What the Big Beautiful Bill Means for Real Estate Investors w/ Greg Helbeck

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

Mike DeHaan: [1:10] And the big thing that all the real estate guys are talking about is the bonus depreciation piece and how that is back indefinitely. What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. My name is Mike DeHaan. I am the host here with my cohost, Dan Austin and Dylan Cook. And today, we have a special guest, Greg Helbeck, who has been on the show with us before. I really should have looked and seen what episode numbers they were, but I don't know. Go Google collecting keys, Greg Helbeck. You'll find them on there. But, Greg, really quick, just for people who don't have context for who you are, give us a 10 intro, who you are, what you do, and why you're awesome.

Greg Helbeck: [1:51] Yeah. I'm an off market investor in Washington in New York, and I've been doing this business for ten years now. Done done probably 400 properties. And yeah, I mean, I pretty much do everything minus creative finance. I've done a few of them, and I think that's kind of weird. So, I stick to mostly cash offers. And yeah, I definitely have a lot of experience with like off market bullshit.

Mike DeHaan: [2:13] Yeah, absolutely. You know, Yeah. At this Yeah. And if you guys have not listened to Greg's show, what's your show called one more time?

Greg Helbeck: [2:21] It's called the Real Estate Investing Fast Track.

Mike DeHaan: [2:24] That's right.

Dan Austin: [2:24] Yeah. Real Estate Investing

Greg Helbeck: [2:25] Fast Track. You to deals. There you go. Perfect. True. The Disney World.

Mike DeHaan: [2:30] Another great real estate show to add to your repertoire along with collecting keys. And Greg's also a great operator if you can't tell. Right on, guys. If it's your first time here, this is the real estate operator show for operators by operators. Well, we are rolling into this show today. It is July 8, and we're recording this. And one of the big topics conversation, which we should dive into, I don't like to be overly political, But it is a big thing, I guess, would say in the real estate world is the big beautiful bill passed through all of the different tiers of the government. And the big thing that all the real estate guys are talking about is the bonus depreciation piece and how that is back indefinitely, which I always think is funny they phrase it that way because it's really just back until the next people come in and fucking get rid of it again. But it's been one of the most common discussed pieces amongst the bill, amongst real estate folks. And I guess essentially what it allows you to do is it allows you to take that that bonus depreciation moving forward so you can reduce your income and your tax even more as a real estate professional off some of the assets that you acquire.

Mike DeHaan: [3:29] And you had a bunch of other bullets on this, Dylan, related to it. So you had section 179, expensing limits doubled, 20% pass through deductions on net rental income. Dylan, for those of us who aren't as smart as you, make it easier to understand.

Dan Austin: [3:44] What is it?

Dylan Koch: [3:45] I mean, it's just a couple of bullet points related to the bonus appreciation bonus appreciation. Idiots.

Greg Helbeck: [3:50] You know

Dylan Koch: [3:50] what it is. And then

Dan Austin: [3:52] Actually, Dylan, there's like five.

Mike DeHaan: [3:54] There's like five. And I want you to explain it like so all of the newbies that are listening can understand.

Dylan Koch: [3:59] Okay. So let's just start at the top. The bonus depreciation back indefinitely. So a quick example, if you have a property that you bought for a $120,000, you can you can't depreciate land. So let's say the building's worth a $100. You can take a $100 off your income for that year if you're a real estate professional. And you can kind of play with that, you know, if you have a spouse that has high income or it can carry over the following years. Section one seventy nine, that's like, you know, when people buy cars and try to reduce them. That's basically expanding those limits on what you can pass and how much you can pass through.

Dan Austin: [4:30] Okay. So can we get a g wagon for collecting keys then and write it off? Is that what you're saying?

Dylan Koch: [4:34] I would say yes. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [4:35] There you go.

Greg Helbeck: [4:36] I mean,

Dylan Koch: [4:36] I'm not that's not like, I'm not a tax advice, but I would say yeah. We're getting to

Mike DeHaan: [4:40] have money in collecting keys first, Dan. That's the real problem. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [4:42] Shit. That is the problem. I don't have $250.

Dylan Koch: [4:45] The debt ceiling got raised by 5,000,000,000,000, which is the biggest, like, one step increase in history. Nah. What do you mean nah? That's a fact. It's numbers.

Mike DeHaan: [4:55] That's fake news, bro. They were gonna stop the spending. Didn't you pay attention to the campaign?

Dan Austin: [4:59] You're your

Mike DeHaan: [5:00] Yeah. That that's some liberal propaganda. The Trump campaign was stopping this.

Dylan Koch: [5:05] I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just saying it happened. The final I'm

Mike DeHaan: [5:09] just saying you're wrong. It's just the facts.

Dylan Koch: [5:12] Okay. And then opportunity zones, they really changed. They're kind of still there. For opportunity zones, basically, if you have, let's say, $100,000 in capital gains, like from selling stock or whatever, you can take those gains, put it in opportunity zone. If you hold it for at least ten years in that opportunity zone, then basically your capital gains taxes go away. Mhmm. And then 20% pass through deduction on net rental income. So if you made a $100, you can say, Oh, you actually made $80 just from that write off being in the tax code.

Mike DeHaan: [5:42] That's cool. Okay. So that's basically just covering like expenses. Is that what they're saying? Like, is that the theory behind that?

Dylan Koch: [5:48] Yeah. Mean, but this is a net number. So like it's taking a tax off of the net amount. So it's just like a free 20%, honestly.

Greg Helbeck: [5:54] So you can discount your net rental income by 20%?

Dylan Koch: [5:57] Under your taxes, From

Dan Austin: [5:58] any pass through entity, right? Rentals, like LLCs and S corps and stuff like that. Is that what it comes down to?

Dylan Koch: [6:04] Correct. Not a C corp, but an S corp.

Greg Helbeck: [6:06] Dylan, what about this? I bought a condo for $145 in January. So that was 2025. There's no land value. It's literally, it's got four walls around it. So can I take that 145 purchase and stick that against my active income at this point?

Dylan Koch: [6:20] Yes. As long as it's a rental for you.

Greg Helbeck: [6:22] Yeah, yeah. It's a rental. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [6:23] Boom. There you go.

Greg Helbeck: [6:24] Holy shit. That's fucking awesome.

Dylan Koch: [6:26] Damn. This is why a lot of high W-two people love the 100% bonus appreciation.

Dan Austin: [6:30] You got to have a long term vision though, or be willing to ten thirty one. That's the killer though. Like, if you if you plan to ten thirty one till you die kind of guy or you just plan to never sell your property, then you're good to go. Because otherwise, you gotta pay that back.

Dylan Koch: [6:43] Well, even when you sell it Yeah. I know Mike likes to point out, yeah, you gotta pay it back, but it's 25% of the value. So even if you took a $100,000 in bonus depreciation, you only pay back $25. So you have a True. You have a spread of $75 that you're still ahead.

