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Why Vertical Integration is Crucial for Growing your Business with Josh Wilson

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What is it like to make a ton of money and grow companies that weren’t yours? Our guest, BRRRR method expert Josh Wilson, knows what that feels like, and it became the turning point for why he started figuring out ways to buy real estate. In this episode, Josh talks about how he started in property management. He shares how he discovered the BRRRR method and incorporated it into the vertical integration model. Over the years, Josh has turned $150,000 into over $15,000,000 using the BRRRR method. He now runs a BRRRR Bootcamp that helps other budding investors learn the ropes of the business. Join in and learn how he does it! — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here Why Vertical Integration is Crucial for Growing your Business with Josh Wilson I’m joined by Josh Wilson. Josh, thanks for being here. What’s going on, Tim? It’s just another beautiful day in Dallas, Texas. Why don’t you take a minute to say hello to everybody? Tell them who you are. I’m Josh Wilson with the BRRRR Bootcamp. We teach the BRRRR Method. In addition to that, I got started in real estate by learning how to do property management and how to be an operator when it came to real estate. I stumbled upon the BRRRR Method several years ago. That is where everything blew up for me. I was your traditional investor that was doing your 20%, 30% down payments, then found out about the BRRRR Method, and completely blew up my portfolio. My wife and I have been BRRRR-ing since before it was cool. I love that we get to talk about this because it’s one of those no money down things that people don’t understand. I like to start these episodes with what I call the BLUF, the Bottom Line Up Front. When I was in the Marine Corps, I would brief generals. One of the things they used to tell us was, “You’ve got to make sure you say the most important thing up front in case the general needs to leave.” What are the most important real estate trends we’ve faced now? Where do people need to be focused? One thing you’ll hear me say a lot is vertical integration. That is what I have founded and been able to build my companies on. When I say vertical integration, what I mean is I have a property management company. We have a rehab company. We also have a sales brokerage and an acquisitions department. We are vertically integrated within our companies. We are now able to essentially take the entire process and put it under one roof. From an efficiency standpoint and economy scale standpoint, it is massive to be able to scale a portfolio. Without that vertical integration, we would not be able to take a $150,000 loan that we started out with as our private money loan and BRRRR-ed it all the way into over a $15 million portfolio. It is higher than that now. We’re growing by the millions about every couple of months. It is massive. Vertical integration is huge. It’s one thing that I’m an advocate for. I teach a lot about it. I love the concept of vertical integration because whether you’re doing $1 billion a year in business or $1,000 a week in wholesales, the more of the transaction you can control and influence. Even more, you do not rely on someone else. One of the worst things about this business for me is that so much of your word depends on other people’s performance. Even down to my new details when it comes to maintenance or rehabs, we’re in an economy where contractors are not around, not available, or their prices are too high. When you have vertical integration, you are able to take that rehab piece. We have our own in-house team. We are in control of how fast our projects get done, on time, and under budget. That is huge for us. Let’s go back in time. Clearly, you are a Harvard-educated quantum engineer that has figured out how to create words like vertical integration. I would like to know more of your story, how you got here, how you ended up doing this, and where you think that you can help people that are reading. It all started back when I was a kid. There was a guy on the TV by the name of Brad Richdale. He sold these infomercials about all these yachts, jets, and everything on the TV. I was seven years old. I told my dad one day, “Dad, I want to do that. I want to own a yacht. I want to own a jet.” My dad was like, “Okay, son. Whatever, no big deal.” I told him, I was like, “I will work. I’ll cut grass. I’ll do whatever it is. Can you buy me the infomercial? Buy me his little cassette recordings.” He bought me the actual infomercial. I then took that and went to my mom’s office. She was a secretary at the time. I took it and I photocopied it. I put them into manila envelopes. I went door to door and sold them for $100 apiece. I took his information. I had no idea, but that was the entrepreneur in me. I was trying to take a product, go out, resell it, and make money. That started my spark. That flopped and only lasted for a week. My wife and I were sitting around fifteen years later. She was like, “HGTV, look at these people, flipping houses, and doing all this stuff.” I had a little bit of a bug. I had an itch. I wanted to get into real estate. The only way for me to get into real estate was to learn how to manage properties. I didn’t have any money. I was broke. I ended up working for a property management company. A year later,

