428: Using Simple Conversations to Get Deals Others Can’t with Investor Rodney Ross
BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast- 1,249 views
- 24 Dec 2020
Rodney Ross didn’t have the most gracious entrance to the real estate space. He bought a house while in college, with only $8,000 down and not a lot in the bank. The house ended up getting de-authorized for tenants to live in so Rodney had to go back on his loan. Game over right? Time to give up? Not for Rodney!While finishing college, Rodney decided to take it a bit slower, getting his real estate agent license so he could build up the capital to buy rentals. He’s been an agent, a wholesaler, a general contractor, and a buy and hold investor. If it’s happening in real estate, Rodney probably knows about it!Unlike many new (and even experienced) real estate investors, Rodney took the time to nurture leads, have meaningful conversations with sellers and buyers, and found that by having some basic empathy for the other party, you’re more likely to close deals.This strategy seemed to have worked, in a decade since his first deal, Rodney now has around 20 cash flowing units, and he’s looking for more! Using the 203k loan, Rodney has been able to get homes at a discount, finance the repairs, and get them rented and refinanced, kind of like a speciality BRRRR. This episode proves that if you care about real estate, care about your partners, and are willing to take risks, it will truly pay off.In This Episode We Cover:How to get back up after a frustrating investmentHow knowing about construction timelines and projects can help you get comfortable enough to do your first rehabWhy mixed use properties are often an overlooked real estate classThe importance of defining your role with your partnerHow to talk to buyers so they’ll choose you over other offersWhy it’s so important to look out for the other real estate parties in a dealAnd SO much more!Links from the ShowBiggerPockets ForumsDavid's InstagramBrandon's InstagramBiggerPockets PodcastBiggerPockets StoreKeller WilliamsWells FargoCheck the full show notes here: http://biggerpockets.com/show428
This is the bigger pockets podcasts show four hundred and twenty eight, they said, hey, I just want to let you know we got your offer rate so that, by the way, no phones, no nothing like we got you off for 18. We've met this other guy who was a cash buyer. It's like 50 places in the area. You offered his money. And I was like, OK, well, that's that's it. But the hang up.
She's like, well, like, we're going to go with yours. I was like, why would you go with mine? Like what? We like you better.
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What's going on? I want to bring in Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast. And I got one thing to say to you, my co-host, Mr. David Greene. Merry Christmas, buddy.
America, merry Christmas to you as well. I bet you're like you look like a slim fit young Santa Claus.
Wow. Thank you. That's actually what I've been going for. I've actually been watching a ton of the Grinch for the whole, like, Christmas season here the last two and a half months. I'm watching the newer version of the Grinch, not the Jim Carrey one. The newer one, because Rosie loves it. And I like to say I'm I'm like the Grinch because he's like he's he's fairly thin, but, you know, he's not all the way in shape.
And he's got kind of a nasty looking beard. But it's OK, whatever. And he loves Green and he loves you. I don't like green at all.
Well, you got to pay attention when you're doing the fat cats. OK, I love Green and I love Christmas.
I actually we've got a tree up like two months ago because we're like, it's been a rough year. Let's have a longer holiday season.
So we, like, put it up before Thanksgiving. There you go. I'm sure the kids didn't mind that. Yeah. Actually, this actually leads into today's quick tip. Here's my question for you. You can choose like what you want to be excited and happy about. You don't have to rely. And it sounds like super esoteric or whatever. But like, listen, I'm like you get to choose what you want to be excited about and what you want to be excited for in the future.
And so, in other words, if you're like like I was like earlier. Yeah. Like I'm going to choose to just be super excited about Christmas and be all in rather than being grumpy about it. So I'm not quite the Grinch. You can do the same thing, choose what you want to be excited about, what you want to choose to be enthusiastic about, and then be that to your family, but to your friends. So that's my quickstep.
Today's choose what you want to be excited about. It's really good then. I just think people always like they feel like their emotions drive them and they do, but they forget that we're actually in charge. You can define what emotions you want to have and then you can kind of make yourself feel that way, which is cool.
100 percent true. Yeah.
All right, man. Well, I know you, Nate, you're not feeling super good today. You got a little bit of cold. I see.
Yeah, I'm fighting one off, but this weekend was awesome. It's better that we put six people under contract Saturday and Sunday.
I was was maybe maybe you need to get a couple more often more people in contract balance out the force.
I can't have a great weekend and be healthy the whole time. Right. You got to dig out of the bad.
Well, speaking of good with the bad, you know, you and I are the bad. And our guest today is the good. Our guest today is Rodney Ross. Rodney is awesome. He is a real investor in the Philadelphia area. What part of Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, born and raised.
And he I don't know, he's actually from West Philadelphia, but he's investing there now.
And he's got just like a cool, like vibe to like the way he approaches real estate. It's very relational based. He's going to talk today about how to get people to like you so they want to do business with you. How would you make an offer? And even if you offer less than other people, you may still get your offer accepted above those who had a higher price because they like you. So we talk a lot about that today.
