August 19, 2024 • 37 mins
Discover the inspiring journey of Michael Liddicoat, who turned his family's architectural roots and a major sports complex development into a thriving real estate career. Learn how Mike overcame the challenges of juggling a W-2 job with his real estate ambitions and emerged successful through networking platforms like BiggerPockets. His story is a powerful reminder of the importance of persistence and finding the right niche within the real estate landscape.
Gain exclusive insights from seasoned realtor Michael, who shares his unique E-A-R-N approach to client commitment. Michael breaks down his method of educating clients, advocating for their best interests, referring them to trusted professionals, and negotiating effectively on their behalf. His proven strategies for setting clear expectations and demonstrating value have resulted in impressive client conversion rates that any real estate professional can emulate.
Lastly, we discuss creative problem-solving in real estate transactions and the significant impact of surrounding oneself with goal-oriented individuals. Hear real-life examples of how understanding sellers' unique needs can create win-win situations, and appreciate the heartfelt gratitude extended to the uplifting community of real estate investors. This episode is packed with valuable lessons and motivating stories that showcase the transformative potential of real estate investment.
If you would like to get ahold of Michael Liddicoat you can email him at michael@dissectingthedeal.com. This is the best way to contact him .
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome everybody to the Professionalist Real Estate
Investing Podcast.
I'm with Mike Lidicote.
I pronounced that right.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Mike, yep, yep, I'm doing great.
Thank you very much for havingme on, tony, no problem.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
No problem, I just wanted to get you in before I go
on my little vacation.
But I just want to talk to youabout how did you get into real
estate, what's your littlebackground as to from where you
started to basically whereyou're at, where you're at now?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Sure.
So, uh, how I got started, uh,I grew up the son of an
architect, so a lot of dinnertable discussion around, you
know, buildings and permits andcities and counties and those
sorts of stuff, um.
So you know, when I got into mytwenties I didn't realize that
it wasn't normal for people tonot know how to read a blueprint
.
It was kind of my firstintroduction to job sites and
(00:51):
that sort of stuff.
But where I really got intoreal estate was my parents were
doing development work and theyfound what eventually became I
think it's like 140 or 160 acresfor a sports complex
development, and they met thepeople and got the deals in
place and did all the stuff.
And at the last minute theybrought in a realtor to go and
sign all the paperwork and geteverything done.
And then they saw the size ofthat commission check that that
(01:11):
guy did and they're like, wait aminute, we did all the work, we
did all the hustle and he'sgoing to get how much?
And so my mom called me up andsaid, hey, this is what just
happened.
We think you should go get yourreal estate license so that if
we ever have that happen again,you can.
You know we can, we can keepthat in the family.
And I was like fantastic, which, by the way, never happened
again, like that didn't come tofruition.
(01:31):
Yeah, one deal one time.
I mean I don't know how manyother times.
They were expecting to do 160acre deal for a major sports
complex, but it happened thatone time and that was it.
So I went and go through and inWashington state, once you get
your license you have to go intoa brokerage.
And so I found a nice easybrokerage to go into and started
learning a little bit aboutbuyer's agency and listing and
(01:52):
all that sort of stuff.
And I was still working W-2 andthings at the time and I well,
I guess I'll put this caveat inI never, while I had my real
estate license, was not a W-2employee or a 1099 employee for
somebody else, so it wassomething I did on the side.
But I was able to consistently,with that real estate license,
make anywhere from 20 and$40,000 a year in additional
(02:14):
income by doing that.
So I'm going out and I'm doingthese things right.
Like I didn't have my firstcommission for six months, like
it was just brutal andstruggling.
The brokerage is giving meleads off of Zillow.
I'm going out and meeting withpeople showing up to property at
7am on Sunday and I was likethis sucks, like there was no
other way to say it, like I wasjust not cut out for that type
(02:36):
of real estate of, you know,being a commodity and, you know,
just hoping people answer thedrip campaign and everything
else just was not for me.
So I start looking into well,what else can I do with my real
estate license.
And that's when I discoveredBiggerPockets.
So I mainlined BiggerPockets.
And I then go to my Rotary Club, which I was a part of, and I
(02:59):
start talking to a couple ofguys and just like, hey, do you
own property?
Are you someone who does thissort of stuff?
And like, yeah, I totally do.
And so I talked to enoughpeople that I was like, well, I
would like to help with that.
I have this real estate license, I have access to these things.
If I were to like startunderwriting or looking at
properties and sending those outwith that, would that be a
(03:19):
value?
And they said, yeah, so thatwas how I built.
My first buyers list was that Iwent through people I knew and
people that were in clubs I wasa part of and said, hey, I'm
doing this thing and forprobably about two or three
months I just cut my teeth bygoing to the MLS every single
morning and I would look at whatare the new properties and I
would underwrite them.
And at the time BiggerPocketshad a free calculator that you
(03:40):
could go on and they didn't carehow many you used.
So I would go in, I would juststart plugging away on the
properties and just putting themin and doing this and I'd send
it out.
And then guys would start toreply to me and they'd say, hey,
I noticed that in yourcalculation you were only using
5% for maintenance costs for meon a home of this age.
I'd really like you to look at10% of what that would look like
.
And I was going oh okay, wait aminute.
So now I understand thatdifferent investors have
(04:01):
different criteria for whatthey're looking at.
There's not a universalstandard.
Each of them has differenttolerances.
So then I started to go like ohokay, let me start, you know,
drilling down on this list.
And I started going like ohokay, if I'm going to send this
over to Charlie, I need to makesure that it's got these numbers
on here, because these areCharlie's numbers in order to
make it work and what that lookslike.
And that started to get metraction and started getting me
(04:24):
some deals closed as a realestate agent looking at stuff.
And then I was going like, well, what else could I be doing?
Like, how else can I use thislicense?
What can I go on?
And then I was like, oh well,meetups Like my challenge
continues to be that I still amnot getting enough look at
off-market properties.
I'm still not, you know,getting a wide enough network of
(04:44):
people that I know.
So I was like, great, I'llstart a meetup and I'll start
doing that.
And I ran a meetup for three anda half years, just before up
until COVID.
We tried doing the onlinemeetup thing and it just wasn't
as interactive.
We didn't still have the samething.
But for three years, everysingle month, I got between 30
and 50 people into a roomtogether.
We talked about a deal and Isaid, hey, we're going to
(05:05):
dissect this, we're going tolook at this and we would break
down what made the deal good orbad, why people would or
wouldn't do it.
And then I would encouragepeople like, hey, if you're
interested in this, this is liveLike you can come.
You know, ask me I'll, I'llhelp you with it.
(05:28):
And then I had a lot and theywere trying to come in.
So then I would use my accessto the National Association of
Realtors stuff to start pulllike here are expired listings
for them, here are some for saleby owners, here let me do the
comps for you so that whenyou're doing things out in the
hopes that they would recommendme to get the list back or other
sorts of stuff that I was doing.
And so that was again that ittook a while to get going, but
(05:50):
it was establishing me asauthority within the area of
what to do.
And I started getting peoplesaying oh, I know so-and-so, can
they get added to your, to yourbuyers list that you're sending
properties to?
I heard from so-and-so that youran this.
I am looking for properties inthat market.
Can we have a conversation?
And just started developingthose relationships and doing
that.
(06:11):
And so then COVID hit, realestate kind of died down for a
little bit in our market justbecause people were buying homes
and so all of a sudden theprices just were going through
the roof and finding a deal wasnext to impossible of what we
could do, moved out here toTulsa, oklahoma, and discovered
that it's a very differentprospect out here.
The thing that blew my mindreally was the fact not only
(06:33):
things were a little bit cheaper, but that complex strategies
were very easy to explain tohomeowners.
I wrote a letter to a homeowner.
It was just like hey, I noticedthat you guys are trying to
leave.
Sounds like you guys have work.
Your property's been on marketfor this number of days.
Are you open to me taking overpayments, doing something
creative that I can help youwith?
(06:54):
And my response rate on thosewas like 80, 90% of people going
like, yeah, we totally would beinto that, that's something we
let's discuss it, let's talkabout it.
I was like, oh geez, this isgreat, that's something we let's
discuss it, let's talk about it.
I was like, oh geez, this isgreat.
So it's gotten much more overthe last year, more competitive
in this market, because peoplehave figured out, like they do
all the time.
You know what are small marketsand how to go about them.
But what I've also done is I'vestarted keeping in touch with
(07:16):
some of the people I know andgetting referred to people, and
I'm doing a lot of underwritingand JVs right now.
So people are saying, hey, yourboots on the ground in that
market, could you go take a lookat this property, figure out
what it is and let us know ifthe numbers make sense?
