The REAL Secret to Being a Successful Wholesaler, Hiring for Remote Jobs, How To Find $50k In Your Coat Pocket

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Market real estate is where you make real money. It's where you generate real wealth. Like, you can even you're doing big assets, you can go work with brokers. You guys go out to Little Rock, Arkansas. You go to lunch. You freaking do the thing. Like, whatever. You build relationships. You do that over eight months, and then, hopefully, they throw you a bone. If you want to actually go and make real wealth, you wanna buy that $10,000,000 apartment complex for $6,000,000, which is absolutely possible. You know, you're a small town. You wanna buy a $500,000 house for $200,000. Absolutely possible. We've done that many times where you can add on to your net worth extraordinarily quickly. It is not rocket science.

Speaker 2: [0:38] Welcome to the collecting keys real estate investing podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [1:01] What's going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, the Mike and Dan show, where I, Mike DeHaan, and my cohost BDE, Big Dan Energy himself, talk about real estate, business, investing, and everything in between. Random shit. Random random stuff. So if you have any interest in real estate investing, building a real estate business, getting rich, making money, losing money

Dan Austin: [1:27] Or pop

Mike DeHaan: [1:28] culture. Pop culture on Dan's like, you're the only one that cares about pop culture, man. Don't even go down that realm. But this show is for you. If you're not interested in in anything in life, then I don't know. Go find something else to listen to. Go listen to, like, a true crime podcast or something. Oh. Those are huge.

Dan Austin: [1:44] People love those. People love those. I mean, like, I I can watch a good crime. Mean, the Murdoch thing is pretty that's gonna be pretty cool.

Mike DeHaan: [1:50] See, that came up on our our instant investor group coaching call on Thursday. Somebody made a made a comment about that. I literally don't even know what that is. It's not even on my radar.

Dan Austin: [1:59] You don't know what it is? The Alec Murdoch?

Mike DeHaan: [2:01] I don't even know. Who is that? Is he, like, a he must be a prominent person or nobody would care.

Dan Austin: [2:04] He's not a prominent person. He's a prominent person in South Carolina Okay. Which is where one of our coaching clients is from, which is, like he said, it's pretty hot down there right now. So they also came out with a Netflix show also, which is kind of funny. Like, the trial's still going on, or it just wrapped up this week. Yeah. But the dude is rich white dude from South Carolina, like, a 100 year old law firm. They've basically ran this small town, as people say, as the, I guess, the prosecuting attorneys, like, laid out, right? Like, these are not, like, just regular people. Their law firm's probably, like, the biggest building in town. It's like this huge, beautiful brick building, they kept showing pictures of it during the thing. Anyhow, so he's on trial right now for killing his wife and one of his kids. Okay. And he just got convicted guilty. And he's an idiot, he's a dipshit. Like, he's like, I wasn't there because so where they got killed, he's like, I wasn't there. Well, his son had posted a Snapchat with him in the background talking, like, minutes before he murdered them. Oh, really? Right? Jesus. And then but then there's, like, this whole story of this family, very prominent family, and a lot of murders that they're now, like, trying to connect to them that are, like, super, like, okay, they probably did murder these people, including, like, their housekeeper, including this gay kid, because, like, his other son is now supposed this conspiracy is that his other son's gay, and then they murdered this other dude because it's not good to be gay in that family. I don't know.

Mike DeHaan: [3:23] So, like, the family was murdering people.

Dan Austin: [3:25] Yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [3:25] Yeah. Exactly. And so

Dan Austin: [3:27] the son in, like, 2019, the son that got killed, Paw Paw, you know, that's what they call him. Is that his name Paw Paw? Paw Paw. His name's, like, Paul Paul Murdoch.

Mike DeHaan: [3:38] Okay.

Dan Austin: [3:38] Anyways, you know how they are down there, man.

Mike DeHaan: [3:40] I don't know. Nicknames. Yeah. They got grandmas are Mee Maws and Pee Paws

Dan Austin: [3:43] and Exactly. Weird stuff. Anyhow, so Paw Paw was on a boat with a bunch of friends. They're, you know, late teenagers. They're drinking, all that sort of stuff. He crashes the boat. One of the kids, the local girl there, was killed. And so then, he was going to go to trial. And obviously, it was not good for the family, because and the whole story is that this family, because of their prominence, has gotten their they've gotten off. They have so much influence, they can pay the cops off, they they do all sorts of stuff, I don't know the details, I'm just kinda speculating on some of this based on the hearsay, but, like, that's the whole situation. Right? Okay. And so then so that so just tons of crap with his family. Okay. And then he just got convicted of of murder. Yeah. There's just a lot going on with it that you're like, Jesus. Okay. How is this possible?

Mike DeHaan: [4:28] I can see how people can get into that. I mean, it's basically like a HBO show. That's like, you know Right.

Dan Austin: [4:32] It's like Succession or something. Yeah. Exactly. Seriously. But, like, yeah, it's wild. I did a bad job explaining it, there's people that are really into it. Like, there's a podcast on it already. I'm like, how do people, like, get into this? How do you have so much time? But people do love that true crime. This is not even true crime. This is, like because it's not like a mystery. It's like, you're an idiot. You killed your like, oh, and the dad that was on trial was also addicted, like, OxyContin was taking, like, thirty pills a day and, like, weird shit. Stealing from his law firm. So his this is how dumb he is. So his the housekeeper fell down the stairs, got a head injury. Well, he filed I think he either had a life insurance policy against her or he filed a suit on her family's behalf against his insurance company and got $4,000,000 awarded Nice. And then just never gave it to the family. But he's like, I'm gonna sue I'm gonna sue my insurance company. We're gonna get the money for your family. And then got $4,000,000 and then just never gave it to

Mike DeHaan: [5:26] him. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [5:27] So that's weird. Like, that you would that somebody would die at your house, and then you just get $4,000,000.

