Our 3-Year Real Estate Deal, Co-Lending, and Wire Fraud

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

Mike DeHaan: [1:04] All risk is it's either a lack of knowledge or a lack of control. What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. If this is your first time here, this is the real estate show by operators for operators so you can continue to grow your real estate business and make a ton of money through all of the ups and downs of the economy, real estate market, and just like people. You know? Because I feel like that's kind of the the big thing that people don't talk about is like the culture index and like the fact that we live in this weird country right now that's a capitalistic country that's mostly uncapitalist. It's like it's a change in.

Dan Austin: [1:44] The black swan is the culture that you can't control?

Mike DeHaan: [1:47] Dude, totally. Right? And I feel like that isn't talked about.

Dan Austin: [1:49] It feels like waves. Right? Like you can almost feel it. You know what's funny? Like I was actually thinking about this because my, you know, my social media algorithm is mostly like funny shit. Like, I'm not like trying to go hard.

Mike DeHaan: [2:02] You can share as as detailed as you want to, know exactly what your algorithm is.

Dan Austin: [2:06] It's not anything educated or important to the world, but I swear they have an ability to turn the faucet on, maybe it's just the the pressure from the people that just pushes it over and bleeds over into my shit, or maybe the the social media people are turning it on. But I get an exact dichotomy almost like real for real or whatever of like, anything that's happening that's maybe hit the news or whatever from both perspectives. It's interesting how it's kind of balanced, but in an educated ways on either way, because that's what catches people's like eyes. Like, the tariffs are going in place right now. I'm like, here's how it's gonna kill everybody in America and the country's over. And then the opposite side is like, hell, yeah. And then it's just funny memes about Canada and how dumb they are. And you know what I mean? Like but it's like the social pressure on both sides getting pushed over and bleeding into my algorithm of usually funny things.

Mike DeHaan: [3:01] I mean, that's good. Yours is a lot more balanced than mine. Mine tends to mine tends to get weird enough.

Dan Austin: [3:05] It it's weird. Right? But I do. And I and I get both because like I could see it getting pushed one way or the other, but it's actually both. But it just feels like when you talk about like the culture of it's like these big bow waves of of that, that does make people make decisions.

Mike DeHaan: [3:20] It's true. Honestly, totally.

Dan Austin: [3:21] Yeah. From financial decisions, buying decisions, business long term, jobs, careers, locations, you know, there's a lot.

Mike DeHaan: [3:29] Yeah. For sure. I mean, there's major influence that comes from that these days. Anyways, if this is your first time here, guys, my name is Mike DeHaan, and this is my cohost, Dan Austin. Usually, have a third host, mister Dylan Cook, but I don't know where Dilly Bear is today because he no showed for the podcast.

Dan Austin: [3:46] I hope he's okay.

Mike DeHaan: [3:47] I hope he's okay too. So if you you guys can hit him up at dylan underscore dud underscore deals, and tell him say, hey, Dilpil, we hope you're doing okay, little man. Say it just like that. He'll love you guys for that. If he gets like 15 DMs that are that exactly, I would be so happy.

Dan Austin: [4:02] Ask him for Bitcoin advice too

Mike DeHaan: [4:04] while you're out. Yeah. Don't do that because he gets on his high horse and stuff. It's disgusting from the but anyways, if you're wondering why Mike sounds a little crappy today, I just got back from a GoBundance event and picked up a nice cold while I was there.

Dan Austin: [4:16] Yeah. But That happens.

Mike DeHaan: [4:18] Yeah. You know, as it does. Yeah. So I wanna talk about that event though a little bit because there's just some good overall takeaways from like business and real estate and stuff that happened there. But so if you're unfamiliar with GoBundance, it's like a millionaire mastermind, they call it. And it's like a they have a women's version of it now, but it's a men's group, all like higher net worth, most people entrepreneurs, a lot of real estate guys, And it's a group that Dan and I have been part of for coming up on four years almost.

Dan Austin: [4:46] It's been a while. We're like OGs all of a sudden.