Mike DeHaan: [6:55] Yeah. But you still gotta account for that. Right? Because you're lowering your income by that much. So you're it's not like you're saving a $100,000. You're reducing your income by a $100,000. So your tax savings on that will be

Greg Helbeck: [7:05] Yeah. You're reducing it. Like, if you net if you net a million and then you got $300 of property write offs, Correct. Net effective income is $700, you're gonna pay taxes on $700.

Mike DeHaan: [7:14] Correct. Exactly. So your savings is gonna be a difference to whatever your tax rate was. That 25% they're going to take from you anyway. So that's where a lot of people get it wrong, is they basically think I'm saving a $100,000 on taxes. No. That's straight up false because they're stupid. But that that depreciation recapture, right, it is important to consider that because to Dan's point, if all of a sudden they, you know, you have to pay that $25,000 back. The problem is, is most people don't think that way. Right? And all of a sudden is they go and they sell the property and they go to get their tax bill that next year and they're like, fuck. I owe how much money? Like, I didn't count for that at all. I was buying boats and shit. Totally. You know? And because, like, that's just how the average schmuck works that fully buys into this kind of stuff. The ones they're talking the loudest about it on Facebook, they don't think about that. Yeah. Right? If they did, they will be focused on making more money where it doesn't really matter. Right? Like, don't need to stress out about this and make this the their whole personality now.

Greg Helbeck: [8:06] Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

Dylan Koch: [8:07] don't buy real estate just for the tax benefits, But you know, for if you're making 500 k a year, you could offset $500,000 worth of income, and then you could even go a step further. Let's say you had a traditional IRA that you want to convert to a Roth. You said it's based on your income. Well, now you can do it at a lower tax bracket. So you can get levels to

Greg Helbeck: [8:25] this Yeah. Totally.

Dylan Koch: [8:25] Down the I mean, I won't say this out loud or, like, who say who it is, but there's a person in GoBundance who like, his kids were on Medicaid because his AGI on paper was nothing, right? His gross income was basically nothing.

Greg Helbeck: [8:38] His kids are on Medicaid and he's worth $10,000,000. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [8:40] He can fucking suck it now because that's gone too, motherfuckers. So Mhmm. Yeah. Jokes jokes on you. That is true. Plus that as well. But I mean and on this point too is if you are a higher income person, definitely don't ever invest as like an LP in a deal where the only upside is the tax benefits because I guarantee you that person's about to rob you. Because that seems to be like the number one play for all of the, you know, syndications and the the GP deals that have gone sideways over the last number of years is they're going there, finding their doctor friends and their dentist friends and their lawyer friends and saying, hey. Would you like to reduce your $1,000,000 tax bill to $500,000? Awesome. Let's go and put you into all these properties. I will give you all the depreciation as a limited partner. Basically And, I'll get the equity, and then you can off pay taxes. And then they just steal your money and that entire deal sucks. And congratulations.

Greg Helbeck: [9:32] Yeah. But even with that scenario, without giving like accounting advice, if they're not a real estate professional and they're a full time doctor, they can only write off their passive losses. They can't write off their active income. They'd have to be a real estate professional to do that.

Dan Austin: [9:45] This is true.

Mike DeHaan: [9:46] It is true. So what a lot of them will do is they'll be like, so my wife is going to go and get a real estate license.

Greg Helbeck: [9:51] Oh, yeah, yeah, I got you.

Mike DeHaan: [9:52] Right. And then she's going to be involved in the day to day doing the bookkeeping.

Greg Helbeck: [9:56] And they'll file the taxes pointly.

Mike DeHaan: [9:58] Exactly. And they'll do some bullshit, and their wife hasn't you know, she sits on cupcakes for a living, but she has a real estate license now. So that's great.

Dylan Koch: [10:04] Has a real estate license. That's really all you need. Like, if you have a real estate license, it's pretty easy to justify, like, real estate professional.

Mike DeHaan: [10:10] Hey. So you've heard us mention our scale community before, and I don't have a lot of time, so here are the quick highlights. In scale, you get all of our processes and systems that we use to do about a 150 deals every single year. You also get a community of investors that are verified crushing it in their markets. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be members. And that way, you don't have to waste time with nonstarters like you find in other groups. You also get preferred relationships with marketing companies and even lenders that will give you 100% financing. If you just heard all that and said, nah. I don't really need it. That's not gonna help me. I don't know what to tell you. You're lying to yourself because all those things are guaranteed to help you explode your business and buy more deals next year. So go to collectingkeys.com/scale, and let's see if you qualify. So how are things for you, Greg, out there in Seattle?

Greg Helbeck: [10:55] Yeah. I mean, it's been good. I knew we were talking offline before we hit record. I found that at least right now that it's easier to buy houses from sellers, and it hasn't been hard to sell them. So this is a very good opportunity for us to capitalize on a lot of our opportunities because about three months ago, it was a lot harder to buy houses and it was still easy to sell houses. So recently I've seen it's just the acquisitions have been much easier and we haven't seen a problem with any retail flips or assignment deals. So I told Brett today-

Dylan Koch: [11:24] Greg, are you not to cut you off, are you saying easier to sell it to both end buyers and to retail buyers?

Greg Helbeck: [11:29] Yes, yes. Novation's the whole thing. So I'm like, we got to squeeze all the juice we can out of this because you don't know when the market's going to pivot next. And I've also seen that, at least in some areas in New York and even Seattle, like the Seattle Metro, if you're above the median, it will sit. It all has to do with inventory. But if you're below the median and you're in a good price point and you underwrite like a professional, not like a fucking idiot, most likely you're not going have an issue selling. But there are some other areas I've seen in the country where, if you're in Florida or Texas, it's like a fucking falling knife that you're trying to catch. So you really got to know your markets now.

Mike DeHaan: [12:03] It's kind of funny, Greg, because you've been in real estate for longer than all of us, for ten years. And the entire time, at least it sounds like, you've done one of the biggest things that most OG real estate guys swear against is you operate in blue states. You've done Washington.

Dan Austin: [12:19] You've done New York.

Greg Helbeck: [12:20] Yeah. I've only made money. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [12:22] And then That's when I first heard about you, it was Amir and Ryan Dossi's group, and you were in San Diego at that point. I don't know if you were doing business there.

Greg Helbeck: [12:30] Yeah. I flipped there until I left. I moved there in 2018 and I got out of there in 2023 and I made money every year in that market. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [12:37] I mean, it's served you well.

Dan Austin: [12:39] Let me ask you this. Do you own rentals in all those states?