Mike DeHaan: [5:32] Yeah. I mean, I don't know, dude. You get to, like, that level of corrupt wealth, things just get are gonna get weird. Like like like, those sort of people, they're on a different tier of, you know, corruption and circumstance and, you know, the good and the bad that most of us can't even begin to fathom. I think that's why people get kind of, you know Power when you

Dan Austin: [5:52] have the power, I think, more than anything.

Mike DeHaan: [5:54] Yeah. So so people get so infatuated with it. But the crazy thing is too is there's that guy who no one ever knows. Then there's the people that are, like, a thousand x him that, you know, do the same shit, but it involves, like, you know, governments and countries.

Dan Austin: [6:07] Right. Take yeah. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [6:08] Like, entire human populations instead of, like, you know, local demographic. Like, there there's probably some conspiracy we could dive we could get back on

Dan Austin: [6:18] a conspiracy and talk about, like, the Russia Ukraine thing, man. Like, your time with taking over countries.

Mike DeHaan: [6:22] I don't I don't like, I want I like to talk about real estate. Like to talk You

Dan Austin: [6:25] don't feel good about you know, you don't feel for the Ukrainian people who've been invaded?

Mike DeHaan: [6:29] I do. I feel very much for them because that sucks. And then that's, like, such an insane situation that's happened because, like, those are, like, proper European cities. Right? It's not like it's some, like, third world country where there's always turmoil and, like, the cities are, you know, super sort of distressed and just, like, not safe anyways. Like, I remember looking at trips, like, going through that part of the world, like, not that long ago, and there was all the highlights of the different tourist things and the history and stuff that you could see in Kyiv in these different places. And now Right. Not gonna happen. Now the places are decimated. Yeah. You know, versus, like gone. It's not like Somalia, right, where there's, like, it's like, oh, there's an invasion in Somalia. It's like, well, I think there's kind of always been that.

Dan Austin: [7:07] There's always kind of some unrest going there, some sort of famine. It's just you know, not that that's make light of it, but

Mike DeHaan: [7:12] No.

Dan Austin: [7:13] But it's just kind of expect it.

Mike DeHaan: [7:14] It is. Yeah. So, anyway, so, yeah, I didn't I didn't know about all that sort of stuff. What I do know is that we are currently hiring and looking for people. Mhmm. We're looking for several positions, and it's been interesting going through the hiring process right now. So because we're looking for a couple new acquisitions managers. We're looking for a client manager for our our instant investor pro and partnership programs, looking for a data analyst that just come and help optimize your data across all the fricking markets we're in now, looking for an administrative assistant. And, you know, it's kind of it's so challenging because you post these job listings. Here's the couple things that I found is super difficult hiring right now. First off, if you have a remote job, like a remote position available, and you post it, understand you're gonna get absolutely slammed.

Dan Austin: [8:02] Tons of people.

Mike DeHaan: [8:02] With tons of people. Most of them are not gonna be qualified, and they're not gonna actually have read your job description. They're just gonna see, like, the little remote brackets or whatever on LinkedIn, and they're gonna be

Dan Austin: [8:11] like, Apply.

Mike DeHaan: [8:13] Mass apply. Mass apply to stuff. So that's first thing. So I've I've already had several conversations with folks. I'm like, these people look qualified, and they're like, wait. So what is this job about? I'm like, are you fucking serious? Like, why why are you wasting everybody's time? Especially because the freaking hiring boards cost money per people per person that I engage with. So now they're wasting my money. Yeah. Which pays They

Dan Austin: [8:32] know that, man. That's how they make money.

Mike DeHaan: [8:34] That is. Exactly. It's super, you know, predatory by the the website that you list stuff on. And it's like, we had a sales guy that joined with us two weeks ago who quit yesterday. And this this really he might listen to this too, so, you know, I don't know what to say about that. But this really pushed my buttons when he said, quote, I did not realize how much work this was going to be. Yeah. I'm like, dude, you you wanted to work with us, and now you're like, I didn't know that you were gonna actually expect things. What you are saying is, I thought that your company was an absolute joke and that I wasn't gonna have to do shit.

Dan Austin: [9:08] That I would come here and show you how to

Mike DeHaan: [9:10] do it. Like, come on, man. Like, honestly, what are you thinking with that? Right?

Dan Austin: [9:15] I think a lot of people he has a real estate agent background. That's what his, like, day job is. I think a lot of real estate agents have no idea about real estate or how hard it is to keep be investing on just like straight up investing, let alone running an off market real estate business where you are going direct to seller to capture equity and properties.

Mike DeHaan: [9:33] Yeah. You know? And there was, like, all these complaints of, well, I didn't realize I was gonna have to be calling these leads that didn't actually wanna sell. I was gonna have to, like, call these people that wouldn't answer. I'm like, why do you think we fucking make $30,000 a deal, right, where a realtor makes 3,000? Like, on, like, the same property. It's because we do

Dan Austin: [9:51] Same property.

Mike DeHaan: [9:51] Yep. We do all the bullshit to get in front of these people.

Dan Austin: [9:54] Take a lot more risk Yeah. Honestly.

