How to run a Real Estate Wholesale company for $100 w/ Greg Helbeck

Mike DeHaan: [0:01] What's going on, guys? Welcome to collecting keys. Your host, Mike Gahan, here with Dylan Cook and guest today, Greg Helbeck. Dan is off cruising around Japan. So he is out today. And so Greg, he's taking his place. And, dude, it's been a little while, so I'm glad to have you on. You are with us. If you guys wanna hear Greg's past episodes, in episode four four eight, four seven five, and four twenty. So, man, we had you on the four twenty x, so I didn't even take advantage. Can't believe that. Bummer. Yeah. Welcome to the show, dude. Glad to hear it.

Greg Helbeck: [0:34] Hey. Thanks for having me back on, man.

Mike DeHaan: [0:35] I love

Greg Helbeck: [0:36] your podcast. I listen to maybe two real estate podcasts. And not trying to blow you on your own show, but I do listen to yours as a guest, and I think it's great. So Thank you.

Mike DeHaan: [0:45] Thank you. Yeah. Podcasting world in general is kinda interesting right now because I feel like audio podcasts, as they used to exist, have changed so much because YouTube has really taken off. And it... It's so hard to to grow, like, an audio show. We haven't really had any growth for about two and a half years, three years maybe. But that's... We have stayed, like, really consistent for that period of time. I feel like it's a pretty good win. But it's so hard because I feel like the algorithms in general, they make it really hard to discover new shows. There's so many people that are... Like, they kinda, like, ebb and flow or or, like, the value of podcast has kind of, like, diminished a little bit as it has been kinda, like, the same people that are doing the interview circuit or people talking about the same stuff and different things. And it's such a different landscape than it was when you when you first connected so many years ago on that. Especially if you're not willing to do, like, the YouTube sort of thing where, like, everyone that creates the thumbnail where they're like, you know, like, mister beast, like, with the exact same picture.

Greg Helbeck: [1:47] That shit's fucking ridiculous.

Mike DeHaan: [1:48] Yeah. And then they then they start every single clip goes, the world is melting down. Have you guys seen? And they do, the the YouTube voice, you know? Yeah. And they all they all talk like the same way.

Greg Helbeck: [2:01] It's funny.

Dylan Koch: [2:01] I don't know. I don't watch that shit.

Mike DeHaan: [2:03] Where you get a bunch

Greg Helbeck: [2:03] of money and

Mike DeHaan: [2:04] they all go like, let's go in the exact same way. You know, like, it just...

Greg Helbeck: [2:08] Yeah. It's... It is weird. I mean, we have a good system with YouTube. And our YouTube is really starting to pop off recently with at least 100 views minimum first day. And we're almost at 1,000 subscribers and stuff. We've been at it for years now. And my assistant does a really good job with all the editing and the promoting and stuff. And I probably don't make videos that are clickbaity because that's just not who I am. I'm not going to sell my soul to the devil for an extra 10 views. But I've noticed that with the podcast and with YouTube, because like your show, we've put our show out for a long time. And there's this thing called like 1,000 true fans. I'd rather have 50 to 100 to 200 people who are loyal AF and listen to the show and really feel like they know me because they can feel me through the podcast and through you guys through the podcast. That's gonna be better for loyalty versus just getting 10,000 random people who don't know who you are, who saw your crazy title, and then it's not gonna really lead to anything meaningful. So that's how we've always done it.

Mike DeHaan: [3:03] Yeah. Absolutely. And what's interesting is the the thousand true fan thing. That's that's... I I don't know who's original, but I remember hearing that on Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss a long time ago.

Greg Helbeck: [3:11] I heard it. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [3:12] But he got it from somebody else. I I can't remember who you referenced. But that's so true. And one of the things that's always fascinating to me is when we do have those episodes that we have, like, a big pop off. It's typically, like, when when we bash, like, a Brandon Turner or... That's the only thing that brings people in is when we say

Greg Helbeck: [3:29] Of

Mike DeHaan: [3:30] course. This person bad. Like, big people chase that. We will always see a big uptick, but it never sticks around. Right? I don't even know if people necessarily listen past that episode. Right? Or even if they listen to that, like

Greg Helbeck: [3:41] They probably listen to the the thirty second tidbit, and then they go move on to the next thing that I watch. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [3:47] Totally. Yeah. And so it it is it is interesting. Mean, also too, just think with podcasts, it does take time to, like, get things out of them. Right? Like, you have to be actively listening. And these days, it's that's such a challenging thing to do when so many people are, like, that that are still into this kind of stuff. They're, like, actively working, or they... They've kind of recognized that if you're trying to read every book or listen to every podcast, use their face, it is detracting from actually doing work, which is what's going to move you forward. You know, there there was that that trend. I feel like for a good portion of the last ten years of, like, procrastination by learning, I would call it. Or, like, you're basically using Yeah. Faux learning to disguise you not actually doing what you knew you needed to do. But, like, hey. You read 50 books this year. Yeah. But how many of those books did you implement? None. And so you started to see that wind down, which also affects podcast listening to everybody's not on top.

Greg Helbeck: [4:39] Totally. I call that mental masturbation. Totally. Feels really good, but

Mike DeHaan: [4:44] you shouldn't be doing it. Yeah. But you can check on your

Dylan Koch: [4:48] Your morning routine checklist.

Mike DeHaan: [4:49] Your morning routine. Now you have, like, your little accountability list for yourself. You said, I read 50 books this year, and that feels pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [4:56] It's interesting.

Dylan Koch: [4:57] I will say at the very beginning of my, I guess, real estate slash business journey, some of it's needed. Like, you're you're literally starting from zero, and you don't even know where to start, but you're right. Like, you can't just go down the... This is especially problems with people who have like white collar jobs or, you know, engineer ish type because they wanna know the answer to everything before they get started. And that's just that's just not how business works.

Mike DeHaan: [5:21] Those are the epitome of the people that are doing the mental masturbation thing. Right? Because they're they're unhappy in their jobs, and they're sitting there, and they're just, like, on their emails, they have their little badge on, like, a little thing. That's how you know that they don't do the alcohol at their jobs. They wanna have one of those. And they wear khakis. That's the key. If they're wearing, you know, reflective, they work in a factory. They're probably pretty busy. So they go in, and they sit there for six hours a day. The two hours are not in there. They're at lunch doing something else. And they just listen to podcasts, and they're just like, man, this sucks. I can't wait to do whatever this business is. But then they do that for ten years and wonder why they've never gotten anywhere.

Greg Helbeck: [5:58] And they have nothing.

Mike DeHaan: [5:59] We've had people reach out in the show that said that they've been listening to us for, five years. Go, oh, that's awesome. Have you bought any real estate yet? And they go, no. What have you been doing?

