10 Years of Wholesaling: Greg Helbeck on What You Should Be Doing Differently in 2025

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Real quick before we jump into the show, we created the collecting keys podcast to be a real estate investing podcast that is created by real estate operators for real estate operators. And we want operators everywhere to know what it really takes these days to be successful in this business rather than all the fluff that all the other content creators and podcasters out there make. And so one of the challenges with this is that it's challenging to grow because most operators are too busy out there working. Right? And they aren't always learning or actively seeking new learning material. And so if you could please share this show with any fellow operators you know, you know, you can text it to them, you can post it on your socials, you can leave us a good review that you then share somewhere, that would be amazing. But really, whatever, it really helps us continue to get excited to create content, and it will also help you because everyone that you expose us to will get better as a real estate operator and close more deals. So if you could do that for us, it would really need a ton. And, otherwise, we appreciate you guys, and let's get into this episode. We're all mailing the same people.

Mike DeHaan: [1:05] We're all talking to the same people. How are you able to be competitive? What's your sales process look like? What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. This is the show by real estate operators for real estate operators so you can continue to grow and improve your business in this ever changing economy, which right now I feel like is changing daily, sometimes multiple times a day. Like, I don't know. Dan and I literally just got back from lunch with our banker, and I was like, what are you guys seeing right now on institutional level? He was like, I don't fucking know. Fucking bloodbath. Yeah. Yes, sir. So that is currently the situation. This is your first time here. I am Mike DeHaan here with my normal cohost, Dan Austin and Dylan Cook. Ew. And we have a special guest today, Greg Helbeck, who if you don't know, you should definitely check out his show as well. Greg, real quick before we dive in, give us a quick ninety seconds why people should care about you if they don't know who you are.

Greg Helbeck: [2:04] Thanks for having me, guys. I've been doing this business now for a decade. Seen multiple markets, nothing like 2008, but I've seen these crazy runs, and I've seen some of these little dip markets. I've operated primarily virtually for the whole time. I mean, I started locally when I just got started, but eventually, you know, started doing deals consistently in pretty expensive markets. I grew up in New York, I live in Seattle. The only markets I really know are these like high end expensive areas. So eventually I wholesaled,

Dylan Koch: [2:34] and then got into like flipping and rentals. So I've done pretty much everything except for lease options, like

Greg Helbeck: [2:41] you name it, I've done it. And you know, I don't have a huge team, I have four people, you know, we have pretty respectable business in the core Hudson Valley market. And I just try to, you know, share information that is practical. I hate all this guru crap out there, it's so fake, because when you're an actual operator, you know what they're saying is fake information. So I always just share the truth, what's working in the business, what's not working, you know, what's maybe something that's not working isn't popular, right? So I'm just really straightforward with the stuff. So yeah, that's my business.

Mike DeHaan: [3:11] Awesome. What's your podcast called?

Greg Helbeck: [3:13] It's called The Real Estate Investing Fast Track, or Greg Helbeck REI on YouTube, depending on where you're listening.

Mike DeHaan: [3:19] Awesome. There we go. And if you guys have listened to us at all, you just realized why Greg vibes with us very well, because we're about a lot of that same kind of messaging there. The even though we have like our own group, we're like the anti guru group. Know, You half of our stuff we come and we just talk about like, yeah, so all that shit that you learn from those people, here's why they sold you into their $25,000 course, and you feel like you wasted your money. Exactly. Right.

Greg Helbeck: [3:43] It's so funny you say that I have a little coaching group I don't even promote. Yeah. We have like maybe seven clients or something, and it's just like super small, and I keep it small because I wanna really help the people. Mhmm. But it's like maybe like a fifth of the income, you know, it's nothing, not like some huge money grab or anything. But like every client who's in there, it's like, we literally, me and my buddy Josh, just pour into that, right? Yeah. And we just give them real information, we share our numbers.

Dan Austin: [4:09] That's awesome.

Greg Helbeck: [4:10] And we cut a lot of crap out of their business, because I see a lot of the stuff they're doing is just stupid. Know, not because they don't know what they're doing, but it's just they don't have that, you know, ten, you know, fifteen year like Josh window of experience.

Mike DeHaan: [4:20] Mhmm. So

Greg Helbeck: [4:21] we're able to really help them, you know, by giving them practical information. What what I hear you didn't say

Dylan Koch: [4:26] is you didn't promote any affiliate link during that whole time, So but that's how you know.

Mike DeHaan: [4:30] Yes. Yeah. Right. And and, you know, and one of the biggest red flags for me with all sort of stuff is whenever they lead with this message of like, here's how we can, like, change your life. Here is like the get rich quick scheme. Here's, like, the fancy pants super special secret technique that we focus on.

Dan Austin: [4:49] Proprietary technique. Proprietary technique. AI.

Mike DeHaan: [4:53] And and there's there's so much of that that BS out there. But so much of business success, and and you've known this, is just doing honestly, like, the boring stuff over and over again. Like, we had our our little scale community call here this earlier this morning. He literally spent an hour, like, going through one of the guy's CRMs and really helping him build out, like, his call flows. And the funny thing is is, like, if you're not in the industry, it's literally the most boring fucking thing you could do. Like, it means nothing. We have, like, 18 people on there, and they were, like, riveted. Was like, was that helpful for you guys? I was like, absolutely. That's so helpful. Because that's actually what improving your business is. Exactly. It's not like, you know, getting your next motivational talk or like getting your little self hate journal where you have a mirror of yourself on the front so you can, like, scream at yourself and then open it and write what you think about yourself, you know.

Dylan Koch: [5:43] The David Goggins of real estate.

Mike DeHaan: [5:44] Yes. Stupid. It's so dumb.

Greg Helbeck: [5:47] And I was telling, before we hit record, was like, you know, a lot of new people, they get really excited, and it is an exciting business. Yeah, yeah. But after a couple years, you hit a wall, and you start to become like, wow, this is a tough business. You can make a lot of money, but it's tough. Sellers are brutal, Mhmm. Right? Selling to retail buyers if you're flipping, brutal. Being a landlord, brutal. Obviously, it's worth it, but there just becomes like, you get some like just hidden wisdom by being around for a while, and you just know what's true and what's not true. So when I see people talking about a secret list, you know, and I've spent millions in mailers, I'm like, there is no secret list. I've bought them all. Every single one.

Mike DeHaan: [6:30] I have

Greg Helbeck: [6:31] my credit card bill to show. Yeah. The only list that I mail is the consistency list, that's the secret list.

Mike DeHaan: [6:37] Yeah. No shit.