Mike DeHaan: [9:56] You're right. We spend a huge amount of money generating the conversations. We spend an incredible amount of time following up with the conversations. Our record right now is over seven hundred days from the time when somebody came in to our system and we signed a deal. That's almost two years of follow-up. Right. Right? And I looked at the record. We we we called that guy, like, 50 times, and he didn't answer. And finally, one day, he answered. And and I I and he the funny thing is too, he knew who we were when they answered. Appreciate what's up, guys. Yeah. The initial call is back, yeah, back when we had Ricardo, Richard on our team, and he was like, Richard, you have been calling me. And Richard was like, why, yes, I have.

Dan Austin: [10:37] Thank you for answering. A year. Finally. Years, dude. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [10:41] You know? But that's also we made, like, $60,000 on that deal.

Dan Austin: [10:44] Yeah. It's pretty simple. You just have to work hard. You do. It's not like this complicated, like, hard to understand process. It's not. You just have to show up every day, be consistent, and be willing to put in the time and effort.

Mike DeHaan: [10:54] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [10:54] And, apparently, not everybody's willing to do that.

Mike DeHaan: [10:56] 100%. And and that's the thing too that's so difficult about the wholesaling business and for people that are interested in and, obviously, not even wholesaling. For doing off market real estate where you want if you wanna make, like you wanna off market real estate is where you make real money. It's where you generate real wealth. Like, you can, you know, even you're doing big assets, you go work with brokers. You guys go out to Little Rock, Arkansas. You go to lunch. You fucking do the thing. Like, whatever. You build relationships. You do that over eight months, and then, hopefully, they'll throw you a bone. If you want to actually go and make real wealth, you wanna buy that $10,000,000 apartment complex for $6,000,000, which is absolutely possible. You know, you're a small town, you wanna buy a $500,000 house for $200,000. Absolutely possible. We've done that many times where you can add on to your net worth extraordinarily quickly. It is not rocket science. You can go on YouTube. You can learn the basics. You know, you can join our instant investor group. We will give you the entire blueprint. You know? And we're pretty cheap too. We're not, like, gonna charge you $20 to get into this this system.

Dan Austin: [11:54] $100 plus profit share.

Mike DeHaan: [11:56] Yeah. Right. Yeah. $100 plus profit share. Oh my god. Talk about that after. But you have to be willing to work for it. You know? And if if you're not willing to work for it, you have to be willing to manage people and find people that are willing to work for it.

Dan Austin: [12:08] Which is even harder work.

Mike DeHaan: [12:09] So Which is even harder. Yeah. So it's just it's just so interesting because this has been something that we have gone through, you know, with several people in house, you know, talking to several people that are, like, interested in the business. And the one of the things that's always interesting to me is they say, like, how many hours a week should I expect to commit to this? I'm like, a lot. Like, honestly. Like like, when you're starting out, maybe a little bit less, but when you get going, if you wanna be successful, it will be a second full time job.

Dan Austin: [12:38] You wanna scale your business to any level of, like, where it replaces income and finds you and scales as quickly as most people want to.

Mike DeHaan: [12:45] Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I probably just turned off half the listeners or three quarters listeners to ever wanna pursue this kind of business, But that's the truth. You know? And that and that's why I also I've I've had this recently when I've been on other shows. I've talking to other people, and they hear that, you know, Dan and I started in 2020. And they're like, wow. You guys scaled up really fast. It's because I've been working, you know, twelve hour days, six to seven days a week now for three years. You know?

Dan Austin: [13:12] Well, and we moved fast too. Yeah. And a lot of people don't understand. A lot of people, like, start out in one spot, and they just try to work and grind that one spot. And you get really good in that one spot. We've had to adapt and pivot, and we've done it quicker than most people can because we realized the writing on the wall in certain areas where, you know, you wanna try and then pivot, try and pivot until you can find, like, the most efficient way to run your business.

Mike DeHaan: [13:34] Exactly. And that's what we have that's why we've been working so much too. And that's that's the thing that's interesting is we don't necessarily have to work that much anymore to run the business. We kinda do right now because we're scaling, but it's all about spending the time to maximize efficiencies, not so that you can work less, but so you can be more productive with the same amount of time. And Product. Yep. And that is where, like, the sort of scaling aspect comes in. But when you're starting out, like, that is a realistic expectation that you need you're gonna need to be putting your nose to the grindstone. This stuff's gonna be hard. You know, you can, like, join, like, our our group. You know, you can work with us on, like, our our pro or our partnership program.

Dan Austin: [14:08] We can help get

Mike DeHaan: [14:09] you there faster. But even if we are doing, like, the back end for you, there's still work involved, you know, to to get these contracts sold to, you know

Dan Austin: [14:19] Nothing good comes easy.

Mike DeHaan: [14:20] Yeah. Not nothing good comes easy.

Dan Austin: [14:22] You gotta work.

Mike DeHaan: [14:22] Yeah. One of the one of the biggest misconceptions about off market real estate and wholesaling is that it's a get rich quick scheme.

Dan Austin: [14:28] It's a get rich eventually.

Mike DeHaan: [14:30] Well, real estate is very true. And wholesaling can be a get rich quick scheme, but it comes at a cost. Right? And that cost is either risk in your money, right, or it is significant amount of work.

Dan Austin: [14:40] That's a good point because you could spend you could double your marketing budget

Mike DeHaan: [14:43] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [14:44] And cut your sales work in half and potentially get a similar result. But you're putting out more money, and so you're less profitable. Or you could have have more targeted, smaller batches of marketing and bust your ass on the sales side of the follow-up. Yeah. Have a higher ROI.

Mike DeHaan: [15:00] Yeah. And and even those, like, you know, those dudes that you see on on Instagram that, like, know, those ones that you think might be full of it, but, like, you also, like, have a feeling that they might be doing something, Like, they're working if they if they are making any deals, they're working pretty hard. You know? And Right. Like, like, even if they're not spending any money. So I don't know.

