The Real Estate Competitive Edge: Strategies to Win Over Sellers w/ Rishi Teli

Dan Austin: [0:00] Hey there, welcome back to another episode of the Collecting Keys Friday Focus. Today, you have me as your host, Dan Austin and I am here, I'm honored to be here with Rishi Teli, one of our scale community members and we're going to do a deal case study, we're gonna ask him the same four questions that we ask all of our deal case studies. This episode is gonna be really cool, we're gonna talk about inherited properties and the struggles that come with those types of properties. So Rishi, welcome to the show man, I'm excited to dive into this deal. Just like a quick fifteen second who you are, what market are you in?

Rishi Teli: [0:34] Thank you so much for welcoming on the show, so I am one of the Dan's newest recruits on their scale mentorship program and so far Dan and Mike have been the pillars of my personal growth as well as the growth of our business over here in Austin, Texas. We have had some pull stories to state and we'll be going through that and some of the case studies, well just we'll be actually approaching one of the case studies which most of the wholesalers struggle with and they come across is the homes that have been passed down to them to inheritance. And you're in

Dan Austin: [1:11] Austin which is like a tough market, would say, but you guys are making it look easy, which I'm just super impressed, and I say that because like the the higher end markets, and you think about like Southern California, a lot of Texas now, in particular Austin, you go up to the Northeast, some of those cities, for like some reason those metros can be really challenging because there's so much competition, I mean you have institutional money coming in, you have a ton of investors, there's a lot of eyes on it, so it just makes it more competitive. You guys have been killing it and I want to dive into this deal case study and get right into it because I I'm excited to hear the story. So let's talk about it, first question, what kind of property is this, what are we talking about?

Rishi Teli: [1:49] So this property is basically a single family home, it was 1985, 1986 home, three bed, two bath, pretty cookie cutter ish, but the layout was pretty nice, they had an extra room, good kitchen that can be opened up, a lot of play on that honestly on a flip, so there was a lot of potential. The key factor was that the owner had not upgraded this property since then. Okay, so it was everything was original inside except for a couple of things.

Dan Austin: [2:21] So 1980s original? Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I could imagine nineteen eighties, but it sounds like it was in decent condition, kind of a standard home that somebody would buy in a neighborhood, so that's always helpful, assuming you get it at the right price, which we'll talk about. How did you find this, what kind of marketing were you using?

Rishi Teli: [2:40] The marketing that we used was SMS campaign on this and I think there was a mailer sent as well, so it was I think so it was a dual pronged approach on this but we received this response through our SMS campaign. Gotcha.

Dan Austin: [2:52] That's why we we always coach and teach and do ourselves, is like the the multiple lead, or the multiple marketing streams, because sometimes a, a marketing, one marketing thing might not do well, sometimes direct mail is not doing well that month, and texting is doing well, or cold calling is doing even better, or you have texting regulations that come in and stop all of your leads for a month until you get the right certifications and things like that, which we just saw, and so having that is really good to just to balance out your lead flow, but it's also a reinforcer, right? Somebody gets a letter from you and then they get a text from you, they're like, oh, okay, these are legit people, it's not just a random person texting me, so glad to hear that that the plan worked as intended. Okay, so what's the seller profile here, what list did they come off?

Rishi Teli: [3:35] So it was it was a motivated seller, they The seller wanted to move to Milwaukee, the motivation was that he was married with Hostage and the tax is old, so Yeah,

Dan Austin: [3:45] yeah, yeah, I get that, I can get on board with that. So he Was it a owner occupied? That's correct. Okay. Okay. So let's just talk about the story, let's get let's dive into this story, talk about the seller, how the deal went through, I wanna know about the follow-up. So the the lead comes in, this is a guy that he's motivated, he's like wants to get out of town, lead comes in and you guys follow-up, like what did that follow-up look like? Were you able to actually like go and get an appointment right away or was it kind of tough conversation with him upfront?