Greg Helbeck: [12:42] I don't own rentals in Washington or Cali, just in New York and Pennsylvania, which is Pennsylvania's Yeah. A purple

Dan Austin: [12:48] Yeah. I would say holding rentals is where people would think it's more risky, but yeah, my I've only made money in Blue states.

Greg Helbeck: [12:54] So Yeah. I definitely I mean, I'll be honest with you guys. Right now, we are getting pounded in the rear end with rentals between vacancies and evictions. And I will say the blue states fucking suck for that because you can't evict people. So if you have a bad tenant that you place or if you inherit a bad tenant, you really do get fucked. As a landlord. It's absolutely insane. I had a guy get arrested while he got evicted at the same time. And he tore my entire property up to smithereens. It's like it's a health violation at this point. And I haven't gotten a penny in income on that since October. And I won't be able to rent that out until September. So that's basically a year of no income and consistent. I thank God I don't have a mortgage on it, but still, it's still like every month I got to pay the common charges and the taxes and all the other bullshit. So if you're a landlord, I probably wouldn't recommend a blue state unless you live there because it is a little bit easier if you're local. But in terms of flipping, I've found that the blue states have been better real estate markets. Like New York City suburbs has always got good demand. There's a lot of money there. Seattle's the same thing. San Diego was exactly the same thing.

Greg Helbeck: [14:03] So I think if you're flipping houses, I've found that the blue states, even though that's the only states that I'm familiar with, have been very, very good for transactional stuff.

Dan Austin: [14:10] Great. Makes sense.

Mike DeHaan: [14:12] Is there any kind of rent relief or like landlord relief in New York? Because Washington does have that. Is if you follow the rules For tenants or landlords? For landlords. I've been the beneficiary of this. I had somebody that didn't pay me rent for a year and a half, as long it took me to get them out. Shit. And then when I finally did, I essentially got a payment from the state government for fourteen months worth of rent. So I ended up missing out on like four months.

Dan Austin: [14:37] I feel like that was like a COVID thing, though. Don't feel like they do

Dylan Koch: [14:39] that now.

Mike DeHaan: [14:40] Did they end up rolling it down? Because it was still going after COVID. Remember it was active I as recently as last

Dan Austin: [14:45] bet you they rolled it down. There's no way.

Greg Helbeck: [14:48] I got one ERAP check from the state because I got fucked by a tenant. And they paid me like $10,000 and it probably cost me $25 to get that fucker out after we paid them and got the lawyers involved and didn't get paid rent and had to pay the mortgages. So I got some money back, but I didn't get everything. And a lot of the properties I buy are hairy. So I know going into these deals that they're going to be a shit show, but I get them at the right number. So I'm not really pissed off when I'm getting somebody arrested at my property. But the thing I say about rentals is if you're not established from like a flipping standpoint and like a financial solid baseline, you don't fuck around with rental properties, especially in blue states because they I mean, dude, this year alone, in terms of like operating cash in and out, not equity, just cash in cash out, are meant $55,000 of loss because of vacancies, turns, cap improvements, evictions.

Dylan Koch: [15:43] Over how many properties, Greg, if you don't mind me asking?

Greg Helbeck: [15:45] 11 properties. Dollars 55,000 in cash gone. Yeah. Yeah. Rentals can suck. They fucking suck. And I told my girlfriend who helps me with the rentals, I said, it is fucking harder to get a good tenant to rent my damn property than it is for me to sell a property on the damn MLS. It makes Yeah. No

Mike DeHaan: [16:02] It's crazy. They lie and they, you know, waste your time and they're flaky and they're doing weird shit, dude, always.

Greg Helbeck: [16:09] They don't do your process. Like, you don't have to be a hedge fund manager to rent for me, but like, you got to have a decent credit score and make two and a half times the rent and not be like a terrorist. Right. That usually helps. And to find someone who to find somebody who actually will comply with that and meet that pretty fair standard is hard, right? And I had my cousin fuck me over last week. He told me he was going to take one of my condos and I held off. There was another applicant and that guy was really qualified. I'm like, listen, I'm going to rent to my cousin. Like, it's all good. Cousin texts me on Monday morning, hey, I'm not taking the place. Can't afford

Dylan Koch: [16:44] Oh my god.

Mike DeHaan: [16:45] I got one.

Dan Austin: [16:47] That sucks, dude.

Dylan Koch: [16:48] I got a new all time low credit thing there. 402, I think was what I saw on the credit application. 402 in the fours? I don't

Mike DeHaan: [16:57] even think I've

Dylan Koch: [16:58] ever seen

Dan Austin: [16:59] that. I've never seen in

Dylan Koch: [17:00] the fours.

Greg Helbeck: [17:00] That's that's a legendary credit score.

Mike DeHaan: [17:02] He's almost in the threes. That's why

Dylan Koch: [17:05] it's bad. Yeah. Let's the

Greg Helbeck: [17:06] lowest away for being in the threes.

Dan Austin: [17:09] I bet you zero. Like, you could probably have zero.

Dylan Koch: [17:12] Yeah. It maxed out.

Mike DeHaan: [17:13] The lowest credit score is 300. That's the lowest possible credit score according to Google.

Greg Helbeck: [17:18] Yeah. Oh my god.

Dylan Koch: [17:19] I noticed it because on the rental listing, it says the minimum it's $5.50 or 600. I don't remember. But, like, we only have three things. Two and a half times rent, a minimum credit score of, like, 550 or 600, and then no prior evictions. That's it. That's the only things you have to, like

Mike DeHaan: [17:31] 550? Goddamn. $5.50 is low, bro. You're gonna

Greg Helbeck: [17:34] get some shitbags at $5.50.

Mike DeHaan: [17:35] I know.

Dylan Koch: [17:36] Well, some of the places that-

Greg Helbeck: [17:38] Yeah, in C neighborhoods.

Mike DeHaan: [17:40] That's The what

Dan Austin: [17:41] The ship bags keep the ship bags in check.

Greg Helbeck: [17:42] Well, I learned that. I learned that the hard way with rentals is that if you're in a C neighborhood or- I don't invest in D neighborhoods, but if you're in a C neighborhood, you're not going to get a tenant with good credit and good income to rent it. It's just the fucking truth. So don't think you're going to get a seven thirty credit with 3X rent, like living in a semi hood rich area.

Dan Austin: [18:02] That's where you have to, you have to trust your gut at some point. And if you have a really poor judge of character, you probably shouldn't be placing tenants. Like if you have a good judge of character and they yeah. You can you just some people are like, I got divorced, I had this happen, this whatever.

Greg Helbeck: [18:15] Yeah. And that's understandable.

Dan Austin: [18:16] Yeah. Happens, right? And if but if they're a good person, then you can usually be tell and like, yeah, fine. They'll be all right. Because like some of our C class tenants are the longest standing tenants we've had that pay every single month.

