Deals Today

Transcription

PAUL DOCAMPO: Welcome to another interview at the Deals Today Podcast. I’m your host, Paul, at RealEstateAudios.com, and today I’m interviewing Peter Apostolos who is not well known outside of California. But inside of California, he’s a local investor who’s very sought after by REI clubs. They want him to speak and engage with their audience because he has a lot of wisdom to say, but he doesn’t have a glamorous story. He doesn’t have a story where he started flipping and then he made millions in a year like all the YouTube gurus that are out there saying otherwise. It took him a long time to get to where he’s at. A lot of failing and figuring it out and seeing how things work. 

Today he’s a buy-and-hold investor. He always was a buy-and-hold investor. He’s going to talk a little bit about his story and how he lost some things during the crash, picked himself up after, learned how to actually invest in real estate after the crash, after he’s been flipping and holding onto a few properties. He is a type of guy who says he likes to buy houses slowly. Meaning he’s not out trying to do a volume game. He’s out hammering away with actual motivated sellers for the long run. He’s waiting for them to actually be ready, and he’s always following up with them. He deals with one house at a time. It’s a famous John Schaub book Building Wealth One House at a Time where he’s not playing the volume game. He’s just building his portfolio slowly, flipping a house here and there for the income now. 

So he’s going to reveal in this interview the three keys to doing this business successfully. Everybody talks about the one way to flip houses or whatever it is, but he says there are three keys that, if you don’t know these keys, you’re going to be lost throughout your real estate venture. Know these three keys, and he’s going to explain them thoroughly in this interview.

If you’re not on my email list, I highly encourage you to get on and go to RealEstateAudios.com and sign up where I do daily emails, tidbits, advice, tips on business, mindset, marketing, and investing and copywriting all for the real estate investor no matter your career level here. So go to RealEstateAudios.com and sign up there. All right let’s get to it.

PDC: Peter, tell us about what you’re doing today with real estate given COVID. Are you still out looking for deals, or are you sitting back right now?

PAUL APOSTOLOS: (0:02:30.6) I am still out looking for deals. It’s easy to get caught up in the news about COVID or impending political changes or not changes, but let me run this by you. Most of the deals that I do end up buying are not what you call a short sales cycle.

PDC: Explain that.

PA: (0:02:57.6) Well, let’s say in another business… I used to be in the technology solutions business, so a sales cycle might be 30 days or 40 days or 90 days. In real estate, things can take six months, 12 months, 24 months, or even longer. So just because I’m marketing for deals right now doesn’t mean that I’m going, “Oh wow, COVID is terrible. Let me stop looking for deals.” You never want to stop talking to potential sellers. What usually turns a potential seller into a seller is some kind of a change: change in their job, change in their location, change in their economics. Based on that, when has there been a better time to talk to sellers than right now? Because if you talk to them tomorrow, the likelihood of some kind of life change for them based on all the chaos we’ve got flying around in the next 12-24 months is probably higher than it’s ever been. A lot of that is a mindset type of a thing for myself, but when I look back historically, the really great things I bought took some time.

PDC: How long are we talking about here?

PA: (0:04:21.3) Well, it varies. I’ve talked to a seller and ended up buying from them. The last real g

Don't be ashamed of what you do. Instead, here's the story of my 4 year old son who whipped it out and was not ashamed. People who get started in real estate investing are almost ashamed of it. Do this instead, and change your mentality.

What's the one thing you need to be doing?

Well, if you've watched Batman Begins, you'll know what I mean when I say, nothing has to be perfect. Moving forward takes looking at your number one task needed. Avoid this mistake that most new (and experienced) REI business people make.

Today at RealEstateAudios, we're meeting Seth Williams of RETipster.com. Seth is a big land guy and is going to give us the low down on everything from his early days in land to his biggest deals. His expertise isn't just about land and he's also going to tell us about balancing investment and family life, as well as the dilemmas we face when starting a business. He's going to walk us through different aspects of a land deal, from dealing with sellers, to attracting buyers and putting the ink on the paperwork. He's all about quality rather than quantity, and makes his investments work well for him with only 6-12 deals yearly with minimal hassle. Listen in for tips and tricks from this seasoned land investor.

Topics discussed in this episode:

How Seth got his start

Where he got his early inspiration

Why Seth chose land as his first niche

The flexibility of land investment

The risks and rewards of seller financed deals

Balancing entrepreneur dreams and family time

The importance of a diverse income

The value of letting sellers come to you

Seth's average turnover times and his longest hold

The value of fewer, higher-margin deals

Seth's crazy first year

The importance of paperwork when it comes to seller financing

Dilemmas in the land business

How Seth's biggest deal fell into his lap

How due diligence, zoning and permits figure into your land deal

Getting your marketing and paperwork to tie up during a sale

Where you can learn more tips and tricks from Seth

How Seth got his start

My story started back in I think it was 2006ish, somewhere in that range.

