The REI Agent

In 2008 Jeremy Beland was the motivated seller — no job, no diploma, on the brink of foreclosure, and suicidal. A real estate agent couldn't help him. An investor could, and did: short-saling the house, then buying the washer, dryer and shed out of it so there was grocery money and Christmas presents in the house.

He joined the Air Force at 33 and did basic training with 17-year-olds who called him Gramps. At 40 he sold his townhouse for $17,000 of equity and started wholesaling, keeping his full-time job for three more years. He and Shelly have since closed almost 600 off-market deals.

For agents, the useful half is how he works with them: 2% listing side and 2% buy side for an introduction to a house you were never going to sell, then the listing back when he resells it. Three paydays, sometimes four, on one property. One agent made $37,000 in 45 days.

Also in this episode: why he supports wholesale regulation, the $8 million private lending network, the honest version of owning rentals, cost segregation, house hacking, and why 30 doors with equity beat 300 split 45 ways.

Find Jeremy at reifreedom.com

Also mentioned: Equity Happens by Robert Helms and Russell Gray

Full show notes and a free weekly newsletter at reiagent.com

Moises Garcia — Moe — was working a casino on the Idaho–Nevada border when the economy turned. He moved across to dealing blackjack, then ran the pit, and it still wasn't for him. A friend who'd just got his licence talked him into following. That was fifteen years ago. He now runs Forever Idaho Real Estate, a team inside Westerra Real Estate Group, serving Twin Falls and the Magic Valley.

The heart of this one is AI, and it's the most clear-eyed take the show has had. He has automated his daily newsletter almost end to end: Gemini reads his morning email and drafts it, Claude tightens the writing, he picks which stories survive. Half an hour at most. Then he draws a hard line — the AI assistant that answers his inbound leads gets switched off as fast as he can reach it, because "I've seen them get frustrated and then opt out of communication before I have had a chance." Use it on your own work; never put it between you and a person.

Also: a clear read on the Idaho migration, the cheap deal he talked a client out of because there was nothing in the town, why days on market lies in his market, the bridge-loan route instead of a contingent offer, and why agents who treat a transaction as winners and losers were never properly mentored.

Find Moe: @foreveridahorealestate on Instagram · foreveridahorealestate.com

Also mentioned: The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz

Full show notes and a free weekly newsletter at reiagent.com

Wale Lawal came to the United States from Nigeria to study chemical engineering, took the master's, and spent five years in oil and gas before going looking for something that would fund a retirement. Everything pointed at real estate. He went to crypto instead, then Forex, then transportation, lost money in all three, and went all in on real estate in 2020. Today he owns 30+ rental units, has closed over $100 million, and has helped 400+ investor clients buy their own.

He is refreshingly unwilling to sell anyone a strategy. He has had clients spend $50,000 on coaching programs and own zero properties. His own BRRRR ended with the city condemning a fourplex that has been an empty lot since 2021 — and the lesson he draws is cheap and specific: the structure has to be good before anything else is true.

The most actionable minute is about builders. He buys new construction directly and times it to their fiscal year — September, October, November, when D.R. Horton and Lennar are discounting to hit annual targets. Mattias calls it a golden nugget on tape.

Also: a clear read on Houston after the 2020-21 run, a duplex closed $35,000 under appraisal, the ON FIRE acronym for picking an agent, why new agents should gladly hand over 50% of their first commissions, and the book he gives people — The One Thing.

Find Wale: @wale_lawal on Instagram · networthbuilders.com

His coaching program: networthbuildersacademy.com

Also mentioned: The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

Full show notes and a free weekly newsletter at reiagent.com

Roddy de la Garza grew up in his family's brokerage in the Rio Grande Valley, went to film school to get away from it, and came back anyway. Thirty years and 800+ transactions later he leads the largest team by volume in his Southern California market at Epique Realty — with nothing spent on portal leads.

Roddy and Mattias get into the advice from his father that shaped everything ("if you chase checks, you're always going to chase checks"), what agents actually owe a client who asks what they're worth, why he calls the old model "the $30,000 lockbox," and how he assigns new agents roles that fit them instead of expecting everyone to be a star producer.

Also: the myth of work-life balance and what he replaced it with, the mindset shift from "what new hell is this?" to "what new gift?", the AI receptionist that failed, and the daily devotional he wrote for agents after his father died.

Golden nugget: "You are a real estate agent when you start doing the actions of a real estate agent. Don't wait for the perfect time."

Find Roddy: @roddy4real on Instagram · roddy.realtor

His book: Above Asking: Daily Mindwork for Real Estate Professionals

Also mentioned: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Full show notes and a free weekly newsletter at reiagent.com

Vessi Kapoulian grew up behind the Iron Curtain, in a Bulgaria where travel was almost impossible and every apartment belonged to the government. Her mother made her a promise with no obvious way to keep it: if you learn English, I'll send you abroad. Then the wall fell, and Vessi studied her way to a full scholarship in the United States.

