Mastering the Disposition Process to 2x Your Assignment Fees with CJ Moss

CJ Moss: [0:00] The one system that we've been able to really, really pin down is that process. To get the deal, send it to thousands of buyers that really trust us and know us, and then hold a 30 person open house at a very competitive price, but truly that will get bid up because of the competition level. And then we rinse and repeat that, you know, two, three times a week for the year. Welcome to the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:47] What's going on, guys? In this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, we have CJ Moss, who is a really incredible wholesaler and off market investor based out of the Rhode Island area. And his love for the game and his business and the way that he goes about things is super, super infectious. I love the energy they bring to this show. But as we go into it, he drops some incredible knowledge about how he's built this business that's making huge money, doing a ton of deals of basically just paying him and his wife. Right? And a lot of it is focused on the company brand that they've built, and their disposition processes, and kind of like having this holistic view about like establishing a wholesale operation in your market as a legitimate, to be respected company that is, you know, has a knowledge base in the area, and like is someone to be admired by other investors as opposed to so many of these wholesalers that kind of do things fly by night and they just like are trying to flip paper and do stuff real quick and have this almost like hard sell used car salesman mentality. He takes the opposite approach. And, you know, he has a super strong Instagram presence. He's done a lot of like professional content on there.

Mike DeHaan: [1:56] He's like making a huge effort to be involved in his local community. And as a result, his wholesale business is absolutely crushing it without having to have a whole ton of overhead or a massive team. So some incredible knowledge on that there. And again, like I said, his excitement for what he's doing is super, super infectious. So like that alone is a great reason to listen to this episode because it absolutely comes through the show. Yeah. Anyways, guys, reach out to him if you enjoy, you know, everything that he has to say. He literally gives you his phone number in this. So don't be afraid if you give him a text or call. Like, honestly, he's super happy to chat with people. It's a little bit little bit brave of him to throw his phone number out there like that. But, I mean, he means it, man. He loves to talk to people, he loves to educate and help people out. So reach out to CJ if you enjoy this interview with him. Anyways, guys, please share this episode with anyone who might find it interesting. It is one of the easiest ways for us to continue growing the show. Also, if you go and leave a five star review, or ever listen to your podcast, you send me a screenshot on my Instagram at mike underscore invest. I will send you a free collecting keys t shirt. So please do that, and I'd love to get you some collecting keys swag. On top of that, guys, please go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free, and you get your free five step guide to start generating off market leads.

Mike DeHaan: [3:09] So you can take these new disposition practices and this new knowledge about like how to sort of build this local influential wholesaling brand, and you can apply it towards your own business and deals once you start generating your off market leads with that guy that we're gonna give you. So anyways, guys, go check out all that stuff, and please enjoy the show with CJ Moss. Alright. CJ Moss, thanks for coming on the show, man. Appreciate you taking the time. It's good to see you again. Sounds like you've been crushing it over there on the East Coast, dominating the wholesale market. So for those who don't know who you are, haven't heard about you before, what a what's your deal, man? What's your business? Who are you? What's your backstory? Let's get into the details here.

CJ Moss: [3:50] Alright. Cool. Hey, Mike and Dan. Thanks for having me on. It was a pleasure to meet you guys last year when we met the first time. I I feel like I do well with you guys, so I was definitely pumped to get the invite. But I'll give you a quick backstory to me and then kinda what we got going on. So, you know, my wife and I, we run a wholesaling company in Rhode Island. It's funny, man. Rhode Island, there's not a bunch of competition. Really not a lot going on over Or at least when I talk to other people around the country investing wise, no one's together Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Yeah, well

Mike DeHaan: [4:22] I think there's like two people, and it's you and it's Ryan Corcoran. We've had him on the show too. So we've now had every wholesaler in Rhode Island on the Collecting Cues podcast. Yes.

Dan Austin: [4:32] It's neither a road nor an island. What tricks people. Don't know what

Mike DeHaan: [4:36] to Well, do with

CJ Moss: [4:38] yeah, you know, my wife and I, we run a wholesaler business out here, and we're multifamily investors. We basically flip the properties that don't have enough meat on the bone to wholesale. It's not a primary focus, but it's actually pretty cool because it's given us really good insight and experience knowing what rehab costs. At this stage of the game, we probably do more flips than our flippers, than our buyers. So it's like, we're giving you guys phenomenal deals. We know the ARBs. We know the rehab costs, you know, etcetera. Know, we've been doing this since 2017, and absolutely loving it. I mean, I'm just so grateful that we found this, and that we've been growing every single year.

Mike DeHaan: [5:16] Yeah. And you guys have done some big stuff out there too. And one of the things that stood out to me when, I guess, we first connected with you last year was how lean of a shop that you run, especially for how many deals you guys do. Because I remember talking to you last year, and it was pretty much just like you. I think you had one other guy, but you were doing boatloads of deals. And from what I gained, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the reasons you were able to do that was because you've mastered the disposition process, which is something that, honestly, I think is slightly unique to your market, just the way that you go about it. But also too, it's something that does regularly get overlooked as people are starting to scale. But you know, I right in saying that that's one of the biggest things that you've been able to master? Or am I just like completely speaking out my ass? Have no idea.

CJ Moss: [6:02] No, no, no, no. I mean, I appreciate it. We definitely run a lean business. I think that's because, to be honest with you, I'm someone that's prioritized just growth and just massive action, as opposed to building out the team. So we have a small team. Right now I've let some people go, it's me and my wife, and our TC, our transaction coordinator in the office. We have a few assistants, some VAs. But you're right, I wouldn't say we've mastered the dispo process, because we can always get way better. But honestly, dispo's our strength. Typically in wholesaling, you find a property, you put on the contract, you send it to a buyer, one buyer gets it, and then you make a $10 fee, or 15 ks fee, or whatever it is. We have something different where we hold an open house on every single deal. And the one system that we've been able to really, really pin down is that process. To get the deal, send it to thousands of buyers that really trust us and know us, and then hold a 30 person open house at a very competitive price, but truly that will get bid up because of the competition level. And then we rinse and repeat that two, three times a week for the year.