Mike DeHaan: [18:26] Yep. They're loyal. They're the best, man. Honestly, like the couple A class rentals I own, they were the well, I've sold them now, but they were the worst rentals because they turned every single year. Yep. They were the kind of tenants that are like, well, the light's out in the kitchen. Can you come fix it?

Dylan Koch: [18:41] Yes. They'll bitch about anything.

Mike DeHaan: [18:43] And they're, like, coming to, like, hit you up on stuff. Whereas the c tenants are like, fucking stay out of my place. I don't want you to see the seven turtles that I have in the guest room, so don't come over.

Greg Helbeck: [18:53] Yeah. Dude, that's so true.

Mike DeHaan: [18:54] And I'm like, I don't care what you're doing as long as it's the same when you leave as when you showed up. It's only one. Dude,

Greg Helbeck: [19:01] I had a guy It's funny you say that. You're making me cringe because I moved in like This was actually last month. So I had this one vacancy and this property This was the one my cousin was going to re rent, but he fucked me over. But we moved in a super qualified cosigner who makes good money in Westchester County, which is a very expensive area. And this guy is like savvy as fuck. And it was for his son and it's his son's first place. And obviously it's not like the Taj Mahal, but it's like a totally legit place. And I went above and beyond to make sure that they felt comfortable. They kept busting my shit before the lease started. And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I said, listen, get your shit, get out. I'm gonna give you all your freaking money back. This is not gonna be a good fit. And I just said, get the fuck out of here. Because you don't want these-

Dylan Koch: [19:45] You saved yourself a lot of headache.

Greg Helbeck: [19:46] Yeah. You're like, I'd rather have this thing sit vacant than have some prick calling me about a light bulb. I just like, dude, get this. And that's the second time I've done that because it's not worth it.

Mike DeHaan: [19:55] And that is like a powerful move that a landlord can do is like either that cash for keys or giving their money back is similar to cash for keys, right? Yeah. The problem is, is people get so afraid of confrontation. They're like, well, I gotta get a lawyer. I gotta serve them. 99% of the time, you're better off just like calling and being like, hey, look. There's obviously a problem here. If you leave like this weekend, then we can just forget all this shit. You can move on. I don't need to take you to court. We don't need to waste a bunch of money. Like, whatever you wanna do. And we've had that solved pretty much every single one. I think we've only ever had to do one, like, full eviction, Dan. And that one was like a whole other issue.

Greg Helbeck: [20:31] How long is the eviction process in Eastern Washington compared to King County?

Mike DeHaan: [20:35] Three to four months.

Greg Helbeck: [20:37] Oh, that's not bad at all.

Mike DeHaan: [20:38] Yeah. It does okay.

Dylan Koch: [20:39] Yeah. It's forty five days in Hamilton County, Ohio.

Greg Helbeck: [20:42] That's really good. That's really good. I'm seven months.

Dylan Koch: [20:46] No. Well, to your point, like, some of these people aren't able to have conversations or they don't like conflict. And I just bought a duplex. You guys are actually doing the the refi on it. And it's a good neighborhood, built 1993 bed, one half bath on each side, one car garage. They rented at 800 and $8.50 respectively. And we bought it. I called them. I was like, hey. I'm sorry. If you wanna say your rent's gonna be 1,500 a month because the next closest I can find is 1,600 a month for three bedrooms. Both of them are like, done. Deal. Don't wanna do it. Fine. Signed a lease, And I did did nothing to the place, and we created that much value just because the previous person wasn't able to have the conversation.

Dan Austin: [21:22] Wasn't willing to have the conversation.

Mike DeHaan: [21:23] I mean, Dan and did made a killing that way during COVID, especially because there was so many rules around what you're allowed to do with tenants. Didn't want to mess with it. Like we would flip houses where we would literally just go and buy it. And then in order to get the tenants out in Washington, you had to like list a property on the market to have an intent to sell. You could give them a notice with intent to sell, right, that they so they needed to leave. So you would just list the house like right away and then go and start a notice like, yeah, we're selling. You ninety days to get out. And then most of the time they would leave relatively quickly. The other times they would wait until day 89 and then they would leave. Was relatively simple to do, You know? And we had ones where we were buying from like well-to-do landlords who just didn't want to have like that monthly deficit on their balance sheet. Right? Because the person stopped paying rent or whatever. But it was pretty easy. Like, we wholetail so many deals that we did almost nothing to during that period. Yeah. But it's harder now because those people have nowhere to go because they can't afford anything and stuff's gotten

Greg Helbeck: [22:21] That's the problem, dude. That's what I've noticed is that in a perfect world, you buy a rental property when there's a tenant inside and they're paying like $1,700 when the market rents probably $2,200 and you bump them up to $2,000 and they're not a terrorist and they stay for a while, that's your perfect situation because then you don't got to go wrestle around and find another tenant and do all that bullshit. But I've noticed that a lot of the best deals I bought, the tenant was so fucked up and I got it so cheap. I just was like, okay, this is going to be a one year project to get this knucklehead out. But I got this at $65 on the dollar minus repairs. So I have so much room on this deal, even when I cash out refi it at $70 or $75 It's not going to matter because I bought it so cheap. I was incentivized to take that bad tenant on. But it's hard to relocate people now, especially in the really blue cities where I invest in.

Dan Austin: [23:17] 100%. Especially if they're tenants, they don't have any money when they're tenants. If they're owners, owners at least might have some equity. They can buy them trailer.

Greg Helbeck: [23:24] Owners have some equity.

Mike DeHaan: [23:25] Sometimes. But honestly, the big challenge is owners, especially

Dan Austin: [23:29] if

Mike DeHaan: [23:29] they're distressed, they have trouble coming to the realization they're gonna have to not be owners anymore. Yeah. Right? And they're wanting to buy houses that are typically nicer than the shithole that they're moving out of, but they don't they're not getting enough money out of it because they always have liens and other bullshit right now. And so and they're not also not gonna get qualified to buy anything because they tend to make no money. And with interest rates at 7%, their debt to income is never gonna allow them qualify for a loan. I mean, Dan, I do you think, what, 80% plus of our deals are having some kind of holdback, like, back right now? Oh, yeah. At least.

Greg Helbeck: [24:03] Oh, yeah.

Dan Austin: [24:04] I was thinking about that. Was like, this is kinda stupid. Like, I was just I was, like, hating on my sellers for the moment because I was just so annoyed with them. And I was like, the normal person, like when I move, I buy a house, then I move into it, then I sell my house.

Dylan Koch: [24:15] That's what I do.