Dan Austin: [15:18] You know what, though? Like, I hate this is a good I was just looking at a Twitter post from a decently prominent, like, person. And I hate, like, paid this much for these properties, we're expecting this much cash flow. And I'm, like, really? You paid it's like, so, basically, they were quoting, like, a 1.5% rule and awesome cash flow at a very low price. I was like, man, that's that's hard.

Mike DeHaan: [15:41] Weren't they buying in, like, Flint, Michigan?

Dan Austin: [15:43] Well, that was what I was trying

Mike DeHaan: [15:44] to figure out, but then

Dan Austin: [15:45] they were like, the property taxes per property. So say it's one of them was a $140,000 property, one was like a 180, so they're they're all in at like $3.20, but then their property taxes combined for those two properties was like $12 a year. So I'm like, that's kind of a loss. You're in like a higher place, but then you're a higher tax place, but your prices are super low.

Mike DeHaan: [16:03] They're in Texas.

Dan Austin: [16:04] So then

Mike DeHaan: [16:04] In rural Texas.

Dan Austin: [16:06] Right. Something. Right? And then I'm like and then they just go down and they talk about all their numbers, and then some guy starts, like, well, what's this? What's this? What's this? And they start actually explaining it. And I'm like, okay, so you you quoted your top line revenue, which means nothing to me. You could literally say I have a property that grosses $20 a month, I don't care. Yeah. I do not care how much it grosses. But then they they go down, and then I backed into the numbers, like current rates, I'm like, you're not even accounting for anything regarding, like, opex and capex and you're quoting, and then based on what you just said, you're you're gonna make, like, $6,000 a year between two properties before maintenance and before vacancy. I'm, like, so you're not really making that great of money and you're trying to quote saying that this is how you retire fast. It's, like, that's bullshit. Yeah. Like, I just hate the the numbers that people quote, the round numbers, and I'm like, oh, by the way, you'd also have $90,000 into these properties. So now your return on investment true return on investment, if this is even a real deal, is like 8%. Nah. I'm gonna go invest in the stock market, dude. I don't I'm not I'm gonna go buy the S and P 500 Yeah.

Dan Austin: [17:06] And I'm not doing that deal.

Mike DeHaan: [17:08] Yeah. I mean and, like, if stuff seems like it's too good to be true, this is general rule for life like that. Right? You know, they're all crowding these insane numbers. If it seems like it's too good to be true, it probably is. You know, in fact, it's not probably, it absolutely is.

Dan Austin: [17:21] Well, the problem is is there's quite a few people there's quite a few people that have, like, large followings, and this person does, and they target specifically new investors that are like, I wanna buy my first rental property. And they have they just don't know. Like, you know, you and I have been there, and it's like they're blasting this out to a 150, 250,000 followers, and you're like, that that's trash.

Mike DeHaan: [17:42] Yeah. You know, the thing that pisses me off the most about that though is not it's not, like, not even the fact that they're lying. Like, people are gonna lie about stuff, whatever. Like, you know, you go look at, like, a, I don't know, girls taking pictures of themselves on Instagram.

Dan Austin: [17:56] They're all lying.

Mike DeHaan: [17:56] They have the poses. Like, it's basically the business version of that. Right? It is the fact that it sets such an unrealistic expectation for people that are, like, legitimately capable of getting into real estate, and it dampens their, like, prospects and their ability to do well over the long term because now they are setting their entire worldview on the investment world based off of falsities Absolutely. Which sucks. You know? And and so they spend their time. And even even if they don't buy that dude's course, our lady, I don't know who it was, they don't do engage with them at all. They don't do anything. All they know is is, oh, Joe Schmo said that this is what they're getting, so I feel like my deals need to look like that. Sure. And so people don't take action because they do.

Dan Austin: [18:39] You're right. They sit back on their laurels and, like, there's no good deals here. It's like, even if that person quoted the right numbers, they may have bought 10 or 12 deals before they got that. Like, you and I have had some deals where we bought them and we didn't think they're gonna be that good, but they were, like, real good, you're, hell yeah. Yeah. But that's not every deal. Yeah. I know. It's like every five, every six deals. You know?

Mike DeHaan: [18:58] Totally. Right? And then that is the name of the game, though, is, you know, real estate is to get rich quick eventually scheme. And if you're getting into wholesale and you're doing transactional real estate, honestly, whether it's flipping, whether it's wholesaling, whether it's being a realtor, you know Right. Realistically, it is doing the small okay deals to pay the bills until you find a whale that you're gonna take down, which is where you make your big payday. For sure. You know? And, like, even, like, for wholesaling, that is doing the 8 to $10,000 assignment fees they cover your marketing, cover your staff, you know, keep the lights on until you get the $60,000 deal. They're like, hell yeah. Now right now, now us as the owners are getting paid.

Dan Austin: [19:35] From the Now you're taking a distribution and you're you're filling up your coffers and then maybe the next deal is a bur that you get to keep. Yep. And it's just like, that's how it works. Yep. Not every deal is that way. You gotta chip away Mhmm. And then you get the big whales.

Mike DeHaan: [19:47] Exactly. And even if you're a realtor, right, you're going and listing all the $200,000 houses, the $300,000 houses where you're making, you know, 4,500 after you split with your broker. You do that. Your signs are all over town until you get the millionaire home that, like, he's just like, who's this Dan Austin guy? See his sign all over the place. And he calls you, and you're like, cool. Now you're getting paid. Now you're making $30 on that big house.

