How We Find Multifamily Deals: Brokers and Owners, No Marketing Budget

Original automatic captions. Names, numbers, and punctuation may contain transcription errors.

0:00 All right, we're mostly seated. I'm going to start saying words as everyone continues to pop back to their seats
0:06 here. All right, guys. Uh we talked a little bit about what a deal actually is. Let's talk about how we find them.
0:11 Uh if you came here hoping for some amazing revelation, this may be disappointing because how we do this is very simple. However, uh there's a lot
0:17 of different ways to find deals. Um I hate most of them. I have friends who do all sorts of like call centers. They do
0:24 mass mailers. There's a lot of things that work. Um, I like the ones that don't have any marketing budget that uh
0:29 you can set on repeat forever and they continue to feed you deals. There's my there's my favorite. It turns out um the
0:35 best way to find deals is the few things that AI still can't do, which I also really appreciate. It's
0:40 relationshipbased. I love it. This is how we do every deal. There's so many I hear a bunch of people
0:46 try to get a bunch of different angles on, oh, like I found this new way to do a deal. I'm like, technology moves so
0:52 fast. Everyone you you invent a new data source, everyone's working the same data. A while back I tried to build an
0:58 app which was a uh disaster because they didn't deliver the app, but I did pay them for it. The uh you have like three
1:05 data sources for all of real estate. It's all three companies own all of the feeds. So anyone who has some like, hey,
1:12 I have this gimmick to get these deals flowing. We have these proprietary leads. I'm like, well, they can't be that proprietary because they only come
1:18 from three data sources. like everyone's working with the same data. So someone's saying I have this amazing list. There's
1:25 only so many ways you can sort properties. Everyone's working with the same data. So how do you rise to the top
1:30 if everyone has roughly the same access to data, the same technology that's either free or really
1:38 inexpensive? How do you actually move to the top of the list? Now, we're going to hit this really hard with Eric here
1:44 because the broker relationship is huge, but I want to go through the just general methods. Now, for this, I'm
1:50 going to do this uh split. I'm going to talk about the broker method. I'm then going to have Cody join me on the second
1:56 half of this one. And by join me, I mean replace me and uh talk about some of the stuff he's doing with owners because
2:01 what Cody's done with owners and I do a lot of direct owner. Cody has done it to the highest level of anyone that I've
2:07 ever seen. Uh the way that Cody has done it is just a insane. And our company
2:12 really started when Cody and I originally started Multif Family Strategy back in the day. Cody was one of the founding members of the two of
2:18 us. Cody put together a model that is really what got me out of the nineto-5
2:24 and into like, hey, we need to do I need to do what you're doing. It was really mostly direct to owner. So, I'm going to
2:30 have Cody talk about that because see that is where he has just shined at a totally different level. Uh so, how do
2:35 we actually find these deals? Uh like I said, many ways to do it. There are two that really matter. Uh first is active
2:42 listings. So, if you're like, "Well, I just flew across the country." Many of you guys are from out of state. Who flew
2:47 from out of state, by the way? Wow. Almost everyone. That's awesome.
2:53 You're like, I just flew across the country for someone to tell me that I just need to look online and find deals. Yes, but it gets better. Uh, so the
3:00 number two, like these are the two places that you can really go to find deals right now. Uh, I have them in the
3:06 order that I like to see them. So, if you see the little teeny screen over here, again, sorry, the big screen died. So, we have what we have. krexy and
3:12 loopnet.com. I worked for Loopnet and Co-Star for many years. Crexy is slightly better. It's easier to find the
3:18 correct brokerage numbers and they don't suppress as many listings as Loopnet does. If you're in a popular market, Loopnet will try to push some listings
3:25 down so that brokers pay to uh promote them, their business model. Uh so Krexy
3:32 first, Loopnet second. They have like 95% of the same deals, but there's a few
3:37 that will be on one that won't show up on the other. Look at these two spaces. Uh this is what it looks like in practice. You go on to crackshi.com, you
3:45 look at the deals. Uh this is something that I really appreciate though. There is nothing when you are looking at a
3:50 listing and that 38 plex that I talked about. This is exactly how this works. There is nothing about the listing that
3:56 makes me go this is a good deal or a bad deal. A deal is a negotiated property where we've we've identified what they
4:02 the seller is looking for and I understand the numbers of most common problem that I see people do
4:10 with this method. Someone will say, "I can't find any listings." We'll go on to Crexy and they're like, "I've called all
4:15 these that look good." And then we'll go through and I'm like, "What about this one? What about this one? What about this one?" Like, "Oh, well, the price is
4:20 too high. That one's unpriced." You haven't negotiated a price.