Mike DeHaan: [4:49] Dude, I'll it's it's crazy actually. So it's funny, at the event, they went over like Abundance's KPIs, and the average churn is like just over two years. Wow. So so basically people leave after every two and a quarter, two and a half years. So technically, we are going to be veterans at this point because we have now lasted longer than the average person. You know, and and people typically churn out because I mean, it is expensive to be a part of. I think now for new members is $15,000 a year, and if you don't engage in the community, just like every other community, right, you don't get value out of it. But for people that are heavily engaged, you know, which I would say we fall into, there's an incredible amount of knowledge and life experience, and just like wisdom that exists amongst all the guys that are in there. And yeah, so they just had their first event for the year as their winter mastermind in Snowbird, Utah. And I was down there for four days connecting with guys. And there was some really, really good takeaways from it overall. And just what's always very refreshing to me when I go to things like that is I feel like, kind of you're talking about with your media stuff before, Dan, it's easy to fall into these traps around having these perceptions around the economy, around how things are going, what the potentials are for things to go up, down, whatever. When you're in a room full of entrepreneurs, know that really matters because everyone's very adaptable. Right? And that was actually one of the opening focuses.

Mike DeHaan: [6:14] I always try to have like a theme. And so the theme for this one, except was pattern recognition and learning to recognize patterns that will lead to outcomes. And that's patterns both macro, so like seeing things that are happening, politics, the world, economy, hiring, staff members, whatever, but also on a like a micro internal level too. Right? Like, at what points do you personally find you become less productive? You know? Or, like, what patterns you recognize in your own, like, workflow or your own life that leads you to be happy or leads you to be successful or, you know, leads you to avoid doing something at all costs. And it was a very sort of introspective way to, you know, like, reflective way to view things, which was which was pretty interesting. And they went through a ton of different stuff into that around like how it relates to teams, how you can use it to better manage people. And what was fascinating too is I talked to more and more people, I talked to dozens of people I had met before over the course of that that week, and I think every single person interpreted it completely differently, which which was pretty wild.

Dan Austin: [7:17] Oh, it's so that is funny how people Yeah. Pick up on those, especially those soft skill things of how people hear them and read them and how they put them in action because it could be so different than what you would have expected.

Mike DeHaan: [7:27] Totally. Yeah. But, you know, so it was like some good like little direct quotes that that came from it. One It's of my favorite ones just from David Osborne, but he did a talk kind of on his little legacy, which he's done a bunch of times, but it was he didn't touch on it too much because as he said, he's sick of telling the same story over and over again. But he was talking around hiring and how to find people that are going to fit into an organization where you're looking for a players. And this is something that we talk about a lot in scale. It's something that we've talked about a lot ourselves, talked about a lot of young entrepreneurs, is they wanna like build a team, but they don't know how to find good people. And they said, you know, going towards the pattern recognition piece, what do good people typically what are they driven by? Right? Their own visions, their own goals are not driven by a paycheck. And I feel like when you're a new entrepreneur, you feel like the paycheck flexibility to schedule, the insurance, you know, retirement, those are things that matter. When for a performers, those don't matter at all. Right. But in order to find a performers, the quote was, you have to have a vision that is big enough and a dream that's big enough that their dream fits inside of yours. Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [8:34] Right? I thought that that was a really interesting way to view it. And that's why if you're a small thinker, you know, you have a business that you only wanna make $200,000 a year, you're never gonna find that a player that wants to come in and work for your business, because they probably wanna make more money than you do.

Dan Austin: [8:48] Yeah. Exactly. That's a reasonable expectation for somebody that's gonna be a rock star. Yeah. I think David said at a different event I was at on the similar conversation, but like, within that same kind of context, he he wants his top five employees to be making a million dollars a year. Mhmm. So that sets out, you know, he's I don't know what David's net worth is right now.

Mike DeHaan: [9:09] It's about a 170,000,000, he said. Which is down. Right? Yeah. It was like $2.50.

Dan Austin: [9:13] Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, he's obviously built something pretty decent size in the context of, like, most people's average, like, ability to build business. And so for him to say that, that means like, okay, my top five people that are close to advising me to be making a million dollars a year. For there's CEOs that don't make a million dollars a year at large companies.

Mike DeHaan: [9:34] Oh, yeah.

Dan Austin: [9:35] You know what mean? And so, like, you think about it, he's trying to basically put five rock star CEOs around him to run his business, however his, you know, home or family office or however he breaks that structure down, however that is, like, that's how he's operating. And so to your point, if you're happy with making $2.50 a year and that's your vision, to equate that, then maybe you should have, like, three Filipinos working for you. Because, like, the wage the wage, like, what you could pay somebody, you couldn't pay somebody in America to have their own personal vision underneath you.

Mike DeHaan: [10:05] Absolutely. Yeah. And and, you know, that's one of the reasons it doesn't hurt to dream bigger cause you're gonna attract better talent. Right? You know, people are are drawn to larger vision, especially a level people. But if you just want button pushers, you said, Dan, there's nothing wrong with that. So you need to have realistic expectations. Yeah. Exactly.