Because we're out of state andwe're trying to do this.
So I've got a couple of guysright now that they have a bunch
of 1031s they're looking toplace and so they're saying, hey
, here's our criteria, let usknow what this looks like.
(07:38):
And we're trying to figure outwhat that could look like as an
opportunity for them, but alsoas an opportunity for me to help
them.
And then, before the call wewere talking about, like, I
found 101 units single familyportfolio that I'm doing the due
diligence on right now to tryand figure out, like, okay, is
this even really a deal?
Because every realtor thatlists one of these things thinks
it's gold.
And I've got to sort through itand go it's fool's.
(08:02):
Gold is what it is because of X, y and Z.
Wow.
So that's been my journey upthrough here.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
That's a lot to take in.
So, first of all, shout out toBiggerPockets, the biggest
investing platform online in andabout, because there's so many
different resources that comefrom there.
I use it all the time also,yeah.
And then I see how you leverageyour real estate license.
So you got your real estatelicense, so you got your real
(08:31):
estate license and you leveragethese like how more can I use it
than helping a person buy orsell a house?
You use it actually intonetworking.
I do the same thing too.
I actually you have moreavenues when you have your real
estate license to get intodifferent, to get in different
areas, and that's that's to me,that's a, that's a huge plus.
I mean because there's certainstuff that people can get for
free, but then when you're arealtor.
It changes the game a little bitmore.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, and I would go tell other realtors that were
trying to become investorfriendly.
I was like, do you know thatyou have access to this thing
called NAR, rprcom or org Ican't remember what it ends in,
but it's like that is a nationalMLS listing.
It has everything, includingtax records and property records
and all this other sort ofstuff, and so I would show that
(09:12):
in demos to other realtors or toinvestors.
I was working.
I was like, well, let's run thenumbers here.
And they're like this isamazing, how did you get this?
I was like, well, it's freebecause I paid my dues, so I'm
just going to leverage this techin order to find out more info
and get a leg up on the otherpeople that are spending their
time in coffee shops trying tosay would you please let me add
you to my email list?
Yes, email list.
So for me, it was all aboutadding value.
(09:33):
The other thing that you andyour audience might be
interested about that I did thatwas something to help was I did
the thing we're all told we'renot to do when we're in sales
roles, which is like I overexplained everything to
everybody when I started to workwith them and, like I said, the
reason I did that was because Iwas always a W2 or 1099
employee while I had my license.
And everybody tells you realestate's a volume game.
(09:55):
Well, if it's a volume game,but I only have 10 to 15 hours a
week that I can do work.
I don't want to go open doorsfor people that aren't serious
buyers or that if I open thedoor for them and they're like
well, we didn't want to buy that.
Again, you and I have had thisexperience.
Michael, I'm not interested inthat house because the third
bedroom was pink.
Yes, I was like I will buy thepaint.
(10:19):
Like, if that is the reasonwe're not buying this, I will
buy the paint to cover that up.
Like that.
That should not be the definingfactor, but that's what I was
running into.
So what I did is I startedcreating this, this pattern that
I came up with in the script.
That would, depending on how itwent, would be like the first
time I met somebody.
The first 20 to 40 minutes ofme meeting with them was me
talking at them and it shouldn'thave worked, but it did, and
what I would do is I would sayhey, I just want a baseline
(10:40):
level check with you.
Do you understand how I getpaid, like as a realtor, helping
you?
Do you understand how this isgoing to work, whether it's an
investment transaction, aresidential transaction,
commercial?
Do you understand how I make mymoney?
And they would say like, ohyeah, the seller contributes
that.
And I was like that's how I getthe cash, but that's not how I
would become your agent.
(11:02):
So what I do is I have to earnwhat I do E-A-R-N.
I have to educate you, I haveto be an advocate for you, I
have to refer you when I don'tknow the answer or it's not my
specialty, and the very lastthing I have to do is negotiate
on your behalf.
And each of those, like I, hadbreakdowns and examples of
everything.
Like you know, educating islike hey, man, you're going to
do four transactions in yourlifetime.
(11:23):
I'm going to do four a month.
So I need to make sure that youunderstand all the parts and
pieces that move, how they gothrough, because the last time
you bought is very differentthan the market that we're in
today.
And I want to let you knowwhat's normal, what's happening.
Advocating is, again, this is aweird thing that's happening.
This is a normal thing that'shappening.
If you're comfortable withweird, here's the consequences
(11:44):
of that.
If you're comfortable withnormal, here's the consequences
of that.
And just give them like, hey,pro and con this for you.
This is what is going on.
Refer.
I was always like here are threepeople I want you to go
interview all three of them.
They're all great roofers.
You need the roof inspected,you need somebody to give you
opinion.
I should not be doing that, buthere's the deal, here's the
question.
(12:04):
I want you to ask each of themand it would be topical, right,
like you know ask them about.
You know you don't like any ofthose three.
I'll give you another three tocall.
Like I'll happily do that, but Idon't want you to just pick
somebody, because my whole thingwith referring was I never, as
a business, want to put you in asituation where you get to say
(12:26):
Michael told me to.
What I want you to say isMichael gave me the options and
he explained what was good andbad, and then I picked the
outcome.
And again my reasoning, I wouldtell him, is like I don't have
to live with those consequences.
Yes, like I get to get paid, Iget to move on, but you have to
live with this investmentproperty.
You have to take on theconsequences of what's going to
happen when you get into rehaband start pulling stuff out of
(12:47):
walls and other stuff.
Like that is solely you, and Idon't want you to have a bad
taste in your mouth because Ishowed you the property and you
went through the deal Like thatis.
That is the worst thing thatcan happen.
So let's bring in a pro thatcan give you great advice and do
that.
And then again, the last thingto negotiate was all right,
let's go in.
We can offer, you know, 20grand under, but at the rate the
(13:08):
way the properties and themarket is right now, we're going
to piss them off and we're notgoing to have a response.
So here are some other tacticswe can go in with to try and see
if we can knock them down,because we know that it is
overpriced.
But it would be to have thosenegotiating conversations with
them in order to again show thevalue.
And, like I said, that was thefirst 20 to 40 minutes of
meeting anybody, regardless ofwhat they were using before,
(13:30):
whether it was commercial,whether it was residential,
whether it was small investment,wholesaling, whatever I would
tell them that 80% of the time,people would say yes, I want you
to be our realtor, I want youto be the guy helping me with
doing this, even if they werealready working with another
agent.
And how I would get over theother agent issue is they would
say well, we're working withso-and-so and I'd say great,
(13:52):
they're a wonderful agent.
Let me ask you two questions.
First, did you sign a buyer'sagency or did you sign an
agreement with them, a listingagreement or whatever it is?
Did you sign something withthem already?
The answer is yes.
I was like great, I want you tosee that through, because I
would feel terrible if anybodywas stealing my clients.
But I want you to see thatthrough.
(14:13):
The only thing I want to tellyou is that, like, if you feel
there's a night and daydifference between the service
level that you're getting, Iwould encourage you, as a
customer, to go demand thethings that I'm promising you
from your current person, and ifthey're unwilling to do that,
then you know you can see aboutgetting out of that and coming
to work with me.
But I I believe that everybodyshould have like especially if
you've signed a contract withsomebody, go see that through to
(14:34):
the end, like, follow throughwith that.
That is, that is what I'dencourage you to do.
And then, if they said, no, youknow, like we've, we've walked
through a couple of houses withuh, you know, with Tony and
we've taken a look at this I'dsay, okay, great.
So here in Washington state, ifyou haven't one, because I am
going to invest in you, I'mgoing to put the time and energy
(14:57):
in, so you're going to.
I need you to commit to mebecause I'm going to commit to
looking for you and helping youand doing the things that you
want to do.
Is that a commitment you'rewilling to make?
And they have, none of them hada problem signing the agreement
.
They were all just like, yep,totally bought in.
They would tell the things thatwe hear from other agents right,
like, oh, this, uh, this agentwas, uh, they've got me on a
(15:20):
drip.
I occasionally see emails.
They call me on Sundays, ask ifI want to go look at a property
.
Um, or the investors would getthe one of like man.
My agent called me up and waslike hey, there's a duplex.
It's for sale for half amillion, but it brings in $2,000
a month.
That sounds like a good deal.
We should go look at that.
And you're just going no, youshould not waste my time with
(15:42):
that.
That is absolutely notsomething I want to go take a
look at because the moneydoesn't make sense.
So that was again trying to makesure that I was efficient in
the use of that time.
And for those 20% that didn'twant to work with me, I was
happy to see them go, becauseeither they did not like they
were, they were set in how themarket was and what they knew
and their knowledge, and I wasnever going to convince them.