4:26 Everything is unpriced. The word unpriced is the same thing as $1.75
4:31 million. I don't know anything about the property when I'm looking at a listing other than the picture of the building
4:39 and maybe it might say on it how many units there are. That's all you're seeing here when you
4:45 look online. Your mission is to figure out where does the deal actually work for me. When we go through the
4:50 underwriting section, we want to determine when a deal is a
4:56 deal, what it works for me. I need that baseline of when is the deal good. I
5:02 don't have that just from a listing. What do you have from a listing? I have a broker who is listing a property.
5:08 That's valuable. Does anyone think that maybe if a broker has three or four listings that look
5:14 building-wise like exactly what you want to own that they may list other buildings just like it in the future?
5:21 They have a pipeline. They already have the product that you're looking for. This is the Starbucks order system.
5:28 The broker is sitting there for the most part waiting for you to place your order. I mean, it's a little bit more
5:34 advanced, but like shockingly, I was an agent for a while, it's not that much more advanced. I am waiting for someone who wants to place an order and then I
5:40 am helping them get their order in and get get the coffee made. We're going to
5:45 push it through underwriting. We're going to get through title and then someone's going to own it and I get paid. That's how it works in the life of
5:51 a broker. Your only job is to be the most ready, able, and willing buyer for the property. And position yourself as
5:56 such so that brokers go, I want to work with this person. So instead of looking at this, is this building worth 950? I
6:03 don't know. People get stuck here. Wrong place to get stuck. Here's how you shop.
6:10 Not kidding. This is stupidest easy thing. Look at the picture. Does that look like the type of building that you
6:15 want to own? Yes or no? If it does, click it.
6:20 Read a little bit about it. Does it sound like a deal that you could like to own if the numbers were fantastic? If
6:26 yes, pick up the phone, call the broker. That's how this funnel works. You're
6:31 going to build relationships when you actually put in offers for these. But a perfect example, I I chose Houston as a
6:36 market just because I that was what the last thing I checked on Kxy was. So I took screenshots of that. When we go
6:43 through Krexy, this building, I don't know too much about it. It's not the prettiest
6:48 building I've ever seen. I don't know that I really am a huge fan of a yellow building. Is this something I could see myself owning if I was in this area if
6:55 it made good money? Yeah, this is great. Picture looks fine. Uh we have uh Ernesto Ramirez as the broker and
7:02 another broker uh on the listing of uh Marina. My laptop's a little bit small
7:07 here. I don't know what the right price is for this. I don't care what the right price
7:13 is for this. Here's what I do know. If I click on Ernesto here, he's closed 20 transactions. He has 52 active listings.
7:20 He sold $6 million of real estate. He probably can help me. Even if I have a
7:26 great conversation on this deal and it ends up not being the deal, if I can put
7:31 together where would this be a deal and I can communicate to him in a sensible way, this is where I think the deal
7:36 makes sense. This is how I think the bank's going to look at it and this is where I'm at. What you've done is you've called a broker. You've explained what
7:43 it is that you're looking for. You asked intelligent questions about the deal and then you submitted an offer to them that
7:49 makes sense in the context of where would a bank actually finance this. This is before getting into creative finance.
7:56 This is how you avoid accidentally putting a sticker on your head that says, "Hello, I'm broke. I don't know what I'm doing." Which is what you don't
8:01 want to do. You can buy these deals with or without money. You can do this with creative finance. If you position
8:08 yourself as someone who's not qualified to buy it, you will get objections that you've probably heard before. Hey,
8:13 before we entertain any offers, I need to see a full proof of funds. I need to see you and all of your partners.
8:19 There are so few real estate investors, like shockingly few, who are sitting
8:25 with a bag of $2 million under their desk just ready to put a down payment down. That is not a thing that investors
8:30 are just everyone here owns apartments, which we've established is about a third of you. How many of you guys just are
8:37 always sitting on a pile of cash and just ready to go for every down payment?
8:43 zero. Okay. Real estate investors, surprise if
8:48 you're if you're if you're brand new, uh you tend to invest the money that you have. So, what you end up with when you have a lot of apartments is you have a
8:54 very consistently a lot of very very very wealthy high-income broke people. Um we don't usually hold a lot of cash.
8:59 It's just not something that we do. When we have it, we like to deploy it. So, you almost never have the money. So,
9:05 when someone's like, "Hey, can I see the can I see this money sitting in account?" What it usually means is I'm
9:12 not sure that you're the right buyer to close this deal. There is something that you have done in the conversation that
9:19 dropped confidence. Now, some brokers just do this as part of their policy. There's a ton of ways to overcome it.
9:24 We'll get into them. But in general, if you if I talk to this guy and I ask
9:29 great questions, and I don't just ask great questions. I get back to him 15 minutes after this call. I'll underwrite
9:36 the deal. I'll say, "Hey, I looked at this. If I have a if you have a business partner, you know, I had a conversation
9:41 with my partner. This is where I'm coming out on this. This is where I think the bank's going to come out."