Dan Austin: [10:22] You can't have expectations that they are going to perform like a million dollar employee if your vision is for them to be a $10,000 a year employee.

Mike DeHaan: [10:30] Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I think that looking back at the accusation.com little meetups that I went to last year, it was a very similar sort of vibe, right, where Alex Hermosy, right, obviously has this huge vision for what wants to do with acquisition.com, and that's fully reflected in his team. You know, like like several members of his team, they're already self made, you know, multi multi millionaires. Right? Like I talked to like his head of marketing, the first one I went to, the dude sold like a a drop shipping ecommerce company for like 8 figures during COVID. Wow. He still works for Alex. Why? Yeah. He doesn't need to do anything. Right? But he's like wants to be a part of

Dan Austin: [11:08] the bigger thing. He's attracted to the vision.

Mike DeHaan: [11:10] Yeah. And and I think that's a very important thing to to keep in mind, and you can have that as a small business. Right? Basically, it's it's like the same thing as when you have a couple dudes in a bar and they're like, you know, hey, let's like start this business together. Let's like do this thing, and they like have this big plan of action, then you actually go out and fucking do it. Yeah. You know?

Dan Austin: [11:28] Yeah. But you you

Mike DeHaan: [11:29] just gotta keep that same level of excitement and intensity and stuff going and not just sort of end and talk. But, you know, and and I also think too, one of the things talked about is you have to project that and tell people about it. Because if people don't have a way to comprehend that or see that or understand it, then it's never going to be picked up by those a players. Right? So I actually just did a a scale call on this today. Pick your own hiring firm, we talked about this concept. And when you're like a one man operator in a small market, that is hard to do, especially if you don't have social media, especially if you're not going to your real estate meetups, you're too busy, especially if you're not connecting with other investors. Like, you'll never be able to project your visions, you know, and you can go and post a job listing and say like, our goal is to be the number one real estate company in, you know, whatever. But if they can't actually go and see you pursuing that, they're not going to no one's gonna have interest in working for you. Right. Absolutely. I regularly tell people, people ask what the benefits we've seen from having this show, and the number one benefit that I've seen more than anything else has been how easy it is to hire people.

Dan Austin: [12:33] Yeah. That's definitely helped us. You're right.

Mike DeHaan: [12:35] It's crazy. Like looking at some of the the job listings that we've had over the years, where we've I've literally given the exact listing in Posting Cross and everything to other people and scale members, and they'll be like, yeah, I got two applicants. I'll be like, don't know to tell you, bro, I got 70.

Dan Austin: [12:50] Yeah. Right? Well, the nice thing too is if they are a listener or they become a listener after like posting a job, they know our opinions, they know our thoughts, they know our vision, they understand the history of where we've come from, because it's all out there. Mhmm. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [13:03] And people get attracted to that. Mhmm. So, yeah, that was a really really good one. And then I actually really like this quote too. So Dan, how often do you hear people talk about how they need accountability, and how like that's something that they really strive for, and they just want a group or a person to help keep them accountable because they can't do it themselves, But yet they still continue to fail over and over and over again. Too often? Too often. It's like it's like

Dan Austin: [13:29] Is that a number? It's a lot.

Mike DeHaan: [13:31] No. It's not a number. But basically, they kind of like shit on that whole notion

Dan Austin: [13:36] Of accountability.

Mike DeHaan: [13:37] And they said that most people fail at accountability because they're not transparent. Mhmm. Right? And you have to be transparent with yourself and other people. Mhmm. And so that was kind of the general quote is that accountability only works if you have transparency and you're unrelenting with that. And it's such a funny thing where you have people, and you see it in every industry, that are like hiring coaches, you know, bringing on business partners, trying to work with their spouse, that are like, you know, trying to be being held accountable to something, but then they lie about it. That's wild. Both to themselves and Yeah. You know, to whoever they're working with. And one of the big things that I used to think about with this was when I was working at the gym, and I had some people that I would do like nutrition coaching with. And like, we would have people's macros and stuff all weighed out.

Dan Austin: [14:22] I've seen some Instagram reels on this, I love this shit. These are the kind of Instagram reels I get.

Mike DeHaan: [14:26] Dude, like all the time. Like, I'd be like, are you following this? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I'm like, I know that you're not because You're like, the math is science. The math just isn't math ing, bro. And they're like, well, I did go out on Saturday. I'm like, well, why did you take five questions for me to get to that? Just start with that. I had 12 chili dogs,

Dan Austin: [14:44] seven, eleven, and then I got drunk as shit on Saturday night.