Dylan Koch: [6:07] That's

Greg Helbeck: [6:07] so Here's the thing with that though. With that, if you're making a buck 20 as an engineer, you're not going to be on food stamps. So sometimes that type of person is so comfortable. Yeah, they want to make 300,000,400 million dollars in real estate, but if you're making a buck 20 and you can pay your bills and you're not going homeless, you're not that motivated. And I've noticed, at least in real estate, the scrappiest people who either start really young and they have nothing or they really fucking hate their situation, they're the ones who get off their ass and they get moving like a bat out of hell because they have no other option. And I'm not like some motivational guy at all, but the truth is if you really don't like the situation, you're going to listen to a podcast and you're going to say, Wow, I am going to go do what those guys just said because it clearly sounds like they actually know what they're talking about. And if I do what they say, I'm probably gonna get the results I want in about six months to a year. That's the truth.

Mike DeHaan: [7:01] Well, that golden hink of thing is real. I mean, both Dylan and I experienced that. Me, I was an engineer. I worked at Boeing not too far from where you live, Greg. And so I was that person making a buck 20 when I was 25.

Greg Helbeck: [7:12] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [7:13] And it was chill. And then, Dylan, you were you were actually, like, a full fledged pharmacy. You didn't get a degree. You worked with a pharmacist for, like, how long?

Dylan Koch: [7:19] Yeah. Yeah. Four years.

Mike DeHaan: [7:21] Four years. So, yeah, same thing. That's about as long as I was an engineer, really. Yeah. And so, like like, those are two careers where you could do exactly that. Right? You can just chill. Like like, you don't really have to worry about a lot. You won't really have a life of, like, major abundance, but all of your general needs will be met. You can take your one vacation

Greg Helbeck: [7:37] here. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [7:37] You know, your kids can go to

Greg Helbeck: [7:39] whatever bucks in the bank.

Mike DeHaan: [7:40] You know, especially in places like Cincinnati, you can live in a great neighborhood.

Dylan Koch: [7:43] Yeah. I mean Oh

Mike DeHaan: [7:44] my god.

Dylan Koch: [7:44] If you look very objectively with my wife and I being both pharmacists, like we would have made over $200 gross a year in a Midwest city. Like, we would have been absolutely upper middle class, totally fine. But it's just like, I can't... I sit back there, it's like, if I was still in the farm, like, even when the business gets tough, I'm like, at least I'm not behind the freaking counter. Because I hated it. I legit hated it. And obviously, I had bigger aspirations.

Mike DeHaan: [8:06] Think about how much you can stroke your ego, bro. So you're looking at your four zero one k. Like, yeah. Look at all that money I'm gonna have when I'm 65 years old. Yeah. Yeah. I mean... I'm gonna go to the Fidelity projections. What's it gonna be in thirty five years? Oh, god. That's so much. Oh, gosh.

Greg Helbeck: [8:21] Can't wait.

Dylan Koch: [8:22] Can't wait.

Greg Helbeck: [8:23] Guys, your nuts start sagging.

Dylan Koch: [8:25] Yeah. I will say, though, now that I'm almost 34, married, have a kid, to build what I've built... Like, if I just start from scratch today, that'd be a lot harder than what it was when I was 25 without those responsibilities. Totally. I don't know if it'd be the same story. Like...

Mike DeHaan: [8:41] No. That... And that's always the challenge too. Like, when we had our scale community and when we were leaning in that, or even, like, down go abundance. I talk a lot to guys like this. And they're exactly what you described, Dylan. But they're not even... They're not 34. And they're 45. They have three kids and a oopsie baby on the way. And they're like, man, I'm so unhappy in my twenty two year corporate career. I wanna do what you do. I'm like, no, you don't. How? You're not gonna be able to. Basically, of every creature comfort that you have in your life right now. You're gonna have to essentially stop all that, because you have over leveraged your entire life. Every extra dollar that you have, you've put towards what is now a liability, whether it's your kid's private school or the car or the big house that you got that has a $9,000 a month mortgage. Like, all those things, you're not gonna be able to just, like, replace the income needed for that in six months. It's gonna take years, especially in this economy. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [9:32] Yeah. It's tough now. Boy, did this not be situation.

Dylan Koch: [9:34] You have to be okay with having, like, give yourself a timeline six to twelve months. You might burn through $50,100 grand. And if you're okay with that, and it doesn't work out and going back, then that's about your only saving grace.

Mike DeHaan: [9:45] Yeah, totally. I

Greg Helbeck: [9:46] think now, if we want to chat about the market for a couple of minutes, we're recording this and it's almost 2027, it's late twenty twenty six. And I've noticed that real estate, because this is a real estate show for the most part, love this show too. Another side note, as I love just shooting the shit with the fellas or listening to you guys shoot the shit with each other. And then you guys get to the topics. I feel like we're just on the couch, having maybe a beer and just talking about life and business. That's why I really love your show, just to promote it again on your own show.

Mike DeHaan: [10:16] Keep doing it, yes.

Greg Helbeck: [10:17] Hey, yeah, dude, just... I'll get the lotion out. Kidding. And I love just saying what I want too. That's why I love podcasts where people can just be honest with each other. But no lotion today, unfortunately. But the market right now and everyone, if you go on YouTube, if you go on CNN, Fox, whatever your political preference is, everyone's saying the economy is melting, the market's tanking. And I wouldn't say the real estate market is tanking, but I will say this is where everyone says real estate is local, local, local. You see all these national housing videos. The reality now in the market is that the virtual wholesaling and all that stuff, you need to know your local area wherever you're operating, whether you're living there or not. And I am in two areas. I'm on the Seattle area, which is the West Coast, different crazy market. And then I have a lot of stuff on the East Coast, which is not great, but not like Seattle. And the thing that I'm seeing, and I'll just give some real facts out here and some legit losses I'm taking. I bought a house in Marysville, Washington in, I think it was in April or May, And all the comps were $675 $650 I've done business up there before. I'm local. Well, I know the area. I'm selling that house right now for $585 and I'm losing $25,000 And the only reason it's even selling now is because we dropped it to 600. And I've had the house for five months now and I'm taking a pretty decent loss And on I have a house I'm selling in Federal Way, which is in the Seattle area as well. I'm supposed to make $35.40 Gs on that.

Greg Helbeck: [11:51] I'm going to get like $9,000 in profit, which is lucky at that point. And then in New York, the other side of the equation, just to kind of give you some context, what's happening in Washington State is not the same as what's happening in New York. And they're both in The US and it's both the housing market. Washington has a lot of inventory coming on the market. There's a ton of supply coming up. There are people leaving the state. There are people fed up with whatever's going on out here. And if you don't have the best house at the best price, you are going to sit, period. New York is different. Now, you can't get crazy lucky anymore with these crazy flips and shit going 15 offers deep. But I've noticed in New York, because of the way that area is with the economy and people are moving from New York City up into my area and the difficulty of building there, if you still have a good house and it's priced fair, you're going to sell it pretty quickly and there's a shitload of demand. And you can still push the envelope a little bit. But the days of rolling the dice as a flipper are over and I don't think they're coming back anytime soon.

Mike DeHaan: [12:59] Well, it's interesting because I think that dynamic exists, what you described there, in a lot of states in some capacity. So people are leaving where the money is in Manhattan and moving upstate to where you're at. So we're seeing the same thing here in Washington, right, where people are leaving Seattle, and they're coming out east to Spokane where Dan and

Greg Helbeck: [13:15] I live. Just did a deal like that, actually.

