Sellers No Showing to Closing, Big Wins In the Instant Investor Program, Did We Discover a Serial Killer?

Dan Austin: [0:00] This is one of those things they're gonna be on sixty minutes. And they're like, the neighbors called in like three times every week saying that they heard women screaming in the basement and just the police looked the other way.

Mike DeHaan: [0:12] I know. Yeah. And everybody's gonna like, how did they not know? I know.

Dan Austin: [0:15] You're gonna be like, I told you. I called the police.

Mike DeHaan: [0:23] What's going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. Today is Wednesday. This is the Mike and Dan show. This is where I, Mike DeHaan, and my cohost here at Dan Austin, talk about this week's real estate investing business and whatever else we feel like. And we have had such a traditional off market real estate week. We have

Dan Austin: [0:50] We have. It's been up and down, left and right.

Mike DeHaan: [0:52] I know, after, it's funny, because when we first started this show, we talked about real estate crazy stories and that was a thing. As we

Dan Austin: [0:59] I was like that our main topic was all the weird shit we ran into.

Mike DeHaan: [1:02] We were in the trenches right then, right? Yeah. And as we scaled and we're doing this partnership program where we're partnering with people all around the country, Right? We're doing a lot of our business virtually. We just aren't in the mix as much. But this past week showed that being virtual doesn't really matter. You can still face weird sellers and all the other nonsense that comes up with that. Oddballs.

Dan Austin: [1:25] So we'll just we'll just

Mike DeHaan: [1:26] go through it. So like in the past week, we've had a seller no show on some deals. Right? So we weren't able to close. We've had a self and a call in that we're pretty sure is like a murderer.

Dan Austin: [1:39] Right? He may have admitted to murder.

Mike DeHaan: [1:42] Murder like on there. Right? We've had At least implicated himself. Yeah. Yeah. We've had several sellers that have like tried to back out or like change terms or have not disclosed stuff to us at the last second. I mean, has just been like textbook wholesale sort of real estate stuff for us a little bit.

Dan Austin: [2:01] You know how I know we've been through this is I don't think we we definitely weren't shook by any of it. No. It was just like, okay, this is like you get to a point where, okay, these are the steps we're going to take. Yeah. We're just executing.

Mike DeHaan: [2:13] This was actually something that I found really interesting was so basically with our business, our entire staff has turned over really in 2023 versus what it was previously. Yep. Not because we had bad staff before, it was just that, you know, as you're growing a business, you will find that the people that help your business grow from point a to point b aren't necessarily the same people that are gonna take you from point b to point c.

Dan Austin: [2:36] Very

Mike DeHaan: [2:36] true. And what we had is we had some people, we tried to square peg them into the wrong spots in the virtual business, it didn't work. Yep. So we ended up having a full turnover of staff and that's fine. But as a result, a lot of our staff, even though they're, you know, skilled in sales, they're able to close deals, they are green to the turbulence of wholesale real estate. And so we have things like the first thing that we dealt with last week was the seller no showing to closing, which we've had happen so many times.

Dan Austin: [3:06] Yeah. So often.

Mike DeHaan: [3:07] Yeah. So often. And and this whole situation was we were scheduled to close. He verified with us the day before, the seller, that we're all good to go. We said yes. Okay. Absolutely. We're all good. Close tomorrow, that's fine.

Dan Austin: [3:22] And he had been communicating, just as a side note, isn't always how it works, is he had been communicating with us pretty regularly. Super regularly. Like he was worried we weren't gonna close.

Mike DeHaan: [3:30] I know. Yeah. And then all of a sudden our partner that's in this market sends a message and they're like, hey, I saw a thing from another wholesaler with this people trying to buy tomorrow, you know, or today at this point, and we're like, what? So we're trying to figure that out, we were hitting him up, the seller ghosted us all day. We go to the attorney and we say we're gonna put a memorandum on title, basically a cloud title which forces him to sell the property to us at some point in the future. It's like, I don't know, is it like a lien or if there's like, what the is it actually like a cloud or

Dan Austin: [4:02] It's a basically, you record what's called, yeah, a Memorandum of Sale. Means that when a title agency goes to pull the title report, it will pop up on there and they can't insure that because basically, they're saying it's saying that, hey, there's this other person that has a legal right to buy this property Mhmm. Fundamentally, and so they won't they won't insure the title. They won't basically give them clean title. Exactly. If you tried to sell to somebody else.