9:47 Rule of thumb that I have used. If it's 15% or within 15% of their asking price
9:52 and they've listed an asking price, ask them, "Hey, I I'm good to go at this price. Can we submit an offer?" If you
9:59 can't do that, it's more than 15% off, then call them and say, hey, I can't with the number. This is where I'm at.
10:05 More importantly, I think this is where lending is going to be on this. Would this be a waste of time to get
10:11 this offer in front of the owner? What I don't want to do is waste their time. I don't want There's nothing more annoying as a
10:17 broker for someone to send a ridiculous offer and you're now obligated to present that. That's how it works as a broker. You have to present all offers.
10:24 I just got another offer on one of my buildings. He's like, "Hey, this the buyer just wants you to pay off the building and then seller finance
10:30 $850,000 back to them." I was like, "Eric, what do you think I'm going to say?" He's like, I know. I have to
10:36 present it to you. I'm like, okay, cool. You know what to do. Tell them no. That's like you want to put together.
10:43 This is where this works conventionally for me to buy the deal. What I've
10:48 conditioned this broker for is when I reach out, I'm not just looking for properties. I'm not just asking. I ask
10:53 quality questions. I go through the script, which I'm just about to give you, and our conversation is now, how
11:00 are we closing this? And everything around the context of this conversation is I want to close this. How would we
11:06 close this? This is where I'm at on this deal. When I call, it means offers. If I
11:12 am a broker and I'm working with someone who puts together deals where I know they're going to work conventionally,
11:17 which brokers know what price it's really going to trade for for the most part. So when I'm putting in offers and
11:22 these offers make a reasonable amount logical sense whether or not it matches the asking price if it makes sense how
11:28 you put it together you're able to put in offers you have moved from I'm someone who has no relationship to this
11:34 broker to this is the person who calls can analyze a deal gets back and is
11:39 ready to move on a deal brokers work with people like that is the number one pipeline that I still use
11:46 today and what ends up happening is my goal is I will call one or two of these
11:51 a day when I'm searching for properties. One or two of these a day in an area that I want to own in
11:59 build relationships with brokers over time when I've called all of them. Expand the radius a little bit. Keep
12:04 buying. It's the entire pipeline. It it is the simplest way to buy real estate. But the
12:11 sticking points that almost everyone has when we go through this is uh one, you're just not ever calling on the
12:17 listing. They are there waiting to talk to you about real estate. people just don't call. Second, when you pick up the phone, you ask way too many questions.
12:24 You ask way too much of the broker and then you don't submit any offer to them. So, you put yourself in the camp of
12:29 people who ask a ton of questions and take a lot of my time and don't make me any money, which is not where you want to be with a broker. Be efficient with
12:36 your questions. Ask closing questions. Get to where you're trying to go. The goal is once a week I want to write an
12:43 offer on a deal where I think I know what they want. I have an idea what I think the seller wants. And I I always
12:49 just put it like, do I believe that there's a 33% chance or higher that they could say yes to this? If the answer is
12:54 yes, submit an offer. If all you did was submit one offer a week at a 33% chance
13:01 or higher of getting accepted, you're usually within
13:07 one to two months of getting an offer accepted. That's usually how it works. When I need a deal,
13:12 call the brokers I've already built a rapport with, see if they have anything because I now have the relationships. We built the model. The next thing we do,
13:22 just go call the active listings and find someone else who's listing properties in my area and we build a new relationship, make a new friend. That's
13:29 the whole entire model for these. The broker relationship is the the simplest funnel, but I see people mess it up all the time. So, I'm going to talk a little
13:35 bit about direct owners, and then I'm going to pass it to uh Cody to continue to talk about direct owners. So, Cody, you're you're almost up. Uh the premise
13:43 of this uh Google maps is the easiest way to do it. You can also just go drive the
13:50 market. But what you're going to find is that multif family buildings from above look like apartments. It's amazing
13:56 thing. Owners are not that hard to meet with especially after you've closed one deal
14:02 in that market. So what it's looked like for me first of all we'll do we'll do a deal.