Dylan Koch: [6:38] That's right. I've bought in the the Propride, the Audantics, the DataFlex, I've bought in those too. Me too. And they're never they're never worth the ROI. And there's nothing special about them.

Greg Helbeck: [6:47] Dude, I'm so happy you said that, and listen, I've made money from those lists, but we didn't get an exponential ROI. And then I'm thinking, I could just go on and Velo pull this for free, because it's a software subscription. Then it's like we were doing I used to live in Nevada, we would I bought the Audantic List, and then I had a regular absentee owner list. We got this home run deal. It was from the Audantic list, I go look in my other list, it's on the same list.

Dylan Koch: [7:10] Yeah. I did all that too. And the very few that aren't on our list already were not deals. They were some like senior guy with some equity, but like they weren't motivated to sell, like. It's all timing. Right? Like, you just gotta make sure

Greg Helbeck: [7:23] they have equity and it's timing. Like, we nailed the niche lists and those are pretty obvious, like, know, they're back on taxes or whatever, but the best list you're gonna get is like a niche list because you know there's a problem.

Dan Austin: [7:33] Mhmm.

Greg Helbeck: [7:33] Mhmm. But anytime you you hear the word AI now thrown into stuff, you can't predict that. Like Yeah. The business is too like, the person who's selling their house at a discount, it's such a small percentage of the population. There's no way you could build an AI algorithm to reverse engineer those people, because it's such a random business.

Dan Austin: [7:49] Yeah. Can't even tell what they're doing. Right? I don't know what that seller's gonna do at the next moment after I've signed a contract with them, how how is an AI system gonna

Greg Helbeck: [7:56] tell Oh yeah. You're satellitey cancel out in Gig Harbor, like, right before we got off the phone. Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [8:00] Right. You just never know.

Mike DeHaan: [8:02] Yeah. Yeah. And the funny thing is, like, I talk to a lot of people that are newish in the industry. Like, they kinda get it. They understand the basics, and they're like, I don't understand, like like, how how does this stand out? We're all mailing the same people. We're all talking to the same people. Like, why how are you able to be competitive about school? What's your sales process look like? And they go, oh, well, the leads kinda come into my team, and then, you know, they, like, call people back. But, like, I'm like, no. No. Like, who does it go to? How many touches are you doing? How often are you following up? What are you prequalifying? What are you using to prequalify the leads? How many appointments are you going on? They can never answer any of it. I'm like, well, that's why we are mailing the same people, and I'm getting deals and you're not. Exactly. Right? It's it's the actual business. It's the hard part. And that's gonna get worse as marketing and data continues to get commoditized. Oh, it's insane. Even thinking back, we we were joking before the show. Dan and I, we we're, like, essentially dinosaurs in this industry and the wholesale direct seller space. We've been in since 2019. You've been in for even longer than us, Greg.

Mike DeHaan: [9:05] But, like, I I remember back 2019, there was, like, PropStream, and then ListSource. Could use, like, open yeah. ListSource.

Greg Helbeck: [9:13] OpenLetter.

Mike DeHaan: [9:13] Use OpenLetter to do mail, Cold calling companies for, like, kinda hit or miss. Like, you never really knew if you're gonna get them. There was, like, if you had to build a podium if you're gonna use a CRM, there was no AI anything. If you wanted to scrub a list, you had to get really fucking good at Excel and just figure it out. Right? But now stuff has changed so much, and all that does is bring the barrier to entry smaller and smaller and smaller. And so who's gonna be better? Not the ones who can do the special marketing even though that's way easier to sell products.

Greg Helbeck: [9:41] Oh, it's insane.

Mike DeHaan: [9:42] Now I'm using that. But it's the people that are gonna

Dan Austin: [9:44] have good sales or do follow-up processes or understand real estate more.

Greg Helbeck: [9:48] Well, especially too, like, dude, when I was just starting to get momentum in the business, this was in 2018, like, starting to like make decent money, cold calling didn't exist. Like it wasn't a thing, skip tracing was brand new. Yeah. And I remember I was like, I wanna virtually wholesale houses, this was in Texas, this was a long ass time ago. And every six leads, because we were going after like vacant houses that had back taxes, so like highly targeted, no one was calling these people either. And like now, like that same thing still works, we get deals from that now, but it's so much different, because everyone who is on like these lists, everyone's calling or mailing, and you can still make money, and that's the thing that I see with like new investors, is it's not like, like, they have a sales problem, they're marketing, they don't understand it, but they don't know what a deal is, like, you know what I Like, don't like, oh, like, if you're in Seattle, or you're in New York, like, you can call them like invisible deals. Like, if you know that that property, if you knock it down, is worth $2,000,000, and the seller wants $700, you can

Dylan Koch: [10:49] make money on that, right? Just you

Greg Helbeck: [10:50] gotta know what's going on.

Dylan Koch: [10:51] I think the underwriting is like something that new investors just have an issue with. It's like even like Tacoma, like if you can buy a

Greg Helbeck: [10:59] house in Tacoma for like 80 to 100 k below what it's worth, like that's a deal. It's not the 70% rule minus repairs. Right? And if you're offering the seller 350,000, right, and then some other investor's offering the seller 2, or 310,000, like obviously you're gonna lose that deal, but you could have still bought it and made money. So, and the other thing is having multiple exits. Like just to be a wholesaler, just to be like a only strictly wholesaling in one market, very hard to do. Mhmm. Very hard. Like it's still possible, but it's completely different. So like in my opinion, if you're not willing to like take a deal down and wholesale it, or maybe rehab it, there's all these like disadvantages. You're only wholesaling, you're in one market, don't you have a lot of experience. Like, it's gonna be tough to make money. But if you can wholesale houses, and you know, you maybe are in like two or three areas near your market, you're not like just willing to buy in the city, like you're increasing your odds of success.

Dan Austin: [11:53] Totally.

Greg Helbeck: [11:54] Like I was talking to this guy, I just hired a mentor to teach me PPC, and he's like, Yeah, most of these people don't have a lot of successes, because they're in one market, their cost per click is super high, and they're only wholesaling. I'm like, Yeah, it makes sense, there's only so many opportunities. Yeah. But if you're in two or three areas and you could close and novate, you know, that's when you could have more success.

Dan Austin: [12:13] Yeah. That's a good point.

Mike DeHaan: [12:14] That's why we're running online ads out in your area, you're in the same state, but like our market in Spokane is relatively small, and so we're running stuff on the West Side. And wouldn't you believe it? Almost all of our PPCs have been coming on the West Side.

Greg Helbeck: [12:27] Yes. Because there's like 5,000,000 people. Exactly.