Dan Austin: [7:11] Wow, that's awesome. You guys definitely do put a lot of energy. When I talked to you last year, I guess, yeah, last year now, about your disposition process, because you guys do do a really good job, you put a ton of energy behind it, not necessarily like effort, but energy. I would keep those separate, you do put effort behind it, but you just have energy around it, where a lot of folks always focus putting their energy on the acquisitions, because they gotta get a contract to make money to sell it, right? But you're doing it, you know, really well on that side. I was gonna ask you, so around the open houses, and all that sort of stuff, how does that work for you? Can you like explain that process? Because when you talk to me about it, like how it works, it's really cool, just, you're kind of like soup to nuts process, once you get something under contract. It's not complicated, it's just putting energy behind it.

CJ Moss: [7:54] Yeah, no, it's simple. So like we lock it up, and then we come up with our numbers. So we always have a, you know, an asking, a rehab estimate in an ARV after repair value, photo link, and then closing details. Closing by this date, offers you by this date. It's a very simple email or text message that we send out. The goal is to get in front of as many buyers as possible. So we have our list, we have our logo Ria, then we actually cold call buyers in the area and cold call realtors. Because you gotta get eyes. You never know the random buyer who's a flipper, but who's like, dude, I know that street because I own three houses on that street, and I'll pay $40 over every other Right? So you need those buyers so that we send it out, we hold it open house for an hour. You can't come before, you can't come after. You gotta come for the hour. We're very strict and disciplined with our requirements. And then it's highest and best due by the next day at twelve. During that hour, can bring your letter, you can bring your contract, you can bring your grandma and your daughter, and take as many pictures as you want, but you can't get back in. Highest and best by twelve Don't call me to know where everyone else is. No escalation clauses. We're strict. But then once you teach the investors the process, they abide by the process, and then you get their best offers. And then after that, now it's only just begun.

CJ Moss: [9:10] Another thing that I've learned, and hopefully for the wholesalers out there this can be helpful, is we do a $500 first off, it's 5 ks non refundable the day that you sign the assignment to our attorney. We need to know your lender. We communicate directly with your lender. You don't you don't tell us. We communicate with the lender that they're always gonna close. And then it's a $500 per day late fee if you cannot close by the close date. Because as wholesalers, we're providing value to our investors by giving them great deals, but we're also providing value to our sellers and committing and saying, Hey, you're distressed, you're anxious. We're gonna help you. So we're making commitment to and close for with our investor, we hold them to that. 500 a day, man. And I'll tell you what, since we implemented that into our assignment fee, investors close on time.

Mike DeHaan: [9:57] Yeah,

Dan Austin: [9:57] Right. Yeah. They're incentivized That's awesome. I've never

Mike DeHaan: [10:00] heard of anybody doing that. The thing that fascinates me about how you put all this together too, CJ, is how did you discover that this was the best way to do dispo? Because like what you're describing in theory makes so much sense. But in our group coaching program, in our instant investment program, we actually kinda teach the opposite. Because like my opinion, you can tell me your thoughts on this. I think the way you are describing a dispo process is highly specific to somewhere with a high population density, maybe like high financial status, like the Northeast, because you can try to do that same thing here. And you're gonna get like, you know, we're in Eastern Washington, we have 500,000 people in our metro, it's not a small town, but generally not a huge amount of money, not a huge investor base. If we try to do that same thing here, people be like, nah, fuck you, I'm not paying extra $500 Like, I'll just go and like, wait for the next deal. Or like, we've tried to have open houses and like, four people will come. Right? And that seems to be a kind of a more universal experience. So even yesterday, was talking to a guy down in Nashville is doing this. She's like a pretty big metro. There's a lot of people down there. And I was talking to him about you and I were doing this interview today.

Mike DeHaan: [11:06] And what kind of what you do. And he was like, Yeah, that was no way that would find Nashville. Like, it's like such like good old boys, like that would might work if you're the guy that's like been in the market for ten years. But if you're trying to, you know, establish yourself and you're running a business that way, you're just gonna be completely screwed.

CJ Moss: [11:22] Yeah, that's interesting. My gut's telling me that's a limiting belief. You're probably not wrong. I went to Nashville, and started my own wholesaling company, I went 1000% to open houses. You gotta show yourself as the wholesaler in the market, period. You get the best deals. So for the first few years, you're commit to everything. You're networking with everyone. You're going to every reel. Dude, it's relentless energy to actually become the Molossal Home Solutions. They get the best deals. You have to go to their open houses. You have to work with them. And that's what we've established here, and I think that we could establish that anywhere else. But I learned this from Wholesaling Inc. They're just a wholesaling company that I learned everything from. And originally it was this dude, Cody Hotheim and Tom Kroll, for those of you who knew wholesale maybe in like two thousand seventeen, twenty eighteen. And this is what they said, you guys gotta hold open houses. If you're not holding open houses, you're reducing your assignment fees. And I didn't know wholesaling from a hole to wall. So was like, okay, this is

Mike DeHaan: [12:21] how you do it.

CJ Moss: [12:22] I just don't know any other way. This is

Mike DeHaan: [12:23] how you do it.

CJ Moss: [12:25] And I did that, and then ever since, it's just like other wholesalers now give me their deals in our market. Because if our average assign fee is like, call it like $32 at the moment, I say, hey, I'll give you half of our assignment fee if you give me the deal. They give us the deal because they're gonna make more than they would otherwise, and the process is seamless, and they don't have to bumble and fumble and fail forward. It's just like, give it to them, make 16 k, and keep it pushed.