Mike DeHaan: [14:47] Yeah, dude. Like always. Yeah. No.

Dan Austin: [14:49] But you see

Mike DeHaan: [14:49] the same thing in business. And I think the funny thing is in business, just like you see in the gym where people they do that and they still show up every day and work out. In business, you still have people that are showing up and working ten to twelve hour days, but they're not doing anything.

Dan Austin: [15:02] That's the easy part of it. Right? It's like, oh, that that's the leading indicator. I work twelve hours, I go to the gym six days a week. That's like the easy one. There's the hard one, which is the counting your macros and showing up for yourself every single day when you're choosing what to put into your pie hole. Right? Same thing with work. The one around like work and growing business is so challenging because sometimes you may not know, like what you need to be working on until after you look back and you're like, shit, shit, wasted my time on that. So that it can get challenging, but I a 100% like can align with the accountability thing, and I would add like one layer that I have found over the years, because it's not just that people lie to themselves, so they don't actually know what they want before they set accountability, so then when they're being held accountable, then they decide to lie, or they don't do the right things, or they get lost in it, and the next thing you know it's like, oh, it's another year, let's start new goals. So you have to really understand that. One thing that I found with my my GoBundance GoPod from an accountability standpoint is the intentionality we kinda set around like, hey, like we're all here to help each other grow, we just need to know what that truly looks like. And we're gonna ask the right questions down the line as you start unfolding those goals and those aspirations, and then just celebrate the wins with you and help you through the losses, but you gotta share what it is that you Exactly. Wanna That transparency, And then from there, you can do a lot. It can be nice to have that accountability.

Dan Austin: [16:27] If you don't use those are the guys that you see churn really fast and go abundance because they're like, well, I don't wanna fail. Mhmm. You know what I mean? Subconsciously, they set these goals that are completely arbitrary, and then they don't do any of them. Then when it's time to be held accountable, they just are like, I can't make that call today, guys. That's also why I'm not a

Mike DeHaan: [16:44] big goals guy. Because I feel like if you call something a goal, you're giving yourself permission to fail. Right? Or what you're doing is people will subconsciously set goals that are so achievable that they limit their ceiling. Yeah. Right? Because they will go at the exact pace. I don't remember the name of the there's like an effect where basically you will take the exact amount of time that you were given to do something.

Dan Austin: [17:05] Yeah. That's an interesting perspective because I don't a 100% disagree with you. I think that you have to have some like guiding some guide on for you to follow, but it may it may be better served as like a feeling. What does it feel like when you're there? Or what does it feel like as you get there? Because, know, a lot of people say, oh, you know, once I get to this level of wealth, for example, then I'll have made it, but then they always notoriously get there, and they're like, dude, I was still miserable. It didn't save it didn't change anything. It's like, well, what feeling were you chasing? What emotion? What did that need? You need to know what that feels like, I think. Otherwise, the goal is meaningless. Whether that's like getting super fit, oh, I'm gonna lose 50 pounds. Like, okay, what is that gonna feel like? If you can't describe that, then maybe it's a completely misplaced goal because you're not you're chasing the wrong thing. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [17:54] And spoiler alert for financial goals, I think the vast majority of people will reiterate this to you, is that whatever you think is gonna feel like you hit that financial goal, it'll be cool for maybe like ten minutes, and then you're gonna feel exactly the same. Right. You know, that's why Right. That's why people say money doesn't buy happiness, which I don't fully agree with. But also if you're a miserable prick, but you have a lot of money, you're still gonna be a miserable prick. Right.

Dan Austin: [18:16] Money money buys freedom, and freedom can be happy. Exactly. It can make you feel happy. Right? Yep. And there's a whole lot lot of other quotes you can throw in there what money does. You know? It does buy you some cool shit, and it does give you that freedom to have time and stuff like that. Because at the end of the day, you you and I've heard a lot of people on the extreme ends of the wealth, as far as being wealthy and them saying, yeah, the money did not make me happier. Mhmm. But then again, the money can do things. One of the things money can do is buy time. And it's not necessarily like buy more time on this earth, because no no matter how rich you are, you can't even buy another millisecond, but it can buy the time that you have left and give it to you as opposed to somebody else. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [18:57] Yep. Cool. And then one more just to wrap up this conversation that I really liked. Matt King is the CEO. He he shared this. He got this from one of, like, the ultra rich, like, legacy families. I can't remember which one it was, but it was one that they were looking at going into an investment on that David knows like a first name basis, they were talking to him about it. And Matt's response, well, I guess, like, comment to them was like, I don't know. This one just like feels very, very risky. And these people's response are that risk does not exist, and they don't believe in risk, and all risk is is either a lack of knowledge or a lack of control. Right? So it basically, the premise being that if you have knowledge around how something's supposed to work, you know, or like what the details are, there's no risk because you'll be able to determine if something's bullshit. Right? Or it's the lack of control in the way that if you are putting your money into a machine that you either have no control over or you have no way of recovering control if things go sideways, then yeah, like you will potentially lose money. Right? So if you can determine like what level of those things you're comfortable with, then there's not really like a risk component at all. Basically, it's just an educated decision.