Dan Austin: [24:16] Yeah. I don't freaking sell my house, then need to buy a house, then move out on the exact same day, and then need ten days to move out. And then by the way, I told you I'd be out, but then my husband dropped a couch on his foot. So it took slower. Like, no, you got drunk and decided not to do anything over the weekend. Yeah. So yeah, we've got 80% of our-

Greg Helbeck: [24:34] Dude, I've noticed that in Washington. That's, I got one in Marysville, the guy rented it back for ten or seven days, and then I'm buying another one in the city of Seattle and he wants like a one month rent back. And I'm like, yeah, whatever. Like, leave $20 in escrow, it's a $100 a day if you're not out. And he's like, sure.

Dan Austin: [24:50] Well, here's the problem with ours. A lot of the people we have now too, is like, don't have any money to leave in escrow because they need every penny of it to buy their freaking house.

Dylan Koch: [24:59] I was just gonna say that

Greg Helbeck: [25:00] I won't do it if they don't leave money in escrow. I won't do it.

Mike DeHaan: [25:03] But we don't have a choice. Our values aren't as high as yours. They haven't grown as much. Right?

Greg Helbeck: [25:08] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [25:08] Especially we've had so many that have like judgments where they've had forbearance on their mortgage. And so they get their payoff and it's $45,000 higher than they were expecting. Yep. And it's like, what are they supposed to do? We had one that was supposed to close tomorrow. There was a 16 gap on it all of a sudden.

Greg Helbeck: [25:24] Oh my god. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [25:25] Yeah. And that was her that

Greg Helbeck: [25:26] was her spread. What's your collateral? So if you do a rent back and they don't leave anything behind, what what's this? If they don't leave, then you just do an eviction? You get like, get them sign a stipulation for settlement? Like, how do you

Dan Austin: [25:36] Yeah. I mean, that's not our go to. Like, that's like the worst case scenario, but we have we've had that happen right now. And like, you kind of have to judge the people and make sure that they're good enough to do it and fuck, we'll show up and move them if they don't get out.

Greg Helbeck: [25:49] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [25:50] Because you're only doing you're not doing it so that they can find a place to go find a place. Like they have, we have the escrow. Our escrow agent is working with the buy side escrow agent. So they're not even getting the funds to close on that house, right? Unless we're seeing it transition So we know they don't want to be there. They're actually buying a house and they're getting recording numbers on their new house. So that's like our safety net is generally speaking, they don't want to be in the shithole that they are sold to us because they have a new house that's going be a shithole in a few months.

Greg Helbeck: [26:18] I had a house one time, we bought it from this guy and, he was a complete I actually did a rent back with him actually. That was he almost fucked himself too because he overstayed his welcome. Lost it. Overstayed his welcome. And my final offer to him was, I will hire a driver to pick you up at your fucking house and drive you to a hotel room that I will pay for for a week if you just get out of this guy.

Dan Austin: [26:39] We've done that before. Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah. We've done that before.

Mike DeHaan: [26:43] We flipped a seven unit apartment complex, and literally all we did was get all of the people out of it. Yeah. Because it was just like it was just a hellhole, dude.

Greg Helbeck: [26:52] So bad.

Mike DeHaan: [26:52] And we were able to get some out relatively easy. One, had to get, like, CPS involved, and it was a real mess because it was a super abusive dad situation. Oh my god. There was the meth head, and he was the last one to get out. And finally, he shook us down for $5,000. And our guy's there to get him the $5,000. He goes, I'm not leaving this. I can have the fridge. And they're like, just take it, dude. So he, like, gets his crackhead friend out of the little Ford Escape or whatever they had, and they, like, shoveled it out of the apartment and just heaved the thing onto the roof of this car and strapped it down and just took off their shitty fridge and $5,000.

Greg Helbeck: [27:29] I gotta go check out Spokane, dude. That

Dan Austin: [27:32] seems come over, dude.

Dylan Koch: [27:33] This is off market operator, like, this spill the beans episode, man.

Greg Helbeck: [27:39] I mean, I've seen crazy shit, but I I haven't I mean, that's like some straight, like, you know, breaking bad shit, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [27:45] It was bad, dude. This unit, this whole property, the the best story of this whole one, though. Okay? So for all of these units, there's seven units in, this little thing. It was a four unit on one side, a three on the other with a common courtyard area. And so we bought it from the slum moors from Seattle who were just real dirtbags. Right? And they had their on-site property manager who lived in one of the units who was, like, super helpful. She was like, you know, work with us to collect rent and do all these sort of things. Well, we're literally going to sell it. Right? I'm like driving home from somewhere. I don't even know if it was like the closing or what it was. But I suddenly get a phone call from the city, and they're like, hey. Do you know Rochelle? I'm like, I think so. What's your last name? Like, yeah. Was like, yeah. It's one of my tenants. He goes, oh, one of your tenants? I said, don't they own this property? And he's is the property address? I'm like, no. They live there. They're one of owners. And they're like, oh, well, they've been getting COVID rent relief for that address. And I'm like, what? And basically, long story short, what this lady had been doing so we had all these tenants that were it's like not paying rent, quote unquote. No.

Mike DeHaan: [28:45] They had been paying Rochelle rent who was supposed to give it to us. She was just pocketing that money. And then she had her, like, 21 year old son who got all of his friends to sign fake leases and basically say that we were on hardship, and they filed it with the city. So she was collecting all the rent of the existing tenants plus collecting rent relief for seven units from the city.

Dylan Koch: [29:08] Dude, she was making bank.

Mike DeHaan: [29:09] And just making off like a bandit. And, like, I'm getting this phone call, and the city's like, well, what do you wanna do about it? I was like, I don't know, bro. I'm selling this thing tomorrow. This sounds like a you problem. See you guys later. And I don't know whatever came of it.

Dan Austin: [29:21] It was like dude, that it reminds me, like, when I went and visited her because you go into her, like, apartment, she had all this, like, brand new shit.

Mike DeHaan: [29:28] Like, new TVs, like,

Dan Austin: [29:29] multiple Leather couches. Like, the walls were stacked with shit in just shit in boxes, like brand new stuff. And it just reminds me, like, like, some sort of, like, episode of Trailer Park Boys where, like, they've got some hustle where they're, like, freaking getting everybody's rent and stealing it.

Greg Helbeck: [29:42] Just the way he's snapping around.

Dan Austin: [29:44] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly, dude. It was just like, what

Dylan Koch: [29:46] the hell?

Mike DeHaan: [29:47] And you're like, oh, she's she's got a job. She's like the one that has her life together. TVs aren't that expensive. Yeah. But nine TVs is. Yeah. So bad. Yeah.

Greg Helbeck: [29:57] Man, that's crazy. You guys got some redneck shit out there, dude.

Dan Austin: [30:00] We do. Yeah. It's a rodeo,

Greg Helbeck: [30:01] dude. That's crazy.

Mike DeHaan: [30:02] There was a period of time, man, where like like, now I feel I could settle down, honestly. But in 2020, especially during like the COVID period, when everyone that was selling their house was like a psycho, because everyone else was kind of just like waiting for it to be over or whatever, Every deal we had was fucking insane. It was like the next deal was more insane than the previous one over and over and over and over again.

