The Number One Thing I Wish I Knew When I Started Wholesaling Real Estate

Mike DeHaan: [0:01] Welcome to the collecting keys Friday focus. What's going on, guys? On this episode of the Friday focus, I wanted to talk about a question I've been asked super frequently, especially recently as the Instant Investor Program has started to grow and we have had more and more new investors starting to get into, you know, kind of the space and starting to learn from us and connect with us. That is what is something that I wish I knew when I first started as a wholesaleroff market investor? If I could come back with my current knowledge and go back to then, what would I wish I'd known? Like, what what would be the most important piece of information that I could use to sort of start off on a better foot, especially in this business where getting that first contract and getting things off the ground is honestly pretty dang difficult. So what I always tell people when this question comes up is that, you know, the number one mistake that we made and what a lot of other wholesalers make is that they focus too much on the house when you start talking to sellers. So, you know, the main mistake isn't regarding, you know, marketing, it isn't really regarding systems even. It comes down to not being able to capitalize on opportunities that do come your way. And the reason for that is because everyone is focused on the actual hard asset, which is the real estate, which is honestly not what most of is is honestly not what is most important in most transactions.

Mike DeHaan: [1:37] Like when it comes to off market real estate, where you're dealing with people who have made a choice to reach out to you and sell directly to you off market, there's more often than not going to be a reason that they are willing to do that, as opposed to putting something on market and trying to get top value. You know, whether that is personal distress, like they are filing a bankruptcy, the property is vacant, they're getting divorced, something like that. Maybe they are a landlord that has a tenant that is causing them a lot of grief that they just want to be done with. Maybe they are looking to retire, and the house needs a little bit of work, and they don't want to put any of their retirement money into the house to get top dollars, they just wanna sell it. There's gonna be a whole number of reasons about why they are choosing to reach out to you and not talk to a realtor. And when you start having these conversations, figuring that out and determining how selling their property, to you at a discount will solve those problems. Right? And, you know, sometimes that can be solved, like the problems can be solved directly by the money that comes in the transaction. Sometimes you will have to do a lot of legwork in order to get these transactions completed, in order to provide them service. You know, sometimes you have to help them move.

Mike DeHaan: [2:56] Sometimes you have to help them find a new place to go. Sometimes you have to have the difficult conversations with the tenants so that, you know, they can start to move out and you can create an opportunity for another flipper because you're gonna have a vacant property. All of these things are honestly much more important than the real estate itself. So, you know, what typically happens and see this all the time, especially with people that come from what I would say is like a corporate background where it's very much like to to the point to business, just like Dan and I were, we were both engineers before we got into this business. You show up the house, there's, you know, a single lady there. You know, she's maybe divorced. She, you know, unemployed maybe or, like, recently lost her job. And you go through the house and you're looking at it and you're like, okay, we gotta do a kitchen, gotta do a roof, there's some water leaking in the basement, all this sort of stuff. And then you sit down with the seller and you say like, here's all the problems with your house. Your house could be worth 300,000. But because of all these problems, we can only pay you 200,000 for it. And she says, okay, well, I want more money than that. You know, thanks for coming. I'm a one to do business with you. Whereas instead, that conversation should look with should look like, okay, miss seller.

Mike DeHaan: [4:12] You know, what are you trying to get out of this? Like, what is going on that you are looking to walk away from this property? Like, will selling this property actually help you escape from that? Or is there, like, another motive here that you're trying to, you know, that we don't necessarily know about yet? And just asking these questions and going through the process of having these difficult conversations and asking these hard questions, you will start to uncover why exactly they're willing to work with you. And not only can you get potential motivations for the sales side that are helpful, but also you build trust. Because more often than not, these people, they don't necessarily have someone to talk to. They don't have other people in their life that are willing to help them out. That's why they've called you. And you need to realistically be that person. You know, at at its core, this business is a people business. Sure. The real estate is the collateral and the opportunity. But in order to be successful, you have to be good with people, and you have to understand the human condition and the basic process of, you know, building rapport and, you know, sympathizing with people when it's necessary being firm, but fair when it's necessary and going through that whole process. So anyway, long ways, stepping back to a second, the number one thing that I would change there.

Mike DeHaan: [5:29] The number one thing that I wish I knew when I started was that the house is not really what matters when you start talking to sellers. So, you know, when we walked through stuff at the beginning, we did exactly what I talked about before, We would have like the seller and we would focus on the conditional sort of stuff. And you know what happened? We got no deals. But as we learned and adapted, how we had those conversations and what we really focused on when we were, you know, going through and talking to the sellers and trying to like determine the actual motivation, that was when we started to get deals that really came together. So anyway, so long story short, it's not about the house, It's about the people. And at the end of the day, this business is all about solving problems and providing people good service. So do without what you will. But just so you know that once you sort of grasp that and you capture that, I guarantee that your business will start to really pick up some steam, and you will start to get a lot more opportunities on your plate than you would have if you were just focused on how to renovate a bathroom all the time. And honestly, if that doesn't appeal to you, don't be a wholesaler.

Mike DeHaan: [6:32] Don't do the direct to seller business, go and be a flipper, find other wholesalers that you can buy stuff from, that's okay. And then you can actually focus on being the, just renovation guy, focus on that kitchen bathroom, and you won't have to deal with the human side of this business. So anyway, do without what you will. Do us a favor and go and subscribe to this podcast and leave us a five star review. Additionally, go ahead and share this with anyone who you think might find it interesting. You know, I'm sure that there's other people that you have in your life that are interested in investing and would love to learn from us. Besides that, guys, if you wanna learn from Dan and myself, go to the instantinvestorprogram.com, and you can check out our group coaching program. We also are doing some one on one coaching through that as well. So you can actually work directly with Dan and myself to help you build your business, and it's a lot cheaper than you think. You should definitely go and, put in a a meeting request. We'd love to chat with you about it. Besides that, you can follow me on Instagram at Mike underscore Invest. You can follow Dan at Investor Man. Dan, thanks for listening. We'll talk to you guys next week.

Mike DeHaan: [7:33] Thanks for listening to this collecting keys Friday focus. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.