Don Costa, is a married father of 3 incredible kids.  He has been in the real estate business for over 10 years.  He started Knocking on doors and wholesaling properties, and then quickly moved to flipping houses.   He took some time off during the crash and jumped back in 2012.  Currently our office is on track to do a 100 flips this year.  He loves what he does and he loves helping others get into the business. 

Don started flipping houses when he was unemployed.  The unemployment check only covered his living expenses and so he had to find a way to find deals, get funding for them and to fix them so that he could sell them and profit.

He got a notice of default list and began going door to door to try to buy houses from the people about to face foreclosure. 

To buy and fix up the houses, he worked out a deal with a money partner to joint venture.  The money partner would put up the funds.  He would find the deals and manage the fix up and they would split the profits 50/50.

Not all deals are 50/50, we discuss some of the other terms investors use and how those are determined.  Basically, the more value you bring to the table for the joint venture, the more you should make out of the deal.  If you are finding incredible deals, managing the rehabs and getting them sold, shouldn’t you be asking for a 60/40 split.  Heck yes.

Don didn’t have money to make monthly payments to hard money and private money lenders.  He didn’t have money to spend on rehabs before getting draws from lenders.  He had to joint venture.

He still joint ventures to this day.  The reason is that he always wants to do as many deals as he can.  Joint venturing allows him to be able to do that.

Finding joint venture partners can be had by networking.  You hear it all the time, but do you do it?  That’s the real question.

Don recommends using a written agreement to make sure everybody is on the same page and understands the deal.  You can click here to download the agreement he uses.  (Please be sure to have an attorney review this before using it - the agreement is only provided for educational purposes)

He talks about some of the situations he’s encountered with different JVs.  One wanted to know if paint from one job was going to another job if it wasn’t all used.  You probably don’t want to have someone partnering with you that is concerned with such minute details.

Another thing to be careful of is partnering with someone that wants to give too much input on rehabs.  You do not want to have too many chiefs trying to run things.  Contractors won’t know who to listen to or to check in with about change orders, etc.  You should control as much as you can.

Jason has been on the show now 3 times!  It’s because he’s awesome and doing great things in his real estate investing business in Houston. 

We have in on the show today to talk about finding and working with private lenders for your house flips. 

Now, if you’re new to real estate investing, you probably want to start with working with a partner to fund the deal and split the profits or use hard money until you have a proven track record of several successful flips.  This will make it easier to build relationships with private lenders.

In this episode we talk about:

What a private lender is

How they are different than hard money lenders

What criteria Jason uses to determine good lenders from ones he’d rather not work with

How to find these lenders during networking events

Jason really focuses on the “working” part of networking events.  I think most investors in general just don’t fully appreciate the power of these events if worked properly. 

When negotiating with lenders on terms, Jason likes to frame the argument by showing how he uses the lenders that give the best terms first and then moves up to more expensive ones afters he’s used all of the cheaper one’s money.  So, they can ask for higher rates, but they won’t get their money out until the cheaper ones have theirs out first.

Jason also talks about his vanilla and chocolate options he gives private lenders.  You’ll need to listen to the episode for that one though. :)

Learn how to flip houses through this free house flipping training course.  Weekly podcast episodes show you how to get started and go from newbie to pro.

In this episode, I talk about what we've been doing with this series of podcast episodes that is meant to be a sort of weekly training that follows a specific path to take you from absolute beginner real estate investor to master pro house flipper extraordinaire.   

APIA is an investor friendly

Gloria shared some great tips and

I’m willing to bet that 90% of real

In this episode we talk about the

Another important topic we cover is

They currently service investors all

Their policies is underwritten by

Andy McFarland is a self-made real estate

After getting fired from his last

Andy has

He was also with us on episode 19

In today’s episode we talk about how

There is a very common misconception

We discuss how we’ve seen

Andy gives an example of how he just

Some key points to take away from

Andy wholesales a TON of deals every

Mike Arch is a founder of Alamo Home Source and is partners with Erik Saengerhausen who joined us for episode 27.  Mike has been flipping for many years and has flipped hundreds of houses.  He currently focuses on creating and selling real estate notes.

On today’s episode, we talk about how to find the “right” real estate agents, attorney, title company/closer for your house flipping business.

This biggest take away from this episode is that taking the time to find the team members that care as much about your business as you do is paramount.  There are agents out there that always work with a sense of urgency and are great for real estate investors because you cannot steal in slow motion (meaning not to steal, but to get the great deals :)). 

We discussed the best way to find agents doing great things in the areas you are investing or want to flip in and how to approach them so that they know who you are and can send you great deals.

It might surprise you to know that many agents that list a lot of houses don’t necessarily want their name on a junker house so they’d prefer not to list it.  If they know you are a ready and able buyer, they can let you know about those properties before they go on the market.  It’s a true win, win.

We also discussed how to find the right escrow officer or closer at a title company to close your transactions.  Find out what fees are negotiable as well as the tips that pros use to save themselves time and money.

We also discuss the right kind of attorney to find.  Obviously, you’ll want a real estate focused attorney.  We talk about how we both have spent too much money in the past because we didn’t know how to approach and talk with attorneys.  Don’t make the same mistakes, listen to this episode and gain the advantage.

Robert Nickell is a national speaker, published author and one of the most successful real estate investors in the nation. Robert is known for his unique ability to teach, train, and run successful virtual businesses. Robert co-created Investor Virtual Assistant Services, LLC (IVAS) with the purpose of sharing his knowledge, experience and success with fellow investors around the world that are looking to take more control of their time while increasing productivity and reducing costs.