(16:03):
So, no matter what, how Iadvocated for them, negotiated
on their behalf like they werethe ones that were going to make
the decisions, and that's justnot the way that I wanted to do
business.
And then the other ones werelike boy, this seems like this
guy's a talker.
He's got a lot of effort.
I'm like yep, if you don't likeme, we're probably not going to
be good for doing business witheach other, because the way I'm
educating you now is the wayI'm going to educate you through
(16:24):
the entire process.
So if you're already tired ofme talking after 20 minutes, you
don't want to be with me forthe next two months, two years,
while we go through this process.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
No, and I love what you said about right there,
because that's the way I am withclients too.
You tell them everything upfront.
You're honest with them, yeah,respect them, and you tell them,
like, well, we can go from thisposition or we can go from this
, but you show them.
You show them exactly what theoptions are.
I always say that if you show aperson options and everything
about what they can and can't do, and then their perspective
(16:55):
changes, nine times out of 10,they're going to stay with you,
just like that 20% that left youdidn't need them the 80%, of
course, because you brought somuch value to them.
Like, hold on, we feelconfident in you, we feel
confident in Mike helping usfind us a place or selling a
place, and that right there,what their mindset and
everything that makes them feelmore comfortable, and it's like
(17:15):
a genuine feel.
It's definitely a genuinefeeling, especially when you
express it to them.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, well, and so that was a pattern that I
developed.
Like I told you my first sixmonths as an agent terrible,
horrible, like didn't close asingle commission, didn't do
anything.
And then I discovered this likepattern, this explanation to
people that first year I wasrookie of the year at the
brokerage Like I think I did 2.5or 2.8 million in that last six
months.
You know of going through stuff, and it was uh and and we were
(17:43):
in a tertiary market.
So some, some people listeningout may be like well, 2 million
is not hard to do in my market.
It was like, well, at the timewhen the average home sale price
was between one 50 and one 80,like that was that was a lot of
hustle, that was that was a lotof good.
But that was for me like again,how do I, how do I make
something systematized?
Like, how do I develop a newhabit for me so that I can get
(18:05):
in front of more ideal peoplethat I want to talk to, rather
than a bunch of looky-loos orother sorts of people that are
just going to waste my time andkick tires?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yes, yes, wow, you've come a long ways.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
How long have you been in this?
So that was 20, I want to saythat that was 2015.
Because I got my initiallicense and then I went and got
my managing broker's licensebecause there was some investors
contacted me.
They were thinking about buyinga brokerage for the property
management side and they said,hey, we want somebody that can
do this.
And I said, all right, I'll goget my managing broker's license
.
So passed that test and, forthose of you in Washington State
(18:41):
, that is the scariest test I'veever taken, is it?
Oh, it is terrible, becausemost tests they are like, hey,
if you get it right, you get itwrong, it's no big big deal.
But theirs is a multiple choiceof, like here, what are the
things you should do and you can.
You can get every answer right,but then you also lose points
if you put on wrong things.
So you can walk out of therehaving given every single answer
(19:04):
, but if you gave too many wronganswers into in addition to it,
you can still fail the test.
And I have not, since college,woken up with sweats about, like
you know, trying to figure outwhat is that, and they're very,
like you know, ethical and alsolike process driven questions
about stuff, and so, yeah, itwas a nightmare of a test.
And when I moved to Oklahoma,they do not have reciprocity
(19:25):
with Washington State, so I hadto close out my license, and so
for the last two years, I'vejust been a knowledgeable
investor working with otherpeople.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Wow, that is crazy.
I didn't know it was that deepfor that test right there.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
So is there any obstacles, likehuge obstacles, that you had to
endure while you're here inyour journey with real estate
investing?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
No, I mean, the challenge for me was that I was
in a small market.
I was in a tertiary market witha surrounding area of between
150 and 200,000 people when youreally opened up the map on what
properties were out there.
So at that time it was atertiary market that was a
farming community, sotraditional historical
(20:15):
appreciation was just thatconsistent inside of that market
.
So 2015 comes along.
Things are starting to change alittle bit.
2016 things start getting alittle wider.
2017, 2018 things are just like.
I walked out of one propertythat was an estate sale and I
made an offer to the family andI had done all my math and
everything and they said, no,thank you, that's not an offer
(20:37):
that we're interested in.
I was like, oh, that's a bummer.
I thought I made a really good,compelling offer and it went on
market later for $150,000 morethan my offer had been and I
started calling all of myrealtor friends.
I was like I want you to go tothis open house, I want you to
look at it because the homelooked like the Brady Bunch had
lived there yesterday.
There were no improvements toit, granted great square footage
(20:58):
, but it was a 1970s home thatmom and dad had never made any
improvements to Great squarefootage, did have a pool, had a
great view, all that sort ofstuff.
But there was so much that mywife and I were like, oh, we're
going to have to make lots ofimprovements to it.
Every one of my real estatefriends went and looked at it
and they're like, yeah, it's wayoverpriced.
Like, this is not going to gofor that.
This is not normal.
(21:18):
I don't know what they werethinking.
It sold for $20,000 over asking.
Wow.
And that's when I knew my radarwas off.
That's when I was like themarket is doing something weird
versus the math that is going on.
And that is when I started tohave struggles with
understanding some of the compsand things that were going on,
because I'm like now I'm makinga wild ass guess, like now I
(21:40):
have no historical precedencefor what is happening and what's
going on.
You were seeing a lot of peoplethat were claiming it was out of
state investors that werecoming in, but in reality at
that point it was pre-COVID.
You were seeing people retireout of very good markets like
California, selling their homes,that were getting these massive
appreciations and they canafford to go and pay all cash
(22:00):
and they're looking at it goinglike do you know what 1,500
square foot was costing me in mymarket?
You know that was half amillion dollars and I can get it
here for 300.
I'll happily pay $40,000 overasking because I want this house
.
It's perfect for me, it's ideal, and that was more what I was
seeing inside of the market.
That was really the challenge,especially for people that I was
(22:22):
representing that were lookingto purchase homes.
I would just have to tell themlike this market is crazy, and I
only want to tell you that ifyou want to move forward, you
have to be willing to be alittle crazy in order to do this
.
And what's going on.
It helped when, like, ratesstarted to come down.
That made things a little bitmore achievable for them.
But on the investor side, thatwas also the point where we were
(22:43):
just I was just telling peoplelike at my meetups.
I remember going like OK,average home is selling for one
hundred and ten of asking priceand it's sitting on market for
40 days.
That's time it's listed to timeit's closed.
So I don't know what to tellany of you guys.
If you're looking on market forstuff like it's that, don't
(23:03):
like, just hold on to your cash,don't try anything If you're
looking for on market, likeinvest in off market stuff and
go go find the fix and flip, orgo make friends with a
wholesaler who wants to do itfor you.
Um, but that that was the.
The biggest thing for me wasthat, again, not having control
of the market and the thingsthat were going on, and then
having people just skew data andskew results by coming in and
(23:28):
having unreasonable likeabilities to make offers on
stuff that that people I wasworking with just they weren't
going to be able to do.
That it was great for mysellers, right Like when we were
listing properties.
It was just like, well, this isfantastic.
I'm I again.
I'm going to put a wild assguess out here and we're going
to.
I'm going to do my math and nowI'm going to say, hey, based on
(23:49):
appreciation, I'm seeing thatthings in this market are going
for 15% above.
So that's what we're going todo.
We're going to go 15% over andwe would still get an additional
two or three grand above what Ihad put, because the demand was
just that high.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I'm glad you said about that, especially here in
California, like there's thatappreciation.
I mean so many people left outof California because the
appreciation of what they gotfrom homes it was crazy.
People were buying, right,people were selling so many
homes, they were buying andselling so many.
It was just crazy here becauseI know a lot of them did go to
the Midwest, oklahoma, texas.
(24:23):
I know some, I know friendsthat went to South Carolina,
north Carolina, virginia andliving like kings because what
the price is here and what youcan get there in the Midwest and
the South.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You're living in a palace.
Oh yeah, no, I've got family.
They've lived for probably 30,35 years in a house in a major
market on the West Coast andthey're looking at it going like
, oh, we're going to sell thisthing and we're going to be able
to buy for cash you know our,our downsized dream home and
still have money left overbecause of the appreciation that
(24:58):
this market has had and they'relike it's a, it's a nice house.
And again, looking at themarkets that I'm in now, I'm
like, yeah, it's, it's okay,it's fine, but in that market
the, the square footage, thelocation, the, everything else
like it's.
I bet it's one of those thatyou know the stories out of
(25:18):
California they probably boughtit for, you know, 150, 180, and
they're going to sell it for 1.8, 2 million.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You know, yes.