Dan Austin: [20:09] That's interesting because kind of you and I were actually talking about completely separate as we were before we were recording is like buying an off market house. Mhmm. Like, we have experience and knowledge. So for us, we can come in and we're at the level where we can go and say, let's pay cash for this house, and let's take the risk, whatever that risk is, which is basically not risky to us, but to us brand new, you know, when we first started investing, it felt super risky. I don't know. The first time I bought a rental property, was like, oh my god, I'm gonna this is so risky. Now that I know it, what the I know all the bookends on what can happen, it's not it doesn't feel risky. Now I just make a calculated decision whether the unknowns that might happen are either worth it or not worth it based on the price that I'm getting into that investment at. Exactly. So I can I can kinda relate to that, guess?

Mike DeHaan: [20:56] Yeah. And I would say it's not that like risk doesn't exist in a way that you can't lose money, but basically risk is it's all calculated. Right? And your downside, you can predict that. Or you can make an educated decision. You're no longer like rolling the dice if you have Totally. Proper knowledge, proper control. Right. And, you know, I think in a in a real estate standpoint, that's really important to understand, not only for yourself when it comes to buying properties and analyzing the quote unquote risks there. Because like you said, if you are more experienced, it's you have more knowledge there. Obviously, you do have full control of the asset in the more pieces of the entire process that you are the owner of. Right? Meaning, if you're managing it all yourself versus if you're like a private investor. Mhmm. You know, those are all things that that give you more control. It's very important in real estate, but I would also say it's very important when you are talking to potential investors, when you're looking to get into other parts of real estate like lending, like we've recently done quite a lot. It's funny because so we have this lending company, SLA Capital, that we've been kind of growing this year. And part of

Dan Austin: [21:56] it is a big part of it

Mike DeHaan: [21:58] is we've been working with what's called co lenders, where people can come in and essentially buy fractions of notes that we're lending on. So Mhmm. Yeah, they only have $10,000, they can come in, they can buy $10,000 worth of a $200,000 loan, they make 12% interest on it. But what that prevents us from having to do is go and like raise a fund, make sure that they're accredited investors, all sorts of things, because they're actually coming in as a JV partner on the asset.

Dan Austin: [22:22] Mhmm. Yeah. They're still in first position. Right? Or normally, if you're gonna loan somebody $10, that's usually a second, third, or fourth position. Exactly. So you can come in as first position, and then we can now go and get more loans done. Exactly. And the

Mike DeHaan: [22:35] thing that I love about this model is we can work with more average people, since, you know, not everyone's an accredited investor. We have a lot more flexibility on our money. We alleviate what's called cash drag, which is when you have funds that you've raised that you haven't allocated, they're basically costing your business money. But the biggest objection challenge that I've had when talking to people has been they don't have a full understanding of how real estate works. Right? Which one of reasons that the accredited investor sort of designation exists is because there's this old adage, if you figured out how to make money, you must be educated to understand how things work. Right? When you're talking to somebody that only has like a $100,000, they wanna give you 20,000 of that. They haven't necessarily cracked the code to make money yet. And so the big questions that people always have around like, I don't even understand how real estate's secured. Yeah. I I I understand you have like a loan, but, know, I haven't explained them what a deed of trust is, what a promissory note is, personal guarantee. We should make a cartoon. We definitely should actually. That would be really good, like a little This is how it works.

Mike DeHaan: [23:36] Educational, like a little, like, ebook. You know. That would be cool. Because they they there's a level of of knowledge that they don't have. And so when they hear that they could make 11 or 12% interest on it, to them it feels risky because it sounds too good to be true compared to the bank account that they're getting 3% on right now.

Dan Austin: [23:52] Yeah. Or the stock market, which is completely unsecured.