Mike DeHaan: [13:17] Stuff is sitting in Spokane longer than it was a couple years ago. But to your point, if you price it well and the house looks good, you can sell it really quick. So Dan and I, we listed one of our properties. It's a rental that we've had for a while that is our, like, our nicest rental by far. We completely redid it top to bottom. It's very modern. Everything looks good. We've been using it as an Airbnb. We listed it on a Thursday. We had, I think, 15 walk throughs over the weekend. We ended up getting three offers. We accepted one for over asking price in this market. This is two weeks ago, when we cleared the inspection contingencies yesterday, it'll close at the end of the month. Humble. Right? But the difference is, like, a lot of the other comparable houses, they were, like, looking for, like, $4.20, $4.30. It's not worth it in this market. It's not... So we listed it at $3.99, and we ended up getting an offer, I think, at 4

Greg Helbeck: [14:05] That's what I was just gonna say. You probably listed it for $3.99.

Mike DeHaan: [14:07] Yeah. I mean, ended up paying an offer at $40.08. Good to go. Easy. And because it's a good house, it really stood out. Because the other ones that were looking for those higher numbers, they weren't remodeled. Right?

Dylan Koch: [14:16] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [14:17] And they... And so they were asking for too much money with a inferior product. And so it's a desirable part of town. I like the old adage of location, location, location matters more than it ever has.

Greg Helbeck: [14:28] It's everything.

Mike DeHaan: [14:29] But also too, it has to be quality with location. It can't just be the shitty house in a good location anymore. Yeah. You know? People are willing to stay in like a slightly worse spot for a better price point for a nicer house.

Greg Helbeck: [14:40] A 100%. What are you seeing in Ohio, Dylan? Because I feel like me and Mike, we toe the line on the coasts and it's super expensive. I've never done business in the Midwest. I've done Pennsylvania, which is I guess similar to that. But what is the deal in Cincinnati? I'm just making a guess that it doesn't have these highs and lows we have on the coasts.

Dylan Koch: [14:58] Definitely doesn't have the same peaks and troughs, right? So we didn't really have it as good times as you guys did, right? Where you get $50 over ask on a place.

Greg Helbeck: [15:06] Yeah, yeah.

Dylan Koch: [15:07] But we also like, so now though, it is the slowest I've seen it since I've been in real estate. So this is some anecdotes like what Greg shared. We have one in a a class area literally in August 2026, a house on the same street with similar specs sold for $6.10. We originally listed at $5.89. We're down to $5.29.

Greg Helbeck: [15:26] Wow. What kind of house is that? That seems expensive for Cincinnati.

Dylan Koch: [15:30] It is. It's a class a area. It's a 4,000 square foot ranch, four beds, three and a half baths. Good school district.

Greg Helbeck: [15:35] For that price? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. That's insane.

Mike DeHaan: [15:39] You should see some of these numbers in Cincy. We do a lot of loans out there. The cash flow in some of these markets is crazy. Like, people are getting stuff that are that are, like, 1.3, 1.4 DSCR, fully max leverage.

Greg Helbeck: [15:49] How cheap are the taxes there, dude? My taxes on my rentals are nuts.

Dylan Koch: [15:54] Cincinnati and Ohio property taxes are kinda high.

Mike DeHaan: [15:56] They're high relative for that. Like, they're not high for Washington and New York.

Greg Helbeck: [16:01] Right. So like, if you have a $200,000 single family rental, are your taxes like 1,500 a year?

Dylan Koch: [16:06] That's probably pretty close. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [16:08] That's so cheap.

Dylan Koch: [16:09] Then we have two other places that we are under contract to sell, but the only offers we got were contingent upon our buyers selling their current house.

Greg Helbeck: [16:17] Both of

Dylan Koch: [16:18] those fell out of contract. Then so now we're back on market. Right? Yeah. So... And days on market, way up. Inventory, way up. So it's definitely slower here than it ever has been for... In my experience doing real estate.

Mike DeHaan: [16:29] Yeah. What you gotta do, Dylan, in those cases is find out how much money they need to buy your house and offer to buy their house, give them that much. So, like, if they only need, like,

Dylan Koch: [16:38] 30 their shitty house.

Mike DeHaan: [16:39] The other thing is if they only need 30 k for the down payment for yours, you go buy their house for 70¢ and a dollar, and you're now getting their house. And now you can see the market with that one.

Greg Helbeck: [16:47] That's a course... Strategic course on that.

Mike DeHaan: [16:49] Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [16:50] It's called real estate double dipping.

Mike DeHaan: [16:51] Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, yeah, we we call it, like, the house swap or like, I don't know. There's probably some like like

Greg Helbeck: [16:56] Gator two point o.

Mike DeHaan: [16:57] Yeah. Yeah. Right. Call it the the hell back method.

Greg Helbeck: [17:00] Yeah. Right. The method.

Dylan Koch: [17:02] Greg, I'll get you set up. You want more rentals? I got a four unit under contract for $2.50 that brings in 3,600 a month.

Greg Helbeck: [17:11] Dude, I'm used to these big boy numbers, unless it's a condo or something. But I'm so numb that... Let me just do some math. So you said $2.60, four units, 3,600 gross rents. You're already way over the 1% rule. Is that a stabilized asset? Or are we talking about trap houses here?

Dylan Koch: [17:27] So it's definitely like a C minus area.

Greg Helbeck: [17:29] Okay, so you got a little bit of a ghetto. Okay,

Dylan Koch: [17:32] you could bump those with subsidized housing to probably 1,200 a unit. So you're looking at 4,800 a month gross rents. And then you can buy it for $2.40. It's probably... ARV is probably like $3.25. So you can be all in for, what is that? $30 after all is said and done?

Mike DeHaan: [17:46] You have to own a section eight POS in Cincinnati.

Greg Helbeck: [17:49] Yeah. Are you gonna keep that or are you gonna sell? That seems like a great rental.

Dylan Koch: [17:52] I don't know yet. I need to buy more rentals for tax purposes this year. So like, I'm on the fence fifteen days. But I also have an offer to make 30 gs's on an assignment on it too. So...

Greg Helbeck: [18:02] Yeah. Could you sell that to some bonehead in California who's used to buying shit in like Memphis? That's, like, legit?

Dylan Koch: [18:08] Probably. Just never done the legwork to find them,

Mike DeHaan: [18:11] but probably The problem is is, like, that market has to be listed on bigger pockets list of, like, most POS markets you've never heard of before that you can cash flow in. So they're all... They're also going to Indianapolis, in Memphis, in Kansas City, and wherever, like, the

Dylan Koch: [18:26] All these turnkey providers are. If you see turnkey provider.