And then, with with everythingthat you've accomplished and
what you have going on right now, my main question I love to ask
is your mindset.
What got you to the rightmindset, to where you're at
right now?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Oh, the a hundred percent of the mindset that got
me to where I need is, uh, theabundance mindset, right, like
there are not enough people totackle deals, there are not
enough funds to bring down everydeal, and there is.
There is always an opportunityin everything.
Every one that I talked to, um,I met a wholesaler who really
(25:57):
helped me with that.
He was telling me about thisterrible deal.
Like he, he's got it there.
The mom wants to get out of it.
She's got a granddaughter butthe son is living at it because
he's got, you know, drug andgang friends that are hanging
out there and stuff, and she,she just wants out of it, she
doesn't want to be there.
And I was just going.
Well, so what did you do?
He's like Michael, I was ableto get that hat, like I would
(26:20):
not have picked it up oranything else except what she
wanted.
What her desire was was shewanted to go travel the country
with her granddaughter.
So I bought them an RV and Iwas able to get that house for
the cost of a used RV with gasin it that she could drive out.
That day she signed thepaperwork, I gave her the keys
(26:41):
and I got that property and thenall I had to do was put it at
the eviction notice, get thepolice out, do all this sort of
stuff, and I was just going.
That is some next levelcreative thinking.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Mike to that On how to do that.
Uh, well, again, that wasn't me.
That was one of the wholesalersI was working with and I was
just like that is incredible.
But him bringing that to myattention was like, oh, that's
right, there has to be apositive outcome for every
opportunity in front of you.
Like there, there is a win-winfor everybody.
Sometimes the other persondoesn't want to give you the win
(27:11):
, like they're not actually opento help or they're just so out
of touch with what things aregoing on.
But if you educated them enough, if you gave them every
opportunity, if you gave themthe pros and cons, and the worst
thing they can say about you islike yeah, you know, tony gave
me all these options and he gaveme a price and it just was the
right price.
But he then said I can give hima call anytime if I change my
(27:31):
mind.
Like word gets around about youknow you, you doing business
that way versus burning bridgesand blowing people up and, you
know, yelling at people for not,you know, for being dumb and
not knowing the thing.
Like that was the change for meof just like, okay, anytime I'm
talking to somebody.
Uh, there, there has to be anability to create a win for both
(27:52):
sides and what we're lookingfor.
I helped a guy with anunderwriting on a property
recently.
It was storage and multifamilyand single family all on.
I think it was like two orthree acres or something like
that and through my rapportbuilding with the realtor I
discovered that the owner was inhis 80s, his wife was
(28:12):
significantly younger than himand he was open to creative
finance, but he didn't want todo these long creative finances
that everybody else wanted.
He wanted short-term creativefinance is what he was looking
for because he knew he wasn'tgoing to be around for much
longer and he wanted to livelong enough to see that the
funds went to his wife and thatshe was taken care of and he
didn't have to worry about her.
So I presented that to the teamthat was making the deal and
(28:36):
putting together.
I was like guys, here's howyou're going to win.
You've just got to make surethat whatever terms you want, he
will.
He will for sure accept them.
The agent even gave me theprice on what he was like I'm
pretty sure we can be acceptedat this which I think was like
three or something like that 3million.
(28:57):
I was like I'm pretty sure wecan get it for this price.
I'm pretty sure they willaccept any terms you give, as
long as you make the balloonwithin 24 months.
I'm pretty sure they will gofor anything you guys want to do
.
And here's what that looks like.
So the property had been onmarket for months.
The guy had been getting abunch of offers, but again
people wanted five, 10 yearballoons, all that sort of stuff
, and the guy just wasn't havingany of it.
So they went in, they made anoffer.
That was, I think they did, twoand a half years is what they
(29:19):
got him up to, but they stillwere within that timeline of
what they wanted to do.
They gave him just a little bitof money but then financed
everything else and they've justgot to go in and up the rent
rolls.
They've got to remove a coupleof tenants outside of the
storage side, but he's also gotlike one of the only storage
facilities.
So they're just going to dothat marketing thing of like
(29:39):
okay, great, over the next, youknow, six months, we're just
going to keep raising them untilwe get to.
Right now they're at a hundredand they were at 130% capacity,
meaning that they had a waitlist of people looking to come
in.
Yeah, and so they were likewe've already got plenty of
built up capacity.
It's like, all right, so we'regoing to start escalating the
pricing until we get to 90%capacity, because then we can
(30:01):
accept anybody that comes in,that then we're also at good
market rates for where we needto be.
And they have an NOI, so thatonce they do that, the bank will
look at the income ratio andwhat they're doing on the
storage units and the propertiesand go, yeah, of course, like
you guys tied this up for threeyou need a balloon of 2.8.
Okay, that's a no brainer,because based on your revenue
income, even if we give you thatloan, your debt to income, and
(30:24):
uh, what you're doing is goingto be like, uh, I think they got
it up to when we did thecalculation like a 2.2 or 2.5,
like there's no lender out therethat's not going to take that
to a debt to coverage ratio.
Like they're absolutely goingto do that.
So, yeah, that was again.
Property that was sitting onmarket wasn't moving, nobody was
.
You know, the realtor wasgetting frustrated because he
(30:46):
wanted to do this deal for thisguy and then just saying great.
So what is the win?
How do we make this a win foryour client?
Let me go back to my team andsee if we can make this a win
for them as well.
What does that look like?
And it is just that attitude ofabundance.
There's always a positiveoutcome for everybody that I
work with.
If there isn't one, it's notbecause I didn't try.
It's because they didn't wantto do business with me, and
(31:08):
that's also okay.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Amen, amen.
Yes, I love that.
I mean to me mindset'severything.
It changes everything about you, the way you are, the way you
feel, your daily activities whenit comes to work, comes to
people, communication, it's justto take.
It's an abundance of things andthen people can feel that
energy, that positive energy youhave and, especially with you.
I can already tell from theenergy that you have and
(31:31):
positiveness energy you have,and, especially with you, I can
already tell from the energythat you have and positiveness
like that, that 20%.
You didn't need them, like Isaid before, because that 80%
yeah, you know you're not goingto.
I tell people, you're not goingto win every, you're not going
to win everything.
But you know, if you always saylike, even if you change one
person's life, right, thatthat's, that's huge, that's huge
, and I see that you're helpinga lot of lives, especially
(31:54):
around your community.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, well, and at the height of what I was doing
in my community back home, like,yeah, I was an avid Rotarian, I
was involved in the theatercommunity, I was involved in a
lot of other organizations likeUnited Way and other stuff.
I was just constantly givingback to the community and doing
that.
But that was also one of thosethings of like, hey, I'm a, you
know, I'm a person that does dothese things and I do give back
(32:18):
and I want other people to beeducated.
Part of why we're talking todayis, you know, I want people to
know things because the morepeople know when they come and
do business with me, the lesswork I have to do in order to
keep them educated.
And then I just get to helpmore people that want the help.
Like that was the other mindshift.
Stuff was like the people thatneed me may not know that they
(32:41):
need me, but, man, if I canexplain to them what I do well
enough, then they will.
They will appreciate that andthey'll, they'll be more likely
to do business with me.
Or again, worst case scenario,they're like, man, this guy
talked to us for 40 minutesabout all the stuff he's going
to do for us and he was going tooffer to do these things and I
can't believe that somebodywould do that.
And you know what, what a jerkto assume that I wouldn't.
(33:02):
Would need his help negotiatingand stuff.
They'll figure out anothersolution, exactly, exactly.
What's the best way for peopleto reach?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
you, because I know people are going to be listening
to this thing like I need toget a hold of Mike because he's
just an inspiration himself.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh, absolutely Best way to get a hold of me is
direct to my emailmichaelatdissectingthedealcom.
That is the email I check dailyand, uh, I still have people
from uh you know, over a decadeago uh reaching out to ask for
help and get uh informationstuff.
So always happy to help peoplethrough that.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Okay, I'll, I'll definitely put that in the notes
and everything.
And, and is there any?
Do you do an investor typemeetup?
Also, do you have, uh, anythinggoing on with that that that
people would make?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Not right now.
It's not something that I'mdoing at the moment.
I'm attending other people'smeetups and doing those.
You run one for three years andI'll tell you this meetups are
not the way to get rich.
Nobody is getting into themeetup game in order to make a
side income, just like they'renot getting into podcasting to
to blow up that way.
Um, so I am happy now to justgo and be a participant and go
(34:17):
in and meet new people and go dothose sorts of things.
Um, uh, yeah, that's, that'sbeen my philosophy for the last
couple of years, but I dooccasionally have that itch of
wanting to control the room alittle bit and be like we are
wasting some time here.
Can we get on to the next?