Dan Austin: [12:52] Yeah. Yeah. I think I tend to agree with what you're saying, CJ, is that it is probably a limiting belief, because I'm gonna go back to you, put a lot of energy in this, and you just said that you go to all the areas, you've established yourself as a trustworthy brand, and you are basically you're almost kinda setting the bar for what a deal is, honestly. Because you establish yourself as the go to person, and if if CJ says it's a deal, then it's a deal. And then now you can force others hands, and now you get to set you get to set the standard, and get to set the rules of the game, as opposed to the other way around.

CJ Moss: [13:27] Yeah, Dan, that's great point, and I'm sure you guys know, there's probably a lot of wholesalers in your market that send out junk deals.

Mike DeHaan: [13:33] Mhmm.

CJ Moss: [13:34] And people look at them, and they're like, dude, this isn't a deal that's on the MLS. They're asking this much money for it. As a wholesaler, we take pride in providing phenomenal deals where our investors are like, dude, I don't know how they get these things. They're priced right, the rehab is right, because we wanna run a business based on integrity and actually providing long term value, instead of just like random people trying to make 5 k here, 5 k there.

Mike DeHaan: [13:57] Yeah, right.

Dan Austin: [13:58] When you said earlier that you flip the deals that don't have enough meat on the bone for a wholesale, so that's probably a key to it too, you know what a good deal is, and now you're pulling those out of the marketplace and just flipping them and keeping those profits for yourself, because there just isn't enough for two people to profit on. Exactly, that's it, right? If there's

CJ Moss: [14:14] no wholesale fee, then we'll just do a flip.

Mike DeHaan: [14:16] Yeah, I think that's huge, and I wanna lean on that a little bit before, I wanna go back to what you said about finding phenomenal deals, because that's always one of the number one questions people wanna go into is what does that process look like? But in regards to you taking down these deals as well, not only does it give you the knowledge base, but your social media and stuff that you run is freaking great. I love what would the moss do on your Instagram. Like, funny, when I first started seeing you, and what's your what's your Instagram handle real quick? It's moss solution. It's moss home solutions. Moss home solutions. So definitely go follow my Instagram guys. Him and his wife, they do these really great videos, you know, with their tag, what would the moss do? And, you know, they're going into like these details on the rehab that they're doing the different flips. And that establishes such an incredible amount of credibility with other investors too. Because not only now do you have a wholesaler that's bringing all these deals, but you're seeing like professional curated content that's good, right? You know, it's not like some dude walking around with an old iPhone, and you can kinda hear him because he's off in the closet and that sort of stuff, but it's actually professional content showing that he is walking the walk as well. Right. And that goes a huge way, and like, now people are gonna take his deals more seriously because this guy obviously knows what he's doing.

Mike DeHaan: [15:30] So, you know, just as props on you there, I think that you've done an incredible way of building that brand that most people take for granted.

CJ Moss: [15:37] Well, thanks, Zero. I appreciate it. And you know, one thing that's been important to us is becoming experts. Like if we're doing something, whatever we're doing in life, you gotta become I think you gotta become the best of the best. At least you gotta strive to become the best of the best. So if we're doing, we did you know a 100 deals last year, and I just say that to put it in context for your viewers. You know there are other people, I don't know how, will figure it out, but instead of doing two fifty deals a year, you know, the savage numbers. But if we did 100 deals last year, we probably did 20 flips, just the ones that weren't true wholesales. So now when buyers come to our properties, maybe, I don't know if this ever happened to you guys, but when I first started off, I'd have buyers that are like, Dude, you said this is $50, this needs $70. Or you said this is 30, this needs whatever. Now you can't say that, Simba, because I do more flips than you actually.

Mike DeHaan: [16:32] I don't say that

CJ Moss: [16:32] in a cocky way. I'm just like, No, you have to get better labor, you've gotta work better to get your materials cheaper, you have to get your financing better. You have to improve as a flipper to make these things work as well. So it's just been nice to get that experience.

Mike DeHaan: [16:44] Yeah, I mean, you have your own knowledge base, you have your own leg to stand on there, and people can't you're right. They completely can't argue.

Dan Austin: [16:51] It's a it's a critical piece. It's a critical piece to be an investor being well rounded too. Right? Exactly. Wholesaling, you know, I'm visualizing the folks, like, especially there's always a new wholesaler in town that's gonna become the biggest guy in in the market. They always fizzle out because they just think that that's their only game is they're gonna wholesale crappy deals, they never get past that. Mhmm. They never build the experience, they never become a well rounded person, well rounded investor, so that they have that knowledge base to actually be like, you can't tell me that because I do more shit than you.

CJ Moss: [17:18] Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So cool.

Mike DeHaan: [17:20] So I think that's a perfect transition. I would love to go into you said you take pride in getting awesome deals. So I would love if you're open to it, taking a little bit of a deep dive into, you know, your your marketing process, your sales process, everything in between because that most of our listeners, that is kind of the number one thing that they wanna look for. Everyone's always looking for a magic bullet. I'm pretty sure I know the direction that you're gonna go with a lot of this, but what does your whole business look like on the back end to getting these awesome deals?

CJ Moss: [17:52] Yeah. So we'll talk marketing. So it's so simple. It is so simple. It's a beautiful thing. It's just consistent massive action, laser focused in one direction. And then once you become, I don't wanna say a master, but once you have a really good system, then you can move on to the next marketing channel. And there's no magic bullet, man. There's no magic bullet that doesn't exist, dude. Or at least I am. It doesn't exist. But with us, it started with direct mail. All right? So what we do now is we send out about 7,000 handwritten letters. They're bi fold letters, right? So they actually come in a little envelope. We send out 7,000 every Friday to very targeted lists. So these are tax delinquent, code violation, vacant. We have a full time driver who does drive for dollars for us. Absentee orders is a bit of a bulkier list. But we have our VA pull those lists from the local town halls, divorce, probate, etcetera. You need to target the most likely to be distressed, right? So 7,000 every Friday, no matter what, like every Friday. So that's the consistent action there, And then all these letters have their own numbers so we can track them, and then the calls come in. And what we try to do is I incentivize my VAs.