Mike DeHaan: [18:29] Where, like, the bigger pockets, like, c list of people that are, like, kind of in, like, that sphere, but not actually on it. Wherever they have pull to, like, try to bring the listenership, that's where they're gonna do it. So you got... You guys just don't have the the influencer in Cincinnati to bring them over, because, unfortunately, the highs are just not doing it for you guys because that moment was most Not in Columbus anyway. She's she's like the Kamala Harris of fucking real estate people. Just so unlikable, but for some reason, put on a pedestal. Yo,

Greg Helbeck: [18:54] I got this theory. I wanna run it by you guys. I don't know if I'm right or not because who knows? Because you guys have been around long enough to where this isn't some first rodeo. I think back when real estate so I started in 'fifteen. I think you guys started maybe in 'eighteen or 'nineteen or whatever. Back in those days, not that it was that long ago well, 'fifteen was a long time ago. But real estate was like the hot chick at the bar that everybody wanted to take a run at and try to get her number. Now I am seeing that from an investment standpoint, whether you're flipping or holding it, I don't think real estate is that sexy anymore. And I think people are starting to look at the interest rates and what the real rent... I'm talking about rental real estate, not flips. The rent growth, the price to rent ratio and the interest rate. And I think people are starting to be like, why would I ever do real estate right now? It doesn't really seem that sexy because up until basically now, everybody wanted to get rentals and read Rich Dad Poor Dad and do all that kind of stuff. I'm seeing

Dylan Koch: [19:58] real estate. Dollars 5,000 a month, bro. You I just got to get don't

Greg Helbeck: [20:02] see that. I think people are starting to do a stink face at real estate now just because they're like, okay, well, unless you're in Cincinnati or something, you're going to buy a $500,000 four family house that's going to rent for $4 a month and you got to put down 200 gs's and you got an 8% rate, like who the hell would do that? You're going work for $50 a month.

Mike DeHaan: [20:21] Yeah. Well, now they're all doing significantly less risky things like buying a plumbing company on owner finance. 8% interest.

Dylan Koch: [20:29] No. They'll... They sports bet.

Greg Helbeck: [20:31] That's the thing.

Mike DeHaan: [20:31] Now let's assume it's Honestly,

Greg Helbeck: [20:33] go on Calci. It's a prediction market.

Mike DeHaan: [20:35] You might've you might've did. Yeah. You can start doing that instead of saying like, hey. I think that the housing market's gonna do this. What if you just bet on it on Calci? You'll probably make more money. Yeah. Or you'll or you'll lose the same amount. Really, it's kind of fifty

Greg Helbeck: [20:46] fifty.

Dylan Koch: [20:46] One thing I have noticed, Greg, to your point, is I used to go to a lot of the real estate meetups when I was younger, try to meet everybody.

Greg Helbeck: [20:53] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [20:53] And I don't go to many anymore, but the ones I do go to, I still think I'm the youngest person in the room most of the time. You're my age. Right. Which tells me there's not younger people who are interested in doing it.

Greg Helbeck: [21:03] Yeah. That's crazy because you're like the same age as me basically, and we're like

Mike DeHaan: [21:07] That is interesting. I think that that varies by market because if I looked at Spokane, there's a lot of younger people that are into that are into real estate.

Dylan Koch: [21:15] Not that I've noticed here.

Greg Helbeck: [21:16] Seattle's got a lot of young people, a lot of kids, a lot of wholesale kids.

Mike DeHaan: [21:19] A ton of young people. I know so many people that are, like, in our area that have either become real estate agents or they're, like, kind of blue collar kids that wanna get into buying real estate or flipping houses or those kind of things. So, like, when when... Before we wrapped up our back at home buyers company last year, we have, like, a little internship program that we ran. I had so many, like, just out of college age kids that were so interested. They just wanted to get into this home buying company. I had tons of them. But, like, it's... So the younger people are there. If you go to the meetups, lot of them will be there. Yeah. But I would say what we're the biggest gap, honestly, is in, like, our age group, that thirties to forties. You don't see a lot of people that are still doing that. It's all either, like, old heads or it's, like, young people. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [22:03] I think Greg's the oldest wholesaler right now.

Greg Helbeck: [22:05] I'm one of the old ones.

Mike DeHaan: [22:07] Probably up there.

Greg Helbeck: [22:08] I've been up there. That's the thing, I was so fucking young when I started and I've just seen good markets back. I wasn't around in 'eight. Me and Dylan were in middle school basically, but I've seen don't know, it sound like an old hag, but I remember dude, in 2016, if you were willing and able to send mail, you were guaranteed to get deals at 40¢ on the dollar.

Dylan Koch: [22:31] Was- Yeah, fish in a barrel.

Greg Helbeck: [22:33] Dude, it made no sense. It was like, up until 2019, honestly. If you sent mail, you could send postcards that looked like toilet paper. And you would get 10x on your mark. It was stupid. It made no sense. If you said wholesaling, yeah, it was crazy.

Dylan Koch: [22:50] If I could take the knowledge that I have now and go back to 2015, 2016, I would be a billionaire. Oh, totally. I am.

Greg Helbeck: [22:57] Fucking insane deals. Yeah. Was insane, dude. It was crazy.

Mike DeHaan: [23:01] I do feel fortunate because I feel like Dan and I, we got started with our business kind of like right before stuff started to get a little bit silly. So when we started in 2019, 2020, they're, like, sending mailers and stuff sort of stuff. So I mean, like, the first flip I ever bought in 2018, it was an REO.

Dylan Koch: [23:16] I'm surprised they were even around then. Oh my god.

Greg Helbeck: [23:18] I remember those are popular. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [23:19] Those aren't even things anymore. Right? And, like, that was... It was really a bank owned property. The real estate agent was trying to sell on the market, and I just went and bought it. You know? It was easy. But then we started doing postcards.

Greg Helbeck: [23:30] That'll come back.

Mike DeHaan: [23:30] Yeah. It it will for sure coming up soon. But the problem is is all that. I actually don't know if it will, Greg, because I think that instead of going to the public option or going on the market, they're just gonna sell it privately to hedge funds. There's such an appetite for that. And you have these companies that understand the value add there in the interest that didn't really exist yet in, like, that market up to, like, pre COVID. Right? Yeah. But, like, when we got started with postcards, we didn't quite have the experience talking about where you could just send toilet paper. But I remember the first sort of sets of, like, postcards and stuff we would send out. It was really hard to gather data. You had Proximum, which was, like, clunky as hell, but it wasn't the best. And then, you know, for sending mail, there was pretty much open letter or, like, ballpoint had, like, just started. Or there was, like, some of the other, like, like, yellow letters was the other one.

Dylan Koch: [24:15] Two mouse. Yellow yellow was big at the beginning.

Greg Helbeck: [24:17] Yellow letter. Right? So...

Mike DeHaan: [24:17] We did have all these different shops. And we would send out this post. We would get like a two and a half percent response rate. Yeah. If we sent out $5,000 worth of mail, 5,000 pieces, you would get close to a 100 calls.

Greg Helbeck: [24:29] Oh, yeah. It was

Mike DeHaan: [24:30] insane. Like, easily.

Dylan Koch: [24:31] What was before PropStream? Was that lead source? Source?

Mike DeHaan: [24:36] Yeah. Was that list source? The old one. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [24:40] I used to use that. That's actually still good. I mean, it's all the same data. It's all coming from three or four of the sources, but list source is still a good way to pull data. But now with AI and shit, even I have no affiliation with Deal Machine, but the new Deal Machine is ridiculously good. Is it? Yeah. It's fucking crazy. It's like chat GPT for real estate.