14:07 So I did a deal and it happened to be direct owner in Stevenville, Texas. I had reached out to brokers. I This is I've expanded my geography over time,
14:14 found exactly where I wanted to buy, got the model. I'm like, "Okay, perfect." I 25 unit seller financed Stevenville,
14:21 Texas. There's other people I met in that time, but once we closed, I called all the property and said, "Hey, just
14:27 bought the building next to you. Would love to know the other people in the market as I'm we're we're expanding down here. Would love to get coffee with
14:34 you." Once you're in a market, everyone wants to know who their new competition is. everyone else in town within 30
14:39 days. Everyone within reason who owns rentals. I know all of them. I know who's trading what. Everyone, the few
14:47 people you didn't meet, the other people will introduce you to. You build these relationships. What do they have? They
14:53 have the network. They know the property managers, the lawyers, the ones you should avoid, the ones you should use,
14:58 the plumbers, the electricians. They've already built the business. And so, your business is there. You zoom in. This is
15:05 uh Riverwalk Town Homes from above. That big loop there. And again, I know
15:11 smaller TV. If you look really closely, there's a giant loop that is a huge neighborhood of buildings that look like
15:16 uh they would be a apartment complex. That's because it is an apartment complex. They all look like apartment
15:21 complexes when you look at them online. For the most part, you're looking for big roofs. You're looking for communities. All I need to do is just
15:28 figure out, okay, who is the owner of this property? And then I just asked them, you know,
15:35 I had an image here, but it's gone. Uh, but in the background, that's a building right down the street. Funny enough,
15:41 when I go through and do this, it's just a simple call to people who own real estate without trying to buy their real
15:47 estate. And this is what I'm going to have Cody talk about. The goal of the broker meeting is I need to convince you
15:54 that I am ready and able to buy this deal. That is all I have to do. I am
15:59 here to make you money. and for me to make money. That's how the broke relationship goes. Super easy. And you can build friendships out of that. On
16:06 the owner side, I've never asked an owner to sell their property. I want to talk about what it is I'm trying to do
16:12 very efficiently. And then I'm going to transition into what it is that like how did they
16:19 build their portfolio? What advice do they have? Who should I know in this market? It's the biggest leg up you're
16:25 going to get. It's the most valuable relationship you're going to get much more than brokers. It's a little bit harder, but some of the best deals we've
16:32 done have been that we I do this at local meetups. Ask brokers who to meet if you already have the broker relationships. Hey, who else do I need
16:38 to connect with down here? Real estate groups online in your area. There's always a bunch of them.
16:43 Washington State, Warry is the big one. There's groups all over every single market.
16:50 Okay, Cody, I'm gonna have you come up and I'm gonna pass pass this mic to you.
16:57 [applause] There you are, sir. I didn't know we were doing this.
17:04 All right, that's okay. That's why I got a slide with you.
17:11 All right, so as far as And how long do I got for this, by the way?
17:18 10 10 minutes. Uh 15. Okay. All right. So, as far as owner meetings
17:23 go, the the number one thing you got to know is people are looking for folks they can grow with. So, just to give you
17:29 actual numbers, give you an actual example. The very first person I ever built an owner relation with, my first
17:35 deal, I was paying them $3,357 a month. 335748.
17:40 It was a little 12plex, completely run down and needed a lot of work. Today I
17:45 pay them a little over 52,000 a month in contract payments, most of which is interest. What I ended up being for that
17:53 person was a way for them to pass on their legacy to their kids, to their family in a more simple manner. Ended up
18:00 building a business of I just did a deal with them for a little over eight figures on a seller note and it was 6%
18:07 down seller financed. One deal like that's enough for anybody to change
18:12 their life to really set themsel up financially. However, it doesn't start there. So, my first piece I'd like to
18:18 share is you have to find someone that you can grow with. They basically become a partner. Maybe they're not giving you
18:25 money to go buy a deal, but when you're meeting with owners, you you really do have to view them as a long-term
18:31 relationship. It's not a transaction. Time and time again, I've seen people that have treated the seller buyer
18:39 relationship as a transaction. It gets very transactional. It's one and done or maybe get two deals done and it ends up
18:45 killing long-term progress. I actually just met up um with my wife Ashley in the back. So, we just got dinner with
18:52 this relationship. They have a house over in Moses Lake and they basically
18:57 laid out the the plan for me and now us years ago. And all we had to do is stick
19:04 to the plan. We meet with people who have done what we want to do. We ask how they got there and ask if they were in
19:10 our shoes, what would they do given what they know? It's super simple. Like Christian mentioned with the broker
19:18 route. You find something you like, you call them, and you ask questions. With
19:24 owners, it's just a little different, but it's equally simple. You find people who own the type of stuff you want to
19:30 own. You call them up. Next step, learn how they got to where they're at and
19:35 then ask for advice on how they would repeat what they did if they were in your shoes.
19:40 It doesn't really get any more complicated than that. The next thing is,
19:46 even though it's a it's a relationship based thing, you know, it's going to be a long term, stay genuine to your goals.
19:51 Share what you're trying to do. When I was getting started, there were people saying, "Well, you should try and say
19:56 what people want to hear." Has anybody heard that? where like, "Oh, I'm gonna say this because I think they're going
20:02 to want to hear that." Every time I did that, it backfired. I don't know if anyone else has done
20:07 that. I've That's one of the biggest mistakes I made in the beginning. It killed some deals, killed some relationships.