How Instant Gratification Affects The State Of The Market With Suzanne Andresen

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Most real estate investors find it difficult to source their assets for their portfolios and forget to make sure they do the appropriate due diligence. In this episode, Suzanne Andresen shares some advice for the investors and explains how important conducting your due diligence is. She also talks about your lifestyle choice and how it affects your property to be under equity. Listen to this episode and hear what tips Suzanne provides for investors. Plus, she explains what the REI Referral Network is all about! — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here How Instant Gratification Affects the State of the Market with Suzanne Andresen I’m here with my good friend Suzanne Andresen. Suzanne, Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for having me. I’m glad you are here and in the interest of time, why don’t you go ahead and tell everybody a little bit about yourself. I have been in real estate for many years, selling real estate from my dorm room at the University of South Carolina in 1986 as a Hall Adviser. For whatever reason, I kept going forward with that and worked at several publications in the space but certainly am happy to be part of the ownership at REI INK Magazine. We love the publication we have. It’s been around for several years. It’s a well-respected messaging platform for the real estate investor space. We have also developed our referral network REI Referral Network, which is an opportunity for investors to connect with real estate professionals to help source acquisition and disposition strategies for their portfolio solutions. From there, we launched our Highest-and-Best acquisition platform, which is a way for investors to connect with assets that are off the market. It’s designed to premiere the assets on Tuesdays and go on contract by noon on Friday Eastern. Truthfully, it goes to the highest and best offer that’s been submitted. It’s been very successful and it’s a great way for investors to source some of the assets that are difficult to find and we found a way to make it successful for them. I’m a big fan of REI INK and the publication. You and Bob are doing an amazing job. Having been a real estate investor for many years, I get a lot of things in the mail. I enjoy getting it in the mail, looking at and reading it. I find a lot of value in it so kudos to you. What I like to do is start with what I call the Bottom Line Up Front, the BLUF. When I was in the Marine Corps as an intelligence guy, I would brief generals. The first thing you have to learn is you never buried the lead because you could get mortar fire or the general could have something more important to do. He may have to get up and leave. You need him to know the most important thing that you had to tell. Suzanne, try to cover the most important trends that you see in real estate, things that you see that maybe investors should be doing or if there’s anything you see or hear that investors shouldn’t be doing. My best advice to give investors is as they are finding it very difficult for them to source assets for their portfolios, make sure they do the appropriate due diligence. There are so many assets coming out of forbearance and foreclosure properties that they can miss overlooking important elements that can negatively affect the profitability. Some of the things that we do in our newsletter every Monday and Thursday are to feature stories and assets somewhere in the country. We share how it’s performing on the local MLS, both from a listing and selling perspective. You get good local market metrics for the information but we also then show what the rental rates are. This helps give some of the buy and hold investors, the opportunity to evaluate what they are using for their rental analysis and what they are charging for it. A lot of times, it gives investors an idea that they are probably undercharging. You can’t automatically go up $200 a month but you can start preparing to increase your rent for your tenants and get them to what the market rates should be. We also share some of the foreclosure and REO asset analysis through that area. Perhaps you like the market but not the asset that we are sharing. We are teaching you to source an asset and work with an asset management company. We have got great connections for that. It gives you the ability to buy your assets properly. It’s okay if there’s a municipal lien against it, you want to know that up front. Knowing that there are two years of delinquent real estate taxes, that’s not a big deal. You put that into your evaluation and how you are going to make your bid. That’s part of going about it with the correct due diligence. We are in a market where valuation is off the map that has to stabilize over time. We can’t maintain a 20% overvalued asset. In the 2014 market, we saw the real estate mortgage debacle and all of these issues coming out of it caused by bad lending practices. The term that came out of that was underwater. All these assets were under water. We are now facing a new term in this market. It’s Under Equity. I’m guessing it’s going to happen between the March and May 2023 timeframe. We are going to transition the underwater market to under equity, which is unfortunate for all of the investors or homeowners in this market because they have purchased these assets at a higher percentage rate and not going to be able to afford that when they sell. What it leads to for the investor market is a need for more rental properties and that’s how we need to make sure we go

The Importance Of Establishing Systems And Processes In Real Estate With Casey Smith