Mike DeHaan: [25:02] Well, David over there... I mean, because here's the key things. He's a young guy who's building it out, and he's very sort of Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [25:07] He's our age.

Mike DeHaan: [25:07] Yeah. He's our age. Right? He's very sort of with the times of that kind of stuff. Mhmm. And so I'm not surprised to hear that that's that's moving forward because a lot of these other companies, these big data aggregators, they're owned either by these, like, old school real estate guys that have been in there forever or they're owned by, like, these huge companies, like, first... Like, First American. Right? They went and they bought several different data aggregators. They're not gonna do anything that's cutting edge. No. Because they're just trying to buy the cash flow off the subscriptions. Yeah. But when it comes to, like, the younger people getting into it, though, I think what you just said there, Greg, that is their golden ticket if they wanted to figure it out. Because they're already in that age where AI is very prevalent. The entry as a whole hasn't quite cut up to it yet. But what they can do with, like, Claude or Grokbaud or those sort of things now for, finding leads and pulling data and all that kind of It's stuff is crazy. And I don't think that they they know that opportunity exists for them. But the great thing is if you just go and, like, you're willing to play around with those tools, it will just tell you exactly you need to do to find deals. You know?

Mike DeHaan: [26:06] I I know Dylan, you've been playing around with Grokbot to straight lists and stuff and comparing that to Claude. And with the agenting stuff now, it's like a completely different ballgame than it was even like six months ago.

Dylan Koch: [26:17] So to Greg's credit, you know, I'm subscribed to his email list and he's like, basically, have like a, what, ten minute YouTube thing. Was like, you should be using AI for data pulling. I'm like, yes, like makes sense. Everyone should know that. But I've tried this with cloud before with for niche data specifically, county specific data, and I couldn't get it to work. And what I used to have was, you know, I'd hire someone on Fiverr, you give them access to your entire freaking computer, how sketch that is. And then the website would change, URL, and it'd break, and then you'd have to redo And so I just stopped doing it. We were just pulling it manually. And then literally, I bet in an afternoon, we're sitting out with the Grock Bot, I got it all figured. Like, it's not complete yet, but I got the basic done in two hours.

Greg Helbeck: [26:55] It's the same.

Dylan Koch: [26:56] And Claude couldn't do it. So like, that was the biggest epiphany to me is I thought like, if Claude can't do it, AI can't do it. But no, GrockBot is a machine.

Greg Helbeck: [27:02] GrockBot's the best.

Mike DeHaan: [27:04] It does the agenti thing where it works like a human, right? It sort of has its own virtual machine where it would do the human task.

Greg Helbeck: [27:09] It's its own computer. It's on its own browser. Yeah, that's where the value is. Manus was the pioneer with that, but I think GrockBot's better now. It's a little smarter and it's honestly like Manus was more... Aaron Bihl loves Manus and it's similar to GrockBot, but GrokBot doesn't even show you what it's doing. It just does it. And then when you go look at what it's doing, it's actually fairly accurate. Because the thing Dylan was saying, honestly, even a year ago, because AI is very rapid and it changes quickly. You have to have a VA pull it or some crazy web scrape route. But now as long as there's open data and pretty much every county for the most part is open data anywhere in the country, Dude, Grockbot will pull all the data and it knows so much more than you even think. And I was saying this to somebody that, damn, you don't even need to know how to use AI. You just need to know what you want and then AI will actually do the work for you. And you guys did a podcast maybe two weeks ago or three weeks ago, and you were talking about recently having a little meltdown and then you're building out some DocuSign thing. AI can build all that for you. And it's like with Cloud Code, right? Because Cloud Code is very good with that stuff. It's crazy how effective you can be now and efficient at the same time. And to make this relevant to the new investor who wants to flip houses or wholesale, if you're like, oh, I'm going to go balls deep in Roanoke, VA or something, you could go into that county, wherever that is, I don't know the county. It'll pull all the data for you basically for the subscription of Claude Bot.

Greg Helbeck: [28:44] Not only will it pull all the owners records, it'll tell you what's listed, what's sold, what houses you want. It'll give this all to you for free. And then you could use Deal Machine for $200 a month with all the phone numbers. And if you don't have the budget to nail them, you could start getting deals for $50 a month and you could legit use that to get your business started.

Dylan Koch: [29:03] I don't know if Deal Machine has it, but even Ari Simply upload them into that, tag them, then just start... You have a single or triple line dialer to start calling

Greg Helbeck: [29:10] them. Yeah. Deal Machine, it's got the phone numbers in there. It's free. That's part of

Mike DeHaan: [29:13] the subscription. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [29:14] It's insane. I mean, skip tracing is now... And that's the thing with data. And, you know, I used to spend a fortune every year on Authentic.

Dylan Koch: [29:21] Nah. Fuck that list.

Greg Helbeck: [29:22] Yeah, I mean, we've done well off that list, but I don't need to pay for that data. Anyway, data is a commodity. It's like the price of gas, right? Whoever's got the cheapest, you're going to go to. And now it's like with skip tracing, when that came out in 2018, was like, Oh my God, you get somebody's phone number? Now it's free to get there. You can go on, been verified and their phone number is there. Everything just gets compressed over time with this information and this data. And then it's the person who can actually execute and build a system around it is the one who's going to be like the person who can keep their attention and their focus on their goals and priorities, they're going to be the ones who win now because all the information is legitimately abundant. It's insane. And it was not like that even five years ago.

Dylan Koch: [30:03] I've heard Mike say before that they use VAs a lot of time for their back end operations and not just their current business, but like the previous businesses, right? And I'm looking at my own and I'm like, all of my marketing, all of my data and even some of like the drip campaigns automations can all probably be done with GrockBot. And so like, that's not gonna be good if you're a Philippine VA, but like, it's great for me. Yeah. Yeah. Technological coding is not an advantage anymore. No. It's just not.

Mike DeHaan: [30:28] Technology in general, it's it's moving away from it being like a point of leverage, and it's gonna be what you need just to be able to play on the same field as everybody else. You know? Because for a long time in in real estate, honestly, where we were able to pull ahead is the fact that I am a little bit of a geek, and we were able to build out, like, a system that was very optimized. And so I would spend a lot of time building out, like, like, going through our data and building out a way so we could scrape it efficiently and, like, clean it up so you weren't wasting a ton of money on marketing. That's where people tend to lose in the wholesaling and flipping business because their marketing overhead gets crate way out of hand. Their cost per deal gets crazy. Like, they have, like, one or two bad months, they basically lose it because they run out of money. And so we were always able to compete because we just didn't do that. Right? We were a lot more intentional about how we did things. Now if you're still wasting money on marketing, it's because you're too late. You have to figure out how to use the tools that literally cost nothing to help you do it the correct

Greg Helbeck: [31:26] way.

Dylan Koch: [31:26] Yeah. GrockBot's, like, $15 a month or something like that.