Mike DeHaan: [4:28] Yeah. So the only way around it is if somebody goes and pays cash and waives like all of the title contingencies, which very rare, if ever. I don't know why

Dan Austin: [4:37] I knew whatever to do. Yeah. Would be super rare unless the dude could talk them into it because then when they that's when that person went to go sell it, and if it was a traditional sale, they wouldn't it wouldn't work. Basically, no lender if there's that's why you see on your HUD statements, like, lenders policy, like, there's like, a lender is always getting you're paying

Mike DeHaan: [4:53] for it, but they're always getting their own policy as Exactly. So he he essentially, with that, he can't sell it to anybody else. And then sure enough, we sent him a text message, and we're like, hey. Just so you know, this is what we're doing. You know, we got our our attorney involved and all that sort of stuff. Literally, eight minutes later, he texts back and he's like, Hey, I'm so sorry. I've been talking to I this other know that's wrong. He's like, I need to figure out these things with like my franchise tax in Texas and after that we're good to go. He immediately This text too is like, I'm trying

Dan Austin: [5:22] to get them to not buy it. It's like Yeah. Right. Well, okay. Sorry, dude. But like, you can't just you can just tell them no. Like, I'm already under contract with these other guys. Like, I'm trying to get them to not buy it. Like, were they holding them hostage?

Mike DeHaan: [5:33] And the funny thing is too is like this isn't like some old lady or like some somebody who doesn't understand. This is a this is a Chinese guy Slumlord. Who owns a bunch of LLCs and is a foreign slumlord.

Dan Austin: [5:44] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [5:45] And has these crappy properties that he's still making money on. Yes. So he fully knows what he's doing. He can play dumb, but he's just being a bastard.

Dan Austin: [5:54] This is a common thing, and actually there's a couple ways to address this, but like really there's so like Mike and I have never made it a habit to buy a house if somebody doesn't wanna sell it to us. Like if somebody's like flat out like, I don't wanna sell it to you, I'm changing my I'm having a change of heart. Like, we don't typically pursue. Like, as a little old lady that's like, I just can't find a place to live. We're not like, oh gosh, you have a PSA with us, we're suing you. Like, we don't do that. Mhmm. Never have, never will. But in this case, where this guy was just a slumlord, and he was just trying to basically re trade with a whole another buyer, knew exactly what was Like, was just trying to go and find a better deal for whatever reason at the last minute, and just ixnay on our contract, and so that's when we just kinda took the steps, called the local attorney, and every state's gonna be different how you can do this, but like, for us, this one was like, it's like $300. Lawyer drafts it up, boom, puts it, he goes and records it for $50 in that county, it only costs $50, and then now they have that cloud on title. It doesn't mean anything. We could also go down the path of suing this guy, but that's never fruitful. I would never recommend that for a wholesale fee to sue somebody. But yeah, definitely this. And we've done similar things in similar situations, but not all the same in order to protect our interests, even if it's like long term benefit.

Mike DeHaan: [7:02] Well, think the only other time that we've done something quite like this was when we had that lady who decided she was gonna back out at the like, basically at the ninetieth hour.

Dan Austin: [7:12] Yeah. That that one there that you're talking about was like a first right of refusal essentially, right, where we basically were able to record like, hey, we get the first right at this price, basically, we had like a strike price recorded, it was this price on the PSA, and that seller actually recorded that, or signed that for us, and said, okay, if I decide to sell again in the future, because I know what I'm doing to you guys, Again, the day before closing, I don't wanna sell to you. I know what I'm doing, and so we just and she was about to go into foreclosure, so we thought for sure that banks would be calling us, but she died. She died. Yeah. They wouldn't She died. And she died instead.

Mike DeHaan: [7:42] When a hole has her turn. A hole other day she really planned. Yeah. So so we had that situation. But it was funny because like the team, you know, our our sales guy was working at was I mean, obviously, he wants to get paid. And he was like trying to figure out how to approach it. And then like our partner down there who's like kinda new to wholesaling was like, oh, what do we do with this whole situation? Yeah. And then you and me were just like, it's easy, man. This is just like we call the people. It might come together. Like, we can at least push it off a couple of weeks. But it's so standard for this kind of business.

Dan Austin: [8:12] So It is. You have to have a action for every reaction or reaction every action.

Mike DeHaan: [8:17] This is also why it's so important in wholesaling and off market real estate to understand how real estate transactions work and like the little nuances of it because Yeah. That is something that I think is so overlooked and people focus on the real estate. You can learn the real estate, you can create value and that sort of stuff. Knowing how to manage a real estate transaction and all like the paperwork that you have to have and all your different options, that is where you get an advantage over sellers and other investors because you can get creative, can protect yourself and stuff. For sure.