CJ Moss: [19:08] They're not paid a lot of money. They range from really $5.50 an hour to $8 an hour, which is good for them. But we say we'll give you $250 bonus for every deal that comes off of a town list. To really incentivize them to push past the objections that town clerks are gonna give them when they say, Oh, we don't have a code violation, we don't have a tax delinquent. They push past it, and then they get those big checks, and it's amazing for them. So direct mail is our bread and butter, that's what we started with. Once we got that thing down to where I only need to spend thirty minutes a week on it, then we moved into, we're on radio. So we're on two radio stations. A lot of people don't know that you can negotiate quite heavily with radio stations. Mhmm. So for example, they'll wanna start you off at the worst spots of the week for $90 a spot. You can really get those for prime time for maybe like $15. Oh wow. You really just gotta understand the game. And I took a course on that. I just took the Wholesaling Inc's radio course, and I just did what they told me to do. I'm not like a smart dude, I just do what I'm told to do, and I do a lot of it.

Mike DeHaan: [20:12] Yeah, right.

CJ Moss: [20:13] We do radio. We have a full time cold caller who forty hours a week from call motivated sellers. It's basically like an outsourcing where they have their own cold callers. They're American or Canadians. 20 to $23 an hour. I personally think it's worth the investment, least for us in the Northeast, because we kinda have an ownership population that's mistrusting. You don't sound like you're from the Northeast, then they think you're

Mike DeHaan: [20:36] a scam.

CJ Moss: [20:36] Yeah. So this guy's killing it. He's bringing in like four deals a month for us right now from cold calling. Nice. And then we have the Google and the pay per click and the referrals. But basically, we have all this web of networking, or sorry, marketing now. But it was one at a time over the course of four years. And then once we felt like the bridge was made, we built the bridge to the other side, fortified it, put in some extra pillars, some extra concrete or whatever, then we moved on to the next marketing bridge. That's awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [21:08] I love it. Super simple. Nice. So you started with direct mail. How long were you doing and optimizing direct mail before you started adding in these other marketing methods?

CJ Moss: [21:17] We did direct mail for two years before we added anything.

Mike DeHaan: [21:22] Only two years of direct mail.

CJ Moss: [21:24] Yeah, it's yet two years of direct mail, but I mean we're sending this stuff every week. Yeah, no I'm just emphasizing that for the listeners

Mike DeHaan: [21:30] who always like, even people that are in our group coaching stuff, they'll like literally do like one batch direct mail, direct mail doesn't fucking work.

Dan Austin: [21:37] Yeah. Or they wanna hop to the next cheapest thing, which is cold calling or texting before they they season and become experts

Mike DeHaan: [21:43] Just at that for two years. That's that's crazy, dude. Like, that is That's Honestly, I admire your commitment to the grind there of just like not even getting a little of, you know, shiny object syndrome. There must be something more than doing the same thing for two years, man. That's a long time with the same process. Right.

CJ Moss: [22:01] Yeah. You know, it took us five months to get our first deal, and I was just telling my wife, I was like, Trust the process. Trust the process. I know it works, it's gonna work, they say it works. By month four and a half, she was like, Dude, CJ, we're broke. I don't know if this is gonna work, man. But we trust the process. And with everything in life, no matter what it is, if you take consistent massive action, you're going to be wildly successful at it. It might be boring, like two years is boring. Right. But hitting the gym six days a week, you're gonna get in good shape. It just takes time. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [22:33] So what would you say, so it took you five months, Mike and I are like similar, and we have like a lot of success stories where people take several months to get the first deal. What was it in your system that took you five months? Was it your sales ability? Was it your marketing ability? Or was it just flat out you had to build up the lead flow to finally get one?

CJ Moss: [22:51] I think the volume, because we didn't have the funds initially, the volume so wasn't as maybe we could condense that into two months. Yeah, the sales ability. I mean, right now, I'm sure If you guys are the I go out on a seller appointment, and there's any chance they're gonna sell it, dude, I'm getting that contract, dude, 100%. If I went out on that same appointment four years ago, dude, I'm nervous. I'm wicked nervous. I'm not confident in my numbers. They could probably sense it like, dude, can this guy buy my property cash? Right.

Mike DeHaan: [23:24] Yeah, this guy, I think that's super valid. So we don't do our own sales. We haven't done our own sales, honestly, for almost in shortly after we started the business, because we sucked at that. Right? And we recognized that. And for us, you know, we had a good lead gen. We were also in direct mails. Dan said it took about it took about four months, I think, to get our first deal. You know, we'd spent a bunch of money. We were in the hole. And that story is universal across so many people that are get to be successful in this business. But we were doing like onesie twosie deals. And then I went to a a mastermind meetup down in Florida, and I was meeting with our coach there. And we're going through our CRM, and he's like, well, this should be a deal. This should be a deal. Just like reviewing notes. He's like, honestly, bro, think you just suck sales. Yeah. He's like, so my action step was to go home and hire a new sale, like find a salesperson, someone that was gonna be able to perform sales better than than Dan and myself. And we did that, and lo and behold, we brought in our first sales rep, and we had our first $100,000 month off of deals that were already in our system.

CJ Moss: [24:23] Wow. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [24:24] Like literally, we just like then she didn't have real estate experience. We were like, here you go. And she just came in and was like, so like, is this like a good price? This property? We're like, yes, absolutely. Like she knew, she didn't know about real estate. Yeah. But she had a good sales process and a good sort of tone and temperament with the sellers. And so that was what sort of pushed us over the leg. And that's when we learned like, this is just part of our business that we're not gonna do, because we've always had good lead gen, we've always been good at the data, and like the lead organization, all sorts of stuff, but sales for us was the weakness.