Are you a solopreneur?  Most real estate investors are.  We try to do everything ourselves and think that it’s very hard to find someone to care about each task as much as we do.

It’s what keeps us mediocre as real estate investors. 

If you want to really kick butt as a house flipper and real estate investor, you simply need to learn how to delegate and have other people do the busy work.

If you don’t, you won’t make as much money and you won’t truly get the freedom you started doing this to get in the first place.

Virtual assistants are great for investors that cannot afford full-time in-house employees.  I’m sure there are dozens of tasks you can think of that you’d rather never do again in your life.  Those are tasks that you can have someone else do.  And, guess what? They don’t need to be in the same city, state or even country as you.

Robert Nickell runs a very successful wholesaling business and uses almost entirely virtual assistants from the Philippines to do it!  Sounds crazy, but it’s true. 

He’s done so well with it that he’s started to train and provide these virtual assistants to real estate investors so that we can all benefit from their help.

Not sure where to go to find virtual assistants?  Not sure what qualities to look for?  Not sure how to streamline your processes and coordinate and make the most out of the virtual assistants’ time?   Not sure how much you should be paying for virtual assistants?

We cover all of these questions in this episode.  I learned a tremendous amount from Robert in this podcast episode and I’m sure you will to.  Even if you’re not immediately considering needing help, it’s best to know that it exists so that when you start getting bogged down, you’ll know where to go and how to handle it.

To find out more about Robert’s virtual assistants service, visit MyRockstarVA.com

Brandon is a painter, extortionist,  exorcist, and lover (not a fighter.)  He' would also like everyone to know he is not a robot, despite claims to the contrary.   Little known fact: He’s the VP of Growth and Communications here at BiggerPockets.com.

Brandon joined me on the Flipping Junkie podcast way back in episode 2 of the show.  He’s very busy and I really appreciate him taking the time to be on the show again.  I enjoy talking with Brandon and consider him a great friend.

On this episode, we cover over 22 actionable tips for beginner real estate investors.  Even though we say these are tips for beginners, I think we can all say that even experiences house flippers do not do all of these things.  If we all would work at putting these tips into action, we’d all make more money and have more free time.

The important thing to always remember is that this is a marathon, not an all out sprint.  Do not try to go out and do all of these things this next week as you will burn yourself out and half-ass all of them.  That’s just a waste of time.

Take your time.  Pick 3 and commit to do them well.

My favorite actionable tips from the show are:

1. Eliminate 2 words from your vocabulary completely: ‘I Can’t’ and replace them with ‘How Can I?’

2. Write your first “yellow letter.”  Simply get a yellow pad of paper and write, Dear Johnny Appleseed, I’m interested in buying your house at 123 Plum Orchard Rd.  If you would consider selling, please call me at 222-2222.  Very sincerely, Joe Investor.  Yes, it’s really as simple as that.  Drive for dollars and find a vacant house.  Look up the owners address from your county’s tax assessor website.  It’s very simple.

Matt Theriault, a fifth-generation California native, Desert Storm Veteran (US Marine Corps), has worked as a full-time real estate professional since 2003. After building a small real estate empire (100+ income units) with hardly using one dime of his own money or one point of his own credit, he discovered that he had a knack for simplifying the complicated, implementing systems and producing desirable results for both himself and his investor partners. His “knack” has manifested itself via consistently better-than-average market returns for both himself and his investor partners, a thriving online real estate investing academy (EpicProAcademy.com), as well as one of the more popular Real Estate Investing Podcasts (Epic Real Estate Investing) on iTunes.

On this episode we talk about how Matt got started. He had made a fortune with his own record label and then lost everything when Napster and everything in the music industry changed. 

He ended up going from being a millionaire to bagging groceries at the grocery store.

But, he didn’t let that stop him from trying.  He went on to become a real estate agent and working with investors.  He wasn’t making much money, so he decided he was on the wrong side of the action. 

He became a real estate investor right away and started doing tons of short sales back around 2008 when the real estate market was tanking.

In this episode, Matt makes it clear that you’ve got to see things from the agent’s perspective when you are trying to work with them.  He shares the fact that almost all agents will immediately think you will want to submit hundreds of low-ball offers with almost no chance of getting any accepted or that you will want to have the list your properties with a severely reduced commission.

Prove them wrong on those counts and you’ll have someone happy to work with you.

In this episode, you’ll also learn how to find the agents you should be working with and how to filter out very quickly, the ones you shouldn’t be working with.

Erik Saengerhausen has been developing his owner financing real estate investment company for over 6 years.  He and his business partner, Mike Arch, run Alamo Home Source.  They buy houses, fix them up and sell them with owner financing.  Then, they sell the notes to investors for incredible returns.

They currently flip more than 75 houses a year and are working up to 100 houses.  That’s a lot of fixing up of houses!  They know a thing or two about finding and working with the right contractors to be able to do that kind of volume consistently.

In this episode, we cover the definition of the “right” contractor for the typical real estate investor.  We also talk about what negative aspects to look for when trying to find the “right” contractor.

Erik has a different model for paying contractors than I do.  He has guys that he pays on a weekly basis rather than per job.  I hire on a per job basis so that the contractor is paid per job rather than for the amount of hours worked. 

That’s an important thing to keep in mind — there isn’t simply one correct way to work with contractors.  There are lots of strategies for how to work with contractors and you should find the one that works best for you and your contractors.

Many times these discussions will focus on the point of view of the investor and not on what it means for the contractors.  We discuss how important it is to make sure you see things from the contractor’s point of view as finding and keeping the right contractors working for you can mean the difference between success and failure in this business.