Dan Austin: [8:49] So That's a good point.

Mike DeHaan: [8:50] Yeah. We had that. I mean, it's looking good. And then now apparently, guy wants to sell us more properties too. Now that we're kind of strong arming him. He's like, okay. Well, I guess you guys are legit. So seeing how that comes together. Then we had this kind of this one seller that called in and I'm still not sure. I actually did end up calling the police on this one and they just told me they would look into it and they probably won't ever because why would they?

Dan Austin: [9:10] Yeah. It's California police.

Mike DeHaan: [9:11] Yeah. But we came off of an SMS lead which is always, again, it makes me suspicious that he's just pulling jokes. But, you know, you pull jokes that are too severe. You know, you fuck around and find out stuff can stuff can get a little a

Dan Austin: [9:26] little strange. Yeah. Exactly. He's on the steep part of the

Mike DeHaan: [9:29] find out talking about how he has, like, this like blood spatter all over the kitchen. And the great thing about the floors is it's like easy to clean up blood. And then he's like, I wouldn't be able to show you one of the rooms because of what I have in there. And then when we called in to make the offer, he's like, well, I'm really worried about what's like in the backyard. Yep. And our sales guy was like, is this talking about what you were you know, is this referencing what you were talking about before? And the guy's like, maybe. Perhaps. Perhaps. Yeah. So our sales guys are like, we're super spooked by this. And they're like, I don't even wanna talk to this guy. He sounds like a psycho. And, you know, I would say a 5% chance he's actually a crazy person, 95% chance that he's a guy with kind of a dark sense of humor who's like screwing with this, you know, basically telemarketer that reached out

Dan Austin: [10:19] to him. Did you do your typical like background research on this guy?

Mike DeHaan: [10:23] Yeah. So I actually did. I can find a voting records for him. I can see that he voted democrat because they're Californians. That makes sense. And then besides that, there is a person that has a really similar name to him that got arrested recently for shooting somebody in California, but it's a different guy. So but besides that, he's kind of a So

Dan Austin: [10:43] I I don't know. What is his age?

Mike DeHaan: [10:45] He's he's said in his forties, like 48. 49. Yeah. He seems like a murderer. I think maybe. But yeah, so the guys were all spooked about it and then one of our guys is still running with it trying to see if he can figure out a deal there.

Dan Austin: [11:00] Here's my opinion, like if the guy doesn't end up if the guy ends up becoming a murderer, he's gonna pop up on some sort of list anyways, like he's going to jail, he's gonna have to sell his house, so he'll then become a Yeah. Murder based

Mike DeHaan: [11:11] We're we're we're basically just ahead of the curve on this deal, know. It's like

Dan Austin: [11:14] how people go and Dextering him.

Mike DeHaan: [11:17] Yeah. You like pull court records or you pull like divorce records. You try to get it before it's like a publicly available thing. We're basically doing that but this kinda might have killed somebody. But, yeah, I I called the I called the local police department there. Yeah. And I gave like the info and they're just like, cool. We'll we'll do some investigations on it and, yeah, that's kinda where it ended.

Dan Austin: [11:37] This is one of those things they're gonna be on sixty minutes. And they're like, the neighbors called in like three times every week saying that they heard women screaming in the basement and just the police looked the other way.

Mike DeHaan: [11:49] I know. And everybody's gonna be like, how did

Dan Austin: [11:50] they not know? You're gonna be like,

Mike DeHaan: [11:52] I told you, I called the police. We're gonna get called up for the documentary and be like, what was your experience talking with them? I was like, well, we we I just had an idea. Well But yeah, it's funny. Just weirdos like that come up often. Mean, we've had all sorts of sellers that do strange stuff. I mean, we've had ones that are talking about how like, they refuse to do any sort of e sign because they don't want the CIA to be tracking them. You know, we've had people do pat downs on our sales doors. Remember that dude that patted our

Dan Austin: [12:21] sales or acquisition gal down?

Mike DeHaan: [12:23] Yeah. She like molested molested our sales rep because she's looking for wires. What's that dude? Sorry.

Dan Austin: [12:28] I'm thinking about something totally different. But what's that dude? Remember all those like like that chick that was like in the basement? The dude was like, I was sitting out here eating my fried chicken or what is he saying? Why?

Mike DeHaan: [12:37] What's this one? I don't remember that one. Was that one when we went to Knoxville?