Where he got his early inspiration

In Rich Dad, Poor Dad he talks about real estate as an option, but he doesn’t really give a whole lot of specifics of how, like what specifically he did.

Why Seth chose land as his first niche

how you’re able to buy properties for pennies on the dollar and find highly motivated sellers...they’re actually not that hard to find for vacant land compared to other types of properties

The flexibility of land investment

I could really scale it as much as I wanted to. I could make it my life, or I could just do it on the side as a hobby.

The risks and rewards of seller financed deals

So it’s a very real thing, but what I realized was a lot of people, unless you’re actually doing credit checks and really investigating your borrower ahead of time, a lot of people can and will stop paying you.

Balancing entrepreneur dreams and family time

It’s just spending your time better and not chasing after every single motivated seller who calls you. It’s more being selective about, nope, that’s probably not going to pay out so well so I’m not going to mess with that, but this one over here looks really good so I am going to spend my time on that.

The importance of a diverse income

That’s where the real meat was. But if there was a month where nothing was happening in land, there were other sources of income I had to draw on as well.

The value of letting sellers come to you

A lot of the deals that I find these days actually come in through my buying website. People will just find me and submit their property information and make an offer that way.

Seth's average turnover times and his longest hold

I think the longest I’ve ever held a property is 15 months.

The value of fewer, higher-margin deals

They mentioned that you only probably do less than a handful of deals a year because you want to focus in on bigger margins and less work. Is that t

Today we're going to be talking to Seth Greene, an investor who cut his teeth on direct response marketing and has now become a best-selling author as he teaches others what he knows. He built a business with clever lead generation, trusting his staff through dedicated systems and finding clever ways to reach clients. Seth is very enthusiastic when it comes to business and is going to tell us the importance of getting the right approach, the value of split testing and why listening can be a great sales tool. All in all, this episode is a great one for anyone who wants to understand the marketing side when they invest in property.

Topics discussed in this episode:

The importance of networking

How the right mentor can add value to your career and business

The shortcuts to networking the property market in 2020

How to level up your industry contact list

What made Seth leave 9-5 behind

Why he went from making 300 cold calls a day to only taking inbound calls

The importance of marketing diversity when you invest in real estate

The advantages of direct mail

The value in surveying nonresponders

Taking a positive attitude towards your mistakes

How paid ads can increase your reach

The value of split testing on social media

Defying norms for a competitive advantage

How your systems become your business

The value of listening in the context of sales

Ideas to start a lead magnet

How to get that initial email right

Transcription

INTRODUCTION:  Diversity leads to stability. If I’ve only got one source of leads and everybody gets on a do-not-call list, I’m screwed.

PAUL DOCAMPO: All right. This is Seth Greene from the SharkPreneur show, and I got him on this show today and I’m really excited about it because he is a co-owner of the SharkPreneur with Kevin Harrington. We’re going to talk about different aspects of his business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and how we can tie that in for a real estate investor because he has some tips for that. So welcome to the show, Kevin. I really appreciate you being on here. I mean...

SETH GREENE: (0:00:36.8) Uh, thanks. Seth. 

PDC: Seth.

SG: Yes, I was going to say. (laughing) I know we look alike, but he’s a little older than I am. Well, thank you very much. I’m really excited to be here and share with your audience. 

PDC: Awesome. I appreciate that. You started your entrepreneur life pretty early into college. Your story is amazing. I recommend everybody checking that out and checking out his story about how he started college and his failure in the playwright industry, right, in college?

SG: Musical theatre. Correct.

PDC: Musical theatre. Then you met Dan Kennedy and Dave Dee and that kind of started you into your business. How did you even get into contact with David Dee because I think that networking is so important for real estate investors, and you have a lot of advice about networking. What can you share about networking and how you even gain contact with these top players in the industry.

SG: (0:01:30.4) Sure. All right. So Dave Dee..I was 21 maybe. It was like 20 years ago, more than that. I was a magician, part time, as a hobby. Did a couple kids’ birthday parties here and there to make a few extra bucks to buy tricks. And I was a struggling financial advisor at the time. I was a college planner, helping families cut the cost of college in half, not saving money FOR college but saving money ON college. 

My branch manager at the Fortune 500 financial firm I worked for had given me a book where he told me al