Mike DeHaan: [23:56] Yeah. Exactly. So their perceived level of risk is high, when in reality, from our end, it's extremely low Yeah. Because we understand the asset, we're the ones that are completely in control of the process, we're investors in it ourselves. And so it's been an interesting experiment, sure, like, going through that. Right. Because it's like a it really shows how much that perceived risk can vary based off of feeling of control and their total understanding. 100%. So but yeah, you know, I got a lot of takeaways too, but we've rambled enough about those. Those are three of my favorite ones that came out. But overall, it was a great event, you know, and if if you have that, I think you need to, what, $2,000,000 net worth now, and you want to, you know, get around more guys that are crushing it. A lot of younger guys too these days. It's funny. Was it was one of the first times I met quite a few guys that are younger than me at only 34 is pretty remarkable. Wow. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. But, yeah, if you have Bill Bunnings, it's a good group. Anyone that's in real estate, think, can get a real estate, especially, I think you can get a ton from it.

Dan Austin: [24:52] There's the Emerge crowd too, if you don't meet that criteria that you can join GoBundance Emerge, and that has notoriously been like one of the best, if not better than the main group of GoBundance just because they have so much more education. And I don't know what I'd call it, just like events and things around getting those guys up to the $2,000,000 mark. And it's and it's just a lot more energy because for a lot of the people that are in the Emerge group, they're just they're where we were several years ago, where we're like, let's go. I will tackle the world to get to where I wanna go.

Mike DeHaan: [25:22] Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Emerge is a good option. Yeah. So We're not like sponsored by GoBundance, you know, we're just just some it's a group that we really

Dan Austin: [25:28] We don't get paid at all from them.

Mike DeHaan: [25:30] I know we should though,

Dan Austin: [25:31] honestly. They should. They should pay us.

Mike DeHaan: [25:32] But but yeah. It's it's a group we believe in. We've been a part of for a while, so definitely something to check out if that's for you.

Mike DeHaan: [25:37] If you can give me about thirty six seconds, I just wanna share our scale community with you. So scale stands for scaling cash flow assets, leverage, and equity. It is our exclusive community for real estate operators looking to take this game seriously. In the community, you'd hang out with myself, Dan, Dylan, and other operators around the country who are all working to be the best in their market. We really did a survey, and every single member said that the community had directly contributed to major growth they experienced in the last twelve months. On top of that, you get all of our processes around marketing, sales, building a CRM, and you even get preferred relationships with Lowe's and different financing slash lenders so that you can get your deals 100% paid for without a headache. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, go to collectingkeys.com/scale. Let's see if you're a good fit.

Mike DeHaan: [26:21] So that was my last week, and then I know you released an episode about a lot of our deals. Mhmm. I don't know if we have any like major updates or anything that we wanna talk about. I do have an interesting lesson on I actually have two lessons from last week.

Dan Austin: [26:36] Yeah. Let's hear them.

Mike DeHaan: [26:37] So first one, this is this is a quick one to explain. It's a lesson on follow-up, and the importance of continuing to, I would say, market to motivated people and and do your your long term follow-up process. So we closed the deal on Friday, how much did we make on Blake Road? $20? $20. We made $20,000 on that deal. And, you know, we are currently in February 2025. And that property had been in our system since early of twenty twenty two. So it was like since April, I think. So almost three full years a property had been in, and it had been in for so long, we had talked to two different sellers, and the funny thing is is when they called us for this transaction, they actually called us as a new lead.

Dan Austin: [27:22] That's wild. Right? I did not know that part.

Mike DeHaan: [27:24] I didn't know Yeah.

Dan Austin: [27:26] Did we mail them again? We couldn't. We wouldn't, did we? Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [27:29] We did. Yeah. So basically, if if stuff has been dead for long enough, we'll reput them in.

Dan Austin: [27:33] We'll kick it back in. Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [27:35] Yeah. Exactly. So we mailed them again, they called, and we talked to a different seller of the same house, which is now the previous person that we talked to son, and that reopened it, we ended up getting a contract.

Dan Austin: [27:45] That's wild.

Mike DeHaan: [27:45] And the funny thing is too, so we we got that contract for 500, we sold it for $5.20. The original asking price in 2022 was 850,000.

Dan Austin: [27:54] Wow. Which isn't honestly too far off of where especially in 2022 where it should have been. $8.50 is a lot, maybe $7.50, but like Yeah. It sounds absurd, but like it actually with the market. And the crazier thing is is we probably mailed them as I and W properties We did? The first time. So we've mailed them as backyard home buyers this time, which is we we've rebranded. So that's what's even more fascinating. And I think people forget like, or people get wrapped around like, what is brand loyalty? And I think brand loyalty isn't doesn't necessarily exist too much from like, to stay with the same seller from house to house, but it's like, what are they who's aware of you at that moment when they need to sell the house? Brand awareness, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [28:35] Yeah. And that's 90% of the business, right, is being in front of the right person. Mhmm. Right? When they decide to make the decision to sell.