Dan Austin: [12:41] No. No. Sorry. This is totally different. This is when it was on the news, like when this lady or women were like trapped in the basement of this dude's house, like this Mexican dude. It was on the news and they interviewed the innocent bystander that was a dude that was sitting on his porch and they decided, you know how they always interview the worst people when there's a crime that's happened?

Mike DeHaan: [12:59] Of course. When the only people that are available at 01:30 in the afternoon

Dan Austin: [13:03] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [13:03] Yeah. Yeah. Exact same thing though where it's like the guys were super bothered and we were just like, I don't know. Just sounds like a typical seller with some of this stuff. Like we reach out to weirdos and weirdos come up.

Dan Austin: [13:15] Yeah, I mean we've been in houses where people are actively doing illegal things. Totally. It's pretty common in this world.

Mike DeHaan: [13:21] One of our older sales guys walked into a house and the guy, when he knocked on the door, the guy stuck his head out of a window that was around the corner because he was a shower in the window and he's like, oh yeah, come on in, the door's open. And the guy went in there and there's dude smoking meth on the couch.

Dan Austin: [13:38] James was probably like, hey, can I get a

Mike DeHaan: [13:40] hit? Yes. Don't know about that. But, you know, it's just that's super weird, man. But just like even at a distance, you can't escape some of the shenanigans. That's where the money is made in this business is because we are volunteering to deal with these sort of people in these sort of situations. Right? Yes. And, you know, that's why we can make $30.40, $50,000 on a single family home that a realtor doesn't wanna touch because it's not worth it for them to deal with that to make their 2% commission, 3% commission, whatever it is for sure. So, yeah, that's what's going on, Warren. Had some killer wins in their RSN investor coaching program this week though. Oh, dude's crushing right now. I know. It's funny. I feel like over the last month, and actually I was looking at this too, a lot of the guys that are crushing it, they joined us about four to five months ago, and we always tell people kind of expect like a four ish month ramp up time, and sure enough the guys that have come in have been super committed to that, are you know going through the marketing process, going through the sales process, now they're starting to make some major money. You know we got a couple guys that are you know have signed multiple deals in the same day, we got one guy that's making like $35 on an assignment fee, got lots of big stuff going on.

Dan Austin: [14:54] You know what's fun though too before we like actually talk about those is like you can kinda see people come in and like they're up, they're kinda high, right? They're like, yeah, this is awesome, I'm learning all this shit, like they're being productive. And then inevitably, and this isn't for everybody, but inevitably, like, there's like this, like, little bit of a like, you can see it, like, slump where they're like, man, what the heck? And it's like that waiting period when you send out your first or maybe even your second batch of mail, and you haven't gotten a deal yet, but you've talked to sellers, or maybe you had the deal slip through the cracks, you're just there's like this kind of trepidasis period, and then it's just like a then it's a rocket ship, right, where it goes right back up, and they're just super pumped. We have a lot of people that are newer, that are in that rocket ship phase where they're really starting to hit their stride and actually make some big wins.

Mike DeHaan: [15:38] Yeah, the tons of them. Well, it's trademark. Have you seen that thing that it's like the curve of success or whatever, and you start with excitement, and then you have the period where you feel like you're super smart because you're onto something, and then you can't figure it out, at the bottom of it there's depression, and that's where most people quit. But then once you overcome that is when the growth and everything happens.

Dan Austin: [15:57] Right, and that's when it's awesome to get to see the other people in the group winning for those that are in that depression. Because like, okay, they see the path, like, know I can I get just have to stick with it? Got it. And if they listen to everybody that's in the group that's stuck with it, they they'll eventually get to that like super high awesome making money.

Mike DeHaan: [16:14] Absolutely. And that's the value of accountability and then joining joining, you know, groups like the Insta Investor Program or other groups that are out there, is you meet people that you're like, this person is just like me. They've just figured it out. Why can't I be this person? And that usually is enough to carry it through. Why can't

Dan Austin: [16:30] I be Michael Jordan? That's what I always say. Because I'm not tall.

Mike DeHaan: [16:34] Yeah. Unfortunately, when it comes to things like going to the NBA, I don't think the same principles apply. As for what are

Dan Austin: [16:39] some of these wins? Like, what are we

Mike DeHaan: [16:41] talking like? Who's crushing? Yeah. Well, mean, you know, we've had I don't know if I wanna put their names on blast because they haven't necessarily gone through that. Like docs them. Draw out their names, but

Dan Austin: [16:49] we had a dude clock in a thirty three thousand dollar fee.

Mike DeHaan: [16:52] Yeah. We had a guy that brought in a $33,000 fee. We had one guy that got two contracts in the same day, he's looking to make what, 70 or 80,000 on depending on what if he decides to wholesale them or close them.