Greg Helbeck: [30:25] I mean, that's why

Dan Austin: [30:26] we started this show, was to talk about these.

Mike DeHaan: [30:28] It's literally why we started.

Dan Austin: [30:29] We're like, we got to tell somebody. We got to tell the world the shit we'd see every day.

Greg Helbeck: [30:32] I feel like you guys are in the perfect market for like crazy I don't know anything about that area, but like, it just seems to me like it's like there's enough people to where there's a relatively decent sized market, but it's not like Seattle where you're dealing with like Microsoft tech people making like good money for a while.

Mike DeHaan: [30:48] So Dan brought this up on our our scale call that we had earlier today is there's like this entitlement factor that people have here. And I don't know where it comes from because when we would do we ran our like national company. We didn't see that sort of attitude that sellers have here. They'd be like, yeah. You know, I really fucked up. Like, here's the situation, whatever. And he sells like, oh, I got the house from my grandma. She had issues. There's all these lien. Here, it's like, my grandma was a crackhead. She's like, no. My house is worth $400,000, and you're gonna fucking pay me that. I'm like, why? I'm not gonna move out when

Dan Austin: [31:20] I'm supposed to. I'm not gonna do anything. I'm I'm not gonna do anything you're asking me to do contractually, and then I'm gonna be fucking mad at you. It's like That's exactly what it's like every single transaction.

Mike DeHaan: [31:30] Totally, dude. Everyone, man. They'll fight you tooth and nail.

Greg Helbeck: [31:34] That doesn't really happen in Seattle that much.

Dylan Koch: [31:37] Greg, I got a I got a question from you to get rid of your Pacific Northwest cities. You've been doing this for ten years. Yeah. And you just said that right now, it's kind of, like, easy on both fronts are now easier. Is there a time frame, like, I don't know, from like the 2015 to 2020 time frame that you can compare this to? And like, what works then versus what works now?

Greg Helbeck: [31:56] Yeah. So I'll give you the evolution. So when I first got started, I didn't know what I was doing. So that was a huge problem.

Dylan Koch: [32:02] No one does.

Greg Helbeck: [32:02] But despite that, it was very easy to get deals. Once I got my shit together, and I started understanding marketing and systems, I mean, dude, before 2019, you could literally spend $1,500 on mailers and get a deal, clockwork, sometimes too.

Dylan Koch: [32:16] It's crazy.

Dan Austin: [32:17] So it was

Greg Helbeck: [32:17] like the amount of saturation wasn't there, especially in New York because that's a really hard place to operate in. And I was from there, so it gave me a huge advantage. So that was really fucking easy to get deals. And you were spending practically nothing in ad spend to get actual deals under contract. And then if you flipped them, the market was hot. If you wholesale them, if you got it at the right price, can get a buyer. So basically from 2018 all the way up until twenty twenty one ish, it was getting a little bit harder, but not terribly hard. Once '21 came around, I just noticed that the market of real estate investing got really saturated. Software's came out, YouTube exploded, even though it was still big. The cost to get a deal through advertising went from 3,000 or $4,000 to 7,000 to $8,000 And I was like, damn, this is crazy. I got to spend way more money to get the same fucking profit. This kind of sucks, but it is what it is. So I've just seen it constantly rise and rise and rise and rise. And now I'm seeing it kind of taper off. It's still pretty high. It's like 8 to 10. But I don't see it really getting any harder now. And at least currently, was in July, I'm seeing it get a little bit cheaper. I don't know if that's going to stay or go, but-

Dylan Koch: [33:27] So your cost per deal right now is between 8 to $10?

Greg Helbeck: [33:29] Yeah, don't think we're seeing.

Dylan Koch: [33:30] That's pretty high for my market. But in my

Greg Helbeck: [33:33] market, it's really expensive, right? So like the median house price in New York is like $600.

Dylan Koch: [33:36] So it's really not. True. And your profit per deal is probably larger because of those higher numbers.

Greg Helbeck: [33:41] Yes. Like an assignment deal in New York is like 30,000 to $50,000

Dylan Koch: [33:44] Yes. That'd be a killer deal for me.

Greg Helbeck: [33:46] You're talking about a house that's worth 600,

Dylan Koch: [33:49] So

Greg Helbeck: [33:49] to get a 30 or 40 ks spread, it's not that hard because if you're getting it at the right number, it's all relative to based on the sales price.

Dylan Koch: [33:56] Yeah. The ratio is about the same, you know, versus what your cost per deal versus your revenue per deal or profit per deal.

Greg Helbeck: [34:02] I got a buddy who just closed the wholesale deal today in the New York area. He made $130,000 in the wholesale.

Dylan Koch: [34:07] There you go.

Greg Helbeck: [34:08] Hell, yeah, So and we did one two weeks ago. It was 110 or 105. Beautiful. So it's like because you got so much margin on these fucking houses.

Dylan Koch: [34:15] My highest wholesale deal ever, I think is $80.

Greg Helbeck: [34:18] That's really high. That's good anywhere. $80 is insane.

Dylan Koch: [34:21] No. And the I'm saying out of 150 some Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [34:24] But Dylan's in Cincinnati where houses cost 100 in a Cracker Jack box. You stole that house, Dylan.

Dylan Koch: [34:32] Yeah. The buyer stole the house.

Greg Helbeck: [34:35] I did a video. I recorded a video. I don't think I published it yet, but I was like, if you want to be in an expensive market, it's worth it. Because if you want to make 6 figure spreads, it's not that well, it's hard. But it's a lot easier to make a 6 figure spread in a market where the ARV is $5.50 plus versus if you're in Kansas or something, and the houses are worth $200. The only way to really make $100 is if the seller like pays you to buy their house, right? Totally. You know what I mean? It's really the numbers don't really work. So I've just found like being in an expensive market, whether it's Seattle or New York, it's just-

Dylan Koch: [35:07] Do you still do mostly direct mail then as your channel or

Greg Helbeck: [35:10] like- Mail and Google search now. We just cranked up the PPC. Mail and Google Ads as well, which has worked really well.

Mike DeHaan: [35:16] YouTube ads. YouTube ad? Yeah.

Dan Austin: [35:18] It's because you got a bunch of tech guys over there.

Mike DeHaan: [35:20] Totally. That that would never work in Spokane.

Greg Helbeck: [35:23] Yeah. Dude, the cost this is crazy. The cost to get a a gross lead, not a net lead, is like $85 in Seattle off a YouTube ad to get a straight conversion on my website. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [35:32] Sure.

Greg Helbeck: [35:32] That's a gross lead though. That's not qualified. That's a big question.