Dan Austin: [28:41] Yeah. It's not Coke versus Pepsi, it's who can I sell to right now? Who do I know? Who seems the most legit, because we've also had that before. The seller, actually, when I talked to him on the phone as I was going through the disposition process, he was like, you guys legit seemed like the most professional out there, and you seemed not sleazy, you seemed really good. And he had heard comments from friends of his like, hey, those cash buyers, they'll do weird stuff at the last minute. You gotta be careful. So the word's on the street, because there's too many dirtbags out here trying to do dirtbag shit. Right? So he kinda knew what he was getting into. It went, you know, he understood it wasn't like he didn't know what a wholesaler was and all that. But like he even said, he's like, yeah, your branding, everything just seems so much more professional with you guys, that's why I went with you. And that goes back to the brand awareness and what that brand represents. It's Yeah. Not brand loyalty, it's just getting in front of them. Totally. Yeah. And, you know, this guy

Mike DeHaan: [29:28] was an attorney. He was like a put together person. Like he had options, ultimately they had to get rid of it because of a divorce and some other family stuff. But yeah. So that that was a good lesson on follow-up and making sure that you are keeping your mailings updated, and that you're continuing to reach out to people if they have potential reason to need to sell at a discount.

Dan Austin: [29:46] For sure.

Mike DeHaan: [29:46] Okay. Second lesson, we had our first situation last week of an attempted wire fraud. That one was wild. Scary. Which was pretty fascinating, honestly, like how it came together. And I don't know if what this says about Dan and I's employers, but the first thing that we both had was that someone in our team fucked up.

Dan Austin: [30:08] Not that they fucked up, but like they oh, I see what you're

Mike DeHaan: [30:10] saying.

Mike DeHaan: [30:10] Or they given like wrong instructions or they have like been doing something weird with like the the closer? Yeah. But so we had this it was actually a loan for our our lending company that was paying off. And you've been talking to somebody that works for us, and basically she had been getting like weird vibes. Right? And so she called me, she had her number on file, she was like, hey. She's like, I know you. We've done business. I know exactly who you are, so I can verify this is you. He like, do you know who this person is? And I was like, yeah. He works for me. He's like, okay. Well, something's weird. Like, I don't know what it is, what he's trying to do. I'm just getting such weird vibes. I just don't feel comfortable wiring up the money. And so we kinda went through the full conversation. And ultimately, what we inferred is that I'm not fully certain of this particular PC yet, but I'm quite quite positive this is what's happened. The title company had actually been like what's the what's the word I'm looking for?

Dan Austin: [31:02] Breach. Data breach hacked.

Mike DeHaan: [31:03] They had been breached. Yeah. Breach, infiltrated, whatever. Someone had gotten into their database, their CRM something, and had basically seen that our loan was paying off today. They had gone through, they had found the point of contact's email, which was our our team member. They had blocked him in like the main account, so that he couldn't outreach anymore, and they had created a separate email that was basically SLA Capital with an s on the end. So that way, when they were emailing back and forth, unless you really looked at it, you couldn't see

Dan Austin: [31:35] You wouldn't notice that.

Mike DeHaan: [31:36] No way. And they had gone as far as to get checks that were made, that had our company on them. Like our company name with our mailing address, and then like had like their company name with like a little, like hidden in there kind of in the middle, it was going to like the sketchy online bank, they actually recreated our loan payoff statement with all of their like banking information at the bottom of it.

Dan Austin: [31:59] Yeah. They like copied and pasted, like they had our loan payoff statement.

Mike DeHaan: [32:02] Oh yeah, totally. Which is unique

Dan Austin: [32:03] to us, it's not like a standard form.

Mike DeHaan: [32:05] No, they had like all the hard docs and everything, they had like the loan reconveyance, they had everything that you would need to essentially come off as the lender, And the thing that triggered the title agent was the fact that when she would call our guy, it would instantly go to like a, this voicemail box has not been set up, and then she would leave a voicemail, and he would never call back, or like doctor Shubusi, and then he would always email like five or ten minutes later and say, hey, sorry I missed your call, I tried to call you back and the phone number just keeps not going through, If you could just confirm you got the wire truck and just send the money, that would be awesome. So sorry, I'm really busy today, like I know we need to close this today, and basically was relying on the fact that it was Friday, and knew this lady would be trying to get it done, hoping that she would eventually be like, yeah, whatever, it's fine, and just get the money out. But she did her job as the closer and recognized that it was feeling sketchy and refused to do it Yeah. And called, and they ended up just sending us a check because that's how they felt most secure doing it, which is totally fine.