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Systems and processes are essential because they are the veins that allow the flow of work to be efficient. Just like in any other business, real estate investors need to establish systems and processes, too. In this episode, Dallas real estate investor and the Owner/Operator at Atlas Transaction Coordinator Services, Casey Smith explains how systems and processes are essential to any business and how they have been very important to hers. She explains why you need to treat your investments like a business. She also shares why delegating tasks, doing a SWOT analysis, and learning continuously are vital to your survival as a business owner. Tune in and gain insights that will help you take your business to the next level! — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here The Importance Of Establishing Systems And Processes In Real Estate With Casey Smith In this episode, I’m joined by a local legend here in Dallas, Casey Smith. Casey, how are you? I’m wonderful. Thank you. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? I’ve been in Dallas and in Texas for many years. I have only been in real estate for a few years. However, I have an interesting background as a media analyst for a company out of Zurich. That’s a whole other life, but I do feel like I was groomed to be in real estate by my background. After getting a Master’s in Politics and Media Studies, I went into media analyst, eventually to sales, and tumbled into real estate. I’m a licensed realtor here in Dallas. I only work with investors and only people doing fix and flip or wholetails. I don’t deal with a lot of buyers. I’ve got that on the side. I own a company that does transaction coordinator services for investment companies nationwide. Most of the people reading this, basically handle the paperwork, the timelines, and communication. We do that and that covers my bases. I also do invest in properties myself. Casey, I start every week off with what we call the Bottom Line Up Front, the BLUF. When I was in the Marine Corps, they always said, “Never bury the lead.” When you go in to brief the general, make sure that he knows the most important thing up front in case he has to get up and leave, you take mortar fire or something like that. Bottom Line Up Front is the most important thing you see happening in the market now, things that you think investors should be doing, and things you think they shouldn’t be doing. On the BLUF, go. The bottom line is that a lot of things depend on a lot of things. I ascribed to Ray Dalio’s philosophy that if you’re worried, you have nothing to worry about. If you aren’t worried, you probably have something to worry about. You should be focusing on reality and what is happening in real-time because, at the end of the day, you can’t predict a lot. It’s important that you focus and treat investment decisions like you would a business. Even the stocks, you’re just purchasing tiny pieces of businesses. If you don’t have the mindset to understand the systems, the processes, and the supply and demand for whatever that business is, then probably you shouldn’t be investing in that. Most of the people that are probably reading this are either starting their own business, running their own business, or looking to invest. Those can be combined things. You can only really deal with identifying what’s important to your business and what you can know. If you’re making predictions, investments, or decisions based on fear or a prediction of what’s going to happen, you might find yourself in a little bit of trouble. I would highly recommend that you do that SWOT analysis that you would do on your own operation in any investment decision that you make. Lastly, I would say to focus on understanding that this is a long play. Investing in and of itself, money isn’t typically made on day one. You’re not looking for your cash returns up to 5, 10, or 15 years over that. If you start looking at your numbers that way, you’re not going to be as panicked about what’s happening in the first five. In keeping that overall perspective and looking at the microeconomics and things that are happening within your sphere, you will be able to identify certain patterns, pivot, move, and be agile. Bottom line is that you need to position yourself to be agile to be able to pivot when things shift and change and not be fearful. You got to buy right, pay attention, work in reality, and treat your investments like a business. Let me unpack that. Treat your business like a business. Are you telling me there are people out there that don’t treat their business like a business? It depends on what stage of business you’re in. I’ve got mentors that have helped me identify what stage I’m in and how to exit and enter the new one. Everyone has to understand where they are. Most of my clients with my transaction coordinating company are closing 5 to 10 deals, but we’ve got those guys doing the 1 to 4 that are in a different stage of business. They’re in the startup or perseverance phase where they’re surviving. They’re moving, transacting, and getting the money because they don’t know what’s going to shift. The companies that are in their viability stage are slowing down slightly. Maybe they’ve got some freedom where they’re not sitting in every seat and they can observe and watch what’s happening. Not everyone understands how to run their business or knows what to look at. Most of the mentorship that they’re getting in our sphere is from people in real estate, not necessarily people that have grown and successfully built or exited companies. Much of our businesses or businesses

Investing with Purpose: Having Real Intentions in Real Estate With Donovan Ruffin