Rishi Teli: [4:14] So this is a really interesting piece that, you know, people and how a personal connect can change a conversation from I don't trust you to the end of the conversation, well yes, meet me tomorrow. Gotcha. When I called him up, the first question that he had in his mind was that, yeah, I've had a ton of callers already, I've had a ton of people who have approached me and I've had offers, that was the first statement even before I introduced myself. So he was sweet though, he was not aggressive, most of these callers are like, they don't entertain us or something, but he was, he did wanted to sell his house. But equivalently, I gave him a rest assurance that, hey, this is who we are. The website obviously helped the backbone of the conversation was the website. I redirected to him that, hey, if you want us more information for our company, he basically gone to the website. So that reassured him and me giving the reassurance on a personal level was the changing factor for him talking almost, the first conversation was almost thirty

Dan Austin: [5:15] five minutes. Wow. Well, you and I think you and Rucheng kinda do that, you guys naturally just your personalities and and by the way for listeners, Rucheng's your business partner, you guys have kind of like a, you talk quite plainly and really simply to really get across, right? You don't animated, you guys just kinda have that calming, caring, empathetic type voice and I think that's really helpful when you're talking to sellers, especially when they come and they say, I've talked to a bunch of people, I've already gotten offers, I don't even know why I'm calling you kind of attitude and you can kinda set their defenses down, which is

Rishi Teli: [5:44] Yes, really and most of these sellers they think kind of, it's most of them as I like, I would say 50 to 60% of them, they were kind of like, hey, why do you wanna buy my property? Why are you buying my property?

Dan Austin: [5:56] Like,

Rishi Teli: [5:56] what's the reason for the call? We get some negative response from them, The first thing that we do is we apologize, and I sent out like a care package, like, hey, thank you so much for even talking to us, but if you have any real estate needs, or if there's anything that we can help out with, you know, just some adding some value on top of it, they remember us. I have received a callback from a frustrated caller who was frustrated not with me personally, but me sending on just a box of Rare Rusher, it was just that simple. Yeah. I was like, sorry if you have peanut allergies, but here's please accept this as an apology if I did offend you, he called me right away and he was like Really? Yeah, he did. He did call me back, he apologized for but then he told, I'm not interested in selling, but I'll follow-up with you if there is anything needed. But regarding this, the property that we are talking about was a tricky situation because he was followed up by other people before. So we had not much skin in the game honestly, and how we got involved was just with this personal test that, hey, we care about you, let us put our perspective once and then we'll meet you in person. I never discussed about a offer, I never discussed a price on the house, I never discussed about what we can do for him.

Rishi Teli: [7:16] I was like, hey, this is what we do, is buy homes on cash, that's basically it, but we'll have to come and sit with you, work with you, and we'll explain you what we do in detail, that ways you know who we are, and we're not some random people calling on phone, that we live in the city, we'll be there for you and you see the faces. Just that was the whole conversation, that was the summary, and he was impressed with me.

Dan Austin: [7:39] That thirty five minute conversation was you kind of, yeah, doing that, breaking down the defenses, saying, hey, here's how the process is gonna work. So you had that call, then you scheduled an appointment, and so that you one call, got to the appointment, is that how

Rishi Teli: [7:49] it worked? Yes, that one call and we were meeting him the next day.

Dan Austin: [7:53] Perfect. Nice. That's awesome. So on this too, because you said it was mail and text, he was on both. How long was this like your first month of marketing and this came in? It was the second lead of first ten days. That's amazing, yeah, so that's cool, because sometimes, there's like a lag time, right, like you do your marketing, and then the lead that you end up getting isn't your first or second lead, it's like maybe the lead that finally comes in on the second batch of marketing, so that's pretty cool, came in, first ten days of marketing, your second lead, and you're already making an appointment, so from that point on, you have the appointment, you walk the property, you see it, you obviously say, oh it's 1980, it hasn't been updated, you're running your numbers, when and how did you make the offer?

Rishi Teli: [8:35] So interesting, we did take our pictures, this is a funny thing that we, not a funny thing, but it might not be the right approach, and I would like your insight on this one as well. We usually don't give out offers straight away, we refrain from them, that has actually put people's trust in us because we tell them that we'll give you our offer within twenty four to forty eight hours, we have to analyze the numbers because we don't know what's going on. And the thing is the pictures do help us ensure that what we need to fix and what are our costs gonna be, that even though we already know what we are gonna offer, even before we visit the house, that just tests the water with them, and it basically gives an impression to the client that, yeah, these guys are not so many Joe Schmo, they're just not joking around, they're pretty serious about it.