Mike DeHaan: [31:29] So crazy. And, like, even though... Like, what you were saying, Greg, if you wanted to get started, all that stuff you talked about, like, finding the list and, you know, getting the dialer, all... Like, the phone number, all sorts of stuff. That startup cost used to be, like, 5 to $6,000 to go out together to do the initial skip tracing for all the softwares, all the different things. Now it's, like, a $100, if that Yep. You know, it costs nothing anymore. And if you're not willing to spend a $100

Greg Helbeck: [31:51] And and people are getting out of the game now.

Mike DeHaan: [31:53] Totally, people are getting out of the game because they know they're going to lose.

Greg Helbeck: [31:55] Yeah, so it's easier to talk to the sellers.

Mike DeHaan: [31:57] Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [31:57] Yeah, it's like 2.0, it's insane. And then that's the thing that people don't realize is people will say, Oh my God, I called Sally and she got five investors calling. Dude, those days are winding down. If you can just sound reasonable on the phone and you don't sound like you have a sock in your mouth, you're going to be able to solve somebody's problem. It's true. Because that's the thing too I see with the real estate business is the data and the strategy is one issue. And then there's the talking to somebody and getting a good deal on negotiation. If you don't sound like a complete knucklehead and you actually can listen to somebody and potentially solve their problem or at least give them some ideas to solve their problem and follow-up with them, you're going to be fine. You're going to be totally fine. And that's where I see, oh my God, five investors are competing with... Dude, I can guarantee you four out of those five investors are complete knuckleheads. And if you can stand out just by sounding decent and actually trying to help them, you're gonna be fine. Because you look at most wholesalers, 100. Yeah,

Mike DeHaan: [32:56] do what you say you're gonna do. That's all it is.

Dylan Koch: [32:58] Yeah. Well, most Silicon Valley bros that just kind of get into this that are the software guys or especially, they're all about like, oh, I'm gonna make AI my lead manager or

Mike DeHaan: [33:08] my AM.

Dylan Koch: [33:08] Good luck. I'll gladly go ahead.

Mike DeHaan: [33:10] No, It's because they're afraid to talk to people. Those are the same people that are like, can I use my Grock bot to swipe right on my Tinder for me? Like, hey. Can I use it to to send the the first message so that I don't have to waste my time talking to these women?

Dylan Koch: [33:24] We're on Grindr. You know, no preference there.

Mike DeHaan: [33:27] Yeah. Whatever you're you're dating app toys, man. I don't I don't care. You can you can do whatever you wanna do in private time. But it is it is crazy. And also too, if you're being realistic about your prices, if you're getting started now, is where a lot of people are gonna get in trouble or or or not quite get the the growth that they want. Because they're gonna go, and they're gonna find these mentors that are like, oh, man. This person has bought so many properties over the last five years. They're younger. I wanna be just like them. They're my mentor. And they're gonna help me, like, grow those properties. I guarantee you 95% of those people are so out for lunch of what the properties are actually worth because they're in denial about their balance sheet that is now 30% lower than it was in 2021. And that really hurts their ego because number did not go up. Right? And so they are gonna just not give you realistic views on what these properties actually need to be. I was talking to one of my friends on Tuesday. He's a very prominent home buyer in Spokane. And he was saying that he had signed five contracts this past week that were all deals that had been sent out previously by this other wholesaler that we know in town. And the problem is is that guy's entire, like, ego is based off of his portfolio and, like, how big his deals are.

Mike DeHaan: [34:41] And so he had essentially locked up these contracts for 70 to $100,000 more than my friend ended up getting the contracts for.

Greg Helbeck: [34:47] Oh my god. Right?

Dylan Koch: [34:49] There's a lot of that right now. So much. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [34:51] Yeah. But the thing is is they're both equally experienced. The difference is that the guy that I was talking to, he is, like, rational about the situation with the market, whereas the other one is so ego driven that he refuses to acknowledge the he claims values that have happened.

Greg Helbeck: [35:05] That is crazy. It's so crazy that the guy's doing that. Like, I don't get... Yeah. And it's funny you say that, Mike, because I look... I'm on a lot of wholesalers, email... Because I buy deals from wholesalers if the number is fine. A deal is a deal. I don't care where it comes from. And I see these Seattle deals coming out and they make no sense. And I doubt they're moving to anybody. And I'm just like, I don't know how these big wholesalers are going to stay relevant because if they're used to moving 15 houses a month and maybe they actually move 10 out of the 15 if they're really good, if that goes down to five, goodbye profits. No chance you're making that work. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [35:41] There was that clip that was going around. I think he sent it to me, Dylan, on Instagram. I can't remember. I don't know who this guy was, but he was obviously become guru. And he was saying on the show, he's like, man, you go back three years ago, I expected nine out of 10 deals to close. Now every deal that we signed, I only expect two out of 10 of them to close.

Dylan Koch: [35:58] Yeah. Which is... Like, you're a piece of shit if you expect that. That's crazy.

Greg Helbeck: [36:02] That

Mike DeHaan: [36:02] is crazy. That just means you're

Greg Helbeck: [36:04] a dirtbag.

Mike DeHaan: [36:05] Like, I don't know. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [36:06] Two out of 10, dude? Well, you might as well get out the business.

Dylan Koch: [36:09] That's a you problem, not a seller or buyer

Mike DeHaan: [36:11] problem. Totally. That's what you're locking up trash. Yeah. You should still be maintaining that nine out of 10, but just have less That's exactly how it should work.

Greg Helbeck: [36:18] The problem with that, and I see this with really bad operators or dirtbags, is they think once again, comes back. This will title the show Mental Masturbation 101 Forget the Loop.

Mike DeHaan: [36:30] That'll really pig well on all of our things.

Greg Helbeck: [36:33] It'll basically be a ditty party virtually, but no baby oil. But these guys have such big egos. They think because they lock up 10 contracts, because they can't actually convert contracts, I'm using that at face value. Maybe within those 10 contracts, there's one or two actual deals that will turn into revenue if there's no title issues. And they think it's productive to lock these deals up and then figure it out. But it's like, number one, most sellers aren't going to take a $70,000 reduction. And most buyers are going to just... If they see your deals go out every week and they're shit, they're just going to start putting them to their shit pile.

Dylan Koch: [37:08] Yeah, they're going to discredit you.

Greg Helbeck: [37:10] Yeah, and it's just a waste of time. It's just not a good way to do business. And listen, do we have to renegotiate once in a while if we made a legitimate mistake? Yes. If it's a fair renegotiation, like we fucked something up or something wasn't disclosed to us or whatever, That's fair. But we're not just renegotiating to renegotiate for no reason. And another thing that was different even five years ago was the idea of selling your house for cash used to be a very unique and rare experience. And it's coming back a little bit now, but selling your property to an investor for cash is so mainstream now. People know about it. Because in 2018, it's like, Oh my God, I'm going to sell this privately to an individual. This is so sick. And now it's like, Oh, what's your offer? And people have gotten numb to that message because of all this bullshit that goes on. I bought a house from a wholesaler and this is a funny story and then I'll shut up in a minute. But I would say I'm a pretty good wholesaler. Not saying I'm the best, but I'm definitely like I do things the right way. I try my best to give everybody a good experience in the transaction. So I saw this deal. I already own properties in the same building, and it's right in my wheelhouse. And the price was sick.