Exactly right?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Well, it was an honor and a pleasure for you, mike,
to be on the podcast.
I can't wait to put this outand everything.
And yes, I love everything thatyou've done helping with people
and you're just an inspiration.
You've been an inspiration tome because I love just being
around people who have goals intheir life and they want to make
the world a better place.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Fantastic.
Well, again, thanks for havingme on and yeah, I'm always happy
to talk with anybody,especially when it comes to real
estate.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Great Thank you so much and on that note we are out
here.
Thank you everybody forlistening to this podcast of the
Professor's Real EstateInvesting Podcast.
Y'all have a great day.
Welcome everybody to the Professionalist Real Estate
Investing Podcast.
I'm with Mike Lidicote.
I pronounced that right.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Mike, yep, yep, I'm doing great.
Thank you very much for havingme on, tony, no problem.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
No problem, I just wanted to get you in before I go
on my little vacation.
But I just want to talk to youabout how did you get into real
estate, what's your littlebackground as to from where you
started to basically whereyou're at, where you're at now?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Sure.
So, uh, how I got started, uh,I grew up the son of an
architect, so a lot of dinnertable discussion around, you
know, buildings and permits andcities and counties and those
sorts of stuff, um.
So you know, when I got into mytwenties I didn't realize that
it wasn't normal for people tonot know how to read a blueprint
.
It was kind of my firstintroduction to job sites and
(00:51):
that sort of stuff.
But where I really got intoreal estate was my parents were
doing development work and theyfound what eventually became I
think it's like 140 or 160 acresfor a sports complex
development, and they met thepeople and got the deals in
place and did all the stuff.
And at the last minute theybrought in a realtor to go and
sign all the paperwork and geteverything done.
And then they saw the size ofthat commission check that that
(01:11):
guy did and they're like, wait aminute, we did all the work, we
did all the hustle and he'sgoing to get how much?
And so my mom called me up andsaid, hey, this is what just
happened.
We think you should go get yourreal estate license so that if
we ever have that happen again,you can.
You know we can, we can keepthat in the family.
And I was like fantastic, which, by the way, never happened
again, like that didn't come tofruition.
(01:31):
Yeah, one deal one time.
I mean I don't know how manyother times.
They were expecting to do 160acre deal for a major sports
complex, but it happened thatone time and that was it.
So I went and go through and inWashington state, once you get
your license you have to go intoa brokerage.
And so I found a nice easybrokerage to go into and started
learning a little bit aboutbuyer's agency and listing and
(01:52):
all that sort of stuff.
And I was still working W-2 andthings at the time and I well,
I guess I'll put this caveat inI never, while I had my real
estate license, was not a W-2employee or a 1099 employee for
somebody else, so it wassomething I did on the side.
But I was able to consistently,with that real estate license,
make anywhere from 20 and$40,000 a year in additional
(02:14):
income by doing that.
So I'm going out and I'm doingthese things right.
Like I didn't have my firstcommission for six months, like
it was just brutal andstruggling.
The brokerage is giving meleads off of Zillow.
I'm going out and meeting withpeople showing up to property at
7am on Sunday and I was likethis sucks, like there was no
other way to say it, like I wasjust not cut out for that type
(02:36):
of real estate of, you know,being a commodity and, you know,
just hoping people answer thedrip campaign and everything
else just was not for me.
So I start looking into well,what else can I do with my real
estate license.
And that's when I discoveredBiggerPockets.
So I mainlined BiggerPockets.
And I then go to my Rotary Club, which I was a part of, and I
(02:59):
start talking to a couple ofguys and just like, hey, do you
own property?
Are you someone who does thissort of stuff?
And like, yeah, I totally do.
And so I talked to enoughpeople that I was like, well, I
would like to help with that.
I have this real estate license, I have access to these things.
If I were to like startunderwriting or looking at
properties and sending those outwith that, would that be a
(03:19):
value?
And they said, yeah, so thatwas how I built.
My first buyers list was that Iwent through people I knew and
people that were in clubs I wasa part of and said, hey, I'm
doing this thing and forprobably about two or three
months I just cut my teeth bygoing to the MLS every single
morning and I would look at whatare the new properties and I
would underwrite them.
And at the time BiggerPocketshad a free calculator that you
(03:40):
could go on and they didn't carehow many you used.
So I would go in, I would juststart plugging away on the
properties and just putting themin and doing this and I'd send
it out.
And then guys would start toreply to me and they'd say, hey,
I noticed that in yourcalculation you were only using
5% for maintenance costs for meon a home of this age.
I'd really like you to look at10% of what that would look like
.
And I was going oh okay, wait aminute.
So now I understand thatdifferent investors have
(04:01):
different criteria for whatthey're looking at.
There's not a universalstandard.
Each of them has differenttolerances.
So then I started to go like ohokay, let me start, you know,
drilling down on this list.
And I started going like ohokay, if I'm going to send this
over to Charlie, I need to makesure that it's got these numbers
on here, because these areCharlie's numbers in order to
make it work and what that lookslike.
And that started to get metraction and started getting me
(04:24):
some deals closed as a realestate agent looking at stuff.
And then I was going like, well, what else could I be doing?
Like, how else can I use thislicense?
What can I go on?
And then I was like, oh well,meetups Like my challenge
continues to be that I still amnot getting enough look at
off-market properties.
I'm still not, you know,getting a wide enough network of
(04:44):
people that I know.
So I was like, great, I'llstart a meetup and I'll start
doing that.
And I ran a meetup for three anda half years, just before up
until COVID.
We tried doing the onlinemeetup thing and it just wasn't
as interactive.
We didn't still have the samething.
But for three years, everysingle month, I got between 30
and 50 people into a roomtogether.
We talked about a deal and Isaid, hey, we're going to
(05:05):
dissect this, we're going tolook at this and we would break
down what made the deal good orbad, why people would or
wouldn't do it.
And then I would encouragepeople like, hey, if you're
interested in this, this is liveLike you can come.
You know, ask me I'll, I'llhelp you with it.
(05:28):
And then I had a lot and theywere trying to come in.
So then I would use my accessto the National Association of
Realtors stuff to start pulllike here are expired listings
for them, here are some for saleby owners, here let me do the
comps for you so that whenyou're doing things out in the
hopes that they would recommendme to get the list back or other
sorts of stuff that I was doing.
And so that was again that ittook a while to get going, but
(05:50):
it was establishing me asauthority within the area of
what to do.
And I started getting peoplesaying oh, I know so-and-so, can
they get added to your, to yourbuyers list that you're sending
properties to?
I heard from so-and-so that youran this.
I am looking for properties inthat market.
Can we have a conversation?
And just started developingthose relationships and doing
that.
(06:11):
And so then COVID hit, realestate kind of died down for a
little bit in our market justbecause people were buying homes
and so all of a sudden theprices just were going through
the roof and finding a deal wasnext to impossible of what we
could do, moved out here toTulsa, oklahoma, and discovered
that it's a very differentprospect out here.
The thing that blew my mindreally was the fact not only
(06:33):
things were a little bit cheaper, but that complex strategies
were very easy to explain tohomeowners.
I wrote a letter to a homeowner.
It was just like hey, I noticedthat you guys are trying to
leave.
Sounds like you guys have work.
Your property's been on marketfor this number of days.
Are you open to me taking overpayments, doing something
creative that I can help youwith?
(06:54):
And my response rate on thosewas like 80, 90% of people going
like, yeah, we totally would beinto that, that's something we
let's discuss it, let's talkabout it.
I was like, oh geez, this isgreat, that's something we let's
discuss it, let's talk about it.
I was like, oh geez, this isgreat.
So it's gotten much more overthe last year, more competitive
in this market, because peoplehave figured out, like they do
all the time.
You know what are small marketsand how to go about them.
But what I've also done is I'vestarted keeping in touch with
(07:16):
some of the people I know andgetting referred to people, and
I'm doing a lot of underwritingand JVs right now.
So people are saying, hey, yourboots on the ground in that
market, could you go take a lookat this property, figure out
what it is and let us know ifthe numbers make sense?
Because we're out of state andwe're trying to do this.
So I've got a couple of guysright now that they have a bunch
of 1031s they're looking toplace and so they're saying, hey
, here's our criteria, let usknow what this looks like.
(07:38):
And we're trying to figure outwhat that could look like as an
opportunity for them, but alsoas an opportunity for me to help
them.
And then, before the call wewere talking about, like, I
found 101 units single familyportfolio that I'm doing the due
diligence on right now to tryand figure out, like, okay, is
this even really a deal?
Because every realtor thatlists one of these things thinks
it's gold.
And I've got to sort through itand go it's fool's.
(08:02):
Gold is what it is because of X, y and Z.