Dan Austin: [24:56] What you said, Mike, was fascinating, because it's what CJ you just said is like, so Mike you got

CJ Moss: [25:02] told something.

Dan Austin: [25:03] CJ you said you do what you're told, so you go and learn from other people. And then when they tell you to take action on something, you take action.

CJ Moss: [25:09] Yeah. It's kinda cool. Absolutely. Think that dude, if there are wholesalers listening to this, you might have just dropped like a multi $100,000 bomb. There are probably people that are wholesalers in this that have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting in their CRM, but for whatever reason they can't capitalize on the deal. And maybe it just takes what you did, right? Or try to figure out another way of approaching these sellers to actually convert those leads.

Mike DeHaan: [25:35] Yeah. I mean, that is huge, and you have to internally reflect on that and realize that. Here's just to expand that really quick, Matt, going too much of a tangent. But the number one objection we always get when I encourage that with people is I can't afford to pay anybody. Just for context, when Dan and I, when we brought on our first rep, we had $4,000. That's all we had.

Dan Austin: [25:51] Yeah. And we still had to pay for marketing. Yeah.

CJ Moss: [25:53] Still had

Mike DeHaan: [25:53] to pay for marketing. We had no business hiring any.

CJ Moss: [25:56] And I think

Dan Austin: [25:56] with her, we we had actually added a base when she started. So we didn't, yeah, have Roy the money to cover operating expenses plus her base, let alone a commission, but we were just hoping if she got a deal that we'd be able to pay for it.

Mike DeHaan: [26:08] Yeah. And we were sitting on a fat credit card bill hoping that she closed something.

CJ Moss: [26:12] Yeah. Good for you guys. Yep.

Dan Austin: [26:13] But you can structure it, and to your point Mike though, like, you can structure it however you want, you give them a big commission set up upfront, no base, or whatever, you don't have to have money to hire somebody, I mean, let's just be honest, that that's, that is a limiting belief, because if that per the reason why you're hiring that person is so that you make revenue, you Exactly, create

Mike DeHaan: [26:30] right. In your business, are you still doing all the sales then? Because you did 100 last year, you're working like a dog, man, if you're out there doing all those deals.

CJ Moss: [26:38] Yeah, you know, we hired an acquisition manager last year, but they just weren't at the bar. You know, what I've learned with hiring people is that I want an all star team. I want an all star team of players around me. I don't care how much they cost, they're gonna elevate. So right now, my wife and I are around acquisitions, which is a grind. It's a grind right now for sure, but in a positive way. I'm hungry for this. I'm four years into the wholesale game. We did 100 deals last year. Our goal is to do 180 deals this year. Dude, I am hungrier than I've ever been to get out there and crush it, and be like, We're pointless working, and I'm gonna hire. So right now we're hiring a disposition manager to start January 31 to really make our assumptions even bigger. Let the closers go, rip these deals in to close these contracts down. You make our revenue bigger, and then we'll continue to hire by the end of this year. I wanna have two acquisition managers that are not sharks, because I think that one of the biggest things in wholesaling is having salespeople that can actually empathize with sellers. So the seller's like, if we walk into a property, and there's six people there, let's say there's five contractors, and there's us as the wholesalers. I know we're gonna get that deal, because my wife is gonna sit down with that homeowner, empathize, understand their problem, and figure out the best solution, as opposed to just chucking a number at them. So getting those salespeople that are driven, but empathetic is very important.

Mike DeHaan: [28:09] I really appreciate you saying that. Yes. Because there's been this trend in the wholesaling space forever, which we even kind of fell into a little bit of like, no, man. Like, Wolf of Wall Street, you need like the Yeah.

Dan Austin: [28:20] Hard clothes, hard clothes.

Mike DeHaan: [28:21] Yeah. Hard clothes, like the insurance sales guy, like used car salesman sort of thing. And I think that that works in markets or in business models where honestly your whole deal is you're getting turnkey homes, you're trying to flip to hedge funds for like 3 or $4,000, and you're doing huge volume. Right? You see a of those businesses, especially down places like Florida and some of those Southern markets where there's a huge hedge fund presence. But like you said, when you're dealing with actual distressed sellers, if you go in and you kick in the door, and, you know, their mom just died, and they inherited a property that's beat to shit, and there's a lot of sentimental bikes, they grew up in the house, and you go in there with a used car salesman mentality, your wife is gonna smoke that salesperson every single time, right? You have no question.

Dan Austin: [29:05] Anytime, yeah. Well, you're not selling like a a thing, right? You're selling more I of an mean, that's really what you're really selling, because like you said, she's gonna sit down, empathize with them, and solve their problems. There's nothing that there's nothing you can sell them physical that they're like, okay, yeah, hard sale, like, is the best widget you can ever have. It's just hard to sell a feeling. I'm not good at it. I know that much.

CJ Moss: [29:27] No, you're right. It's truly, at least up here, it's selling trust. That's it. They need to say this person cares about me, and they're gonna get this sale done better than all these other people in property right now. And we've just been able to figure out a way to do it. Now we just have to figure out how to hire employees who can also do it.

Mike DeHaan: [29:45] And it is a tough step, especially I think when you are so present in the success that you've had so far. It's it's a difficult transition to make. So, like, I mean, for us, that we're having that dilemma on, like, the marketing and data side, at least I am, because that's sort of been my baby, And I'll pass that off to someone. There's a huge level of trust that you have to have, and it's it's difficult. Have you connected with Tara and Billy Fernandes also in GoBundance with us?

CJ Moss: [30:11] I haven't. So they're they're

Mike DeHaan: [30:12] a wholesaling company? Yeah. So they're based out of DFW. So Tara, when this episode comes out, her episode will have been a couple weeks before, and I'll connect you guys with them. That would be I'll Yeah. Because what you're talking about with your wife and how your guys' business set up is so similar to them, And they freaking crushed. They did like They did great. Three, what, 3,800,000 last year or something in their business in DFW, strictly with just them. And like, they're getting some bananas assignment fees, dude. Like, multi 6 figures, like, huge deals on a somewhat regular basis, but they have the exact same struggles that

CJ Moss: [30:47] you do. Wow. That's really interesting, dude. How old is that?