20:14 Share what you're trying to accomplish. And you think about the circle drill. If anybody's been through the course,
20:19 you've seen it. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? And what changes when you get there? It's really
20:26 simple. You do that and you share that drill with everybody that you're working with with these owners and a lot of
20:33 opportunities can come from it with the the broker route or Google maps, right? Finding the big roofs.
20:40 Bigger roofs are more likely to be apartments than smaller roofs. That was all that went into it. As soon as you
20:46 find that, has anybody gone through open corporates, found the phone numbers? Have we done that here? Raise your
20:52 hands. If you haven't done it, raise your hand. All right. The only thing stopping you from meeting
20:58 with these people is doing that work. It's very simple. You can go on to Grant
21:03 County. Oh, not Grant County. You guys aren't there. You can go to the the county tax assessor, find out who owns
21:09 it, whether it's a a name of a person. That's really easy. Some people own it
21:14 personally. If it's not the name of a person, it has an LLC. Just take the LLC, put it into Open Corporates. It's
21:21 free. It'll show you who owns it. You take that person and the address tied to
21:27 the LLC, you put it into Google and type in phone number and then their phone number pops up. It's amazing. I have not
21:35 found a situation where that is not true. That is for big companies. It's for small companies. When we first
21:41 started looking in Grant County, there's this complex called Weston Square, and
21:46 the owner did everything in the book to try and hide their name, but they didn't move the parcel that they owned adjacent
21:53 into that super secret LLC. And so, we found out who owned it. You can find anybody, regardless of their size, going
21:59 through those steps. But the next thing is you actually have to call. This is a drill I actually put Christian through.
22:06 Do you remember your first owner call? Yes. What did you do? So,
22:11 I'm gonna make you do the thing. This is a good story. I I I'll share this with the mic.
22:17 So, Cody, when we first did that, we were in a car in Ellensburg at Starbucks
22:23 and he's like, "Hey, you should do this owner call." He's like, "Awesome." I'm like, "What are the rules of the game?" He's like, "Okay, so you have two
22:28 options. You can ask them to sell the property or you can ask for a relationship." I'm like, "Okay."
22:36 So, we go through the thing and I call them. I'm like, "Hey." She actually picked up the phone on the first ring. I was like, I wasn't expecting that. Uh
22:42 I'm like, "Hey, you have this uh 20 place down the street uh was curious if you are open to selling."
22:49 She's like, "I'm not." I'm like, "Oh, well, shoot."
22:54 So, changing changing gears. Um awesome. Well, I am an investor in the area. We
23:00 own a couple properties around Moses Lake. Past your property all the time. Would love to meet up. She's like, "No,
23:06 I'm very busy. like,
23:12 okay, well, if there's ever a price that you'd be willing to sell at, let me know.
23:17 That'd be [laughter] great. And um yeah, I'll um I'll talk to you later. Bye.
23:23 That's pretty much how the first one went. Well, and the reason I bring that up is because even though he didn't have
23:29 a plan, he didn't have an agenda. I took his phone and I hit dial because that's
23:34 the biggest thing that's stopping folks from building these relationships is actually hitting the call button. You type in the phone number, you're like,
23:40 I'm going to do it later. I've done that many times when I was getting started. It sucks because what happens is you
23:48 start call people call lists. They get these big lists. They they farm them out from title companies and then you call
23:54 and you hit voicemail and you do that 30 times and someone picks up and then you get nervous and you say the fbomb and
24:00 hang up and like people freak out. I've seen it happen over and over. Oh my god.
24:05 Well, you know that feeling because you're like, "All right, I have to call 50 people. That's 30 no answers." And
24:10 then someone picks up and you blow it, right? You just have to hit dial because if you don't hit dial, you're going to freak yourself out. And everything you
24:18 want, someone else has. That's the bottom line. So, whatever it may be, could be the the cool house, it could be
24:24 five grand a month cash flow. Somebody has it. You just have to figure out who has it.
24:30 Meet with them and then go through what we talked about earlier. Go through the steps. Figure out how they got to where
24:36 they're at. The one of the first relationships I ever had in Moses [snorts] Lake, he house hacked a dumpy
24:44 sixplex with his wife and his newborn. Had cockroaches running around. a racist
24:49 tenant. And so the tenant tried to chase him off with a shotgun. Like that's not that's
24:56 not great, right? But that's where he came from. He bought it seller financed, 10% down. And so what is a logical
25:04 proposal for me if he ever offered to sell his property, seller financed, 10%
25:11 down. I'm using the stories. I got to remember the information after I get it. But I use the stories to repeat what
25:18 they did. And that's how I just did the the eight figure deal with my wife. That's how he did it with 6% down.
25:26 He's shared time and time again this individual that there were times that he didn't have the money. And so every time
25:32 I get pinched or I can't come up with 10% down, like 10% down on eight figure deal is seven figures. I don't have it.