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If you want people to work with you, you need to be leading with value. Don’t make every meeting you have a business transaction. You need to actually want to help people so that they will work with you. You can’t grow your business if no one wants to work with you. This is exactly what Donovan Ruffin did when he founded Equity Cash Offer. He’s only 28, yet he buys and sells houses all over Texas while also going into new markets. He does this because he’s actually doing the work and grinding it out. Join Tim Herriage as he talks to Donovan about how he grew his business, Equity Cash Offer, especially at a time when interest rates are rising. Listen in for some great advice on how to get started in real estate. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here Investing with Purpose: Having Real Intentions in Real Estate With Donovan Ruffin Welcome back to the show. I’m here with an all-star, Donovan Ruffin. Donovan, thanks for coming by. Thanks for having me. You are the CEO of Equity Cash Offer. Why don’t you take a second and tell everybody a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do? I live here in Dallas-Fort Worth McKinney, Texas. I own a company called Equity Cash Offer. We buy and sell houses. We do mostly wholesale. We do fix and flips, buy and holds and a little bit of commercial. We do business all over Texas. We’re going to enter some new markets in Florida, Atlanta, North Carolina and South Carolina. We’re growing. I’m super impressed with you. You remind me of myself when I was young, except you do a lot more than me. The first thing we do is the BLUF, the Bottom Line Up Front. The Bottom Line Up Front is when I was in the Marine Corps, we’d briefed generals. They always told us, “You never bury the lead because the general may have to get up and leave. You may start getting mortar or fire. You need the general to know the most important thing.” In that context, I want you to tell the reader about the real estate market, trends you’re seeing, things you’re thinking about and things that people should be focused on or watched out for. It is two minutes of the state of the market according to Donovan Ruffin. The real estate market is very interesting. You have interest rates rising. Prices of real estate are a lot different than what it was years ago before Corona. I did market research. In Dallas-Fort Worth alone, houses are selling for about $178 a square foot on average. Before Corona, it was about $118 or $119. If you look at the dynamics of it, when you’re getting into real estate, you want to be careful about the exit strategies and your intention. Going into the real estate market, we’re focused heavily on if we’re going to buy it and put work into the house, we’re looking to keep it forever. If you look at history, 100 years ago, houses were a lot different than what it is because of inflation. Time has changed and things of that nature. You can’t lose if you have intentions of buying properties to keep them forever. That’s what we’ve been focused on. There are tons of advantages to that. You have tax cost segregation with rentals and cashflow with rental properties. With that, you have leverage because you can dabble and have more bankability. Most importantly, it’s a legacy for your family too. You’re not getting paid once off a wholesale or flip because you put all this work into getting a property, acquiring it and selling it or fixing it up and then selling it. You’re fixing it up, putting a stable tenant in there and then keeping it forever. That’s what our main intention is with the market, especially with interest rates rising. We aren’t focused on, “Is the market going to crash?” We’re excited about prices going from $178 a square foot to a lot lower because of what they used to be. That’s my take on the real estate market. You can still make a lot of money wholesaling or fixing and flipping but you get paid once versus paid forever. There’s a lot to unpack in that legacy. Your Instagram has become one of my favorites. Mainly because I was about your age when I had my first kid. You do post about your house stuff but it has 80% of the little knocks on there. That legacy means so much more. It’s not about the money, watches, cars or houses. It’s like, “Let’s level our kids up.” I learned a lot being in this business for years. I humbled myself a couple of years because the IRS wants their money. You can make a lot of money but you still have to pay taxes. I was the type that was like, “$300 of cashflow isn’t that inspiring.” Now, I don’t need the money from a fix and flip. I’d rather keep it, maintain that property and keep it and my family forever. You were talking about houses and what they used to cost. I’m working on a project in Downtown Rockwall. It’s a historic house. When it was originally built in 1885, it was 1.5 acres. The cost, when it was first sold in 1905, was $5,000. That’s for a 2,500-square-foot house on 1.5 acres in Downtown Rockwall. Now, it has been parceled up and it’s about 3-quarters of an acre. We bought it for $550,000 and it was appraised for $1.25 million. When you talk about forever, it’s exciting stuff. You pencil that in on a $100,000 house. From the wholesale, fix and flip, rentals, commercial or multiple markets, what is it that is challenging you? Is it personnel management, cost of money or not enough inventory? What are