Greg Helbeck: [38:19] And I emailed the wholesaler, and usually their deals are shit. I said, send me the contract right now. I will take this sight unseen. I will wire you 10 Gs. I'm fucking ready to go. And they're like, all right, cool. We'll sell it to you. You got to close this in two weeks. And I'm like, no problem, dude. Easy. It's just cash, no lender. So I get title back in seven days. It was something that was super quick in New York. I put a rush on the order. I'm ready to go. These assholes could not get title cleared. I don't even think they had it under contract. It took almost two months to get it done. And I ended up having to follow-up with them. And then they would just ghost me, wouldn't give me updates. So it comes all the way to the finish line to where, because in New York you have to have an attorney close it, I needed to get the final walkthrough to make sure their photos weren't bullshit. Because I saw their photos, I wanted to make sure that you never know nowadays. So we go to set up this walkthrough. I send somebody out to the property. They walk the house with the seller, who then this wholesaler put me in touch with the seller. Jesus. Yeah. So the seller shows the house to my agent, who now it's on the market. It was no issue. So I'm going to then figure out the key.

Greg Helbeck: [39:28] How do I get this key for the house so then we can go put it on the market? And I text the seller, who I had no relationship with, And he goes, I'm like, Hey, do you want me to mail you a lockbox? How do you want to do the key? And he goes, It sounds like it's your problem. Go fuck yourself. And I go, Excuse me? He's like, Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit. And I said, I'm sorry. What are you saying, dude? And he's like, You're a fucking scumbag. Never mail me again. And he was so pissed off because that wholesaler gave this dude such a bad experience. They thought that I was the wholesaler, but I wasn't. And I'm just like, oh my god, it's so easy to beat your competition. That's why I'm saying the story. It's because most people suck.

Mike DeHaan: [40:10] That's the most New York story. That's so funny.

Greg Helbeck: [40:12] Dude, it was so crazy. We were getting into a pissing match on a text message. And he's like, you're an absolute pigeon. And I'm like, what the fuck do

Mike DeHaan: [40:18] you think? What? Any

Dylan Koch: [40:21] guru or anybody who brags or uses cost per contract as a measure

Mike DeHaan: [40:26] It's terrible.

Dylan Koch: [40:27] I don't take seriously. Who gives a shit what your cost per contract is? What is your cost per deal? Like, what if these actually close?

Mike DeHaan: [40:33] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [40:35] So I just wanted to say that.

Greg Helbeck: [40:36] You could get a contract at 105% of par and it'll cost you $500, but is that gonna convert? Nope.

Dylan Koch: [40:42] No. Yeah. So who who gives a shit what the metric is? And the other thing I wanted to say backing up just a little bit, if you're one of the, like, the new people and you wanna be like one of these guys who've in the business for ten years and they have, let's say, I don't know, 50 units, 100 units, 200 units, ask them the last time that they bought a unit. Because if it's like 2023 or sooner or before that, what they have to say.

Mike DeHaan: [41:02] Yeah. It's such... It's a completely different market now.

Greg Helbeck: [41:04] Dude, rentals are tough now.

Mike DeHaan: [41:06] Totally. Yeah. But that that was always like the the knock. I mean, even when we when we started the scale community, right, and we were really leaning into that, one of the reasons we did that is we recognized a lot of the old hat that people really valued in the space. They weren't actually doing anything that was relevant with the times. You know? And so you had all these gurus that were, like, have these big community all sorts of stuff. And they were doing stuff that worked in 2016 when you could just, you know, use a a pen or a Sharpie and write on toilet paper and send out a... As a mailer. Right? Which you couldn't do that at that period of time. No. And it it changes it changes so rapidly. And even, I mean, 2026 versus 2025 versus 2024, every single year is is different because of the changes in technology and everything else that's been happening. And I I would say now more than ever, it really feels like the localized market conditions have fully spread apart. It's so unbelievably different than it was. You know, you look at places like Austin that are... Have dropped in price so unbelievably much. You know, you can get, like, a single family home in Austin now for, like, $202,150 k. Right?

Greg Helbeck: [42:11] And that's a good area.

Mike DeHaan: [42:12] But they're so inundated with dumb money with all these young kids that are working out, like, these tech companies and all these different stuff, or people that have moved there. And they, like, they wanna build wealth. They're sort of, like, wise to that. And then the new westerns are really focused down there. So have you all these people that are doing all this work to make, like, 5,000 of our wholesale fees on these deals that are super tight versus places like Cincinnati or some of these Midwestern markets where you can have these really healthy spreads. Yes. It's competitive, but the stuff still cash flows well. You know? And then you also have, like, the Seattle markets, which is, the high end where you can make huge buckets of money. Just it might take you a long time. The stuff's gonna sit for a while. So you gotta really be able to pay to play. Yeah. It used to be a lot more linear across the country, you know, back in, like, '22 and '23. It's just not like that at all anymore.

Greg Helbeck: [42:55] Yeah. You could do deals anywhere and it was easy because it was the same situation nationwide. And now I'm seeing, especially with the assignment business, wholesaling, yes, you can do it with no money. I do it with no money all the time in terms of the actual asset management part. But you need to really know what the hell you're doing to do an assignment now because it's so... Especially in New York or Seattle or even Ohio.

Dylan Koch: [43:17] And legislation, which

Mike DeHaan: [43:18] I'm Legislation.

Dylan Koch: [43:18] We have new legislation too that you need to follow the rules there. It's like Yeah. You can get hit with pretty hard penalties if you don't.

Mike DeHaan: [43:24] So for the legislation piece, I have one one one story here, and we'll wrap it up. We just funded this deal. It's actually closing today. It's in Georgia. K? It really threw our our processors and our underwriter for a loop because the way that it's configured is really weird. So it's very obviously a wholesale transaction. The initial person that was involved is from Miami, and they are assigning the deal for for $0 to a local buyer in Atlanta. Right? That seems kinda weird. Whatever. Buried buried in their assignment contract, which we actually have to have this pointed out by the paddle company because it's buried in there so weird, is they are receiving a $25,000 consulting fee. And it lists very specifically what the services are they're consulting about. And it's like market analysis, assistance with rent, like, all these kind of things. So that... That's the consulting that the company from Miami is providing to the local investor, right, for $25,000. And then where they've gotten really smart with it actually is it says very clearly that there's, a disclosure of ownership or of equitable interest. And it says that they understand... The buyer understands that this property, there's an actual interest by the Miami company in this property. And they are signing it for $0 and that there's a $25,000 consulting fee.

Mike DeHaan: [44:45] And then it says very specifically, the $25,000 is not an assignment fee. It is not to be listed on the HUD as the assignment fee, and the purchase price of the property is equal to the contract price between the Miami company and the seller. Right? And so it's very clearly an assignment like that is a thing, but they have Yeah. Written it out that, no, it is a third party fee. And from an underwriting deal perspective, I have no problem with that. The deal still pencils. The only big caveat is that that is now a fee that cannot be wrapped into the loan because it's not a part of the purchase price. And so that So he

Dylan Koch: [45:17] has to come out of pocket.