Dan Austin: [12:29] Way more opportunity. Absolutely.

Mike DeHaan: [12:31] Yeah. Huge. So Yeah.

Dan Austin: [12:32] And I agree a 100% with what you're saying, Greg, on like the exits. Like, there's always been like this, you know, concept of meeting multiple exits, but you don't really see just wholesalers anymore. Like it used to be like, you could make several $100,000 a year as a one person, two person operation, just wholesaling, never need to learn how to flip. Now, if you're not just flipping, if you're not wholesaling, if you're not looking at innovations, if you're not doing all these other things, like, you literally are missing out on opportunity. The shitty thing is Mhmm. Is when you look at it from a cost per deal and cost per lead thing, like, have to maximize that, you're not gonna be in the game very long.

Greg Helbeck: [13:02] 100%. You need to

Dan Austin: [13:04] get those contracts, whether you make $5 or $50, you have to keep popping them off. And sucks because it's like work, like a Novation deal is a little bit of work, a flip Yeah. Is.

Greg Helbeck: [13:12] Work, you

Dan Austin: [13:12] know what I mean? Like, that stuff's work. Wholesaling is a little bit more work. Wholesaling is awesome. Like, we just wholesaled one, Mike and I were just reminiscing about it for like $37, it took us like four phone calls in a week, we made $37, Yeah. If I could do that every day, I would fucking do it every day, but you can't.

Mike DeHaan: [13:26] Yeah. Hard. It's not worse.

Greg Helbeck: [13:28] Exactly, it's gotten too I think the industry too, like, I remember, like, even when I was in 2015, I was a 20 year old kid, like, it wasn't popular. Like, real estate investing was, like, not a thing. Like, there is no such thing as, sales training for it or all these services. It was just like, okay, you own a wholesale house, it's like a no money down real estate deal. Like, that's how it was known. Was a no money down deal, which is still true. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [13:51] You can

Greg Helbeck: [13:51] still do them. I do them all the time. Just use the buyer's money to fund your EMD, and then you're out of pocket zero. But it's like, now it's like everyone knows a wholesaler. You have sellers who are like, oh, you're wholesale my house? Like, I might.

Dan Austin: [14:02] 100%.

Greg Helbeck: [14:03] Yeah. Such a mainstream business now,

Dylan Koch: [14:05] because like the economy's gone up and down, COVID, like, just internet, like, so much more popular now. I can't remember the last time I've talked to a seller, and they hadn't already talked to somebody else.

Mike DeHaan: [14:15] It's impossible day.

Greg Helbeck: [14:17] Oh, yeah. That's that's old news. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [14:19] Exactly. So your point earlier is like, you could have these one on one conversations, your spreads are probably a little bit bigger, because now someone else is coming in, and maybe they don't know how to underwrite, but they're offering 30 k more. Right? Now they're anchored price too high, you have to like, okay, you're not gonna sell this, I'll follow-up in a month, and then maybe we can talk again. Right?

Greg Helbeck: [14:37] Yep. Longer sales You wanna hear some crazy stuff from two thousand eighteen, nineteen with mail? Yeah. It was like a thousand dollar No, it was like $1,500 cost per deal with mail back in the day. You could send out like, you know, 1,800 postcards at 38¢ a pop, and get a couple

Dylan Koch: [14:54] deals out of that, and it was like

Greg Helbeck: [14:55] in the Hudson Valley too, which is like not a lot

Dylan Koch: [14:58] of competition in New York, because it's like red tape city. But it's just like crazy

Greg Helbeck: [15:02] how that's changed. Like now it's like $78,

Dylan Koch: [15:05] You know? Yeah. Yeah. And 38¢ a pop, now it's like 75 at a minimum for postcards.

Greg Helbeck: [15:10] Yeah, man. Mail costs have gone up a lot. Yeah. It's crazy. Even like ad, like Google ads and stuff, like cost per click has gone through. But it's like, hey, that's where I see a lot of opportunity, because like I remember when COVID happened, I was freaking out. I had some rehabs going on and wholesale stuff, and I was like, man, what's gonna happen here? And I kind of like, you know, got a little timid and pulled off the gas a little bit, and you know, we had a little dip in revenue, but man, like that market exploded. Mean, it's a whole country exploded. Know mean? And you know, I was like, damn, like if I put double my ad budget for those three or four months when everything was just kind of on pause, you know, would have made a lot more money, but no one really The thing is you don't really know, like, you know, when the interest rates went up, like twenty twenty two, I was a little nervous. I was living in San Diego, I was doing flips, and just kind of like timed that right to where I didn't get hurt, but then like I kind of paused, and then like the market really went down, which was a good move. You just never know, you gotta have the right fundamentals. And if you're always, like the thing I tell people, because people ask me like, oh, isn't it risky you're buying houses? I'm like, yeah, I guess it's risky, but if you think about it, if you're buying a stock at a discount, like if you know Apple sells at $200 a share, and you know for sure you could buy it for $120 a share, are you really taking a risk?

Greg Helbeck: [16:23] Not really. No. Like you are, but

Mike DeHaan: [16:25] you're not. What are you seeing right now, Greg, with with everything going on with the economy and all the marketing change, everything else like that? Because if I look at the current state of just like the economy and kind of the world, it feels similar to me Today, it's would say not like when COVID was in, like, full fledged going, but kinda like the buildup, like, 2020. But there was, like, some weird stuff going on, you know, and people were starting to get cautious. We have, like, the tariffs all went active today. We have some political turmoil. We have the wars and stuff. Like, the stock market has been tanking for, like, the past week. Everything else has been dropping. And the challenging thing right now is, like, we also have all these new legislations around marketing and everything else. So cold calling and SMS is now much more regulated. All the pay per lead companies have to face new regulations. They've kinda gone down the toilet. The PPC stuff has never been more expensive than it is. Direct mail for us has been in shambles because the postal service is just collapsing. We've seen the same thing with with mail. Horrible. Between the wet like, weather and everything else. Like, we've had batches of mail that have now been in, like, out in the sphere for forty days, and the postal service is, like, status pending.

Greg Helbeck: [17:42] Yeah. I just tracked our campaigns today. They were they they were horrible.

Mike DeHaan: [17:46] Yeah. They're all over the place. So, like, what are you doing to stay afloat right now to keep these leads coming in and doing everything with your, you know, decades worth of wisdom? Well, I don't even know what other options there are for generating leads at this point. Like, we have we've covered all of them.