25:39 So I just share that with him. I was like, "Look, I'm I'm in a similar position you were. I'd still like to do
25:44 the deal. I want to work with you. I want to continue growing with you, but in order to do that, I'm going to be
25:51 right here." And I just lay out my pieces. And he said, "Yes." And it's happened time and time again. You can do
25:58 that with any amount of owners, big deals, small deals, single family,
26:03 multif family storage facilities. And the more people you learn from, you
26:09 get the best piece of information and you can omit the ones you don't like. If you get bad advice, has anybody been
26:14 given bad advice from owners before or brokers? There's a broker in Grant County that they tried to double the
26:20 price and they said it's the same amount of upside. I know Christian remembers who I'm talking about. It's that's bad advice.
26:28 He's like, "Well, you're just going to have to wait a little longer to get the same upside." I'm like, "Well, it doesn't work. Didn't work at this price.
26:33 It's not going to work up here." So you can take in the good advice from people when you meet with them. Treat them as
26:40 owners. Don't treat them as sellers. And if you can continue to do that for a
26:45 long enough period of time and you keep getting great advice and applying it, calling people, what I've found more
26:51 often than not is when I go through the whole owner meeting and I get great advice and then I ask calculated
26:58 questions, when I ask how should I go about getting to where you're at, more
27:04 often than not, they've offered to sell a building. That is how I've gotten these opportunities without asking for a
27:09 sale. that's happened with multiple owners in Grant County. Majority of the owners I bought from in Grant County, which is
27:15 just central Washington, has played out like that. What would you do if you were in my
27:21 shoes? And they say, "Well, I' I'd buy one of these buildings." It's like, "Okay, what are you thinking?" And then
27:28 they lay out the terms. They make it simple for me. Now, it doesn't always work on the first goound. Sometimes you have to negotiate a little bit. Ask,
27:35 "How could I do that?" you know, keep pushing the ball down the field. Well, that's resulted into a lot of
27:41 opportunities. So, anybody have any questions on owners?
27:47 No. Good. All right. After the county assessor's website, you said how do you
27:53 Yeah. So, county assessor, if you find the name and the address that's typically associated with that, punch it
28:00 into Google and put phone number. If it's an LLC, you put the LLC into Open Corporates.
28:05 Open Corporate. Yeah. And that's free.
28:19 starting
28:25 to
28:32 Yeah. So the question for those who didn't hear it is when you get cursed out on the phone again and again, what
28:38 do you do to keep calling? And you just got to stay true to what you want. If you know what you want, odds are what
28:45 you want's worth more than the the repetitive calls. And that's how it was
28:50 for me. So, I kept calling until I got what I wanted. And that's like same when we had tough projects. I pushed through
28:58 until it was done because it had to be done if I wanted the end result. But if
29:03 you don't really want the end result, then like you just quit. And that's what most people do. Part of uh we're going
29:09 to be talking about math in a little bit. Main thing I want to focus on is being better than average. Well, average
29:14 people put complaints above their goals. And I would say you should flip that. Your goal should be above the complaints. But it it just depends what
29:22 matters most to you. Uh if they don't want to meet
29:27 your questions on the phone, when do you call them back to try to Yeah, that's important. So when you call
29:33 people back if they don't want to meet up, that does happen quite a bit. So people will
29:41 meet with you based on where you're coming from. I've shared that a lot online. So if you're coming from a relatable point, people are more likely
29:48 to meet with you. And that's where you'd want to share your goals in person. But if you can't get there, then the
29:54 solution is getting a takeaway from the call, applying it, and then calling them back and letting them know that it worked. That's the thing people miss
30:01 because there's a lot of people that are too busy for you, right? It's just going to happen. But if you can get a takeaway, if it's clear they're not
30:07 going to meet with you, get a takeaway, go apply it in your business, call them back, let them know that it worked, and
30:13 say you appreciate it and you'd like to buy them coffee or lunch or whatever it may be.
30:19 When you get to the owner meeting, since you're not like directly trying to ask for
30:25 a purchase, are there things you are looking for like contractors in the area, things like that that you try and get out of a
30:32 meeting if you don't get property? Maybe. Uh, but the the main thing is people will work with you based on the
30:38 goals that you have. So, a mistake people make when they actually get to the meeting is they keep trying to find
30:43 relatable points and that's a flaw. It's more of a character flaw. They just focus on I'm trying to relate to you.