Dan Austin: [17:03] You know what I liked about that one was he said it was a dead lead from a previous SMS campaign, but he followed up with direct mail. And the direct mail got the guy on lock. That just again, proved success. Just because they didn't work out on your SMS campaign, because SMS is typically a lower quality lead when you do get them, doesn't mean mail's not gonna work. Exactly, yeah. It's that layered approach.

Mike DeHaan: [17:24] Totally. And that's such a huge thing that I think gets overlooked in a lot of programs too is people go all in into one form of marketing, which I think you should become an expert before you get too broad.

Dan Austin: [17:33] Sure.

Mike DeHaan: [17:33] But it's so important to have that layers. We have one guy that closed two deals for $83, nets. I mean, yeah, we got what else do we have? We got innovation deals coming together. One of my favorites though actually was we had a partner who had this pretty sick seller financing deal that he was extremely interested in. And he's like, six months ago I would have killed for this deal. He's like, now I'm in a position where I have so much opportunity that I don't even know if I want it anymore.

Dan Austin: [18:02] It is a pretty sick deal from all directions. But yeah, you're right. And it's like, he's at that point to where where we started thinking this way. We're like, okay. So we bought a bunch of assets. We've got some passive income coming in. We our assets appreciated in value, so we have some great equity. We have all this stuff here, but, like, the incremental change to passive, hell yeah, I'm rich passive to or is really high versus I can make a bunch of active income on sales and flips and other business ventures.

Mike DeHaan: [18:33] And this is the thing that like really sort of drives me to always talk about making like massive income over just passive income. Mhmm. And this is his sort of first experience with this, which I found really cool, was he, you know, like I said, he understands the passive return, but he's also like, or I could make like 10 x this money over the next year if I don't lock it up in this asset and I apply it towards my business. And when you start to do that, I think your entire world shift changes forever. Yeah. And like a lot of the people that get really into like the financial independence, like I'm gonna get enough money to go like live in a trailer and you know just like lay off $4 a month with my you know wife and dog. Yeah. Whatever that is. They they still have a broke mindset. When you learn to make like real money, like you as Alex Shmozzi say, learn to invest in the S and Me five hundred. Right?

Dan Austin: [19:24] I do love that.

Mike DeHaan: [19:25] That is when when you reach that, the rest of your work of your life is going to look completely different because you now know how to make money.

Dan Austin: [19:33] Yeah. You taught yourself how

Mike DeHaan: [19:34] to make money. Exactly. And at that point, the world is your oyster. And, you know, those are the people that go on to be worth 8 figures, 9 figures, you know, become billionaires because it just becomes using that skill, multiplying it, systematizing it, and, you know, just like reinvesting into that system as an investment instead of always going into hard assets.

Dan Austin: [19:55] Yeah. For sure. And it goes back to even just a simple, like, the simple conversation how you and I are advocates of like, not keeping any property forever. Mhmm. Because there's different seasons of you as an investor. You as a business owner are the same thing, each other's different seasons of property ownership. You don't wanna be stuck holding the bag on massive renovations on a property when you can maximize your cash on cash, you can maximize your return on equity, and then get out and reposition that money. Same thing with your efforts in business. Like, when you're starting out, passive income sounds awesome, and the cash on cash has to be really awesome. And one thing you learn typically, when the cash on cash is really high, the effort is also really high. Yeah. And so then, you're like, okay, so I'm having high cash on cash, but this is sucking my time, and I can go and make a $50,000 bump. How much passive income does it take to make $50 in a day? A lot. Mhmm. I mean, it's just a lot, right? Yeah. And so then, what you can do is take that large, as Mike would call it, massive income, reinvest it in maybe lower cash on cash return, but lower effort as well. Mhmm. When you need to, and maybe when the tax benefits align with your income stream as well.

Mike DeHaan: [21:02] Yeah. And I think that's kind of the mindset shift too, is when you start looking at things like tax benefits, and that appeals more to you than making a few $100 a month. Right?

Dan Austin: [21:09] Because you have another outlet to make this large income, but it's funny because you don't start there. Like, none of us do, like, we have people in our program, like, we're talking about him at that level, you have the other people that are still digging in, and I still believe in what they're doing, their mission, which is get that high cash on cash return for your money because you need to stretch every dollar as you're growing that base.