Greg Helbeck: [18:02] That's a good question. There's a few things that we do that we don't have control over, but they're really beneficial when they happen, it's referrals and wholesalers. Yeah. So I get deals from referrals all the time. I buy houses from wholesalers when the numbers make sense. Like, so that's something where I can't necessarily control it, but when I get something, it's free. Even So if I'm only making 30,000, it's really like making 40,000, because my cost per deal's around $10. Yeah, yeah. So that's the first thing I look for, and I can reach out to wholesalers, and I can make posts online and all that stuff. So it's somewhat uncontrollable, but I can control the activities. Second thing in terms of the marketing, despite mail being really hit or miss right now, you can still control sending the postcards out, you're gonna get phone calls, right? You're gonna get leads, you're gonna make offers just by sending the mail out, right? And that's something you'd have to rely on somebody else for. Yeah, the postal service is delayed, and recently our campaigns have been terrible, but we've still been making money despite them being terrible. Mhmm. Right? The third thing with regarding cold calling is, this is an interesting kind of philosophy with the cold calling, is because we were spending like $2,025,000 a month in mail, and making the decent ROI from it. It's not like $20.19, but still decent. And I was like, okay, we're sending a postcard to these people. It's like, you know, we're getting a postcard every four to six weeks, and we're gonna get deals from that.

Greg Helbeck: [19:21] Those same people might answer the phone, and maybe we get a deal from that. And I'm like, okay, the cost of cold calling is $1,500 a month, or 1,600, whatever it costs, not that much money. We already have the data for free. So what if we just call these leads that we're mailing, and even if we get a deal a quarter from it, it's gonna be a huge positive ROI. We got a house right now that we're selling, we'll make over 100,000 on it from a freak cold call, and if we didn't spend the $1,500 that month to call it, we wouldn't have that revenue. So I'm taking the mail data, and that's our primary marketing, and I'm kind of building an insurance policy through cold calling it, and we are getting deals, not consistently, but we are getting deals to justify that expense and make an ROI. What I've realized now, even though we're getting deals from it, the cold calling is taking up a lot of my team's time. Because a lot of people who answer a cold call, oh, I'd sell at the right price, and now they're spending ten, fifteen minutes on the phone, and they're just completely jerking you around. Yep. And I'm like, okay, we're gonna spend 1,500 a month, and we're gonna make some deals out of this.

Greg Helbeck: [20:29] However, we're gonna eventually burn out, right? Because we're getting too many smokescreen leads. So then I said, all right, what was profitable? What did I have control over? And I was really good with PPC two years ago, four to one return, we already built out our campaigns, we're gonna start running that. Once those are running, and they're starting to be, you know, somewhat productive, we're gonna cut out the cold calling, we're just gonna mail and do PPC and go off referrals. So the point is, you want to do the marketing that you have a lot of control over, that generally gives you decent quality leads. And sometimes cold calling's there, sometimes it's not there. You should always look at it as like a supplement to your business, not your primary marketing. Another thing I'll tell you, and I have a lot of experience with this, pay per lead. We used to crush it with pay per lead, like insane six to one return. All of a sudden, I saw the lead quality go down, and the costs go up, and I realized I am in no control of this. Buying a lead, which is cool, you just push a button and get a lead. Don't I know where it's coming from. I don't know if it went to 17 other people. I don't know if it came from Facebook, Google, YouTube, no fucking clue.

Mike DeHaan: [21:32] Yeah. The leads don't either. They have never, they never

Dylan Koch: [21:35] have any Yeah. Fucking leads don't either.

Greg Helbeck: [21:37] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So eventually we turned that off, because we were just the ROI kept going down. Yep. Lead quality kept going down, and I wasn't just trying to be like emotional with it, so I'd ask my friends, hey, it was, yeah, we're seeing the same thing. Okay, let's pause that, put more money in the mail and calling. You gotta always be willing to shift around, but my direction I'm heading towards now is, you know, obviously mail is very consistent, Google ads, we're gonna get optimized again, that's gonna take some time, referrals, and then to kind of fill the gap right now, we're doing the cold calling to kind of, you know, mitigate any like lapses in lead flow.

Dylan Koch: [22:10] Is that one caller, Greg?

Greg Helbeck: [22:12] One caller, it's right. Yeah. It's one caller for eight That's hours a why it's $1,500 a month.

Mike DeHaan: [22:17] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [22:17] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [22:17] That's not bad. You were supposed to have your super secret proprietary answer for my my lead gen. Oh, I'm sorry.

Greg Helbeck: [22:24] Yeah. The secret list. You could have sold me

Mike DeHaan: [22:27] in in five seconds if you had a haven't you read Alex Tremozi, dude? You have to have a $100,000,000 offer about how you're going to structure, you know, your your deal. Yeah. Whatever it is, you know, know, that you have to provide more value than than makes sense, and then people will come give you money. Come on.

Dan Austin: [22:45] That will work. If you're if you're valid if you're value first dude, value first.

Mike DeHaan: [22:49] Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [22:49] You know you know what's interesting with that? Like I I've read that book a few times, and I thought it was phenomenal book for internet marketing agencies.

Mike DeHaan: [22:58] Yeah, it's hard to translate to

Dan Austin: [23:00] what we do, it's very hard.

Mike DeHaan: [23:01] Very hard.

Greg Helbeck: [23:01] Very hard with sellers, because a lot of the times they are, we've all done a lot of

Dylan Koch: [23:06] deals on this call, right?

Greg Helbeck: [23:07] So Yeah. You have to look at sellers, it's like they're buckets. There's the lay down seller, which is the first person to breathe and make them an offer is getting the deal, those are far and few between. There's the seller that's gonna sell to an investor, but they're gonna need some massaging, hopefully not literally, that would be weird, but whatever it takes.

Mike DeHaan: [23:23] Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, man.

Greg Helbeck: [23:25] Rub no tug, you know? And then there's the seller who's like probably never selling to an investor, their retail, whatever. So it's like, yeah, the lay downs are like few and far between, they're great, you know, they make sense, they make money. But then it's like the sellers who are gonna sell to an investor, but maybe they're getting three offers, or they're not selling right now, that's where Sometimes it's just the price. If you can pay more than the competitors, you're gonna get the deal, right? And sometimes you can make that work, sometimes you can't. If you can novate, and you can sell the novation, that's usually how you get the deal. But in terms of like risk reversal and stuff, like I haven't really been able to wrap my hands around how to make that $100,000,000 thing with sellers come true, because sometimes they're just going to you like the gas station, the cheapest price, know, the highest price gets the deal. And there is some value in the relationship depending on the seller, the follow-up is definitely important, if you stay in touch with someone for a while, they respect you, and they generally will hear you out, at least for the final offer. But you know, a lot of it is just the timing, like, you know, they call you at the right time, they're ready to

Mike DeHaan: [24:24] sell, Mhmm.