Dan Austin: [20:07] Now you're getting a pop. Yeah. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [20:09] You know? So it's it's just so interesting and and frustrating. That's something too as as we're going through is one of the things that people always ask when they, like, inquire about our stuff or they just, like, even hit me up just to have a conversation about our system. They're like, so what is it that you do that's different? Or, like, you know, they'll they'll they'll say, like I love that. I get this on Instagram, but

Dan Austin: [20:28] they're like pick you.

Mike DeHaan: [20:29] Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [20:30] Well, but

Mike DeHaan: [20:30] not only that, but they're like, I feel like the stuff you post on Instagram is, you know, you're kinda just doing the same thing as what I see on YouTube. I'm like, yeah. And you know why? Do you know why people post it on YouTube? Because it works. Yeah. It's so crazy.

Dan Austin: [20:43] And then and the the thing is is, like, can it well, why don't I just watch YouTube then? Yes. You should. Absolutely. Yeah. You should do that and then come back to us as well. Honestly. Honestly, you know, because a lot of it is not, you and I know this as well as anybody, but, like, it's not just about what you can learn from an educational tool, it's about the group and the people you're around. And some people, like, still, no matter how much they pay for education, they don't understand that that's why other people are being successful. Yeah. It's because the group that they're surrounding themselves with.

Mike DeHaan: [21:09] For sure. Totally. You know, then from a, like, creator standpoint too, you know, we started to do a lot more content creation through, like, the podcast, and then, you through know, a group, and then I've started to some stuff on Instagram. You know? And now we're doing some, like trying to figure out some training stuff in house to help make the the team a little bit better. We're going through and we're, like if we went through this training, we're, like, how do we create sales training for our guys? You know? And I've had people ask me, dude, do you have any recommendations for sales training? And we I was spending a lot of time thinking about this. And then I was like, people love that. I hate it. Let's just go find some YouTube videos Some YouTube videos. Through all of that. So now we're currently building out our training system for our staff, all from videos that are already done.

Dan Austin: [21:48] Right. Well, and there's not anybody out there pitching some there's very few, like, different sales strategies that, like, catch or different. Most people are trying to say the same things. It's just how you reposition what you're saying is how people segment themselves.

Mike DeHaan: [22:00] Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So, anyway, but point being with all that, if if your stuff seems too good to be true or if someone tells you that they have, like, some super secret method how they're printing money or someone talks to you about their deal where they're making, you know, way too much, like and and you're kinda like, wow. That seems crazy to me. It's absolute trash. I guarantee it.

Dan Austin: [22:19] Except for when you get a 50 k bump, like I text you last night. Mhmm. That is a 100% true. Got a little 50 k bump this week from a crazy ass deal that I'm super stoked because it's like it's like when you find $20 in your ski jacket from last year,

Mike DeHaan: [22:33] you're like, hell yeah. It's the wholesale version. Yeah. Right.

Dan Austin: [22:35] Yeah. It's the wholesale version of that.

Mike DeHaan: [22:37] Like But I I love this deal, though. I'm a I'm a I'll let you kinda talk about it. But this is something else too that if you are if you wanna be serious in the off market real estate game, not just about working hard, but also having the willingness to have a very large box and be creative to get things done, which I've also learned most people don't have. Like, if it's not, like, in a book, they don't know how to do it. But when you're doing off market real estate, if you wanna make real money and you wanna capitalize on every opportunity, you have to be willing to just, like, figure stuff out, which is super hard. Yes. But, again, that's why we can make $50,000 on a deal that we didn't even like, had a contract for. We never wholesale. We never even closed on. We never did anything. And this came, like you said, money in our ski pocket. Yes. It's $20.21. So to make a phantom $50,000. It was great. I was out to dinner last night. Was looking at the bill. Was like, damn. This is, like, a fucking expensive dinner. I didn't realize that. And then I'm well, at least it's paid for because this dude is scammer out.

Dan Austin: [23:37] Yeah. It was wild though, like, this was we got this, we've talked about this on the podcast, but we'll we'll dive back into it for new listeners. We bought this when we were in between act managers.

Mike DeHaan: [23:48] I'll say we didn't buy it. We never bought it.

Dan Austin: [23:49] I'm sorry. We worked this lead. You mean you were in between acquisitions managers, we weren't, like, in a rush to hire a new one. We obviously were looking to hire a new one. We're like, dude, we could take this down. It's no problem. We can handle the job between the two of us. It's not like we don't know how to do this part and we we've done it before. So this was a lead that I we it came in on a Sunday through our website. Jumped right on it.

Mike DeHaan: [24:09] We were on a phone call, dude. I remember.

Dan Austin: [24:10] You and I were on a phone call.

Mike DeHaan: [24:11] Yeah. And I got sidetracked. I got the email. Was like, oh, we just got a lead. Like, should we call him, like, right now?

Dan Austin: [24:15] And you're like, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Let's do it Sunday afternoon. Heck yeah. We were, like, doing, like, strategy meeting in in anyways. So super hot, went out there. It was a weird weird situation. I won't dive into the whole weird situation, but just a weird situation was two women that lived together, and then their ex girlfriends lived in the basement Yep. Which was a completely separate unit downstairs with its own entrance and its own detached garage, but it was like a single family home. So was a duplex, basically. And it was a great property. They wanted to move fast and sell fast and needed a little bit of work. It was a newer built home, so it wasn't crazy in a nice neighborhood. And we ended up getting it contracted for, like, I don't remember, was it, like, 02/25? Something like that. And we thought at the we thought at the time, the ARV was around 400, if we were to put, like, 30 k into it. So it was a sweet deal. We were gonna keep it as, like, a duplex, rent it

Mike DeHaan: [25:03] out. And the motivation behind it was that she was on the brink of tax foreclosure. She hadn't paid her tax bill in years, and, basically, at the end of that month, she was going to lose her house. We had been pushing towards tax foreclosure the the entire time and she was in big trouble.