Wholetailing: Flipping Real Estate With No Money With Travis Johnson

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Have you ever thought about flipping real estate deals but don’t know how to do it? You’re not alone. Travis Johnson, a successful house flipper in Minnesota and author of the Seven Figure Flipping Book, learned how to flip real estate the hard way. With no books or training when he first started, he did everything wrong and took financial losses. Today, Travis shares his experience on how to get involved in flipping real estate deals with no money, wholesaling strategies, and treating real estate investing as a real business. Tune in! — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here Wholetailing: Flipping Real Estate With No Money With Travis Johnson Welcome to the show. With me in this episode is Travis Johnson. Travis, how are you? I’m very good. Thanks for having me here. I knew you from a mastermind but why don’t you take a minute to tell the reader a little bit about yourself? I’m based out of Minneapolis and the St. Paul area of Minnesota. I started investing part-time in real estate in 2001. I went full-time in 2016. I built my business from the ground up and doing quite well at it. I do a lot of rural investing. I also do a lot of the metropolitan where all the other investors are at. I like to start these episodes with what I call the bottom line up front. When I was in the Marine Corps, they always told us we had to tell the general the most important thing as soon as the briefing started in case he had to leave the room. Take two minutes. Talk to the reader about what you think the most important things are that they need to be paying attention to or doing in this market. That’s a pretty broad question that you’re asking me to answer but I can best answer it in regards to interest rates having a huge play. Over the last couple of years, interest rates have been fantastically low. When you purchase a house, if you had another contract and there was delay after delay, it didn’t matter. The values kept going up. It was an easy extra payday. Now, you have to pay more attention to interest rates going up. If you’re buying a higher-value house, you have to pay attention to that. The main point I would say is to pay attention to interest rates but also get out there and do stuff in regards to investing because wholetailing, which we can dive more into the show, is working well and will continue to work very well in the near future. I also have my little secret strategy as to how to invest in the rural market. We’re going to talk about wholetailing and rural markets. I love the interest rate conversation. It’s one of those things that I’m always having but let’s go back. What is a wholetail? How I define wholetailing is actual wholesaling. That’s where you get a property under contract with a motivated seller and then you’re going to find an investor that’s going to want to buy that contract from you on an assignment basis. You’re wholesaling it from the motivated seller to the end cash buyer and you’re making a fee in between. On the wholetail side of it is retail. If you take the retail side, you’re selling it to the consumer. It’s someone that’s getting a bank loan typically for the property. The property has to be in lendable condition. All the safety issues are taken off the table. Not having a collapsing deck is a good example but it is move-in ready other than it probably needs updates. That’s a good way to look at it for wholetailing. If you can do the actual wholetailing and eliminate the wholesaling part knowing that you’re going to capitalize very fast on turning around your wholesaling to a cash investor but it’s to an end-user or the person that’s going to cash you out on the retail end, you would make huge margins on your deals. How does that work? Are you charging full price? Is there a discount? What do the numbers look like? In the last couple of years, it has gone through the roof that what I thought was well over retail for a nice house. That’s what wholesaling was getting. Now, the retail price is going even higher so it’s back-filling. That’s how it works in regards to that. For me, the better answer is, for example, a house all fixed up was worth $150,000. It’s move-in ready. The paint colors are neutral. The carpet is in. The hardwood, floors are done. Everything’s fine about the property. I’ll wholetail it for $150,000. I’ll probably sell it for about $130,000 or $140,000. There is a slight discount underneath but you’re hardly doing any of the work on the inside. The nice thing is you’re getting this thing on the public market. Yes, MLS. For some people that wholesale or assign properties, part of their problem is they can’t test the public market to get the maximum price. You’re going to have to take title to the property. There’s no way around it. Is this an inner-city thing? Is this a rural thing? Where do you find this strategy has the most bang for your buck? I’ve been fortunate to be very successful even in the rural markets. I’m doing that strategy a lot but if you want the biggest return, go to the heavy metropolitan areas where it’s a dense population. You’re going to make insane numbers doing the wholetailing strategy. How long have you been doing this? I’ve been doing it full-time since 2016 but investing part-time since 2001. What’s been the best part about it for you? The financial freedom and flexibility with family schedules. We have four kids. Being flexible with school schedules and getting everyone where they need to be, that’s what