Dylan Koch: [35:37] Still not bad. I understand. It's not qualified. Yeah, I get it.

Greg Helbeck: [35:40] Not bad. But you need probably three or four to get in that lead. So it's really like $400.

Mike DeHaan: [35:44] Most of our sellers can barely even do a DocuSign, dude.

Dan Austin: [35:47] I had to drop an addendum off at a seller's house yesterday because he can't do a DocuSign. Yeah. All the time.

Greg Helbeck: [35:53] I had a lady last week. She was it took twenty five minutes to get her did you hit finish? Did you hit next?

Dan Austin: [35:59] I do

Dylan Koch: [35:59] love that.

Greg Helbeck: [36:00] Did you draw your signature?

Mike DeHaan: [36:01] Hit continue. At least you could do that, man. Like where where does it get landline calls in? It's out of control.

Greg Helbeck: [36:08] Yeah. That's pretty crazy. I've noticed out here the percentage of people who will sign a DocuSign is pretty high in Seattle. You got people who know what they're doing. I just got a house under the one in Tacoma I was telling you about offline. It's like that guy savvy knows what he's doing. He was just a big procrastinator, but he knew what was up. I sent him the DocuSign. He got it back right away, no issues. So you definitely see a little bit more of I guess, a savvy profile of seller. And I've noticed too here, like they're not really distressed necessarily, like maybe a little bit, but they're more of just like, okay, I know my house is worth 700. I'm going to sell it for $4.50 because I don't want to fucking deal with it. Like I'm not like stupid or desperate. It's like different kind of profile.

Dan Austin: [36:52] Yeah. Yeah. I think it goes back to like with our market, just the entitlement of the sellers. It's like, I'm not going to do DocuSign because that's too hard for me. And people have just catered to it, right? Like, oh, I'm old, I don't want to do this. So we have a lot of people like that. Like just You're not even fucking trying. Like just try. Just try in life.

Greg Helbeck: [37:09] Yeah. What else Something else I wanted to bring up. I know we were texting last night, Mike. So I made that Facebook post with a chat GPT. I wanted to bring that up.

Dylan Koch: [37:18] Let's talk

Greg Helbeck: [37:18] about it. Because I had an epiphany the other day.

Mike DeHaan: [37:20] It's a good topic because we also, Dan and I also have a very relevant example for this to talk about.

Greg Helbeck: [37:24] Yeah. So basically long story short, I was thinking, I've been using AI like crazy. I mean, everyone, like, the cat's out of the bag, it's going to take the fucking world over. So you might as well learn it before it runs you over. So I was thinking, I'm like, all right, I got a decent assignment agreement, but it's definitely got some holes in it. And I got this house over in Pierce County that I'm assigning right now. The buyer's being a complete clown, right? And I think he'll probably close, but if he doesn't close, then I got to like fucking get the cancellation letter and get the You know what I mean? It's a whole fucking racket out here. So I'm like, what if I add language to my assignment agreement that says, first of all, it's not binding until the earnest money clears escrow. Second of all, if the buyer doesn't close on the date of the contract for no reason of the seller or the assignor, then it's an automatic default, no cancellation, like guaranteed default. You don't have to even send a notice out. It's automatically they defaulted. And then the earnest money is automatically forfeited, right? Assuming there's no issue to the seller or the assigner, like if title is clear and there's no issues.

Greg Helbeck: [38:29] And then also it gives me the ability to take back control over the property instantly if they default, because when you assign a contract, technically you assign your contract to someone else for a fee and they're in full control of the transaction. You basically can't do shit. So it basically gives me control back of my deal. And then also it allows me to accept backup offers and basically put them into escrow in case the buyer fucks me. So I had JATGPT and a couple of legal documents I have basically put together this bulletproof assignment. Obviously, it has to go to court if we have to use it, but basically protects me as a wholesaler. I see a lot of people, the wholesalers get involved in a deal, they assign it to somebody else. Maybe they know what they're doing, maybe they don't know what they're doing, but basically they give up in complete control of their deal. And now the success of the transaction is in someone else's hands. And if you don't never work with them before, you have no fucking clue if it's going to work. So I basically reshifted my assignment agreement to where if the buyer fucks up and it's no fault of the seller or the wholesaler, the contract automatically comes back into me, I'm back in full control and I can close it cash or whatever. And then the deposit automatically gets released to me as liquidated damages. And then I can accept the backup offer basically before we even close with the first offer. So if that guy fucks me, I have the backup offer in place to basically close at the same time. So I'm just trying to tighten up my business.

Greg Helbeck: [39:50] And just when you do a bunch of deals, you see like shit go sideways and you're always trying to like fix it.

Mike DeHaan: [39:56] In that situation, are you basically lining up a lender for every single deal just in case they don't come through?

Greg Helbeck: [40:04] If it's really cheap, I'll just buy it cash. Like if it's like sub $2.50, I'll take it cash. But if it's like a big buy or something and I know the buyer is going to fuck me and I have like a three or four day notice, I can probably get a private money lender to fund that. It might have to extend the closing. We may have to extend it three or four business days. But if it's that good of a deal and the buyer ultimately fucks me and I have like a two to three day notice, I can get funding within like three to five business days.

Mike DeHaan: [40:29] Well, here's another fun hack you can add to your contracts to make that even easier is you can say that you have the right to extend closing up to seven days without needing approval of other parties. That way, if you do have to extend it, you don't have to get any assignment or any addendum signed or anything. You can just do it.

Greg Helbeck: [40:45] Dude, that's interesting. I should throw that in there.

Mike DeHaan: [40:47] We started doing that because because nobody out here uses DocuSign. And we would, like, have a a property that we were buying out in, like, rural Idaho, and we would get delayed just because, you know, funds didn't clear in time. And the astro company would be like, well, you need to get a addendum signed to extend it for twenty four hours. I'm like, I'm not driving out to fucking Kellogg to meet a guy in a bar to get a thing, like, paper signed because he doesn't know how to use AccuSign.

Greg Helbeck: [41:14] Just make it up on PDF at that point and send it I'll to

Mike DeHaan: [41:16] use the fucking Yeah. So that makes sense, though. And then I guess on that piece, like where it comes weird is, I guess with that sort of viewpoint is you are fully prepared to close on every deal that you contract. What if you don't actually believe in the deal as like an end buyer?

Greg Helbeck: [41:35] That's a good point. So we have a company policy where if we're going to assign the property and only assign it, like if the buyer doesn't come through, we're not buying it. The seller knows before we even tie it up that it's basically contingent upon another buyer coming in and closing.

Mike DeHaan: [41:48] Okay, cool. So you make it clear. That's fair.