Mike DeHaan: [21:28] Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's such a, you know, it's such a weird shift. I think everyone goes through it, it's just when exactly it happens is going to vary a lot. Right. And and it's funny because I look back on a lot of conversations that I had with people over the years, and people would always say this with like a sense of pride. It was their way of saying like I only buy like the best assets. They'll say like, I only buy things that I intend to keep forever. Right? And I remember when I used to, I was like, damn, these people are fucked. They're get good deals. They're gonna hold on to it for that long. Like, that's crazy. They got a lot of money.

Dan Austin: [21:57] Got it for free.

Mike DeHaan: [21:58] Yeah. And now I've learned that that's an incredibly an incredibly amateuristic way to view real estate in finance because like, a, you're gonna limit the swings that you take, right, at at bat in general. It's because you're only gonna look for like the unicorns which aren't gonna come around every day. And also to you, with that mindset, you're pigeonholing yourself over the long term because you're gonna have a sunk cost bias with these properties that you were expecting to have forever. And ultimately, you will have better opportunities for that money if you're proactive in business and finance and all. But if you are the, if your identity is the I only hold for my entire life guy, you're never gonna do that. And like, I bet you could project those returns and after a while it really does get to a point where it's like, well if you just go and put that in for your stock market, you're gonna make more money.

Dan Austin: [22:47] Like honestly. Yeah. No, absolutely. There definitely has. I think about that all the time when I lay in bed at two in the morning, depreciating returns of your real estate asset over long periods of time.

Mike DeHaan: [22:58] Yeah, Because also the other thing too is it's not even just like the return on equity getting smaller and smaller as your debt gets paid off. I'm sure your your cash flow can like increase a lot when it's fully paid off, your return on equity can be extremely small. But also too, if you're depreciating that asset, your ultimate tax liability when you do sell that's gonna be insane. You have to ten thirty one at that point. You have to ten thirty one or own it to the grave. Right? And you can technically refinance those, all sort of things, but that still leaves a lot out of your control, primarily like the world of finance and what the banking industry and all that stuff looks like. Right? So I don't know. It's just so different. And a lot of the people that are so hardcore on like buying all assets and keeping them, right, that you hear on social media, you know, so you look at like Grant Cardone, you know, Ken McElroy. Those guys, a, they were buying properties back when they were dirt cheap, right, like a long time ago. That's one thing to keep in mind. B, they make an insane amount of money off of their media and material that they sell you that's telling you to do that. Right?

Dan Austin: [24:04] Right. And they are bringing investor money and that's where they Yes. They make their money on the investors money because that's essentially, their personalities are such that they are the front man for a fund, their fund potentially. And that fund might only return the investors four to six to 7%, but they're picking up management fees and acquisition fees and all that. That's why they're they're carrying the fancy watches and hanging out in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho.

Mike DeHaan: [24:29] Yeah. Exactly. Right? Because speaking of fancy watches, it's funny. I saw this we just we just have to grip on people because that's what we do. I saw this Pace Morby video about how he was talking about he's like not flashy. He's like, I'm wearing a sweatshirt from Buc ee's. He's like, you know, I'm like super low key and all he likes all this sort of stuff. And like literally the first comment had all these likes. He's bro, in all of your videos, you're wearing this watch, and they, like, listed it off. I didn't know what it was. I looked it up. The watch that he normally wears is like a $200,000 watch. Wow.

Dan Austin: [25:02] It's the only watch guys now.

Mike DeHaan: [25:04] Yeah. Right?

Dan Austin: [25:05] On the

Mike DeHaan: [25:05] watch guy. You're gonna see. He didn't have the watch on in that video where he's talking about wearing bucky sweatshirt. But sure enough, in every other video, he was wearing this like $200,000 watch. Was like, he's I mean, you gotta you gotta relate to the people you're trying to convince to get your money, I guess.

Dan Austin: [25:20] Is that a business expense, do you think? Or do you think you got it on sub two? Dude, I'm gonna sell a watch sub two.

Mike DeHaan: [25:28] God. Yeah. Do that do that during the Jumanji challenge. Oh, god.

Dan Austin: [25:31] Don't go there. I'm pretty sure, like, let's be honest, like, I'm 99% sure, like, you can't just use, like, that name.

Mike DeHaan: [25:39] No. You you definitely can't. Like, at all.

Dan Austin: [25:42] It's like copyrighted.

Mike DeHaan: [25:43] It is. I mean, it's owned by somebody.

Dan Austin: [25:45] Right. Maybe Hollywood, whoever the studio is that owns the movie rights to that.

Mike DeHaan: [25:49] Yeah. I mean, think it's a book, isn't it?

Dan Austin: [25:51] I don't know. But they might have also bought the rights to that. Mean, I would

Mike DeHaan: [25:55] Someone assume they owns it and you can't just rip off the cover and cut. You can't just like that.