Dan Austin: [9:27] Right, instills confidence in them, and what we found, so that's how Mike and I do it, like we try, unless there's like a ton of competition, it's a tired landlord, he's like, don't care, I just wanna know your number. Okay, we can give you a number, right? But we learned this our lesson the hard way, when we were first starting out, we had this this guy, he had this project, this house he moved into, he's retired, he had a ton of work, like he had ripped the whole floor, like there's a hole in the floor, like you could walk in the kitchen, there's no floor. So he was definitely overhead on this project, and he basically calls us, we walk the property, we go back and sit in my truck for like five minutes, talk about our offer, we go back in, we're like, hey, we're ready to offer you a $105,000, which is exactly what he asked for, and he's like, oh, don't know about this guys, well turns out, he never accepted our offer, and he ended accepting an offer for like, I can't remember, like $1.55 from some other investor, like a couple months later, which we could have done that price too, we could have done one, we could have gone up to like 165 on this property. So we lost it because we were too aggressive, so now what we always do, we make an offer, we'll walk the property, we go back, we review the photos, because it is always, sometimes you miss stuff when you're walking, you're like, oh, I didn't really notice that, it's so good to review as you build up your repair budget and then we'll call back. So we'll schedule a time after the walk through, hey, we'll call you back between like three and 4PM tomorrow, does that work for you, or between eight and 9AM tomorrow, does that work for you? Try to get that so that they're ready to get the offer and then we make the offer. And we usually do it over the phone, because it just gives them the ability to being face to face, it's like that car sales position like that, where you're at the car lot and the guy's sitting right in front of you and he's like, do you wanna take this offer? And you wanna think about it, but they're pushing you, right?

Dan Austin: [11:03] So we try to not do that and be a little bit more respectful and give them that space, and sounds like you did the same thing and it worked on this one. So you went back the next day you made your offer?

Rishi Teli: [11:12] Correct, and we went back

Dan Austin: [11:13] in person. Oh you went in person, okay.

Rishi Teli: [11:15] Yes, to explain the offer because he was very hesitant on the numbers that he was seeing. So he had to come up with a legible offer that was, hey, we're not ripping you off as well, but yes, we cannot give you more than this because it's not justified.

Dan Austin: [11:30] So he really wanted to sit down with you guys and go line by line and understand anything you're doing. Okay, that makes sense.

Rishi Teli: [11:36] And he appreciated that a lot and honestly, he did have three other offers on table. Wow. And none of those did show up at his house, they only emailed him the offers, we went, we signed the contract that day.

Dan Austin: [11:52] That's amazing and you have to read your sellers, because some sellers, that would not work, there's been multiple times where Mike and I sat on the couch and gave people offers and it did not work, These are people that ultimately ended up selling, right? And so it's about reading your seller, understanding what they're gonna need and meeting them there, and being there with them, whether that's physically or not physically, right? Mhmm. So okay, that's pretty awesome, so the next day, you get this thing locked up, so this was like wham bam, thank you ma'am, we're moving. Okay, so now let's talk about the disposition, how did this work on this one?

Rishi Teli: [12:23] The disposition was interesting, so the disposition part of this, since we were kind of new players over here, it was a difficult task. Getting leads is 20, I would say 15% of the game, getting the lead is another 15 to 25% of the game, but now the 50% of the task that begins is disposition, the hard part. Now who's your buyer gonna be the most important aspect of it? In Texas, there is one big thing that's called the option period that decides if you're gonna lose money on it, if you're not gonna lose what's gonna happen, that's the option period that basically protects you and this buyer, pretty much all the parties over here. Right. It's a nice thing to have sometimes, sometimes not so much, but over here he was willing to work

Dan Austin: [13:08] with us because of our perseverance. There's one big clause that we added was that we'll help him through his attorney and basically getting him through this inheritance issues that he was having and we'll work with him. Because he inherited the property, he was living in a property that his parents or somebody had owned and he was basically trying to still get through the, I would assume like probate and inheritance.

Rishi Teli: [13:34] Correct and he was literally unaware about what was needed to get the property off him, basically he gets out of the property, he can sell

Dan Austin: [13:44] it. And a lot of people don't realize that, so when you get property through a will, just because it comes to you, doesn't mean you actually have legal authority straight away to sell it, and often times the county records aren't going to just be updated with your name, unless the property goes through probate and goes through the proper process, and so typically a lot of sellers, they just don't know. Like you see the name, you're like, why is your name not on title? When we do a title search, they're like, oh it's because this was my grandmother's and you're like, oh, okay, well we need to figure this out, and there's a lot of paperwork, and it sounds like you worked through that with them.