30:49 And what happens is at the end of the meeting, the seller's or the owner is like, I really like this person, but I
30:55 don't see ever doing any business with them because they're maybe they could just be a friend, right? That you're
31:00 just trying to be relatable. So that means you probably got to tweak the things that you're sharing in your
31:06 meeting because that should come up naturally without asking. If example, if I go meet
31:12 with an owner and say, "Hey, I'm working on my first development. I found the
31:18 land. Have you ever done anything like that?" And they could, if they have done anything like that, they could say,
31:23 "Well, yeah, I actually built a a forplex and this is the contractor that I used." And if they don't just share
31:28 that openly, you could say, "Which contractor did you use or did you do it yourself?" Trying to phrase the
31:35 questions around the end goal. So, from San Diego instable
31:51 new owner next door. Well, you you can't say things that aren't true, right? Like that's not
31:57 going to go very far. So, you don't get to use the neighbor next door until you buy a deal there. But it was the same
32:03 thing. So, I closed an hour and a half ago on a 12plex in Quincy. I've been
32:08 reaching out like for seven years. I took a a selfie video. Didn't meet with
32:14 the guy. I met with him for the first time two months ago, but I kept sending him selfie videos as soon as I bought
32:21 the first deal. But I couldn't have done that and say, "Hey, I'm the proper neighborhood." The first deal I bought was three and a half hours from where I
32:27 grew up. Wasn't nearby. Whether it's a flight or a car ride, doesn't matter. It was three and a half hours away. So, I
32:34 couldn't use that pitch until I did it. But as soon as I got one, which was an
32:40 MLS deal, right? It was nothing special. Been on the market over 500 days. You better believe I'm taking selfie video
32:47 in front of the neighbor's property and saying, "Hey, look, I just bought here. I'm the new guy in town." Right. But you
32:53 have to use what's genuine to your story. I was going to say in these owner
32:59 relationships, what do you see in like trends of like the pains that a lot of owners go through over the owning
33:05 journey that you're like, "Oh, okay. These are some trends and that you start to relate with them on
33:13 there. There can be a lot of pain. It can come from debt. It can come from scaling too quickly, scaling with the
33:18 wrong person. You could have really smart minds that are going in a similar
33:24 direction, but it's just not the right partnership and then they start to crumble. I'm seeing that right now with two guys that are financially way bigger
33:30 than all of us combined and you they just have different strategies and so a
33:36 lot of the pain at that level just comes from having the wrong partner.
33:42 Elgen, in in this environment right here, uh,
33:47 this weekend, is there an opportunity for us to do the the owner
33:54 play with successful guys like yourselves that own
33:59 to see how we would go through that call, that first meeting? Well, if you notice, this is just one
34:05 big owner meeting. [laughter] We just got a couple spectators.
34:13 Yeah. What kind of voicemail would you leave if you don't reach one of the owners?
34:19 Yeah. So, if I already own something in the area, my go-to is, "Hey, this is Cody." You would obviously replace your
34:25 name. Unless you want to leave my phone number, then they'll call me. But, hey,
34:30 this is Cody. I own the property next to you on whatever street. Just give me a
34:37 call back when you get this and then I leave my number. That's it. So, for someone who doesn't own yet, what kind
34:44 of message would you leave? Yeah, a message that you could leave is, "Hey, my name's Cody. I was looking at
34:49 this property. It's listed over here on Marina Drive. I saw you had the place next to it. I'm just curious on your
34:54 thoughts because now I'm asking for perspective on a different deal. Not asking them to sell me something. If
35:00 they have time for information, great. But if they don't, then they're not going to call back anyway."
35:06 your real intent of purchasing his property. You're asking about
35:11 Well, I'm asking about something that is actually real nearby if it's something I want to buy. Now, I'm not going to
35:17 There's some people online that say you should just pretend that you're interested. Like, you should only
35:22 reference things that you're actually genuinely interested in. It'll come back to bite you if you do anything else.
35:28 And I ended up buying both sides of the street, by the way. I bought one and then I bought the other. So,, you know, it did actually work out that way. But
35:35 it took five years to do that.
35:40 I think we're good.