Dan Austin: [25:59] Take other people's shit and repurpose it.

Mike DeHaan: [26:01] Yeah. Mean, you can.

Dan Austin: [26:02] But like without their permission, it's not usually a good idea. When you straight copy it.

Mike DeHaan: [26:07] I mean, depending on the company, people get litigious with that, dude. We

Dan Austin: [26:11] got a lawsuit sent to us.

Mike DeHaan: [26:13] What should we

Dan Austin: [26:14] put? Yeah. Don't forget about that. I forgot about. From Higbee and Associates, a national law firm. Yeah. Let's see. Copyright owned by client so and so. Yeah. We used a would that be a stock photo on one of our old websites?

Mike DeHaan: [26:32] Yeah. So it was a stock photo. It was on a Facebook post from several years ago. I remember that. The probate spelled with scrabble letters. Yeah. But the funny thing is too is I did some research on this. Yeah. So so basically they're they're wanting us to there's a cease and desist. They want us to pay money for having used this stock photo, which we got off of And

Dan Austin: [26:52] they gave us a credit card authorization form to use with the lawsuit, by the way.

Mike DeHaan: [26:56] Yeah. So they have a, know, is making us take down this video. But it was on like every free stock image website. And then down at the very bottom, it has a thing like, oh, you need to like attribute the art to the artist, whatever. Yeah. Which of course we didn't do. Nobody does. And then I just did like a Google, like, lens search on it so it seems like all the websites that it goes to. And thousands and thousands and thousands of people have used this photo. I'm sure none of them correctly attributed to it. Totally. I was like, this guy's freaking genius because I guarantee you there's gonna be people that get scared and pay that.

Dan Austin: [27:34] Oh, There's it says that they will let it go away for $2,500. Yeah. Here's a credit card authorization form. It's a real so I was like, okay. This is scammy. You and I were talking about it. But then it's like a real legit law firm, and they're just known to do this sort of stuff.

Mike DeHaan: [27:47] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [27:47] So my guess is they'll blast this out. They probably spend like $5,000 on letters to these thousands of people, and then 10% pay, it's a

Mike DeHaan: [27:56] way to win. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's gonna be people that are super risk averse that pay that. It's just like when we had that guy a couple years ago that called us and said that he was on the do not call list and that we violated the Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. TCPA act and that he's gonna sue us, but if we pay him, he's like he's like, if you pay me in the next seventy two hours, I'll accept $5,000, otherwise make $10,000 or else I will come at you with like the full force of the law. And I was just like, whatever. Puss. And then found out that several of our competitors here paid him.

Dan Austin: [28:30] You both are so stupid.

Mike DeHaan: [28:31] And I'm like, dude, there are so many red flags. He called me through Instagram. Didn't even know you could do that. He baited me on Instagram because we blocked him on our phone number. He made like a fake profile, he's like, hey. He's like, I'm a new investor in town. I have a deal in Post Falls you might be interested in. I was like, yeah, sure. Send me the details. And then he just calls me through Instagram, like right away. I'm like, if you were actually like serious, you wouldn't be calling me through a social media platform with no number or way to like Right. Connect this to you at all.

Dan Austin: [29:05] Good for him though. It is steal money from our competitors.

Mike DeHaan: [29:09] I know. It's like, are you idiots? You pay them? Kept thinking back. I haven't gotten on this topic. There's just I don't

Dan Austin: [29:15] know why I brought that up.

Mike DeHaan: [29:17] Ups and downs of business, man. I don't know either. It's okay.

Dan Austin: [29:20] It's kinda like this burnt hair that I got, another random topic. I have been wanting to talk to people, somebody about this. My wife thinks it's the dumbest thing. She's like, don't even wear cologne. I'm like, you're right, I don't wear cologne.

Mike DeHaan: [29:32] It literally is the dumbest thing, man. So give the too long, get a read what

Dan Austin: [29:36] that is. So the backstory is, The Boring Company owned by Elon Musk, like several years ago they put out a flamethrower, right? It's not a flamethrower flamethrower, and I missed the boat on that. Was like, dude, I should have bought that, whatever. And so I was like, next time he sells something that's random like that, I'm just gonna buy it, whatever it is, I'm just gonna buy And so they just randomly I feel like it's every couple years, they put something stupid out. This is burnt hair scented cologne, and it actually smells like burnt hair.

Mike DeHaan: [30:01] If you go on our YouTube, you can see his burnt hair cologne bottle. Hold it up, Dan. It actually looks like a butt plug, so perfect for you. Didn't even think about that.