Dan Austin: [25:18] She owned the house outright Yep. And was going to lose it over, like, five years of missed taxes. And anyhow and they were gonna move to West Virginia was the plan, as we thought. And the whole transaction got weird. One this is one where the seller called us from the closet saying that she needs our help because her girlfriend was going was trying to, like, kidnap her. It just got weird, like, phone calls like that. I was like, what's going on? I was like I was like, okay, no, like, no worries, like, okay, let's step back, like and I was trying to help connect them to realtor in West Virginia, and so, like, it was just all this sort of stuff going on. It was, like, one of those deals where we're working our butt off because it was a it was a good deal and they needed our help by the end of the month. Anyhow, it comes down to it where she doesn't wanna sell for some reason, and I still remember this so awkward when you and I drove out there.

Mike DeHaan: [26:02] I know.

Dan Austin: [26:02] And I had I had talked to her several times before this and then, like, we're, like, we just gotta go out there and I go to knock on the door and I thought that the door was open and so I stepped back, but really, what happened was the person opened the door and then stepped away, and the other person, the lady who actually owned the house, didn't know it, and then they're yelling and arguing and crying at with each other, and then and, like, the door just was sitting there open, and they didn't realize we were standing there, I guess. And anyways, we just, like, open the screen door, and you and I walk into this freaking uncomfortable argument. Was so weird. And she's, like, I don't wanna sell my house, and she's crying. She's, like, I don't wanna lose it. We're, like, literally, like, two days from now, we talked to the city, they're foreclosing on your house, all this sort of stuff. But we're like, hey, we're not we're not gonna, like, hold you to it. Like, if you don't wanna sell to us, that's fine. We're like, hey, we just want you to sign this document, which gives us the first right of refusal to purchase this house for the next five years Yep. If you decide to sell it at this purchase price.

Dan Austin: [26:59] Because we're like, in two days, they're gonna foreclose on it, they have to come to us and sell it to us.

Mike DeHaan: [27:04] Yeah, exactly. So that was kind of the strategy was we wanted to make sure that when the city took it back, which we 100% knew they were going to, that they would come to us and say, hey, do you want this property? Do you guys have to pay back the taxes? We would say, absolutely, and we would take it at that point.

Dan Austin: [27:17] Right. And that was, like, that was not something we knew about. No. We just, like, all of a sudden yeah. I think you called our lawyer Yeah. Or a lawyer.

Mike DeHaan: [27:23] I was

Dan Austin: [27:23] like, can't like

Mike DeHaan: [27:24] Yeah. Well well, that was the thing is I was like, how can we secure this? How can we make it so that, you know, when the city goes and takes it, it doesn't go to auction, and now it's gonna get bid up to, like, $43.50, and the entire deal's gone. And so I called our lawyer, and I said, is it possible to, like, place a lien or, like, a first right of refusal on the property publicly so that, you know, when the city goes to claim it, like, our our lien basically pops up, and then they'll call us, get in. So they were like, yeah. We could probably do that. So they had they actually had, like, a whole strategy for it. I don't know what the specific document was.

Dan Austin: [27:52] It was a purchase option

Mike DeHaan: [27:53] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [27:53] Is what they called it. And, essentially, it said that if they go to sell it, they wanna sell it, we have the option to buy it. Was It basically a first rider refusal, but a little different, because the option to purchase was in there at a set price

Mike DeHaan: [28:07] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [28:07] Which was the price we contracted it at. And the best part about that is is they forgot to bill us, so the lawyers didn't even bill us until this year. So we got we got off Scott Freak. That was, like, $1,100 to have him draft it. So so no cost into it. And then they then I called them about it, and they're like, oh, we forgot to bill you. But anyhow, so we do that. The lady somehow gets her taxes forgiven, which is, like, not a thing. Because, like, I asked the city

Mike DeHaan: [28:31] I still don't know how she did it.

Dan Austin: [28:33] I was asked the city how I don't know if they just, like, had a glitch and they just the taxes disappeared because we mean, I literally talked to a lady at the city. She's like, nope. There's no program. There's nothing she can do. She doesn't qualify. There's just nothing. It's like, okay, cool. Anyhow, fast forward till, what, the end of last year Mhmm. 2022. Seller dies. Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [28:50] The seller died for some reason.

Dan Austin: [28:52] And her dad, who's probably gotta be in his eighties because she was probably in her fifties, her dad's lawyer reaches out to our lawyer who says, hey, I want to buy this contract from them and and cut them out so I can I can list the house and sell the house? Mhmm. And I think they wanted to offer us what what? It was, like, $20?

Mike DeHaan: [29:12] No. I think they offered us $10

Dan Austin: [29:13] to start. $10. And I was like, no, I'm good. Because the guy and the guy was like, we'll wait it out. Yeah. And then so, essentially, I, instead of going through our lawyer, I just called their lawyer and talked to him, and I was like, hey, man, here's the deal. I was like, first of all, has he got the squatters out of there yet? Because I knew the two ex girlfriends in the basement were squatting

Mike DeHaan: [29:32] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [29:33] And I knew the girlfriend upstairs was definitely not gonna leave if she didn't have to.

Mike DeHaan: [29:37] Yep.

