SPEAKER_00 (25:50):
Yeah.
He's been like, I guess he wasone of the original social media
business coaches out there thatgot started on YouTube in the
mid-2010s.
And I believe he was raisingmoney to buy like these failing
businesses like Radio Shack PierOne, Bodybuilding.com, stuff
like that.
And I think he promised like acertain percentage of returns to

(26:13):
those investors.
And I think things probably wenta little bit sideways, right?
Like they weren't producingthose returns.
So they, in order to pay thoseinvestors back, they went off
and got more investors andcollected their money to pay off
the original investors.
And that's when you when you'rewhy they call it a Ponzi scheme?

SPEAKER_01 (26:29):
Yeah.
I didn't understand it.

SPEAKER_00 (26:30):
Yeah, so that's where things got sticky, right?
That's what I mean by there'sthings on social media.
He's making his YouTube, YouTubecom content, his Instagram
content about how great he is atbusiness.
And I'm sure he he is, but youknow, people have their
failures.
This is one of them.

SPEAKER_01 (26:46):
And when you don't, and maybe when you're not as
transparent about that, otherpeople are quick to blast you
when they see those failures.
If you're only sharing yourhighlight reels, because I was
surprised when I started seeingthat because I did see some of
the polished videos he wasproducing.
I was like, oh, he's back.
And then soon after I just saweight to twelve different
content creators that I followtalking about their run-in with

(27:10):
him in some negative way.
I thought that was interesting.

SPEAKER_00 (27:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, point of this is thepoint being you can watch their
content, but just realize that'slike the TV show of them that
they created.
It's kind of it's the highlightreel, the cool lifestyle, the
mansion parties, and you're notseeing the other side of it.

SPEAKER_01 (27:30):
The ugly.

SPEAKER_00 (27:30):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (27:32):
You give yourself grace, right?

SPEAKER_00 (27:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (27:35):
Yeah, unless you're comparing.
Is there anything else you'dlike to touch on?
I think that was so importantfor you to double down on.

SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
Yeah, I think that's my final takeaway.
But if there's any agents outthere that are, if they have
fixer-up or deals or looking toget more into flips, I'm always
happy to connect and show themsome of the things that we do,
some of the flips I have andsome of the pitfalls I've gone
through.
And at the same time, like Ipartner with people as well,
right?
If they bring a deal, happy topartner with them.

(28:05):
Or if they want to do the deal,I'll figure out how I can do it
with them as some sort of jointventure.
Or those wholesalers out theretrying to move a deal.
I'm always happy to work withthem.
And I'm always happy to showpeople how to generate these
leads and find theseopportunities as well.
Cause a lot of agents, they gotinto the business to increase
their income and build morewealth.

(28:26):
But oftentimes they get stuck onthat hamster wheel of constantly
just doing sales, which is finebecause you're making a lot of
money at it, but you need tohave a short-term investment and
longer-term investment as well.
And sometimes they're just toobusy to take it to the next step
and maybe do their own flips orwork with specific clients
because a lot of agents outthere, they're constantly

(28:46):
serving first-time home buyers.
And the issue with that is it'salmost like a one-time customer,
right?
Yeah.
If you work with investors,you're getting multiple buys
with that customer.
That's what a business shouldbe, right?
Yeah.
When you start a Walmart, yougot repeat customers coming to
Walmart.
You're a real estate agent.
It makes more sense if you havethese repeat buyers and sellers,
right?
So I always tell agents, hey, Ithink the smarter thing is

(29:09):
always working with investorssuch as myself or other
investors out there.
And I always tell agents, youjust be careful with some
investors.
They always have some long studyperiod or they'll have these
kind of really loose contractswhere it just a lot of weasel
clauses where they can just getout of the contract.
Whenever we do a contract, wemake it as solid as possible.

(29:30):
Oftentimes we don't have anystudy periods or bring cash.
And a lot of times we'll do themside and scene because I'm
pretty familiar with a lot ofthe inventory out there,
especially if it's in DC.
In my opinion, they're allthey're all uh pretty cookie
cutter.
They're all pretty cookie cutterprojects.
Just barely looking at it, I cantell roughly what it's going to
cost on my end.

(29:50):
Can get a I can give a cashoffer relatively quick without
any inspection periods orcontingencies.
So that's awesome.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (29:59):
That's good.
When you've been around theblock a little while, so you can
be able to do that, right?

SPEAKER_00 (30:03):
Yeah.
A couple years, several years.
There's people who've been doingit for decades and decades, but
we're all on that journey.
And yeah, I try to learn as muchas I can from people that are
experienced and still pass downthat information to others that
are still earlier in thejourney.

SPEAKER_01 (30:16):
So that's amazing.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast today.
It was such a delight to hearabout your story and all the
great things you're doing in thefuture for homeowners, agents,
and investors.

SPEAKER_00 (30:27):
100%.
Thanks for having me.