She did the conventional thing after that — school, job, corporate ladder, and most of a career in commercial lending, managing over a billion dollars in commercial credit portfolios. Then she walked into her office one morning with no notice and learned that 70% of her immediate team had been let go.

"You're an employee, and you may think you're the greatest person in the world, but you're disposable, you're replaceable. And that's kind of harsh to say. It's also very harsh to hear, but that's the reality."

She was spared, and is careful to say it was not because she was smarter. These are cost decisions. So she asked what she could actually control, and the answer was real estate: a turnkey rental in Memphis, then a duplex, then an 11-unit, and now 150-plus-unit apartment syndications. DBA Capital Group — Dream, Believe, Achieve — runs approximately $80 million in assets under management across Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.

The second half of this conversation is a former commercial lender explaining, plainly, how syndications work and where they go wrong. Why a preferred return is not a promise of monthly cash flow. Why you should plan on your money being locked for five to seven years and not invest if you might need it. Why the bridge-debt extensions are running out. And why the 2011–2021 run, when falling cap rates bailed out even bad operators, is not coming back — the next decade, she says, belongs to the operator.

Her golden nugget flips a famous line. Reagan said trust but verify. She says verify before you trust, and the first question she asks on any deal is not what it returns, but how she loses money on it.

A holistic approach to life through real estate.

In 2012, three months after moving to Santa Fe, Bunny Terry was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. She has a letter from that year, written so she could cash out her life insurance, saying she had twelve months.

This is what she built afterwards.

She sold two houses in her first five months at a new brokerage and borrowed money from her son to attend a conference. Today she is on a pace of roughly $45 million a year — $12.5M in 2023, $18.5M in 2024, just over $30M in 2025 — and more than 85% of it comes from her digital presence.

The mechanics are unglamorous and she says so. 5,700 Instagram followers. B-roll bought from a local kid with a drone. A Thursday email listing three things happening Friday, three Saturday, three Sunday, with the weather and a reminder to bring a jacket. Nobody has unsubscribed in three months.

The principle: "We're not talking about how we do real estate. We're talking about how you live in our city."

There is also a 67-year-old on her team who told her he did not want anyone to see his face. He now posts four or five videos a week and gets a call a day from them.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Cold open

00:22 Welcome

01:06 Meet Bunny Terry — Santa Fe, 22 years, $45M pace

01:23 A paralegal who became a realtor out of necessity

02:19 Ranches and lake property in a town of 1,100

05:05 Moving to Santa Fe — and a stage 4 diagnosis

07:05 The partners who kept splitting commissions

08:34 Showing up every day in a market where she knew nobody

09:46 Two houses in five months, and borrowing from her son

10:45 Building community before building a pipeline

12:10 Her father's answer: "I'd have to be two people"

14:03 A prognosis letter, and choosing your perspective

17:35 The red notebook and the daily top three

20:58 Your brain finds what you tell it to look for

24:02 Breaking into a closed market with a blog

26:09 "I'm not 22" — putting her face on video at 60

28:04 The numbers: $12.5M to $30M to a $45M pace

28:42 Hiring a full-time marketing director

29:39 Why Santa Fe is a second-home market

31:16 The 67-year-old who refused to be on camera

31:56 Sell the city, not the house

32:54 The Thursday email nobody unsubscribes from

34:07 Consistency wins — and no marketing is bad marketing

36:01 "I am an expert at starting over"

36:30 Golden nuggets

39:29 The question that changed after loss

41:31 Favorite book: U Squared by Price Pritchett

43:20 Being purposeful, and nearly quitting

44:08 Where to find Bunny

FIND BUNNY

Instagram: @therealbunnyterrysantafe

Book: Lifesaving Gratitude, on Amazon

THE REI AGENT

Newsletter and episode blogs: reiagent.com

A holistic approach to life through real estate.

Justin Piché spent five years as a nuclear submarine officer before walking away from an engineering career at ExxonMobil to buy raw land. He has now closed over 400 deals.

His model is simple to describe and unglamorous to execute: buy a large rural tract, split it into smaller parcels, and sell those to buyers who want land without the price of a finished home. The margin comes from arbitrage — a 50-acre tract at $5,000 an acre is worth double as 10-acre lots at $10,000.

Justin walks through exempt splits, the provision in many county codes that allows a division with nothing more than a survey. He explains the two numbers he screens a market for before looking at any property, why water lines sized for a single home are his biggest deal killer, and the roughly $70,000 a year he loses in earnest money on deals that don't work.