Dan Austin: [29:37] And he's like, well, they're working on it. I And was like, and that house is pretty trashed, He's like, yeah, they they know he knows he needs to do some work. Was like, he's not gonna sell it for what he thinks he is. No. I was like, here's the deal, I knew the guy wanted money because the seller's mom gave her that house. Like, gave her $200,000 or whatever it was to buy that house cash and that is the ex wife of her dad. So, this guy's really wanting to get some money back. Right? You know, they got divorced and he's like, this is a way for me to to get some free money from my ex wife, essentially. Right? And so, anyhow, I knew just like that was the case. We negotiated it, basically, that they would give us 10% of the sale or $50 at closing. Whichever was higher. Whichever was higher. Yep. And so, last night, I I was busy yesterday. I didn't I had a voice mail at, like, don't know what time that was. 06:00, 07:00, I text you. I was like, hey, I just got a voice mail from a title company, the address was different.

Mike DeHaan: [30:29] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [30:29] Like, was a different like, because it's a corner lot, so I think the address was different. Anyways, they're like, we just wanna call and touch base with you about a payment for blah blah blah road, and I was like, oh, shit. Is this what I think it is? You're like, yeah. That's the address. I was like, damn. Got a little 50 k bump.

Mike DeHaan: [30:43] Yep. Yeah. So, basically, in order to sell it so, yeah, so what ultimately happened is we had made that agreement. They, you know, figured out the scar situation, went and listed the property. I looked at photos of properties, more way more trashed than it was. They sell it for?

Dan Austin: [30:56] What was the price?

Mike DeHaan: [30:57] It was listed for, like, ninety days, like, long time. Yeah. And it it shows that it's pending at, like, $40.05.

Dan Austin: [31:03] So Yeah. I knew it would be something like that.

Mike DeHaan: [31:06] Yeah. But, like, if if they'd made it nice that's something that sucks too. If they made it nice, that's, a 500 plus thousand dollar house pretty easy.

Dan Austin: [31:11] It's in a very well established neighborhood right across the street from a brand new kind of higher end new build neighborhood. So it's, like, a great location.

Mike DeHaan: [31:18] Yeah. It is. And and it's like kind of a cool house too. Like, it has an oversized lot and stuff. So, yeah, they sold it for, like, 400 something. Yeah. We're more making 50,000 office things to to release our our lien on it.

Dan Austin: [31:29] Yeah. I'm not even stoked about the I mean, $50 is obviously nothing. Yeah. You know, it's it's a big deal. But, like, I'm just happy, like, when you get that. We didn't do any additional work for that. It just we set up the right paperwork, the right documents to ensure that we are protected on the back end if anything ever happened. And it wasn't like we were setting it up for this scenario, but this scenario happened and and it worked out.

Mike DeHaan: [31:50] Well, the crazy thing is, I'll be honest, after she got the tax stuff forgiven, I honestly forgot that we had that agreement out there.

Dan Austin: [31:57] I didn't think about it either. I was like, oh, you know what? I was like, damn, we lost that one.

Mike DeHaan: [32:00] Yeah. It's so crazy because we, you know, we had it out and, like, it was recorded. She got out of taxes. We're like, okay. Well, we tried something. And then for the fact that it all come full circle, you know, supercharged lady died. I don't know all the circumstances behind that. I know she had some health issues, I think, but it's a way to to squeak out a little bit extra money. A little extra money. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [32:19] A little

Mike DeHaan: [32:19] pocket money. Yeah. So, you know, it's a super, like, long term wholesale deal.

Dan Austin: [32:24] That would be another that might have been a record. You said what was the other what is our record, did you say? It was seven hundred days?

Mike DeHaan: [32:28] For, yeah, for contact, contact, like, 700 something.

Dan Austin: [32:30] Yeah. I don't think this I don't know that this one would be 700. This one is close to two years, though, probably.

Mike DeHaan: [32:35] Yeah. Yeah. This yeah. This won't quite be. I think that was, like, June 2021, so pretty dang close. But, anyway, so point being with that whole story is you gotta be creative. You gotta protect yourself. And, you know, as you're as you're going into these conversations with people, understand I think one of the biggest things you can do if you wanna be successful in this is get educated on the real estate process, like, the transactional process, and kinda know what is potentially possible. Right? And, I mean, even even, like, the the dudes that preach, like, creative financing and all those sort of things, they're not wizards who have encountered some crazy thing. They just have a really good understanding about how real estate law works, about how real estate processes work, about the appropriate documents you need, and about what transactions can look like. And this is another example of, you know, a a creative style transaction that, you know, is a little bit more out of our control, and it came around in a way that we never expected. But also, too, you know, it's a it's a win. Either way, I'm not gonna complain.

Dan Austin: [33:35] Yeah. Well, in Leverager, if you get into weird situations, leverage your title company, because that's the lawyer we used as our title company who we've been established with for a while. They also have a law office, they are a law office. And it's like, okay, let me leverage that connection and just not give up and say no right away. Yeah. It doesn't mean, like, in a situation you're in, they might just say, hey, there's nothing you can do, like, we've had people just decide not to not to sell, like, no, I'm not coming to the signing. You ask the lawyer, what what can we do? They're like, well, honestly, nothing. Yeah. Like, you could sue them, but really, are you going to do that? And it's like, no, you're right. And so that sucks. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do, but sometimes there is something you can do, you it's worth asking and not just giving up right away.

Mike DeHaan: [34:12] Yeah. Exactly. And and also, too, you need to address the situation of, like, what is the situation the person is under and, like, what is the outcome that's gonna lead to you being able to exercise that that back into it. So, like, even with this, we talk when we talked to our lawyer, we explained to her, like, our goal with this is that when the city takes this house in two weeks, which they will that we'll be able to claim it. She's like, that absolutely makes sense. Like, let's do it. If we had said, like, yeah. So when this this lady is terminally ill, when she's 18, when she dies in eighteen months, we wanna make sure we can take her house. Like, that's super bad. Like and we that was not the situation at all, to make that clear.