Greg Helbeck: [24:25] They know what they want for the house, whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [24:28] So I'm a big Alex fan, we talk about him a lot on this show. I think that when it comes to his stuff where it makes more sense is on the buyer side. Yeah. Right? And in terms of like lead generation. And I I think the way that this business has traditionally been viewed is we have the sales process on with the sellers. Right? That's why have the acquisition managers, and we're also on negotiations, things like that. But realistically, that's our procurement of our product, You know? How we make money, our actual true customer is the buyer. Whether it's a wholesale buyer, whether it's a retail buyer, whatever it is, there's value add things that you can do.

Greg Helbeck: [25:00] They're the one paying you.

Mike DeHaan: [25:01] They're the ones that are paying you. They're the they're where the money comes from.

Dan Austin: [25:04] Yep. We call it a sales process, but it's not.

Mike DeHaan: [25:06] Yeah. You know, and on like, when you're talking to sellers, it's not that different from going to your It's your inventory sourcing. It's your inventory. Exactly. It's not that different going to your your shoe factory in China and negotiating better pricing.

Dan Austin: [25:18] Well, the the caveat too is that your supplier's illogical. So when you're trying to play the game theory with your supplier or your seller, like Alex or Mosi will say, oh, game theory, logically, if if this happens, then that'll happen. They're not logical.

Dylan Koch: [25:30] They're not logical. As you're

Greg Helbeck: [25:31] dealing with a small fraction of the population who's delusional most of

Mike DeHaan: [25:34] the Most of the time.

Dan Austin: [25:35] And so it makes it challenging to actually even forecast or plan anything. And to your point, like timing or just the way your postcard hits in their mailbox might be the only determining factor. It doesn't matter that you had report, doesn't matter that your postcard had blue versus green, it's just sometimes it doesn't matter and and it happens enough that you can't really forecast things.

Dylan Koch: [25:54] Or if they get two of the same one, they're like, oh, my favorite color is blue, so I'm gonna choose this one. Right. Yeah. Right. You know? Like Right. There's no rhyme or reason.

Mike DeHaan: [26:01] Nothing represents that more than when you have a seller that you've been talking to for months and months, and then you get a contract signed, and you don't even know the name of your company. Totally. Right? Right. It happens all the time.

Dan Austin: [26:12] Or they forget that you were the one that they were talking to last year.

Mike DeHaan: [26:16] Yeah. You know what I mean? Or last week. Like, yesterday.

Dan Austin: [26:19] Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yeah,

Mike DeHaan: [26:20] I was talking to somebody

Dan Austin: [26:21] or whatever. And then it's like, yeah, it was me, dude. Have all the phone calls recorded. You know?

Mike DeHaan: [26:25] Like, it's rare. Hey. Sometimes that works in your favor, that other guy was such a fucking asshole. He offered me this. I'm like, who would do that? That's crazy. He was 20,000 lower, but that's fine. You can give me about thirty six seconds. I just wanna share our scale community with you. So SCALE stands for scaling cash flow, assets, leverage, and equity. It is our exclusive community for real estate operators looking to take this game seriously. In the community, you can hang out with myself, Dan, Dylan, and other operators around the country who are all working to be the best in their market. We recently did a survey, and every single member said that the community had directly contributed to major growth experience in the last twelve months. On top of that, you get all of our processes around marketing, sales, building a CRM, and you even get preferred relationships with Lowe's and different financing slash lenders, so that you can get your deals 100% paid for without a headache. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, go to collectingkeys.com/scale. Let's see if you're a good fit.

Dylan Koch: [27:18] As a quick aside on the same subject, someone posted like in a in a local Facebook group, basically bashing wholesalers. Like, you guys don't know your ARVs, you're asking to push your places, and 90 times out of 10 he's right. Like, of those deals posted But in there are I just commented, said, if you wanna know someone's legit, one, ask them what their fallout rate is. One, if they know it, great. It should be around this. If they don't know it, it's a red flag. And two, ask if they have repeat buyers. Mhmm. Two, if those two things, that's gonna probably eliminate 90% of the other people out there.

Mike DeHaan: [27:45] Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [27:46] That's funny. I like how you opened that Pandora's box up, Dylan, because the wholesaling is interesting. Because there's my opinion has changed over the years on this. In 2021, when the market was red hot before the rates took a shit in '22, I was like buying the good I always buy the good deals. If it's a fucking home run, the buyers I have buyers text me, they go, Greg, I haven't seen your emails in a while. Buddy, we're still buying houses, you're just not fucking seeing them because I'm putting them on the goddamn market, fella.

Mike DeHaan: [28:12] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [28:13] Yeah. Whole family was big in my business 2022

Greg Helbeck: [28:16] too, but yeah. I go on Investor Lift all the time, because there are sometimes deals there. But the amount of times I actually see a deal on that website is so rare, because these don't people are just know who's teaching them this, but they're just locking up random shit at any price. Like doesn't, you don't have to have zero skill to do this, and they slap it on a website, that's not even Zillow, which is really where the market is, and they're expecting some bonehead to buy it, and then I'll go on the, you know, I'll go on there, and I'll look, and it'll be like, days on investor, what's eighty five days. I'm like, you're the fucking seller? Yeah. You're getting contract for it just doesn't make Yeah. So Yeah. I think wholesaling will eventually become illegal, and if it does, honestly, I would really like it. I think it would really open up a lot of opportunities in the business.

Dylan Koch: [29:00] How much are you wholesaling now versus taking down now?

Greg Helbeck: [29:04] About 40% wholesale, 60% close.

Dylan Koch: [29:07] Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [29:07] Yeah. Yeah. The tricky thing is is and maybe we just see this a lot out here because of like our our demographics. But like the stuff that so we do almost exclusively wholesale. That's the same time. And the stuff that we go through to get some of these deals closed, no one else is gonna do them. That is true. Like, the hoops with the paperwork and how people move and the title and figuring out their just personal bullshit. Like, we've had so many deals, and I'm like, who's gonna help them? Is this a realtor? No. No. No. Like, never. No. Mhmm. Even like the title companies.

Greg Helbeck: [29:42] No. They don't do anything.

Mike DeHaan: [29:43] This is So if it wasn't our our closing attorney who's a rock star, we've had so many deals that just would never have closed because they're such a pain in the ass.

Dan Austin: [29:50] Just like throw their arms up.