Wow.
So that's been my journey upthrough here.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
That's a lot to take in.
So, first of all, shout out toBiggerPockets, the biggest
investing platform online in andabout, because there's so many
different resources that comefrom there.
I use it all the time also,yeah.
And then I see how you leverageyour real estate license.
So you got your real estatelicense, so you got your real
(08:31):
estate license and you leveragethese like how more can I use it
than helping a person buy orsell a house?
You use it actually intonetworking.
I do the same thing too.
I actually you have moreavenues when you have your real
estate license to get intodifferent, to get in different
areas, and that's that's to me,that's a, that's a huge plus.
I mean because there's certainstuff that people can get for
free, but then when you're arealtor.
It changes the game a little bitmore.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, and I would go tell other realtors that were
trying to become investorfriendly.
I was like, do you know thatyou have access to this thing
called NAR, rprcom or org Ican't remember what it ends in,
but it's like that is a nationalMLS listing.
It has everything, includingtax records and property records
and all this other sort ofstuff, and so I would show that
(09:12):
in demos to other realtors or toinvestors.
I was working.
I was like, well, let's run thenumbers here.
And they're like this isamazing, how did you get this?
I was like, well, it's freebecause I paid my dues, so I'm
just going to leverage this techin order to find out more info
and get a leg up on the otherpeople that are spending their
time in coffee shops trying tosay would you please let me add
you to my email list?
Yes, email list.
So for me, it was all aboutadding value.
(09:33):
The other thing that you andyour audience might be
interested about that I did thatwas something to help was I did
the thing we're all told we'renot to do when we're in sales
roles, which is like I overexplained everything to
everybody when I started to workwith them and, like I said, the
reason I did that was because Iwas always a W2 or 1099
employee while I had my license.
And everybody tells you realestate's a volume game.
(09:55):
Well, if it's a volume game,but I only have 10 to 15 hours a
week that I can do work.
I don't want to go open doorsfor people that aren't serious
buyers or that if I open thedoor for them and they're like
well, we didn't want to buy that.
Again, you and I have had thisexperience.
Michael, I'm not interested inthat house because the third
bedroom was pink.
Yes, I was like I will buy thepaint.
(10:19):
Like, if that is the reasonwe're not buying this, I will
buy the paint to cover that up.
Like that.
That should not be the definingfactor, but that's what I was
running into.
So what I did is I startedcreating this, this pattern that
I came up with in the script.
That would, depending on how itwent, would be like the first
time I met somebody.
The first 20 to 40 minutes ofme meeting with them was me
talking at them and it shouldn'thave worked, but it did, and
what I would do is I would sayhey, I just want a baseline
(10:40):
level check with you.
Do you understand how I getpaid, like as a realtor, helping
you?
Do you understand how this isgoing to work, whether it's an
investment transaction, aresidential transaction,
commercial?
Do you understand how I make mymoney?
And they would say like, ohyeah, the seller contributes
that.
And I was like that's how I getthe cash, but that's not how I
would become your agent.
(11:02):
So what I do is I have to earnwhat I do E-A-R-N.
I have to educate you, I haveto be an advocate for you, I
have to refer you when I don'tknow the answer or it's not my
specialty, and the very lastthing I have to do is negotiate
on your behalf.
And each of those, like I, hadbreakdowns and examples of
everything.
Like you know, educating islike hey, man, you're going to
do four transactions in yourlifetime.
(11:23):
I'm going to do four a month.
So I need to make sure that youunderstand all the parts and
pieces that move, how they gothrough, because the last time
you bought is very differentthan the market that we're in
today.
And I want to let you knowwhat's normal, what's happening.
Advocating is, again, this is aweird thing that's happening.
This is a normal thing that'shappening.
If you're comfortable withweird, here's the consequences
(11:44):
of that.
If you're comfortable withnormal, here's the consequences
of that.
And just give them like, hey,pro and con this for you.
This is what is going on.
Refer.
I was always like here are threepeople I want you to go
interview all three of them.
They're all great roofers.
You need the roof inspected,you need somebody to give you
opinion.
I should not be doing that, buthere's the deal, here's the
question.
(12:04):
I want you to ask each of themand it would be topical, right,
like you know ask them about.
You know you don't like any ofthose three.
I'll give you another three tocall.
Like I'll happily do that, but Idon't want you to just pick
somebody, because my whole thingwith referring was I never, as
a business, want to put you in asituation where you get to say
(12:26):
Michael told me to.
What I want you to say isMichael gave me the options and
he explained what was good andbad, and then I picked the
outcome.
And again my reasoning, I wouldtell him, is like I don't have
to live with those consequences.
Yes, like I get to get paid, Iget to move on, but you have to
live with this investmentproperty.
You have to take on theconsequences of what's going to
happen when you get into rehaband start pulling stuff out of
(12:47):
walls and other stuff.
Like that is solely you, and Idon't want you to have a bad
taste in your mouth because Ishowed you the property and you
went through the deal Like thatis.
That is the worst thing thatcan happen.
So let's bring in a pro thatcan give you great advice and do
that.
And then again, the last thingto negotiate was all right,
let's go in.
We can offer, you know, 20grand under, but at the rate the
(13:08):
way the properties and themarket is right now, we're going
to piss them off and we're notgoing to have a response.
So here are some other tacticswe can go in with to try and see
if we can knock them down,because we know that it is
overpriced.
But it would be to have thosenegotiating conversations with
them in order to again show thevalue.
And, like I said, that was thefirst 20 to 40 minutes of
meeting anybody, regardless ofwhat they were using before,
(13:30):
whether it was commercial,whether it was residential,
whether it was small investment,wholesaling, whatever I would
tell them that 80% of the time,people would say yes, I want you
to be our realtor, I want youto be the guy helping me with
doing this, even if they werealready working with another
agent.
And how I would get over theother agent issue is they would
say well, we're working withso-and-so and I'd say great,
(13:52):
they're a wonderful agent.
Let me ask you two questions.
First, did you sign a buyer'sagency or did you sign an
agreement with them, a listingagreement or whatever it is?
Did you sign something withthem already?
The answer is yes.
I was like great, I want you tosee that through, because I
would feel terrible if anybodywas stealing my clients.
But I want you to see thatthrough.
(14:13):
The only thing I want to tellyou is that, like, if you feel
there's a night and daydifference between the service
level that you're getting, Iwould encourage you, as a
customer, to go demand thethings that I'm promising you
from your current person, and ifthey're unwilling to do that,
then you know you can see aboutgetting out of that and coming
to work with me.
But I I believe that everybodyshould have like especially if
you've signed a contract withsomebody, go see that through to
(14:34):
the end, like, follow throughwith that.
That is, that is what I'dencourage you to do.
And then, if they said, no, youknow, like we've, we've walked
through a couple of houses withuh, you know, with Tony and
we've taken a look at this I'dsay, okay, great.
So here in Washington state, ifyou haven't one, because I am
going to invest in you, I'mgoing to put the time and energy
(14:57):
in, so you're going to.
I need you to commit to mebecause I'm going to commit to
looking for you and helping youand doing the things that you
want to do.
Is that a commitment you'rewilling to make?
And they have, none of them hada problem signing the agreement
.
They were all just like, yep,totally bought in.
They would tell the things thatwe hear from other agents right,
like, oh, this, uh, this agentwas, uh, they've got me on a
(15:20):
drip.
I occasionally see emails.
They call me on Sundays, ask ifI want to go look at a property
.
Um, or the investors would getthe one of like man.
My agent called me up and waslike hey, there's a duplex.
It's for sale for half amillion, but it brings in $2,000
a month.
That sounds like a good deal.
We should go look at that.
And you're just going no, youshould not waste my time with
(15:42):
that.
That is absolutely notsomething I want to go take a
look at because the moneydoesn't make sense.
So that was again trying to makesure that I was efficient in
the use of that time.
And for those 20% that didn'twant to work with me, I was
happy to see them go, becauseeither they did not like they
were, they were set in how themarket was and what they knew
and their knowledge, and I wasnever going to convince them.
(16:03):
So, no matter what, how Iadvocated for them, negotiated
on their behalf like they werethe ones that were going to make
the decisions, and that's justnot the way that I wanted to do
business.
And then the other ones werelike boy, this seems like this
guy's a talker.
He's got a lot of effort.
I'm like yep, if you don't likeme, we're probably not going to
be good for doing business witheach other, because the way I'm
educating you now is the wayI'm going to educate you through
(16:24):
the entire process.
So if you're already tired ofme talking after 20 minutes, you
don't want to be with me forthe next two months, two years,
while we go through this process.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
No, and I love what you said about right there,
because that's the way I am withclients too.