There's a direct message for agents in here too: listings marked "development potential" are usually priced as though the development were finished, and that markup is the developer's entire margin.

He closes with three golden nuggets on scaling, keeping your word, and the contract he tore up the moment he learned the seller had dementia.

A holistic approach to life through real estate.

Randi Dukes has done over $32M in volume across 85+ transactions in the niche most agents route around — divorce listings. She got there through her own divorce nine years ago, when she realized the proceeds of a good sale are what let two households actually start over.

Randi and Mattias get into how you stay neutral when both parties want you on their side, why she refuses to source clients from court records, what separates a well-written court order from a useless one, and the SEO skills she carried over from twelve years of blogging before real estate.

Golden nugget: "There are no emergencies in real estate. We aren't saving lives. Don't give it all of your emotion."

Find Randi: @randidukesrealtor · randidukesrealtor.com

Book mentioned: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

Full show notes and a free weekly newsletter at reiagent.com

Yonah Weiss reveals how cost segregation, accelerated depreciation, smarter tax planning, opportunity zones, professional relationships, continuous learning, and intentional networking can help investors keep more capital working while building wealth with greater knowledge and purpose.

(00:00) - Introduction to Yonah Weiss and the Power of Cost Segregation

(05:00) - Mattias Shares How a $50,000 Investment Created Major Tax Savings

(10:00) - How Cost Segregation Can Turn a $30,000 Deduction Into $300,000

(15:00) - Why Investors Need Accountants Who Understand Property Tax Strategies

(20:00) - Real Estate Professional Status, W-2 Income, and the 750-Hour Rule

(25:00) - Opportunity Zones and Strategies for Deferring Capital Gains Taxes

(30:00) - Yonah’s Golden Nuggets on Networking, Humility, Teaching, and Giving

(35:00) - Who Not How, Connecting With Yonah Weiss, and Final Thoughts

(37:10) - Closing Disclaimer

Contact Yonah Weiss

https://yonahweiss.com/

https://www.facebook.com/yonah.weiss.1

https://www.instagram.com/yonahweiss/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cost-segregation-yonah-weiss/

https://www.youtube.com/@YonahWeiss1

Wealth is not only about earning more. It is about understanding the tools available to you, surrounding yourself with people who know what you do not, and putting that knowledge to work. Keep learning, keep building your network, and remember Yonah Weiss’s simple challenge to help one person every day. To discover more strategies for building wealth while creating a life that matters, visit https://reiagent.com

Is success destroying your peace? Most pros grind until they break. Download The Investor’s Life Balance Sheet: A Holistic Wealth Audit to see if you are building a legacy or heading for burnout. Presented by The REI Agent Podcast & United States Real Estate Investor® https://sendfox.com/lp/m4jrl

Christian Givens reveals how early investing, painful setbacks, grief, mentorship, social media consistency, authenticity, personal boundaries, and holistic success helped him turn imperfect beginnings into a thriving business and a life built with greater intention.

(00:00) - Introduction to Christian Givens and His Early Start in Real Estate

(05:00) - Returning to Maryland, Losing His Father, and Choosing a Bigger Vision

(10:00) - Losing Money, Investing in Coaching, and Building Through Social Media

(15:00) - Staying Top of Mind Through Authentic Relationships and Technology

(20:00) - Luxury Home Tours, Comedy Content, and Building an Authentic Personal Brand

(25:00) - Social Media Boundaries, Family Privacy, and the Danger of Oversharing

(30:00) - Beating Perfectionism, Protecting Your Health, and Showing Up Consistently

(35:00) - Who Not How, Building the Right Network, Social Media, and Closing Thoughts

(36:52) - End of Episode

Contact Christian Givens

https://www.facebook.com/ChristianGRealtor/

https://www.instagram.com/christiangrealtor/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-givens-a667235a/

https://www.tiktok.com/@christiangrealtor

https://www.youtube.com/@ChristianGivensRealtor

Christian Givens proves that the people who win are not always the ones who start with the best skills, biggest audience, or perfect plan. They are often the ones willing to keep showing up, keep learning, protect what matters most, and give their efforts enough time to compound. If you are building a business, an investment portfolio, or simply a better life, do not let imperfect beginnings convince you to abandon a powerful future. Keep getting the reps, keep building your foundation, and keep becoming the person capable of reaching the next level. For more conversations about building wealth without sacrificing the life you are building it for, visit https://reiagent.com

Is success destroying your peace? Most pros grind until they break. Download The Investor’s Life Balance Sheet: A Holistic Wealth Audit to see if you are building a legacy or heading for burnout. Presented by The REI Agent Podcast & United States Real Estate Investor® https://sendfox.com/lp/m4jrl