Mike DeHaan: [30:50] Mid thirties, 32, 34 range. Yes. I would I

CJ Moss: [30:54] would love to connect with them. That's really cool.

Mike DeHaan: [30:56] Yeah. Yeah. They're awesome. So, yeah, I'll I'll connect you guys, but, yeah, when we we had her on the show, she kinda was talking about the same sort of processes. And, like, for her, the specialty has been the marketing side, so they've been working off with that. But finding the salesperson when Billy's been the go to person for it is it's not easy, you know. And like it's a hard role to hire for too. We regularly find finding good acquisitions managers is extremely challenging, because like it takes a lot of work. And you're doing some stuff like going to some of these houses that you never like in your everyday life, you cannot imagine some of these situations you get yourself into. So like, what I always tell acquisition managers when we're talking to them or bringing them in is like, there's gonna be some weird things, like you're gonna see some horrible houses, but I guarantee that your experience working with us will make you the most interesting person at like any sort of like dinner that you go to over

Dan Austin: [31:47] the next little bit.

CJ Moss: [31:48] Yep. First off, you can make an incredible salary, you know, it's heavily commission based as an acquisition manager. Mhmm. And dude, you get to go into these wild houses, deal with these wild situations, solve crazy problems. I would much rather be doing that than working in an office or you know, do whatever normal people do.

Dan Austin: [32:06] Yeah. I think what you said there is solving problems, not everybody can do that. Mhmm. And that's why it's hard, because you are solving problems all the time, even all the way up to closing, as you know, like, just because you get someone a contract, you're still solving seller and buyer problems all the way to the end of the until you get the money in your bank account, so sometimes people just don't enjoy that that work.

CJ Moss: [32:24] Yeah. You know what? First off, Dan, you are so right, bro. You call them problems, obstacles, challenges, whatever you wanna call them, do their constant. And they're gonna And the bigger you get, the bigger they're gonna get. And you're right, from the moment you send out that direct mail piece or whatever your marketing piece is to the close, there's gonna be a myriad of tricky little rule schemes along the way that you have to But solve, if you actually say, all right, I am gonna embrace these problems forever, and not complain or bitch and moan about them anymore, I'm actually gonna take them as an opportunity to be a savage. Because now I can solve problems that no one can solve. All right, check this out. I had this kid who was kind of a true to wholesaler in Turkey. He's in Turkey, like the country, so basically he me a deal. Okay, okay. It was an okay deal where the seller, it was a very tricky negotiation. I had to pay her landlord first, last, and security upfront. I had to move her. I had to give her extra cash to close. It was a lot of problem solving along the way. But I was like, this dude is gonna give me every single deal forever now, because no one can solve the problems that I can solve this woman, and it gives you a leg up on your competition.

Mike DeHaan: [33:40] Yeah. You're right. That's one of the easiest ways to stand up against competition is just give a shit, honestly. Right? Little work ethic in there too? Yeah. It's not not only it's about the the transaction, but also the seller. Know, he's saying you're, like, fronting money, helping him move. Like, that is providing a legitimate service to that person that they would not be able to afford otherwise. And that's how Dan and I have been able to carve out ourselves a a little niche here in our local market, especially when we started up. There were some big companies that were doing business here, and we were able to sort of scrape in and start taking off pieces because we actually cared. Right. And if you're trying to get into wholesaling, or you're an acquisition manager or something like and you don't wanna do that, go be a realtor. Exactly. Like, honestly, you'll make less money, you won't have to solve any problems, you're gonna have to deal with the broker thing, you're gonna have to go get really, I don't know, cringey headshots and put them on a billboard, and like have some stupid, I don't know, something. I, realtors man, you know how it is.

Dan Austin: [34:38] Tell us more, please. Honestly,

CJ Moss: [34:41] if you guys were brokers, if you guys ran a brokerage, or I was a realtor, it would translate. If I was a realtor in this market, I'd probably be the number one realtor on the market. Or if you guys were the brokers, you'd be the number one brokerage. Because it's just like the saying, it's the drive, it's the problem solving, it's everything. So waking up, like, guys, I wake up at 04:30 every day, ready for my day. I start my morning ritual at 04:30. I am so excited to start my day. It feels weird, dude. I think about this constantly. I'm obsessed with this, and I'm obsessed with being the best version of myself for this business. I feel like this year, I've hit a stride where I'm like, it's not even about me making a ton of money or being a beast or anything like that, it's like, dude, I just want this to be the best possible, and I'm just so excited for where it's gonna go.

Mike DeHaan: [35:31] Yeah, I love

Dan Austin: [35:32] That's incredible. I love that. Dude, there's some energy right there, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [35:35] Yeah. It's real. It is real. I know. And that's the thing I love about you too, CJ, is that that is very apparent from, like, when I first met with you is you are super passionate about what you do. And, you know, I'd say when things are when we're working on big things, I definitely get excited about going into my next workday or even right now, Dan, I do a lot of stuff. So at nighttime, I'm like, man, I can't wait for the morning to I get back to work.

Dan Austin: [35:58] I can't wait to start this again yet.