We talk about the strategy, something we call Brouse Hacken, which is kind of cool and about like financing a bunch of real estate deals. How he's done a lot of really creative, No. One limited down stuff and how his first deal, he lost a bunch of money on it. You can learn about that today and a lot more. All right. With that said, it's time to get into today's show. Anything you want to add, David, before we get started?
Yeah, what I love about Rodney is that his the the beauty in what he's doing is in its simplicity. He's finding deals on the MLS. He's doing it through relationships. He's being very open and transparent about what he does. He's putting other people before himself. And that has resulted in big wealth being built. It's not some super secret little niche that no one else knows about to get to outsmart everyone. Just do the fundamentals better and you can be successful, which means that his strategy can be replicated by anybody.
And he gives us some really good advice on how to do it.
Yeah, so good. So good. Well, with that said, let's get to the show.
All right, Rodney, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Man, good to have you here.
Thank you so much for having me. It's a dream come true now. Good.
I love making dreams come true. Let's talk about the real story. How did you get started with real estate? Why real estate? What were you doing before that and how did you get into your very first deal?
So I actually learned about I started learning about the whole real estate way back in college, like I'm from Philly. That's where I'm at. And. Pretty much grew up in the suburbs here, so I was going to I was studying engineering here and I moved in my second year. I moved in after I was like I was on the rowing team and took up all my time and energy and all that and then stopped that move in with six of the roommates.
And one of them was at Keller Williams agent. And mind you, he was in his fourth year. And he long story short, it just blew me away that you could I didn't know anything about business or real estate or anything. And just as an agent, he was making more money than almost both. My parents worked full time and he's a part time agent in classes, so he's one of my best friends. He just gave me this book, so he gave me this book covid, said Khordad, which I'm sure obviously you guys heard about.
And it just fascinated me so much like I read the whole thing through in one setting because I thought I was going to just follow the traditional, like I would do my college, be an engineer, make money and whatever. And then that just changed everything. So I was actually 19. Then I read that book and then I'm like, I'm kind of like a high risk person on it now. Ready, fire aim. So I took a little bit of money, extra money and student loans.
I actually bought my first place right before I turned 40 and I lost everything. No. So, yeah, it was basically like a little single family Section eight rental in southwest Philly. And I put an eight thousand dollars in to go over this guy's mortgage, which I read about in the book, and like, yeah, I can't qualify for one, so I'll take over this guy's mortgage. And everything went horribly after that. The Section eight payments stopped the month after I bought it.
The tenant actually end up dying in the house. We were not a couple of months afterwards. And then the sun was there, like it started threatening to sue me because he tripped or something. So I just let it go. I gave it back to the guy a thousand bucks. So I pretty much lost everything but a thousand bucks. And then I got my license afterwards in 2010 and then started selling. You graduate in 2012, finally was able to start buying stuff again, like in twenty fifteen and then at twenty seventeen that's when the whole like, you know, it's great to grow into it.
So I want to go back to this.
First of all, this is fascinating knowing today. So a couple of things that went crazy over there. Right.
Like S.H., stop pain at some point and that caused the person got off the program or they stopped, you know, because the lease renewal happened to be a month after I close and they had to do their biannual or their their annual inspection. And I failed and I didn't have any money to spend it all buying.
Yeah, there's something interesting. A lot of people talk about Section eight for those I don't know, Section eight, which is they have a new fancy name for it. Now, everyone's called the Section eight. But yeah, it's like this program, the government pays the rent and so or at least a portion of it. Right.
So investors tend to think, oh, amazing. Like, this is going to be great, like the free money from the government. There's no risk. The truth is like, yeah, I mean, I like Section five from Section eight rental still, but I've had very similar bad experiences where, like one of mine was the section. It's not paying because and this one wasn't necessarily my my property's fault, but the lady refused to allow in the inspectors because she thought they were government spies.
Well, if they can't inspect, they won't renew their voucher. And so, like, we ended up having to evict her and she ended up threatening us with our life. Then she was going to shoot us and it was like it was messed up. So Section eight, first of all, doesn't guarantee money for sure, like there still are conditions.
But what I want to know is, like knowing what you know, now, you bought this property basically subject to and it just didn't work out. What would you do differently today? Do you think you could salvage that deal based on the knowledge you have today, or is that just going to be gone no matter what, just because you had no money to go into it? Like, what would you do?
I think it was probably doomed from the beginning, unless the only way it could have made it work is to have had a little bit more money to start with because like, I only had like ten thousand dollars and the world was like everything on the planet. And I followed little money from the ones that get that much. And so after I, I didn't have money to do the repairs to get the Section eight back up the running. But I think I was so like if I had had that extra money probably, but I was still kind of upside down from the start.
It would have been like salvageable. But like the mortgage balance is like fifty thousand and the house is probably worth fifty thousand. So not the best deal ever. I just wanted to try and get some cash flow and it was a cash flow a little, but it would have been a rough road. I don't think I would have done that that way, knowing everything know today.
Yeah, well, I do just commend you for jumping in and trying it like most people will never even we'll never jump in and try anything. So, I mean, the fact that you jumped in, you tried it didn't work. You figured out what didn't work really, really well. And then a few years later, you got back into it heavy. Let's move there. So you became you became a real estate agent first, is that right?