Rishi Teli: [14:16] Correct, and we actually were not aware, because the information we got from him was, hey, it's you know, I have everything in place, I have all the documents, good thing he had it, but the will wasn't recorded and that was one of the major concerns, because we came to know only when the title was open, and when the title got back to us saying that, yeah, this is not good. Right. In the time itself, we successfully had done our disposition part of things and we already had a buyer on board, we signed. So now we were closing in, I think it was fifteen days, not even fifteen days, honestly, it was Oh, wow. We come to know like Quick. Ten days before closing that this will hasn't been recorded with the county.

Dan Austin: [15:00] Right. And that's where you have to dig in and sometimes you have to do legwork yourself, and so the job here for the title company is like, they just have to prove that he has authority to sell this property, which that's like what probate's usually for, that basically they have to find out and make sure that there's no other descendants that have claimed this title, that this person solely can sign for it, if it's not, they need to get signatures from other people, either passing off their Mhmm. Any rights to the property, or saying, yeah, want a piece of the pie and I'm gonna get this portion of it.

Rishi Teli: [15:27] Exactly. Luckily, there were heirs, but they were not related to the property, So it was a smooth transition honestly at the end, but the ten day period was as crucial and because it came right before Christmas, so we were hitting a bunch of holidays, county holidays.

Dan Austin: [15:42] Oh of course.

Rishi Teli: [15:43] And the buyer, because it was end of the year, they wanted to be, we're not sure if they're doing, you know, a ten thirty one exchange, why they were funding this deal, if that was, this would have been a crucial challenge for us to, you know, retain the buyer and non buyer backing off last minute on this one, it was like, totally. We can't and we actually had that scare so there was another part that we were working with that, Tom all this situation down, basically running around and taking care of different fires around during Christmas was.

Dan Austin: [16:14] That's how you earn your money in this business, right, is you have to do that, buyers are getting cold feet, they're upset about it, you're like, crap, nobody knew about this probate issue, and that's that's exactly where we earn our money, especially if you're trying to help a buyer close sooner by the end of the year, we deal with that a lot at the end of the year, transactions with title companies at closing and holidays and buyers saying they wanna do it and sellers saying they wanna do it by the thirty first of the year, but that's where we earn money. So speaking of which, what was your fee on this when you disboad it? Luckily, touchwood our first. This was our technically our first

Rishi Teli: [16:46] deal and was $33,000.

Dan Austin: [16:48] 33,000. Alright. You guys are flying high. 33,000 on your first deal. Listeners out there, if you've never done this before, it doesn't usually happen this way, but it does, right, and Rishi's definitely digging in and they're going to keep doing work on this, so I know that they'll be successful and it's not that this was an easy win for you guys, you guys did the right things, you guys took the right steps, you follow kind of the blueprint of what wholesalers need to do and investors need to do, because they're not all this way and I know you have a ton of deals that didn't happen and you've talked to lot of sellers that you didn't close on and so, we always like to talk about the wins and this certainly wasn't an easy one for you, so we'll leave it with this one, with a $33,000 win Rishi, and we'll bring you on for another one, because I know you guys are killing it down there in Austin. If anybody here is interested in finding out how Rishi's doing what he's doing, wanna join the scale community, go to collectingkeys.com/scale,scale, put in an application, see if you're a good fit for it, we love taking investors that are already doing one or two deals, and getting them to do more, three to four, five to six, ten, however many you wanna scale to, that's what we're trying to get people to do. If you're not really doing deals yet, and you wanna really jump in, you can also go to collectingkeys.com/instantinvestor program, and that's where we have our instant investor end to end course, where you can just download it, watch at your convenience, and learn all the skills to do it yourself, and start wholesaling deals, and you're making $33,000 wholesale fees. With that, thank you Rishi, and we'll see

Rishi Teli: [18:15] you all next week. Let me add something. There was a time when we actually, the real number that we could have made on this position is anywhere from 50 to 60 k, that's the real number that we could have made, but we did not, our approach was never a money minded approach, we had our intentions first to help the seller because they were at the line. The second intention was to get a buyer to help make sure that they have enough money in their pockets as well, we can create a happy marriage between everybody, we'll just get out what we need to, but that was the main intention and balancing all those facets was very difficult, so just an additional note of whoever's trying to get into it, just go with the

Dan Austin: [18:56] right hearted and trust me, you're gonna fly. So do the right thing, ethics, and you will be in the game long term, which is how you make real wealth. Thanks for that. So hopefully, you're still listening because Rishi just dropped some some heat right there. Alright. Thank you, Rishi. We will catch you next time.

Rishi Teli: [19:11] Thank you so much, Dan.