Mike DeHaan: [36:00] Or like, you know, this past Monday, it was a holiday. I was like, fuck. Why is everyone not working? Like, this is like the best time to be getting shit done,

CJ Moss: [36:06] you know? Yeah. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [36:08] But I'm definitely waking up at 04:30, so you're much more excited than I am because fuck that. That's way too early. But awesome, man. So lots of good stuff here. And I just love the passion that you have in the way you approach the business. I think that, you know, I guess just to to reemphasize some of the stuff that you said is building this out, there's no magic bullet. It's massive, consistent action. And it's the stuff that so many guests say that Dan and I say on a regular basis. And maybe maybe eventually, if you're listening to this and you've listened to like a bunch of different episodes of the the clicking keys podcast, and you're like, I understand these guys are saying this every single time, but my situation is different. I promise you it's not. We were all the same. It's all about just like getting through that discomfort of like, I feel like I'm not making progress and just being consistent with it and refining developing, pushing through. And that's where the success comes, especially in a business like real estate and wholesaling.

CJ Moss: [37:03] Absolutely. And you know one of the other thing guys, I'm definitely curious to get your insight on this. A lot of these podcasts are for wholesalers who are just starting. So we're talking about the consistency and getting the first deals and stuff like that. But actually once you become a wholesaler who's consistently doing deals and running a successful business or a sustainable business, we don't talk as much about the challenges there. Because there are a lot of challenges there as well, right? And one thing that I hit last year is that I felt like I was on a, just a revolving deal wheel, where it's like, this is gonna sound, I'm sure you guys have felt this as well, we were getting $30 checks that literally, when I first got a $30 check, I will explode. And then now I'm getting them, I'm just like, bank, emotionless. Just put in the bank, emotionless, right? It just becomes part of the process. And I actually started to almost feel a little burnt last year, right? And I started to think about, I actually got a coach. I got Cody Hoffine, this guy who started Wholesaling Inc, he's my mentor now. So I meet with him. Nice. Lovely. And we talk about our why. We talk about why are we doing this? And originally it was like to make a million dollars and to own hundreds of units and all this other stuff. But once you get there you realize this isn't actually fulfilling as much, or at least for me personally it wasn't fulfilling.

CJ Moss: [38:25] It was like what's next? So my wife and I have started this thing, and I'm actually really excited for it, where our goal is to basically grow this wholesaling company, it's an incredible company, to buy as many multifamily units as possible in our area. So right now we've got about 160, and we're trying to grow that to seven fifty over the next three years. With the goal being creating hundreds of thousands of dollars that come in per month, and then to spend that money, actually to donate that money to sellers that we meet, where maybe they wanna stay in their home. Maybe they're just people who, they need a boiler, but they can't afford a boiler. They need a roof, but they can't afford to put a roof on their home. And literally to just rehab these people's houses for free for them, and to see how many houses we could do. Like dude, how many boilers can we put in this year? How many windows can we donate this year? And that's kind of our new thing. So we started that this year, and I know in a few years, dude, I'm gonna hit you guys up and be like, bro, we just built 50 houses for people this

Mike DeHaan: [39:30] year and gave them away

CJ Moss: [39:31] for free. And this is like, that stuff is exciting to me.

Dan Austin: [39:34] I love it. That's incredible.

Mike DeHaan: [39:35] Yeah. Shifting towards that philanthropic sort of view. It's funny. And feel like a lot of op arc investors, especially once you get into these situations in your neighborhood, you know, that are local to you and you see the living conditions and the situations that people are dealing with, it's hard not to lean that way. But you're like, I love the benevolent capitalist view of like, you know, we are going to go and create this huge wealth and have all of this money in income so that we can make a difference. Because I feel like that is regularly lost in society, and everything is always leaning towards like, oh, we need to be more socialist, or it's like being like, oh, well, fuck everyone else. I'm just gonna get as rich as I can and look out for myself. It doesn't need to be that way. Like, capitalism gets a bad rap, but it doesn't actually need to be bad.

Dan Austin: [40:19] There's a middle ground.

CJ Moss: [40:20] Woah, it's like, honestly, I feel like I have an obligation. We wanna make $7,000,000 this year, that's our goal. It grows. And I'm like, I have an obligation. I have to make this money, because when I make this, I'll be able to do all this stuff for these people, and I'll be able to have multi families for my employees to give them retirement money, and like, dude, we gotta do this. We gotta make a

Mike DeHaan: [40:43] ton of money. Yeah. I love that man.

Dan Austin: [40:45] That is a good why. I like that you have to. There's no like, well we could, it would be nice if we did. It's like, no, we have to. That is a motivator. Awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [40:54] Yeah. Super good stuff, CJ. I think I think it's a great way to go into our end of show questions here. But, yeah, you got me got me in a spot, man. I'm like, that is I'm just hearing you going, what is my why? What do I need to really deal with all that? That is a hard question to answer. It is super challenging.

CJ Moss: [41:07] Yeah. It's a good one to dig into for sure, Awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [41:10] Yeah. I love it. Alright. So going into our end of show questions here. We have three questions that we always ask every guest that comes on this show. Number one, I'm sure you have a good answer to this. What is your craziest real estate investing story? And this can be a big win, a big loss, crazy seller, tenant, transaction, whatever you have. Only rule is it can't be about finding a dead body in a property because we've had enough of those stories, and they just get super depressing really quick.

CJ Moss: [41:36] Have you had a lot of those?

Mike DeHaan: [41:38] Dude, that's like everyone's go to story is like the They had enough. Liquefied body that they found that was like three months old and I'm like, I don't

Dan Austin: [41:45] Especially the New Orleans folks. They

Mike DeHaan: [41:46] always do murders. Like, honestly. What is that? You're right actually, like that's a very Louisiana thing apparently, New

CJ Moss: [41:54] Orleans thing. Yeah, like crazy. Honestly at this point, they blended. Mhmm. I can tell you one I'm dealing with right now, man, it's not ideal, but it's a great learning lesson for me, right? So I'm a big numbers dude. Last year had to hit nine deals a month. We were on deal eight. I was like, we need a deal, we need a deal, we need a deal. This owner called me and was like, hey CJ, I get this property right. I'll give it to you by some amount of dollars, but you can't get

Mike DeHaan: [42:20] in there.