Dan Austin: [33:08] It's wild, dude. And the thing is, so we were just also for clarity, we were the lender on this, so it was a payoff getting paid to us. Mhmm. But now I've kind of like, I called their bank and I was like, okay, how should I do these wire instructions? Is there still not like a really good way to do it? Because even talking to like one of our title agents, like, she texts me the wire instructions because she's like, I can send it to your encrypted through our system, it goes out encrypted. But I just take that. I don't have an encrypted mail system. I just take that and I send it to our bank, and I say, hey, wire this money out of this account. And then the bank calls me and says, wanna confirm you wanna send money. But I mean, like, there's still steps in there where it's not, like, secure. And so if somebody gets hacked into your email or does something, they're just gonna be able to see all your shit. And they're gonna just be like, cool. I'll just manipulate that a little bit and just like this person did and deal money. Wire fraud is a real thing. I feel like now I'm happy that I get calls like, hey, I wanna confirm these wire instructions. I'm like, shit, bitch, I sent them to you. Like, you know what I mean?

Mike DeHaan: [34:04] That is but now I see why. It was very eye opening for sure.

Dan Austin: [34:07] Yeah. I thought wire fraud was some weird stuff they like like slap on like a white collar guy for doing some other weird crime that had nothing to do with wiring. It's a real thing. Actually steal money with wires. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [34:19] Yeah. And I mean, and they have their process down. Right? Dude, they probably have SOPs. How they do. The funny thing is too, is I I looked up the company name, and this is how crafty they are. So the company name was almost exactly the same as this cybersecurity company. Interesting. Right? That they had. So it was a little bit different. That was very intentional, right? Like, I guarantee that they went and they made this company name that looked similar to an existing company Damn. That was like a cybersecurity, so that they could look more legit if somebody did decide to back check that. Wow. Right? Or it's a cybersecurity company that was doing that on purpose. They could be like, see, dumbass, you just got your shit hacked. Now you need to hire us. They're red teaming

Dan Austin: [35:02] them or whatever they call that. Yeah. Right. Yeah, dude. That's wild. This is why we need Bitcoin. 100%. Wish Dylan was here to talk about it.

Mike DeHaan: [35:08] Oh, yeah. Dylan would be able to jerk off a little bit why Bitcoin reminisces doesn't happen.

Dan Austin: [35:12] Why would he need Bitcoin?

Mike DeHaan: [35:13] It it has a an undestructible ledger or whatever they say. Yeah. Oh, man. So anyways, those are our good lessons. Cool. Anything else to add, Dan, before we wrap this up?

Dan Austin: [35:23] No. Yeah. Good week. Everything went well. So I think that we we got our money safe and sound. We closed some deals last week. Yeah. Things are moving. 2025 is hopefully looking good for everybody out there listening too.

Mike DeHaan: [35:35] It is looking good. We already have two scale members who are on in fact, more than that, three scale members include Dylan, who are on track to do a million dollars this year, and it's only January. Which is amazing. Especially because January is usually like the slow month. Usually, you're needing to pick up for the rest of the year.

Dan Austin: [35:49] Yeah. Yeah. We've got people really, like, scratching, knocking at the door of a 100 k fees in a month, which is pretty freaky.

Mike DeHaan: [35:55] Yeah. Which is pretty wild. I know. And we talked to Mason this morning about that, just really quick to wrap up on our call. And, I was like, oh, yeah. You know? And then when you're you're out, you're spending, you know, $1,015,000 dollars in marketing. He's like, bro, I like, I'm only at 4,000. I just increased to 7. I'm like, you're spending $4,000 in marketing, and you already have 86,000 on the books for January.

Dan Austin: [36:14] That's dude. Like, I know. Those numbers are unreal.

Mike DeHaan: [36:17] 21 x on your ad spend? Stupid.

Dan Austin: [36:20] That's called hustle, baby.

Mike DeHaan: [36:21] Yeah. No shit. Awesome, guys. Alright. Well, thanks for listening. Please share this with anyone's in the real estate business or, I don't know, whatever the fuck else we would appeal to. I want to talk to you guys next week. See y'all.

Mike DeHaan: [36:35] 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.