How Your Profit Margin Compares To Your Margin Of Safety With Logan Fullmer

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If you just found a good deal but got stuck with legalities, you can’t miss this episode of Uncontested Investing! Logan Fullmer joins Tim Herriage and shares his journey from managing construction in the oil field to finding real estate success through discounted deals. Not too long after starting his real estate journey, Logan saw himself earning over a million dollars on a single deal! Tune in as he talks about how he invested in educating himself about property codes and researching case law and some insights into how curative title work and resourcefulness have helped him take calculated risks between profit margin and margin of safety and closing deals at discounted prices. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here How Your Profit Margin Compares To Your Margin Of Safety With Logan Fullmer Thanks for stopping by. Logan Fullmer is with me. Logan, how are you? I’m great. Good to see you. It’s good to see you. Logan is someone I have been watching on social media. You are putting on these big seminars that aren’t typical seminars. It’s to teach people, which I find interesting. Why don’t you take a minute and tell people a little bit about yourself? Thanks for letting me come. This is fine. I enjoy doing this stuff. It’s become part of things I’ve done over the last few years. You get busy working down in your lane and it’s neat to share if I know what else going on. Here I am. I do some educational stuff. I have been anti-guru, and anti-real estate education because there’s a bad name. I do have a very unique component to my business and it always blows people away. I’ve spent more and more time talking to people and giving advice on sharing information online. I’ve gotten literally hundreds of people asking for this content. After a couple of years, I finally decided, “If I can do this, make a little bit of money doing it but deliver what is the best amount of information I can I will do it.” It’s curative title work. This is stuff nobody cares about, except for when you can’t close a deal. The title company says, “Where’s your Schedule C, so and so? You got to fix this.” It’s either simple. The title company might help. You got to call a lawyer or even the attorneys throw their hands up. That’s when I show up. I’ve seen some of your deal numbers. We are going to get into that in a little bit. Some people are like, “Title work.” Why do I care about the title? Do you want to buy property at $0.10 on the dollar? They care about title work. Everybody cares at that point. One of the first things we do every week is what I call the bluff, the bottom-line upfront. What that is? I learned at the Marine Corps. I used to be brief generals. They always said you had to give them the bottle upfront in case there’s a mortar attack or they have to get up and leave the room because generals get busy. What I like to do is I’m going to give you about two minutes and tell the audience the most important things they should be doing, looking at, watching trends they should be following the most important things that in your mind people should be watching in real estate. Two minutes you are on the clock. One of my favorite things to tell people is your profit margin is also a convertible margin of safety. I’ve never heard anybody say it that way but that’s how I think about it. When I go into a deal, what’s most important is to say, “How am I going to lose my money? How am I going to risk principle?” That’s the first rule. If I can measure all my risks, attach dollar amounts to them, and decide that I’m not going to lose any money, then I realize there’s an investment thesis here to build on. From that point, we start talking about maybe making some profit? How’s that going to look? What are the risk components? Can we afford all these things? It’s looking at the margin of safety and the profit margin, which are the same thing. It’s profit when things are going well. It’s a margin of safety when things go bad. It operates together. I look at that with real estate businesses, other businesses through manufacturing businesses or other operating businesses we own now that it came from our real estate. Are you an attorney? No. How can you be smart enough to do curative title work without being an attorney? The way folks do that does a good job in formal education. I struggled in school big time. That’s the most common thing for our guests. I did badly in that format. I took seven years to get a Bachelor’s degree. I got bad grades in high school. I run into problems and didn’t like the answers to those problems. I have a bullheaded attitude of, “I’m going to fix this at all costs.” I had to learn as I got older that all costs aren’t always the answer but you can go deep. I spent the time paying lawyers to teach me how to read the Property Code, the State’s Code, the Tax Code, and the Probate Code and taught me how to research Case Law. Once I realized that’s where these answers would come from, that’s where I started digging. Every time I would have a problem, I would go figure out how to solve it and hire an attorney or attorney team and say, “I need you all to litigate this. Here’s how we are going to do it.” You mentioned something earlier to me about the oil fields. Were you solving problems out there too? No. I was trying to make a living. I had