Mike DeHaan: [29:52] And so that's where, like, the the wholesalers have a role. The good ones. The good ones do, but a lot a lot of ones aren't like that. Like I said, where are they most most of them learning? It's from the people that are selling the products they want to use. Right? They're going to the investor lift freaking Closer Olympics with Jim Buttface, whatever his name is, that's like on there. Buttface gym. Buttlet yeah. Just sitting there, pretending to cold call people closing just like live. Like, fuck. That's not how this business works.

Dan Austin: [30:19] That's not it doesn't ever work that way.

Mike DeHaan: [30:20] That's not how this works. We all know that that's the most horseshit transaction that's ever happened. If they're, like, one call closing people on some live YouTube video, that's that's ridiculous. That is ridiculous.

Dan Austin: [30:31] That is such a lie.

Mike DeHaan: [30:33] But, you know, people see that.

Dylan Koch: [30:34] There probably already bills they have in

Greg Helbeck: [30:35] contract, they paid the seller like a thousand bucks. Hey, can you pretend to be motivated for like fucking two twenty minutes?

Dan Austin: [30:40] Totally, dude. 100%. It's one of their employees, dude.

Dylan Koch: [30:43] Yeah. Except it was $50.

Mike DeHaan: [30:44] Yeah. Exactly. You know, but but people see that, and then they go and they sign up for the $6,000 a year investor lift. Yeah. Subscription.

Greg Helbeck: [30:53] Right? You said a good point, Mike. Wholesaling is a great business, and I don't think there's anything wrong with wholesaling. I've had people say like, Oh, you made $50 right off the seller's back. I'm like, No, I didn't. I solved the problem for them. They were happy about the price I offered them. There was a buyer who was willing to pay more money. No one was hurt in this transaction. There's nothing wrong with wholesaling. It's just the amount of bad apples compared to good apples are why I think eventually it will get outlawed. Not because of the good guys, because of the bad guys.

Dylan Koch: [31:22] A lot of states have already started that process. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [31:25] There's too many edge cases like that.

Greg Helbeck: [31:26] Think it's fine. There's nothing wrong with wholesale. Like, dude, everything gets fucking wholesale. I bought these things. Yeah. It's probably $250. Yeah. Apple probably built these for fucking $50. I don't know. Maybe less. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [31:38] No. Not even probably 5, honestly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [31:43] I feel like in the practical sense, there is a very good use case for wholesaling and like assigning of the contract. Right?

Greg Helbeck: [31:49] Oh, yeah.

Dan Austin: [31:50] You know, that we've just exploited it as an industry and made it a full time business, which I do think I think what you're saying, Greg, is actually kinda where we're training anyways. There's too many edge cases where there's people that are just do take advantage or do some Yeah. Shady shit that eventually Yeah. It only takes one of those. Right? And like you said earlier in the podcast, everybody knows what a cash buyer is now. Are Hey, you gonna wholesale my house, or are you wanna they're like, oh, you're one of those cash buyers. Oh, okay. Like, that's like the average American, so that only takes so much time before it bleeds over to the regulators that start learning these terms of what's going on, and then they get one complaint, they're like, we are outlawing this forever, and it changes. But in a practical sense, like, there's a good use for assignment. Sometimes, it makes sense to assign a contract that maybe you you get a property under contract, and you see it a lot more like the commercial spaces where you're gonna assign something because, oh, it makes more sense to assign it to this partnership group, or to this buyer who's actually gonna take it.

Greg Helbeck: [32:41] That's their specialty.

Mike DeHaan: [32:42] Right. Like something different, right, where

Dan Austin: [32:44] and it makes total sense, do it. But we've taken advantage of the system as an industry, and been able to make this a full time full time business.

Greg Helbeck: [32:51] Well, became an industry overnight basically. Wholesaling, when I started, was not an industry, it was an exit strategy. Like in 2015, a wholesale, nobody knew what the fucking wholesale was. If the attorneys didn't know what it was in New York, they're like, what's this, signing it? Yeah. It's legal. It's it's wholesaling is just an instrument to assign a piece of paper. Mhmm. It's a fucking real estate transaction.

Dylan Koch: [33:10] It's a contract law though, it's not real estate law. Think that's

Greg Helbeck: [33:12] yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But the reason too I see, like, I'll give you a good example on wholesalers being shady, and this everyone can resonate. I got a friend in Georgia, his name's Brad, awesome guy.

Mike DeHaan: [33:22] Love Brad.

Greg Helbeck: [33:23] He has this issue all the time. He gets a deal under contract with an owner from Mail or Google, and he'll run title, and then there'll be a, like a memo filed on the property from a wholesaler, like three months before, and the memo will be for 200 ks contract price. And let's say Brad has it wrapped up for 130, right? So the wholesaler at 200 was not willing to buy the house at 200 because it was a crap deal because it's worth $2.50. Brad has it under contract at the right price. The wholesaler won't release the memo, because they have the contract. And now it's like this, you have, technically the wholesaler has to get sued, because they haven't performed on the contract, and it causes all these issues, and now the sellers are pissed off, Brad has to pay this clown $5 to get them out of the way. That's why wholesaling has a bad reputation, it's because of shit like that.

Dylan Koch: [34:09] I've seen that too, here in my market.

Greg Helbeck: [34:11] Crazy. Yeah. This must be

Mike DeHaan: [34:13] a Georgia thing a lot too because we have a community member on South Of Atlanta.

Greg Helbeck: [34:17] He has a lot of crap in Georgia.

Mike DeHaan: [34:19] Same He had some fucking guy from Florida that basically had put a twelve month option on this property to get paid like an insane amount of money. And he bet he shook our guy down for $10 to get him out.

Dan Austin: [34:32] It's crazy. Just unethical.

Greg Helbeck: [34:34] That's the thing now. Like, that that just never existed, like, six years ago. Like, never.

Mike DeHaan: [34:41] The problem is is, like, if you go back six years ago, people people are getting into it and the ones that were kinda slimy, honestly, because they were dumb.

Greg Helbeck: [34:48] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [34:48] Now we're starting to get, like, the smart slimy people coming in. That's when it gets problematic. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [34:52] Yeah. And they're teaching it, and it's replicating. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.

Mike DeHaan: [34:57] Yeah. They're like the actual, like the people that would be white collar criminals if they came from a different background.

Greg Helbeck: [35:02] Yeah. Exactly. Like the guy committing mortgage fraud.

Mike DeHaan: [35:04] Yeah. Like if they if they were from the Hamptons and not from like the ghetto of whatever town, they would be doing white collar crime

Dan Austin: [35:10] for sure.