Greg Helbeck: [41:50] Like basically, like in New York, it's a little harder because you get lawyers involved and then everyone's got their opinion. But like in Washington State, like we'll just throw in like, we're like a glorified middleman, right? We're most likely going to assign this. If we don't find a buyer, we're canceling. We have ten days to let you know if we're going to find a buyer or whatever we want to decide. So the risk there is like, let's say we go and we get a buyer and we tell them, hey, we got a buyer, we're good to go. And then at the day of the closing, the buyer bails, in that case, we would be in a little bit of a damp.

Dylan Koch: [42:21] At least they were forewarned. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's easier too because if you need to get multiple people in and the seller knows like, Oh, they're bringing other potential buyers, not their contractor, not their insurance guy, not their appraiser.

Greg Helbeck: [42:33] Yeah. Well, that's all just a bit. Yeah. I got my contractor coming in to look at the same house. Yeah. I mean, I'll give you an example. So the guy in Tacoma, the one I was telling you about offline, this guy was like a seven month follow-up. He was like the flake of all flakes. It was like impossible to get this guy to commit to doing a deal. So when he called me back, because I wasn't even calling him, he literally emailed me and called me. He's like, yo, are you ready to do the deal? I'm like, I haven't heard from you in fucking three months. Like, I guess so. So, I called him and I was like, listen, I'm still down to do this, but this has been going on for like a long ass time. Are you cool if I just assign this, which means I have like five business days to get an end buyer to pay more than I'm paying you? And he's like, yeah, that's fine. I don't give a fuck. As long as I get my $2.40 out of home, I don't care.

Dan Austin: [43:13] That makes your life so much easier. You're not having to play the bullshit games.

Mike DeHaan: [43:17] I know.

Greg Helbeck: [43:17] Yeah. You're just being real with them. And the same thing with novations. I see a lot of people do novations really slimy and shady. And I'm like, dude, you're fucking putting their house on the MLS. You're like a glorified realtor. So if you don't tell them what you're doing, they're going to get really pissed and the deal's going to die, like guaranteed.

Dylan Koch: [43:36] And which is why, like that kind of stuff is why legislation is coming in against wholesale. I guess people do that shit

Greg Helbeck: [43:40] right there. Yeah. They're taught to like not say it's going to be on the market. It's like, well, when they see their house on Zillow for $80 more than you're giving them, like, they might be stupid, but they're not that stupid.

Mike DeHaan: [43:51] I know. And also too, when your agent wants to have like an open house, people just want to like stop by the house, go check it out all the time, You what are you going to tell know, it's like a family that's coming to look at the house or buying an innovation. They're like, oh yeah, it's our plumber and his wife and kids. Dude.

Greg Helbeck: [44:09] I've had people, I've done videos on novations and I've had people like kind of chirp me on it because they just saying like, Oh, I don't agree with novations or whatever. But I don't think there's anything wrong with an ovation if you're doing it above board. I don't think there's a single thing wrong with it whatsoever. I think it's honestly cleaner than an assignment because with a novation, you have to be transparent because you're doing all this extra shit.

Dylan Koch: [44:34] Well, and there's probably a lender involved. They're, like, you know, on the Novation side and buyer side. Right? So

Greg Helbeck: [44:39] Yeah. I got no problems with Novations. I think even two people say like, oh, well, if you're doing Novation and you're not doing any work, what value are you bringing? I'm like, are you fucking high? We're professional sellers. Like, we literally sell houses for a living, so we know exactly how to make sure the buyer's not a bullshitter, how to make sure they're prequalified, do the punch list items, make sure the house is going to pass inspection. I have one right now. Dollars 30,000 we had to spend to get the oil tank that was buried in the ground remediate because there was a whole state case opened. Like we're bringing all this value to the seller and yeah, we had to pay $30 to get that freaking remediated and the seller doesn't have to pay for that. So if she didn't have us in the picture, she would have been screwed.

Dan Austin: [45:17] Yeah, totally. That's 100% more than a freaking real estate agent who would just be like, well, all I do is call people. And so there's an oil tank in your backyard. And I mean, I don't know if you don't have the money, I don't know what to do, either do I.

Mike DeHaan: [45:28] Yeah. And also I think you're being generous, Dan. You're saying the agents are going to call people? No, they're going to wait for people to call them. They're not doing shit. This is true. This is true.

Dan Austin: [45:36] Very, okay. Sorry. I overstepped. My bad.

Greg Helbeck: [45:39] Novations are fucking awesome. If you do them the right way and you communicate them effectively, number one, they're not as hard to convert. I mean, they're not easy, but they're not impossible. And you can actually bring mega value to a seller Because if you actually, when you're flipping houses and you do fix and flips a lot, like you know, okay, where is this house going to get fucked out of inspection? How do we fix that preventatively? What buyer is going to fuck me with an offer to get me in the door, but then cancel two days before closing? How legit is their lender? Are they real? Do they have a pre- like, we literally do all this for a living because it's usually our money on the line. But when you do a novation, they get all the value of like a flipper's knowledge without having to take a super, super, super lowball offer. And usually we make like 20 or $30 on innovation. And it's like, if you're a seller, you're getting $30 more than what we'd offer you cash. You got to wait like two or three months because you can't really get around that. But you don't have to worry about anything else. I freaking love them, dude. We just do more of them every single like year now because like we get more comfortable with them. And I believe in the actual offering a lot more than I did when I started.

Mike DeHaan: [46:43] For sure. Awesome, man. Well, you should come back and tell us about more how you're putting those together because I think that would be a very, very popular topic for people.

Greg Helbeck: [46:50] Happy to be a somewhat frequent guest, man. It's a you guys got a good show going.

Mike DeHaan: [46:54] Absolutely, dude. Yeah. I'd love to just hear more about how you're doing putting those Novations together. I know that's a very common question that gets asked a lot, and there's a lot of that information out there. So we'll try to do that in the next couple of weeks here. I'll talk to you after the show. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [47:05] That'd be good. Do an ovation show.

Mike DeHaan: [47:06] Yeah. Right on. Alright, guys. Well, we gotta wrap up here. Greg, real quick. One more time. Where can people find you, follow you, reach out to you?

Greg Helbeck: [47:13] They can go to my Instagram, which is grego37 and follow me on YouTube, youtube.com/greghelbeckrei. And we put out two to three videos a week. So if you want more of my content, that's where you'll find it.

Mike DeHaan: [47:27] There you go. Go check him out, guys. In case you can't tell, he fits in with the collecting keys vibe very, very well. Awesome, guys. Well, thanks for listening. Please share this show with all your friends, real estate involved or not. I mean, I think there's always something that somebody can gain out of just hearing people talk about making money in business and investing all that sort of stuff. So we appreciate you guys listening, and we'll talk to you guys next week.

Dan Austin: [47:46] See you.

Dylan Koch: [47:47] See you. Thanks

Mike DeHaan: [47:49] for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at Investor Man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore Does underscore Deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.