35:45 [applause] Things that I things that I learned in this this owner meeting cycle is it is
35:51 not the fastest way to buy deals. If you're statistically and I I try to keep a ton of stats for multi family strategy
35:58 in general. Statistically, it's going to be a little bit north of 85% of deals that are done within our group. The
36:04 first and second deal are usually through a broker relationship. And along the way, you meet owners. Just like Cody
36:10 said, sometimes you call an owner and they immediately they're like, hey, I'm trying to sell this building. Like it
36:16 happens occasionally. You call, hey, I just passed your property. Had a question for you. They're like, I am trying to sell it
36:22 right now. Can I'll sell or finance it to you. I've had those conversations where they just
36:27 throw it out there intro call. They're like, try to get rid of it. It happens occasionally. Usually what happens is
36:34 going to be this multi-year thing where you're you're going to be working you're building a relationship over time where
36:39 it may be five years for it transacts. What I found with the direct to owner method, they have built the business
36:46 that you're trying to build. Literally, they've built the exact business that you're trying to build. Most valuable
36:51 resource you have, if you're going to get creative finance terms, they're going to offer that to people who they know, like, and trust already before it
36:58 gets to anyone else. You're also going to see listings, not even listings, just properties available that never hit the
37:05 market. Why would I ever call a broker to sell a property if I just met you for coffee and I know that you're trying to
37:12 buy this type of property in my market? They will call you. Why would I pay a broker to list something if I already
37:17 have the buyer? It doesn't make any sense. The beautiful thing with this is you never have to uh to your question,
37:22 you never actually have to say that you want to buy their property. If I am meeting you to talk about the business
37:28 that you built and explain what I am trying to do, it is implied that I would buy real estate. If I'm meeting you to
37:33 try to get more perspective on how to buy real estate, I don't have to tell them, hey, I would like to buy your stuff. Of course, I'd love to buy their
37:39 stuff. I'm meeting with them to get the relationship. And that relationship does yield deals. That's the general owner
37:45 model. And it works amazingly. I think is the most powerful thing that you will do. It also just is not as fast. If if
37:52 your goal is the goal of this event, which is in the next 6 months, you're going to close a property. That is the that is the objective here today, it's
38:00 probably going to be through the owner the broker relationship most likely. Statistically, that's almost definitely
38:06 what's going to happen. If you do this simultaneously and you just do these two
38:12 things, you will have brokers whose only job is to find properties and find buyers feeding you deals. And as the
38:19 more you close, the more they like you. So, you're going to build an endless pipeline of people who look for deals
38:24 professionally in your area who are finding you deals. If you meet the owners, you will get more access to
38:29 those deals at better pricing with more creativity, and you get all of the other benefits of you build legitimate
38:36 friendships, which is actually really fun. Real estate can be a very lonely career. It is you doing your business,
38:42 and you bring on a few people along the way, but it's a pretty lonely solo job.
38:48 It's way more fun when there's other people in your market who you enjoy working with that they understand what
38:54 you're going through. When you buy a bunch of apartments, who here has family who owns a ton of real estate or you a
39:00 significant amount? Zero hands. No, not amazing. I didn't expect that. Your
39:07 family does not usually relate to you. When you buy a bunch of apartments, they're like, "Oh, yeah. You're doing that cool thing." Zero% chance my
39:12 parents have read my book. Like they they I'm sure they bought a copy on Amazon. 100% sure they didn't read it. Your
39:20 family doesn't care about your real estate business. Your friends who are not in real estate don't care. They're just not interested. It's like if I try
39:26 to talk to you guys about one of my hobbies that you guys don't care about. Like I don't go on and on about a board game because almost no one here cares.
39:35 Go. Almost no one here cares. [laughter] We have just a you don't want to be
39:42 unrelatable. You want to just create the the whole goal is just to like work with people who are doing the thing
39:48 that you're excited about. If you've ever had any hobby or passion, which this actually operates more similarly to
39:54 other people in your niche are super excited to talk about exactly that.
40:01 You guys know I'm a Warhammer nerd. Like I love complex board games. I love hate hate painting models. Love playing.
40:09 You talk to other people who also like that game. crazy diehard fans. You build
40:14 community. It's way more fun to do it together. So the owner meeting, you get to make legitimate friends, legitimate relationships. You learn so much. In in
40:22 Cody's case, like Cody has one person who he's borrowed like $10 million from
40:27 in seller finance notes. Actually, probably more than 10 million. I don't know what's the number just out of curiosity.
40:33 Right around 10. Right around 10. Okay. I know my stuff. there's a $10 million relationship that
40:39 he built starting with one deal over the course of five years. You can't do that with
40:46 brokers. So, my argument is well the the fastest way to do it is with agents. You need to be doing both of these things.
40:53 And if you only do these two things, I can say from personal experience, you can definitely get over 600 rentals. um
41:00 because that's what we're we did that we're going to be probably close to a thousand and it's not at the end of this
41:06 year and it's not about unit count. Unit count is a stupid metric and I'm going to illustrate that with Phil at the end of this event. But unit count is not a
41:13 significant target. That being said, I can say that it has definitely worked for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
41:18 of doors. I don't have any other funnels. I have paid for no leads. I
41:23 have never used other software. Um, Caleb tried to use other software and
41:29 he's like, "I hate this model." I'm like, "I know. That's because we have a better model." Uh, be a person, make friends, work with brokers, work with
41:34 owners. If you only do these two things, you will buy deals. Remember, your goal is do like a deal a quarter. Even two
41:43 deals a year is huge. Just consistently buy a few transactions every single year. You don't need a lot
41:48 of successes. Do not make this a grindy job. None of this is a grindy job.
41:55 Awesome. Next break. Everyone hang out. Go to the bathroom. Get coffee. Do the thing.