You tell them everything upfront.
You're honest with them, yeah,respect them, and you tell them,
like, well, we can go from thisposition or we can go from this
, but you show them.
You show them exactly what theoptions are.
I always say that if you show aperson options and everything
about what they can and can't do, and then their perspective
(16:55):
changes, nine times out of 10,they're going to stay with you,
just like that 20% that left youdidn't need them the 80%, of
course, because you brought somuch value to them.
Like, hold on, we feelconfident in you, we feel
confident in Mike helping usfind us a place or selling a
place, and that right there,what their mindset and
everything that makes them feelmore comfortable, and it's like
(17:15):
a genuine feel.
It's definitely a genuinefeeling, especially when you
express it to them.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, well, and so that was a pattern that I
developed.
Like I told you my first sixmonths as an agent terrible,
horrible, like didn't close asingle commission, didn't do
anything.
And then I discovered this likepattern, this explanation to
people that first year I wasrookie of the year at the
brokerage Like I think I did 2.5or 2.8 million in that last six
months.
You know of going through stuff, and it was uh and and we were
(17:43):
in a tertiary market.
So some, some people listeningout may be like well, 2 million
is not hard to do in my market.
It was like, well, at the timewhen the average home sale price
was between one 50 and one 80,like that was that was a lot of
hustle, that was that was a lotof good.
But that was for me like again,how do I, how do I make
something systematized?
Like, how do I develop a newhabit for me so that I can get
(18:05):
in front of more ideal peoplethat I want to talk to, rather
than a bunch of looky-loos orother sorts of people that are
just going to waste my time andkick tires?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yes, yes, wow, you've come a long ways.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
How long have you been in this?
So that was 20, I want to saythat that was 2015.
Because I got my initiallicense and then I went and got
my managing broker's licensebecause there was some investors
contacted me.
They were thinking about buyinga brokerage for the property
management side and they said,hey, we want somebody that can
do this.
And I said, all right, I'll goget my managing broker's license
.
So passed that test and, forthose of you in Washington State
(18:41):
, that is the scariest test I'veever taken, is it?
Oh, it is terrible, becausemost tests they are like, hey,
if you get it right, you get itwrong, it's no big big deal.
But theirs is a multiple choiceof, like here, what are the
things you should do and you can.
You can get every answer right,but then you also lose points
if you put on wrong things.
So you can walk out of therehaving given every single answer
(19:04):
, but if you gave too many wronganswers into in addition to it,
you can still fail the test.
And I have not, since college,woken up with sweats about, like
you know, trying to figure outwhat is that, and they're very,
like you know, ethical and alsolike process driven questions
about stuff, and so, yeah, itwas a nightmare of a test.
And when I moved to Oklahoma,they do not have reciprocity
(19:25):
with Washington State, so I hadto close out my license, and so
for the last two years, I'vejust been a knowledgeable
investor working with otherpeople.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Wow, that is crazy.
I didn't know it was that deepfor that test right there.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
So is there any obstacles, likehuge obstacles, that you had to
endure while you're here inyour journey with real estate
investing?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
No, I mean, the challenge for me was that I was
in a small market.
I was in a tertiary market witha surrounding area of between
150 and 200,000 people when youreally opened up the map on what
properties were out there.
So at that time it was atertiary market that was a
farming community, sotraditional historical
(20:15):
appreciation was just thatconsistent inside of that market
.
So 2015 comes along.
Things are starting to change alittle bit.
2016 things start getting alittle wider.
2017, 2018 things are just like.
I walked out of one propertythat was an estate sale and I
made an offer to the family andI had done all my math and
everything and they said, no,thank you, that's not an offer
(20:37):
that we're interested in.
I was like, oh, that's a bummer.
I thought I made a really good,compelling offer and it went on
market later for $150,000 morethan my offer had been and I
started calling all of myrealtor friends.
I was like I want you to go tothis open house, I want you to
look at it because the homelooked like the Brady Bunch had
lived there yesterday.
There were no improvements toit, granted great square footage
(20:58):
, but it was a 1970s home thatmom and dad had never made any
improvements to Great squarefootage, did have a pool, had a
great view, all that sort ofstuff.
But there was so much that mywife and I were like, oh, we're
going to have to make lots ofimprovements to it.
Every one of my real estatefriends went and looked at it
and they're like, yeah, it's wayoverpriced.
Like, this is not going to gofor that.
This is not normal.
(21:18):
I don't know what they werethinking.
It sold for $20,000 over asking.
Wow.
And that's when I knew my radarwas off.
That's when I was like themarket is doing something weird
versus the math that is going on.
And that is when I started tohave struggles with
understanding some of the compsand things that were going on,
because I'm like now I'm makinga wild ass guess, like now I
(21:40):
have no historical precedencefor what is happening and what's
going on.
You were seeing a lot of peoplethat were claiming it was out of
state investors that werecoming in, but in reality at
that point it was pre-COVID.
You were seeing people retireout of very good markets like
California, selling their homes,that were getting these massive
appreciations and they canafford to go and pay all cash
(22:00):
and they're looking at it goinglike do you know what 1,500
square foot was costing me in mymarket?
You know that was half amillion dollars and I can get it
here for 300.
I'll happily pay $40,000 overasking because I want this house
.
It's perfect for me, it's ideal, and that was more what I was
seeing inside of the market.
That was really the challenge,especially for people that I was
(22:22):
representing that were lookingto purchase homes.
I would just have to tell themlike this market is crazy, and I
only want to tell you that ifyou want to move forward, you
have to be willing to be alittle crazy in order to do this
.
And what's going on.
It helped when, like, ratesstarted to come down.
That made things a little bitmore achievable for them.
But on the investor side, thatwas also the point where we were
(22:43):
just I was just telling peoplelike at my meetups.
I remember going like OK,average home is selling for one
hundred and ten of asking priceand it's sitting on market for
40 days.
That's time it's listed to timeit's closed.
So I don't know what to tellany of you guys.
If you're looking on market forstuff like it's that, don't
(23:03):
like, just hold on to your cash,don't try anything If you're
looking for on market, likeinvest in off market stuff and
go go find the fix and flip, orgo make friends with a
wholesaler who wants to do itfor you.
Um, but that that was the.
The biggest thing for me wasthat, again, not having control
of the market and the thingsthat were going on, and then
having people just skew data andskew results by coming in and
(23:28):
having unreasonable likeabilities to make offers on
stuff that that people I wasworking with just they weren't
going to be able to do.
That it was great for mysellers, right Like when we were
listing properties.
It was just like, well, this isfantastic.
I'm I again.
I'm going to put a wild assguess out here and we're going
to.
I'm going to do my math and nowI'm going to say, hey, based on
(23:49):
appreciation, I'm seeing thatthings in this market are going
for 15% above.
So that's what we're going todo.
We're going to go 15% over andwe would still get an additional
two or three grand above what Ihad put, because the demand was
just that high.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I'm glad you said about that, especially here in
California, like there's thatappreciation.
I mean so many people left outof California because the
appreciation of what they gotfrom homes it was crazy.
People were buying, right,people were selling so many
homes, they were buying andselling so many.
It was just crazy here becauseI know a lot of them did go to
the Midwest, oklahoma, texas.
(24:23):
I know some, I know friendsthat went to South Carolina,
north Carolina, virginia andliving like kings because what
the price is here and what youcan get there in the Midwest and
the South.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You're living in a palace.
Oh yeah, no, I've got family.
They've lived for probably 30,35 years in a house in a major
market on the West Coast andthey're looking at it going like
, oh, we're going to sell thisthing and we're going to be able
to buy for cash you know our,our downsized dream home and
still have money left overbecause of the appreciation that
(24:58):
this market has had and they'relike it's a, it's a nice house.
And again, looking at themarkets that I'm in now, I'm
like, yeah, it's, it's okay,it's fine, but in that market
the, the square footage, thelocation, the, everything else
like it's.
I bet it's one of those thatyou know the stories out of
(25:18):
California they probably boughtit for, you know, 150, 180, and
they're going to sell it for 1.8, 2 million.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You know, yes.
And then, with with everythingthat you've accomplished and
what you have going on right now, my main question I love to ask
is your mindset.
What got you to the rightmindset, to where you're at
right now?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Oh, the a hundred percent of the mindset that got
me to where I need is, uh, theabundance mindset, right, like
there are not enough people totackle deals, there are not
enough funds to bring down everydeal, and there is.
There is always an opportunityin everything.
Every one that I talked to, um,I met a wholesaler who really
(25:57):
helped me with that.
He was telling me about thisterrible deal.
Like he, he's got it there.
The mom wants to get out of it.