Dan Austin: [30:09] Perfect. Whichever goes in where?

Mike DeHaan: [30:11] Yeah. This is pointy. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Two ways you

Dan Austin: [30:16] can use it. Depending on your experience level.

Mike DeHaan: [30:18] So if you're interested in the Burn Here cologne, you can go to Collecting Key's YouTube channel and see Dan's butt plug cologne and it'll be, you know, someone will be interested in it.

Dan Austin: [30:28] Wild, but my hope is I don't know, if you look at my background, I do collect the most random shit. I'm just like an eclectic collector of random shit.

Mike DeHaan: [30:38] And I'm hoping one day you'll have your stock frames from fricking Target. I actually

Dan Austin: [30:41] have some photos of them. I know. I'm gonna have to take this down. I'm gonna remodel the back, but I've got some got some Air Jordans back there, some pictures of my daughter's hands, some RV paraphernalia.

Mike DeHaan: [30:50] At least you still got the frame Leonardo meme.

Dan Austin: [30:53] Frame Leonardo's. That was the only thing. Remember when we first shot

Mike DeHaan: [30:57] our first promo, and that

Dan Austin: [30:59] was the only thing that backed around on the wall, we like hung up.

Mike DeHaan: [31:03] I mean, we were figuring it out, man. We were we're only like 20 episodes deep at that point. Now we're at a this is this is a 128. That's We've done fantastic. We've done a 100 and, you know, what, eight episodes since that one, plus.

Dan Austin: [31:14] Probably 52 Friday focuses. We're like 200 episodes.

Mike DeHaan: [31:18] Basically pros at this point. But Yeah.

Dan Austin: [31:20] Basically pros.

Mike DeHaan: [31:21] Stuff. I mean, got how many pairs of Jords do you have too?

Dan Austin: [31:24] Well, are Reebok Shack Attacks. And I got those because when I was a kid, remember a friend of mine when I was I was really young, like seven or eight, they had the Reebok, the pumps. Mhmm. And I was like, those are badass. I, of course, didn't own them, but you pump the tongue, and it, like, puts air into the shoe to make it feel tight. Totally impractical from a sports standpoint. But back in the day, the Shack Attacks were the shit. So these are like a remake of the Shack Attacks with the with the pump. Gotcha.

Mike DeHaan: [31:50] And Rebopped those are expensive. Did you buy those on sub two? I hope you did.

Dan Austin: [31:55] No. But I'm I'm gonna wear them to Keys Con. You definitely should. So if wanna go to Keys Con, you wanna see me wear some Shack Attack pump shoes, wearing my burnt hair cologne, probably wearing, I don't know, a Cluckton Keys shirt of some sort, maybe the squirt bag shirt or something. Don't know.

Mike DeHaan: [32:11] Man, literally the biggest douchebag I can think of. You're wearing your shack attacks with your square pegging shirt with your A complete and hair cologne. Man, so yeah. If that doesn't sell you on keys kind of everybody, I don't know who does.

Dan Austin: [32:23] If someone get a hold of a sub two half for me, I'll wear that too.

Mike DeHaan: [32:26] Oh, then you're definitely not coming. Alright. Well, anyways, we're wrapping up there. Alright, guys. Well, if you do wanna see that, make sure that you follow Dan on Instagram at investor man Dan. If you wanna actually get something out of your Instagram, you should follow at Mike underscore Invest, And then you you might learn something and not just see Dan Baby. Projecting his weird fetishes for all of his miscellaneous shit that he collects.

Dan Austin: [32:48] Dude, that's some weird shit.

Mike DeHaan: [32:49] Alright, guys. Well, thanks for listening. Please share this with anybody who might find it entertaining or wants to learn things about real estate or business or, you know, what it actually means to make massive money and why that is cooler than just collecting passive income, which is also cool. But like, I mean, $5 a month, $10 a month, or a million dollars a year.

Dan Austin: [33:11] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [33:12] That's kind of a no brainer, if you're being honest. And I will also say I stand by this. Making a million dollars is easier than buying assets to make $10,000 a month. 100%. Like actually

Dan Austin: [33:22] It actually is. I think you I do think you need both, but it's ways to

Mike DeHaan: [33:25] make a million bucks. Way easier. So please share this show with anybody who would wanna learn how to do that. And you can also go to collectingkeyspodcastcomm/free to get our free guides are collecting, start generating off market leads, and then you can start making some passive income for yourself as well. Thanks for listening everybody. We'll talk to you all next week. See you.