Mike DeHaan: [45:17] So that buyer has to bring the $25,000 out of pocket in order to

Greg Helbeck: [45:21] do it. Why didn't he just pay him out of escrow? Why wouldn't he just get a fucking... I do that sometimes within New York. I'll just have the guy pay me at the at the closing.

Mike DeHaan: [45:28] You totally could. Like, there's lots of workarounds. They probably don't know each other very well to be comfortable doing that. I have no idea. Yeah. But that is the workaround. And the legislation has led to people needing to do this in Georgia. Right? And the biggest caveat is now it cannot be leveraged.

Greg Helbeck: [45:42] Well, why can't they do an assignment in Georgia? What's the rule in Georgia? You can't do an assignment for consideration?

Mike DeHaan: [45:47] I'll be honest. I'm so far removed from a lot of the wholesale laws. I do not know, but we have been seeing more and more weird stuff showing up in Georgia. And so I would imagine that there is some clamp down on log around that.

Dylan Koch: [45:57] We have to get a very clear, like Ohio's got that new package. Disclosure. Yeah. And it has... Like, it has to be timestamped before the actual purchase and contract... Like, purchase and sale contract is signed.

Mike DeHaan: [46:09] Interesting. Yeah. So they know that you're gonna sign it before you sign the PSA.

Dylan Koch: [46:14] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [46:14] Right.

Dylan Koch: [46:14] So that way you can't go up like the day of closing and go, I need you to sign this, you know, addendum to the cartoon. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [46:19] Yeah. They're already moved out.

Dylan Koch: [46:20] Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [46:21] That's

Mike DeHaan: [46:21] right. People are getting crafty.

Dylan Koch: [46:23] Yeah. Yeah. With all that being said, my first... I just pulled these numbers up. My first full full year in business is 2023. So 2023, 2024, 2025, and then this year, the volume of deals excluding rentals is all the same by a matter of like plus or minus five. That's crazy. So even with all these changes

Greg Helbeck: [46:39] Yeah. That's amazing.

Dylan Koch: [46:40] We're still doing like the same amount no matter what.

Mike DeHaan: [46:42] How's your revenue changed?

Dylan Koch: [46:44] I actually have the year over year. So 2023, it was a number. 2024 was 2% higher, very close. 2025 was 23% higher. And then so far this year, we're minus 17 year to date, but we still obviously have two months to catch up to For sure.

Mike DeHaan: [46:59] You'll always see a big influx, I got October, November. I feel like every year we always see a big bump.

Dylan Koch: [47:04] Yeah, we got one closing today.

Mike DeHaan: [47:05] Actually,

Dylan Koch: [47:06] it's on that number.

Mike DeHaan: [47:06] Nice. Cool. We'll do

Greg Helbeck: [47:07] less revenue this year. We'll do about 90% of our volume, but I think the revenue will probably drop by about 20%. Will probably be like $1.50 to $1,000,000 and then that's from some hits we're taking. But also our margins I've seen on some of these deals, they could have been 20%, but they ended up being 5%. That's like it is what it is. And there's a big real estate broker, his name's Eric Hatch, he's a good friend of mine. This dude's a big time real estate guy and he's a huge broker in Fargo, North Dakota out of all places. And he said, at least pertaining to people in Washington, because one of his clients is like, he's got his coaching program. One of his clients is the agent that lists my flips in Seattle. And he was like, if you're in Washington state and you're just surviving, you're thriving right now because it's that hard. Because if you're just get by, getting deals done, keeping the lights on, that's the standard of excellence now in Washington because it's so fucked up with the market. So just because you're not doing your numbers from the year before assuming you're doing the same activity and you have a good strategy, it doesn't mean that you're wrong or you're broken. Sometimes the market, it goes up and down, right? And that's just the way it is and you got to hang in there and stay in the fight.

Mike DeHaan: [48:16] What they say, number not always go up. Just remember that. Yeah, exactly.

Greg Helbeck: [48:21] Number not always go up. It's funny.

Mike DeHaan: [48:23] Cool. So... Alright, Greg. Wanna share your show and get out of here?

Greg Helbeck: [48:26] Oh, yeah. Greg Greg Helbeck, REI on YouTube. Subscribe to the channel and check the videos out. I love I love doing those videos and and the podcast called the Real Estate Investment Fast Track. So, yeah, check me out. Appreciate you guys having me on. Cool.

Mike DeHaan: [48:40] Right on. Thanks, Ray. And you guys should have a chair. Great stuff. He's an OG. I remember learning from you way back when I was getting started. You've been around for a long time. Thanks, when man. You came and spoke to Ryan Dossi's group, I was first in that. You were one of my first... One of the first speakers that came on that you were, like, relatable. You know? Thank you. As, like, just like a dude. So, yeah, you got a lot of good stuff Yeah. Over Just out of view. Not really.

Greg Helbeck: [49:00] It was nice hanging out with you in Park City. That was actually... You you were the highlight of my weekend, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [49:04] Were just

Greg Helbeck: [49:05] vibing all weekend.

Mike DeHaan: [49:05] Oh, we had a great time. Yeah. Sounds like a shitty week. Yeah. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Greg Helbeck: [49:09] Wait. That was cool.

Mike DeHaan: [49:09] We got to find a reason to get together again before we head back to the East Coast.

Greg Helbeck: [49:12] Yeah, dude. Because it's funny. I'm not really... If I know who... Like, I know you guys now, especially I know Mike in person, and I feel like I know Dylan just as well now through, like, virtual communications. I'm very talkative and friendly if I know somebody. But if I don't know somebody, I'm a little quiet. So once I connected with Mike in Utah, I'm like, oh, I got somebody to hang out with this weekend. Because if I didn't know these people, I would just kind of be sitting there.

Dylan Koch: [49:34] Well, good on you for going.

Mike DeHaan: [49:35] Yeah. Which is so funny knowing you in the podcast realm too where you're mister Chatty. But I feel like that's how works

Greg Helbeck: [49:40] a lot.

Mike DeHaan: [49:40] So awesome. Exactly. Alright, guys. Check out great stuff, and thanks for listening. Talk to guys next week.

Dylan Koch: [49:46] See you.

Mike DeHaan: [49:46] This episode is sponsored by Sir Lenzelot LLC, also known as SLA Capital, which, if you didn't know, is Dan and I's private lending company. So, yes, we are sponsoring our own show, but what you're gonna do about it? It is our private lending company that offers hard money and DSCR loans to real estate investors of all types. So you can be a new investor, an experienced investor. You can be buying flips. You can be buying rentals, whatever. We can do everything. And not only that, but the rates that we offer are just as competitive, if not cheaper, than pretty much every other company out there. So whatever big company you've been working with, bring us their term sheets, and I guarantee that we can probably beat it. We have the same connections they do. We just don't have all the overhead and middlemen. So if you wanna come and check us out, go to slacapital.com/keys, and I will know that you came from the show. And by seeing that you

Mike DeHaan: [50:32] came from here, when you

Mike DeHaan: [50:33] get the closing, you will save $500 on your first loan with us. So slacapital.com/keys, we would love to fund your next deal. 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.