CJ Moss: [42:20] I'm like, why can't I get in? Well, because I don't want to scare the tenants, I don't want them to leave. I'm sure you've heard that before. Leg flags are going off in my head, but I'm also like, dude, you need a deal. You gotta justify why this could possibly be a deal, Buy it sight on sight. Worst property, one of the worst I've ever seen. So not only is it one of worst I've ever seen, it needs $200 worth of work. The tenants are horrific. They're horrific. And the guys said they were on month to month. They're actually on leases till 2025. What? Oh my god. Massachusetts is a very, very tenant friendly state. So they're still in there almost a year later. My guys do the clean out. There's buckets, five gallon buckets of human feces all along the banks of the building. Even use the bathroom over there. Bro, the thousands of needles scattered around the property, the bats falling off the property, the amount of mold in there. Long story short, I'm going through this process, it's gonna make me a better person, I'm gonna get them out. But the moment I bought it for $2.70, they actually moved out. They moved back in, but at the time they just moved out. I listed it, the highest offer I got, the crazy high market was $1.20. The more that I've blown, lost a buck 65. But you got all a bunch of buckets of poo poo.

Dan Austin: [43:46] That's gotta be worth something.

CJ Moss: [43:47] I'm totally going through this right now. I that it's, I know that it's gonna make me a better investor, but it feels like a large challenge. Man. Like a large

Mike DeHaan: [43:57] pile Yeah, of that's brutal. What is the realistic ARV on it once it's all fixed up?

CJ Moss: [44:01] You know, probably $4.50.

Mike DeHaan: [44:03] They bought it for like $2.70? I bought

CJ Moss: [44:06] it for $2.70, probably needs anywhere from above 50 to 200.

Mike DeHaan: [44:10] Oh my god.

CJ Moss: [44:11] And, you know, I'll hold it for a rental probably till I die, and I'll just have this property as my little reminder to not do dumb things. That's a great, that's a

Dan Austin: [44:20] great motivator. I'm just gonna keep this and make sure I don't do that again.

Mike DeHaan: [44:23] Yeah, right. Just like the, I don't know, like the scab that you always sort of like leave there, I don't know, it's a little scar that you can just always look at.

CJ Moss: [44:30] Exactly, understand. Yeah, that's a good one, I like that, that's funny. Yeah, and you know what, if anyone actually does follow our Instagram, find the one called the Carver Conundrum. Watch the Carver Conundrum while our Instagram, it's absolutely hilarious. Yeah, I had to go there and watch that then.

Mike DeHaan: [44:43] It's good stuff, yeah, that's funny. Alright, that's a good story, I like that. Okay. Second question is, what is the number one tip you would have for either a new investor looking to get started, or a small time investor looking to take their business to the next level?

CJ Moss: [44:57] The number one tip is consistent massive action. You gotta do it. So an example of that would be if you're new and you wanna start networking with people, you gotta network with three people a week, every single week, no matter what. There you go. If you wanna cold call people, you gotta cold call 50 people a day, every day, no matter what. Stay disciplined and just consistent massive action. Do what other people are not willing to do consistently. I love that. And I appreciate the actionable steps that

Mike DeHaan: [45:24] you put behind that, because that's a pretty common response, is consistent action, but there's no weight on that. So everyone's always like, alright. I'm gonna take consistent action today, but it's like, what

Dan Austin: [45:32] the fuck does that actually mean? But what is it? What action am I taking today?

Mike DeHaan: [45:36] I ate breakfast. It was an extra big breakfast. Is that massive action? I don't know. Yeah. But so that yeah. Great. Great. Great tip. Alright, last question. Where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you if you'd like them to do so?

CJ Moss: [45:49] I'm always open to talking on the phone, or I love giving life to new investors, or people who are like discouraged because they're having a hard time. If you wanna call me, (508) 844-8884. That's my cell phone. You can reach out to me. I'm totally cool and happy to chat with you if you're serious. Don't call me if you're not serious, but if you're really serious and you're invested and you need help, I'm here for you. And then our Instagram, you know, we're really trying to pump out good content right now. It's MossHomeSolutions. Just mosshomesolutions. It's a lot of stuff, me and my wife, and you'll see some interesting cover videos online.

Mike DeHaan: [46:24] Yeah. Perfect. Awesome. Well, thanks much for coming on the show, CJ. It's been good to catch up to you, man. And glad to hear that you're you're crushing it Yeah. Even more than when we connected last year, which I already was like, dang, this guy's crushing it. You're going to a whole new level. So I love it. Good stuff. Anyways, guys, thanks so much for listening to this show. Please go and share it with anyone who might find it interesting. And honestly, who wouldn't find this interesting? I mean, at the very least, you get to listen to CJ's sexy deep voice for what forty six minutes. So there's something in here for everyone. But CJ really has a wealth of knowledge. So absolutely take him up and reach out to him, shoot him a text, follow him on Instagram. He is really, really doing some huge things. And he isn't doing enough for you now, you should follow him right now because then you can say that you followed CJ Moss before he was, you know, building 50 properties for free on the East Coast and doing really, really big things. So, yep, being early adopter.

Dan Austin: [47:17] Big stuff.

Mike DeHaan: [47:18] Anyways, guys, if you want to start generating off market leads and get the basic framework to start taking that massive action, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free. And you get a free five step guide, start generating off market leads. On top of that, one last thing, if you go and you leave us a five star review on this, wherever you listen to your podcast, then you send me a screenshot of that on my Instagram at Mike underscore invest. I will send you a free Click and Keys t shirt. Yeah. So you should definitely go do that. I've had a lot of people a lot more people doing that recently, which has been pretty cool. And I've been sending out a lot of shirts, so I love to send those out. They are nice shirts. You can also see those on my Instagram too if you wanna check them out. So send me a five star review on my underscore invest. I'll send you a free shirt. Besides that, everybody, thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to y'all next week. See you.

CJ Moss: [47:59] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.