She's got a granddaughter butthe son is living at it because
he's got, you know, drug andgang friends that are hanging
out there and stuff, and she,she just wants out of it, she
doesn't want to be there.
And I was just going.
Well, so what did you do?
He's like Michael, I was ableto get that hat, like I would
(26:20):
not have picked it up oranything else except what she
wanted.
What her desire was was shewanted to go travel the country
with her granddaughter.
So I bought them an RV and Iwas able to get that house for
the cost of a used RV with gasin it that she could drive out.
That day she signed thepaperwork, I gave her the keys
(26:41):
and I got that property and thenall I had to do was put it at
the eviction notice, get thepolice out, do all this sort of
stuff, and I was just going.
That is some next levelcreative thinking.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Mike to that On how to do that.
Uh, well, again, that wasn't me.
That was one of the wholesalersI was working with and I was
just like that is incredible.
But him bringing that to myattention was like, oh, that's
right, there has to be apositive outcome for every
opportunity in front of you.
Like there, there is a win-winfor everybody.
Sometimes the other persondoesn't want to give you the win
(27:11):
, like they're not actually opento help or they're just so out
of touch with what things aregoing on.
But if you educated them enough, if you gave them every
opportunity, if you gave themthe pros and cons, and the worst
thing they can say about you islike yeah, you know, tony gave
me all these options and he gaveme a price and it just was the
right price.
But he then said I can give hima call anytime if I change my
(27:31):
mind.
Like word gets around about youknow you, you doing business
that way versus burning bridgesand blowing people up and, you
know, yelling at people for not,you know, for being dumb and
not knowing the thing.
Like that was the change for meof just like, okay, anytime I'm
talking to somebody.
Uh, there, there has to be anability to create a win for both
(27:52):
sides and what we're lookingfor.
I helped a guy with anunderwriting on a property
recently.
It was storage and multifamilyand single family all on.
I think it was like two orthree acres or something like
that and through my rapportbuilding with the realtor I
discovered that the owner was inhis 80s, his wife was
(28:12):
significantly younger than himand he was open to creative
finance, but he didn't want todo these long creative finances
that everybody else wanted.
He wanted short-term creativefinance is what he was looking
for because he knew he wasn'tgoing to be around for much
longer and he wanted to livelong enough to see that the
funds went to his wife and thatshe was taken care of and he
didn't have to worry about her.
So I presented that to the teamthat was making the deal and
(28:36):
putting together.
I was like guys, here's howyou're going to win.
You've just got to make surethat whatever terms you want, he
will.
He will for sure accept them.
The agent even gave me theprice on what he was like I'm
pretty sure we can be acceptedat this which I think was like
three or something like that 3million.
(28:57):
I was like I'm pretty sure wecan get it for this price.
I'm pretty sure they willaccept any terms you give, as
long as you make the balloonwithin 24 months.
I'm pretty sure they will gofor anything you guys want to do
.
And here's what that looks like.
So the property had been onmarket for months.
The guy had been getting abunch of offers, but again
people wanted five, 10 yearballoons, all that sort of stuff
, and the guy just wasn't havingany of it.
So they went in, they made anoffer.
That was, I think they did, twoand a half years is what they
(29:19):
got him up to, but they stillwere within that timeline of
what they wanted to do.
They gave him just a little bitof money but then financed
everything else and they've justgot to go in and up the rent
rolls.
They've got to remove a coupleof tenants outside of the
storage side, but he's also gotlike one of the only storage
facilities.
So they're just going to dothat marketing thing of like
(29:39):
okay, great, over the next, youknow, six months, we're just
going to keep raising them untilwe get to.
Right now they're at a hundredand they were at 130% capacity,
meaning that they had a waitlist of people looking to come
in.
Yeah, and so they were likewe've already got plenty of
built up capacity.
It's like, all right, so we'regoing to start escalating the
pricing until we get to 90%capacity, because then we can
(30:01):
accept anybody that comes in,that then we're also at good
market rates for where we needto be.
And they have an NOI, so thatonce they do that, the bank will
look at the income ratio andwhat they're doing on the
storage units and the propertiesand go, yeah, of course, like
you guys tied this up for threeyou need a balloon of 2.8.
Okay, that's a no brainer,because based on your revenue
income, even if we give you thatloan, your debt to income, and
(30:24):
uh, what you're doing is goingto be like, uh, I think they got
it up to when we did thecalculation like a 2.2 or 2.5,
like there's no lender out therethat's not going to take that
to a debt to coverage ratio.
Like they're absolutely goingto do that.
So, yeah, that was again.
Property that was sitting onmarket wasn't moving, nobody was
.
You know, the realtor wasgetting frustrated because he
(30:46):
wanted to do this deal for thisguy and then just saying great.
So what is the win?
How do we make this a win foryour client?
Let me go back to my team andsee if we can make this a win
for them as well.
What does that look like?
And it is just that attitude ofabundance.
There's always a positiveoutcome for everybody that I
work with.
If there isn't one, it's notbecause I didn't try.
It's because they didn't wantto do business with me, and
(31:08):
that's also okay.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Amen, amen.
Yes, I love that.
I mean to me mindset'severything.
It changes everything about you, the way you are, the way you
feel, your daily activities whenit comes to work, comes to
people, communication, it's justto take.
It's an abundance of things andthen people can feel that
energy, that positive energy youhave and, especially with you.
I can already tell from theenergy that you have and
(31:31):
positiveness energy you have,and, especially with you, I can
already tell from the energythat you have and positiveness
like that, that 20%.
You didn't need them, like Isaid before, because that 80%
yeah, you know you're not goingto.
I tell people, you're not goingto win every, you're not going
to win everything.
But you know, if you always saylike, even if you change one
person's life, right, thatthat's, that's huge, that's huge
, and I see that you're helpinga lot of lives, especially
(31:54):
around your community.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, well, and at the height of what I was doing
in my community back home, like,yeah, I was an avid Rotarian, I
was involved in the theatercommunity, I was involved in a
lot of other organizations likeUnited Way and other stuff.
I was just constantly givingback to the community and doing
that.
But that was also one of thosethings of like, hey, I'm a, you
know, I'm a person that does dothese things and I do give back
(32:18):
and I want other people to beeducated.
Part of why we're talking todayis, you know, I want people to
know things because the morepeople know when they come and
do business with me, the lesswork I have to do in order to
keep them educated.
And then I just get to helpmore people that want the help.
Like that was the other mindshift.
Stuff was like the people thatneed me may not know that they
(32:41):
need me, but, man, if I canexplain to them what I do well
enough, then they will.
They will appreciate that andthey'll, they'll be more likely
to do business with me.
Or again, worst case scenario,they're like, man, this guy
talked to us for 40 minutesabout all the stuff he's going
to do for us and he was going tooffer to do these things and I
can't believe that somebodywould do that.
And you know what, what a jerkto assume that I wouldn't.
(33:02):
Would need his help negotiatingand stuff.
They'll figure out anothersolution, exactly, exactly.
What's the best way for peopleto reach?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
you, because I know people are going to be listening
to this thing like I need toget a hold of Mike because he's
just an inspiration himself.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh, absolutely Best way to get a hold of me is
direct to my emailmichaelatdissectingthedealcom.
That is the email I check dailyand, uh, I still have people
from uh you know, over a decadeago uh reaching out to ask for
help and get uh informationstuff.
So always happy to help peoplethrough that.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Okay, I'll, I'll definitely put that in the notes
and everything.
And, and is there any?
Do you do an investor typemeetup?
Also, do you have, uh, anythinggoing on with that that that
people would make?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Not right now.
It's not something that I'mdoing at the moment.
I'm attending other people'smeetups and doing those.
You run one for three years andI'll tell you this meetups are
not the way to get rich.
Nobody is getting into themeetup game in order to make a
side income, just like they'renot getting into podcasting to
to blow up that way.
Um, so I am happy now to justgo and be a participant and go
(34:17):
in and meet new people and go dothose sorts of things.
Um, uh, yeah, that's, that'sbeen my philosophy for the last
couple of years, but I dooccasionally have that itch of
wanting to control the room alittle bit and be like we are
wasting some time here.
Can we get on to the next?
Exactly right?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Well, it was an honor and a pleasure for you, mike,
to be on the podcast.
I can't wait to put this outand everything.
And yes, I love everything thatyou've done helping with people
and you're just an inspiration.
You've been an inspiration tome because I love just being
around people who have goals intheir life and they want to make
the world a better place.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Fantastic.
Well, again, thanks for havingme on and yeah, I'm always happy
to talk with anybody,especially when it comes to real
estate.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Great Thank you so much and on that note we are out
here.
Thank you everybody forlistening to this podcast of the
Professor's Real EstateInvesting Podcast.
Y'all have a great day.
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