Greg Helbeck: [35:11] Yeah, exactly. People who now, like they'll teach you how to renegotiate, and listen, we renegotiate sometimes. When there's a fucking blatant fuck up, we'll renegotiate. If the seller said x, and the reality is y, we will renegotiate and not feel bad about it. Mhmm. But there are people teaching now, get the seller under contract for whatever price they'll sell for, and then just beat them over the balls after, you know, you're two months in, two weeks into the contract.

Dylan Koch: [35:35] Yeah, day before closing, oh sorry, we're gonna have to be like 30 k less. Like, go fuck yourself, honestly.

Greg Helbeck: [35:41] Like It's crazy. I had a lady, we bought the house, and I never renegotiated, but I renegotiated the term. We had it in contract, there was no permits, no COs for this thing, was fucking shit, complete shit. I'm doing it right now, it's like practically new construction. And she thought the property was good to go. And I'm like, all right, 130, no problem, we'll take it. Turns out there's no CO, it's like a fucking shell basically. And I'm like, listen, I really should renegotiate with you right now, I'm not, I gotta pay a $2,000 permit fee, and I wanna get a permit, you know, in effect before we close. She was pissed, but I'm like, listen, you fucking told me x, and now this is not x. I'm gonna still close at the price we agreed upon, but you gotta give me a 2 week extension. And she was giving me a fit. I'm like, a two week extension to get a permit? Like, come on, lady. Most holes are like, oh, fucking I'll $40 off the price. I'm like, what? It's

Mike DeHaan: [36:29] So and so instead he just put a lien on it, and next guy's problem. You're gonna shake him down. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [36:34] Next guy's problem. Yep.

Greg Helbeck: [36:35] Well, actually, it's funny. That same lead, we got a call like ten minutes before we got onto Zoom, and her crazy brother who's like in a mental hospital called trying to sell us the house I already owned.

Dylan Koch: [36:45] Hell, yeah. Oh god.

Greg Helbeck: [36:46] I looked at the notes, I was like, yeah.

Dan Austin: [36:49] Are the sellers we're dealing with though.

Mike DeHaan: [36:51] That's on brand. Greg, I got a

Dylan Koch: [36:52] question for you. One thing I've found the best buyers in my market really nail down their rehab costs, and like it sounds like you do a decent amount of flipping. Was there a transition of like the crew that you use? Like, you have the same guys over and over again now? And has your price been pretty steady on like a price per square foot basis, or whatever it may may be on the rehab side?

Greg Helbeck: [37:14] Yeah. That's a good question. I in New York, if it's a decent sized rehab, I use the same guy. He's a real contractor, with a real license, with a real biz he's not some Giuseppe out of a Subaru pickup truck. Yeah. He's like a real contractor. So he charges me a little bit more, but I get really good service, and I get speed in return. So with him, I use the same guy in New York, very reliable.

Dylan Koch: [37:35] You're not subbing out anything, he's doing the whole thing for

Dan Austin: [37:38] you.

Greg Helbeck: [37:38] He's got his whole crew, yeah. Yeah, He's doing the whole thing. He just doesn't do HVAC, he doesn't do, I think, electric. No, he doesn't do HVAC really. So HVAC, I'll sub that out. But in terms of the prices, like, listen, like with contractors, I have my budget that's fairly accurate on what it's gonna cost to do that. And this is if it's like a real rehab, not like paint and carpet, like a real rehab, kitchen, bathrooms, whole thing. I know my number pretty well, like 95% accurate. And when him and I go on the phone, like, because this is in New York, I do it all virtual FaceTime, whatever. The number that I have is pretty much gonna be where he's at, and he might beat me on some items, right? But then I'm gonna beat him on some items in terms of our prices, and it's ultimately gonna add up to like pretty much the budget. So he might bang me over the balls on on the floors, but then I might hit him over the nuts on like the kitchen cabinets or something. But it ultimately adds up to where like we're both winning, right?

Dan Austin: [38:31] You guys are both banging your balls together, that's all I heard.

Greg Helbeck: [38:33] Exactly. Yeah. They do, yeah, do.

Mike DeHaan: [38:36] He's different on the East Coast, I I see why he moved to Seattle, you can be less closeted with how you're banging your balls.

Greg Helbeck: [38:42] He's still out here, you know. That's how we kinda do it, like, so he'll win on some items, I'll win on some items, and if the number doesn't make sense, I'm like, listen, fella, like, this ain't gonna fucking make sense. It's rare that it happens, but I'm like, listen, we're we're $15 off. Like, I'm gonna either sub this out to a really cheap guy, or we're gonna find a way to make this work. But I could always go to the cheap guy, but I don't like the cheap guy, because the cheap guy doesn't show up on time. Cheap guy's drunk. Mhmm. Cheap you know what I mean? That's you're gonna get you ultimately when you hire Chuck in a truck, you get the Chuck in a truck service.

Dylan Koch: [39:11] Yeah. Well, I say that because, like, let's say you send the same scope to two different people, you're gonna get two different prices back. How like, the buyers who are good have that like, not the cheapest, but they're also not the most expensive.

Mike DeHaan: [39:22] So you

Dylan Koch: [39:22] have to be also competitive on your ability to rehab and source materials And and all that

Greg Helbeck: [39:28] if I buy from a wholesaler, I never rely on their rehab numbers because it's complete.

Mike DeHaan: [39:31] No. Smart. Yeah. I don't even give

Greg Helbeck: [39:33] the rehab out when I'm, like if I'm wholesaling a house, never give the rehab out. I'm like, this is the price I want for it, this is what I think it's worth fixed up, and that's an accurate number. I don't put a bullshit ARV. Because I'm like, if it's a shit ARV, like no, people don't take you seriously. If a buyer knows it, like, have a lot of repeat buyers. So it's like, this guy's ARV's pretty accurate. His purchase price doesn't seem bad off the bat. The rehab is TBD, because some guys can get their, you know, own crews in there for a, you know, 30% off. I just put the ARV range, and my price, and the terms, say, you know, this is gonna have to go sell within a month or whatever. And at that point, you know, we see where the market takes us. But in New York at least, and Seattle we're starting to get there, there are certain buyers I know will take these fucked up properties, and instead of having the whole thing be like a dispo circus, like if I have like, it's a good example. I tied up this house. New York is like serious business with deposits, so you got to put down like big, big, big EMD deposit. I had to put 16.5 non refundable, sight unseen on contract signing for this thing, so I was like, fuck, I gotta I dispo this don't wanna lose my deposit. So I text this one guy, he's like, I don't want it.