Dan Austin: [34:45] No. It's not we're not trying to be those dorks that are, like, what are they doing out there? I can't remember the names of my name, but they put the forty year options where you have to give them a commission for they'll give you $500 today, but for the next forty years, if you sell their house, you owe them the commission.

Mike DeHaan: [34:58] Yeah. I know that that's super shady. A lot of those companies are getting shut down. If you guys haven't encountered those yet, you're lucky because they have made some deals really weird because they target the same people that off market real estate investors do, you know, people that have recorded bankruptcies, distress. And then, like I said, they put they give them they say, like, hey. You are have problems. Is you, like, a thousand dollars? They're like, hell, yeah. That cool. Just sign this document. We won't tell you what it is. And then it places this lien where they get a commission off of, you know, a sale of your house, but they don't no. They're not necessarily requesting to list the house. Not it's not actually gonna provide you any service. Mhmm. They're literally just gonna get paid when you lose the house, sell it to an investor, put it on the market, sell it to your friend, give it to your freaking grandkids, whatever.

Dan Austin: [35:40] So, basically, it's recorded against the property. So if you go pull title report, you'll see it right there. Yeah. It's an option.

Mike DeHaan: [35:45] Yeah. So, you know, don't be like those people because those people are are gonna go to jail in their dirtbags. Yeah. Cool. You should make sure you go post that in our our the wins channel for instant investor program too.

Dan Austin: [35:54] Oh, yeah. I will.

Mike DeHaan: [35:55] Yeah. That's a good one. We're really bad about posting wins on there. I think because because wins become a an expectation rather than, like, a win when you're operating a business, but we definitely need to be better about that. But if we have some dude doing some savage deals right now, like that that deal that Dylan just got, one of our our buddies

Dan Austin: [36:11] I know.

Mike DeHaan: [36:11] Dylan Dylan out in Cincinnati. It's finding these you know, I want we're wind up here wind down here really quick, but I wanna give a shout out. This might be, like, the best deal that I have seen someone put together, like, in our circle. Like, this beats our friends that, you know, got a $360,000 wholesale fee. You know, this beats some of the people that we know that have bought, like, self storage units that are, like, have fat cap rates. He negotiated so, Dylan, if you listen to wanna give you a big shout out, man. I I read this deal three or four times. I fully understand it. You're like, what? So sick. So, basically, he's buying these three duplexes. He's in Cincinnati. $300,000, buying them on Seller Finance. $30,000 down. First off, the fact you can buy three duplexes for $300,000. Fuck you. That's outrageous.

Dan Austin: [36:54] No. That's not fair.

Mike DeHaan: [36:55] No. That's not fair

Dan Austin: [36:56] at all.

Mike DeHaan: [36:56] With a fixed payment of $2,250 a month, principal only. So it's 0% interest for ten years. K? So that means that every payment, $2,250 is going to his debt to be paid down. And he figures market rent for these properties is $5,400.

Dan Austin: [37:16] So It's almost a 2% deal.

Mike DeHaan: [37:18] Yeah. So, like, just just, like, just a very basic breakdown. Well, that's a 2% deal, but the debt pay down is insane.

Dan Austin: [37:24] It makes it just skyrocket. The the ROI on this is amazing.

Mike DeHaan: [37:27] Yeah. So he's putting $30 into it. And not only is he gonna be cash flowing, you know, let's say, set aside, let's say, $1,500 a month, right, like, but he is going to be paying down over $2,000 in debt every single month Yeah. For ten years.

Dan Austin: [37:43] That's straight money in your pocket. You have to remember that. I mean, that's I don't know what the quick math on that is, but it's like probably almost closer to like $30 a year in pure principal pay down. So if those were only worth 300,000, which obviously they're worth more, he got those at a sweet discount. Mhmm. If if that was the case, so he's gonna, after this, like, say, three or ten years, I guess that would be the whole thing's paid off. Yeah. Which normally, it would take, if you think about it with traditional financing, thirty years.

Mike DeHaan: [38:11] Yep.

Dan Austin: [38:11] So he's having this thing paid down, which means he's also going to have a pile of equity, which he'll probably not wanna necessarily pay down, but he'll be able to leverage at some point Mhmm. Pretty quickly, so Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [38:21] Sick deal. So, yeah, like, probably, like, the best off market real estate deal I've seen, if you look at the actual

Dan Austin: [38:26] That is a really good deal. And they're all right next door to each other, three duplexes.

Mike DeHaan: [38:29] Yeah. Easy to manage, huge net profit. So shout out to Dylan there. That's the kind of stuff buddy. Stuff that's going on over there in our group. So awesome, guys. Well, anyways, that was a quick forty minutes today. I don't even remember what we talked about. We talked about all sorts of random stuff. But alright, though. Thanks for listening, everybody. If you enjoyed that show, please go and share with anybody that might be interested in real estate investing, business, making money, anything in between. The easiest way for us to grow this show is for you to share it with your friends. So please just tell everybody. Even if they're not interested, like, tell them anyway. You don't know. They might have, like, a uncle or something that's like, oh, yeah. My friend told me about this show. You should go listen to it. And that that's, you know, it's a net network effect. But share with everybody. And if you wanna start finding your own off market deals, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free. You can get our free five step guide to start generating off market leads, and that can get you going pretty quickly on becoming a full time real estate investor. So besides that, guys, leave us a five star review. Subscribe, all the other stuff you're supposed to say, and talk to you guys next week.

Speaker 2: [39:31] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.