Greg Helbeck: [40:41] I do an email blast out for the property after that. I had a bunch of people reach out, but there was a lot of tire kickers, and then the one guy who was serious, was like, yo, I buy in Poughkeepsie, I buy fucked up properties, I saw your price, I need to be at this price, I'm gonna close, I know about all the violations you sent me, like I'm gonna deal with them, and you know, we sold the deal for a little bit less, but we know he's a good buyer, and he put down I think a $20,000 deposit, so at least I'm positive on the deposit. So you gotta know, if you're wholesaling, who is gonna be most likely the buyer for that property? Because there's a lot of guys who will buy like these hood properties in terrible neighborhoods, and they have no problem with them, and then some guys want like, I always laugh when I see these guys, like, oh yeah, I want stuff I can buy at 50% of market value, and like these zip codes. I'm like, oh, who doesn't want that?

Mike DeHaan: [41:26] Yeah. Right.

Greg Helbeck: [41:26] Yeah. Don't get that, you've never seen it buddy, because I'm buying it, 100 you

Dan Austin: [41:30] percent.

Greg Helbeck: [41:30] They think they could just have like wholesalers at their beck and call. Like there's this one buyer, I'm not gonna mention his name, but he thinks like I'm his best friend, and I've sold him one house. They like texts me like three times a week, and I like don't answer it. I'm like, buddy, like, I'm not trying to be a dick, but like, I barely know who the fuck you are.

Mike DeHaan: [41:44] We have so many of those, especially like agents that have been around for a while that are like knowledge about real estate, and they just like flip some houses. Yeah. They always want a better deal than what you're offering. And but they hit me up all the time.

Dan Austin: [41:57] You waste your time

Mike DeHaan: [41:57] so You waste so much time.

Greg Helbeck: [41:59] Yeah. I just don't answer. I'm just like, guys, like, get in line. Like

Mike DeHaan: [42:02] I know.

Greg Helbeck: [42:03] If you're a really good buyer, like a really good buyer, you've bought like 10 plus houses from me, and you've always performed, there is some value there.

Dan Austin: [42:11] Absolutely But

Greg Helbeck: [42:12] the truth is a lot of the times, it is a commodity.

Dylan Koch: [42:14] Yep. Understood. Well, if you flipped houses yourselves, you actually do have general rehab numbers. So when your buyers try to beat you over the balls, like you said, from like the rehab cost, you're like, man, let's go through it. Let's go through it line by line. It's gonna cost you this, this, and this. And that credibility also helps to get the price that you want.

Mike DeHaan: [42:29] Yeah. And Dylan, I wanna correct you. They're trying to beat your balls with their balls.

Dylan Koch: [42:32] You gotta make sure that

Mike DeHaan: [42:33] you say it.

Greg Helbeck: [42:33] Here's here's the guru, here's actually the guru strategy that I'll mention for free with no affiliate link. Okay. If you wanna make a lot of money wholesaling, just be ready to buy that house no matter what. If you already have an exit strategy in place, hey, if I can't wholesale this for x number, I'm gonna close on it, dude, you're gonna blow your wholesale profits to the roof, because you're, in that position, you're a non motivated seller.

Dan Austin: [42:54] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [42:54] Mhmm.

Dylan Koch: [42:54] Hey, if

Greg Helbeck: [42:55] this guy wants to offer me $5.50 for the house, I'll wholesale it. If I don't get $5.50, I'm closing on it. Watch your posturing with a negotiation go through the roof, because that is how you ultimately make a lot of money on those deals. Absolutely.

Dan Austin: [43:07] Yeah. It makes you believe in your numbers too, right? Because you're not gonna wanna buy a piece of shithouse, and so if you're trying to wholesale a piece of shithouse, that will guess what you're gonna get? Shitty offers. Right? And so that's that's really good. Yeah. I actually I like that.

Dylan Koch: [43:19] Yeah. At the beginning of my wholesale journey, the buyer would make it a buyer, then I'd probably had

Greg Helbeck: [43:23] it too high. And I'd go back

Dylan Koch: [43:24] to the seller and be like, okay, well, we can we go five k lower? You know, and now it's just like, no. Yeah. These are the numbers. This is the price. Like, do you want it or do not?

Greg Helbeck: [43:31] Like Exactly. And I don't do that with like, when I buy from wholesalers, I don't fuck with them. Like, if their deal is good, I'll take it right like, I'm not gonna try to, like, shave them down. Right. I'm like, yo, your deal is good, I'll take it right now. And then I'm just hopefully, they'll sell it to me. But, like, I paid a guy in Gig Harbor a 116,005 assignment fee, like, in January. Damn. Whoo. And I put it right back on the market. It made $94. So I'm like, why why do I care if he made it?

Mike DeHaan: [43:53] It's No. You're you're doing it wrong, Greg. You gotta take give him a taste of their own medicine. You gotta get to the closing table, see their assignment fee, and be like, I got I gotta do a $30,000 prize shop, otherwise I'm not closing. Sorry, bud.

Greg Helbeck: [44:04] I had a guy do that to me in Oceanside, California like five years ago when I was living out there, and it was like at closing, and I was like, you fucking scumbag. I'm like, I have to do this now, because the seller, I'm gonna fuck the seller over. But you bet you best believe I'm never selling you another deal again, you piece of shit. And then he sold it for like $70. I made a lot of money on it, but I was like, you're a fucking piece of shit.

Dan Austin: [44:24] What a turd. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [44:25] What a turd, man.

Dan Austin: [44:26] What a turd, man.

Mike DeHaan: [44:26] Then he gave

Greg Helbeck: [44:27] me a free sweatshirt. Now I was like, this high corporate guy for like O'Neil or something. He gave me oh, thanks for the sweatshirt. Gonna wipe my ass with this. Yeah. Damn. That's fine.

Mike DeHaan: [44:36] Alright, guys. Well, we're coming up on time. We better wrap this up. Greg, really quick one last time. Give us the name of your show and how people can follow you.

Greg Helbeck: [44:43] Yeah. YouTube greghelbeck, REI, and then the podcast, which is same same thing with YouTube. It's called the Real Estate Investing Fast Track. You can follow me on Instagram greggo37. And, that's how you get in touch with me.

Mike DeHaan: [44:56] Awesome. Well, buddy, thanks so much for coming on the show. That was a lot of fun.

Dan Austin: [44:59] Thanks, Greg.

Mike DeHaan: [45:00] And guys, hopefully you enjoyed that. Go and check out Greg and his show. Shoot him a follow on the socials, and tune in next week, you guys. We're gonna get a little update on Dylan and his surgery. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time.

Dylan Koch: [45:13] What the fuck are you talking about?

Mike DeHaan: [45:16] Thanks for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at Investor Man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore does underscore deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.