You started being an agent then after that. Exactly.
Right after that 2010. So I was I still had like a couple years left. I thought, OK, I clearly know how to not do it right. And I'm going to get my license, but I'm going to go doing the same office, my buddies that learn how to sell houses like. Learn with other people's money and make some commissions, and then hopefully I can have savings and start investing with that. So like I graduated in 2012, then went right into full time.
I probably saw like two or three houses while I was in school, just random, like the cookie truck guy or some person I happened to talk to off Craigslist and then started doing OK. I graduated. And then a year after I graduated, I actually joined a except for this 18 month period. I've been with Keller Williams all the time. I just I didn't really know much about construction, so I left the office and went and joined the construction company developer in the area.
So I was pretty much just like the lone realtor in the middle of the construction office. I figured I'd get a double whammy because they had a couple of sales that they gave to me, which helped with a little bit income, but also like I was just kind of sitting around in a bunch of construction meetings trying to learn about the rehab process so I could actually feel comfortable buying something. So that was like thousand thirteen, fourteen and then finally twenty fifteen.
I was actually able to buy a couple, three more places with I was wholesaling in between that time. So I learned a thing I did my first of all zazen 13 did maybe like a dozen or so in the next year and a half. And then one opportunity came along where there was a family that I had sold one of their houses for and was really and they had an old lady with our family. They had a group of fireplaces. And long story short, like I was trying to sell all five of them as a realtor, right.
Once they were all beat up shells and all that needed to be sold to investors. But it didn't work out. And I figured if I had more control because they all needed to close with different people, but at the same time. So I just put them under contract instead and then wholesale two of them, and was able to keep the other three. Oh, cool. Without putting any money in the pocket, which is like crazy. And I resold those and paid off some debt.
That was like my next jump into the investing in two thousand fifteen. Yeah. Very cool. All right.
So you you got started, you kind of started doing this whole selling thing, sort of picking up some houses.
I mean, these are, like you said, shells of houses that are maybe not excuse buildings, actually stuff once you and I know.
I mean, I was honestly looking at Philadelphia this morning for rental properties stuff. I'm just working through some projects for BP. And I was just digging into the data in Philadelphia.
And there are a lot of really old properties there that are some of them are shells. You still buy them twenty thousand dollars in some areas for some rough little properties like that with these were a little bit different.
Pretty much that's what it was like. These three, they just happened to be mixed use because the guy, like the other investor that I sold the suit didn't want them. So it was actually like an old seafood store. Then some really, really beautiful was falling down. I don't even know what kind of store used to be, but I didn't even really care what they were.
I just figured I can make a little bit of once what I think I figured like. So basically all the properties have like a bunch of leads on the right and like one hundred something dollars with something thousand dollars worth millions on them. And the two that I sold that I knew that that investor was going to clear the Lean's off which and those same lines were on mine. So like once he paid them off, then I was able to sell mine a couple months later and make like forty thousand dollars off of it.
And that helped a little bit with more confidence than anything. And then I started looking for like I'm like, OK, cool. Like I'm starting to get a little confidence. Also some properties now I'm going to find partners. And then it really took off in twenty seventeen. The one I put together, the one partnership where we did the thirty six houses redevelopment must really and also in that year another partnership with my partner where we bought, we bought like seventeen, eighteen places.
We're just building up a steady, we've got almost twenty units right now building up a steady rental portfolio. But I like to kind of answer your question. You can buy, you can just find these pretty simple like most properties like 14, 18 feet wide and thirty five to forty five feet deep. And it's all kind of the same sort of box. And you can make Bilel duplex duplex with two Bilel units or triplex with bracing for units. And the cash flow is pretty good.
Yeah, that's cool.
So would you say most of these properties that you're buying, they require an extensive amount of rehab? Yeah, most of them are almost full because we probably only got like two that arm and now we're jumping into Camden like we just bought. The last one we just bought was already good to go, but also for focus.
So it's part of our is part of your team, a contractor who's included in the equity of the deal or you just contracting that out? We're contracting that out.
And so the first couple, we manage ourselves to really, really learn and just sub everything out and built the whole team and got all the mechanical guys and electric plumbing guy from the same role. That and then then we use the general contractor. We worked with one guy, most of them who's handled most of the DC work. But now I have my DC license and we're kind of back to something like I think the guys that we've been using, like crept up a little bit.
So now we're managing the construction. More closely ourselves. OK, so you have your general contractor's license, a real estate license, you deal with Keller Williams, you're doing wholesaling and you're keeping a lot of these properties yourself, correct? Yeah, I'm not really wholesaling that much anymore right now. And it's mainly just retail sales and then just focusing on doing three or four or five at a time rehabs. And so you're at about 20 units, you said.
Yeah, 20 that. Is that with your partners. Yes. Like, it's pretty much I have one partner and all with that one partner, but most of them are.
So how do you with this partner that we're referring to here, split up the work as well as the ownership? So we're 50/50 partners. We split up. So like I manage the construction a little bit more closely and cutting the checks and doing a lot of the communication. She's really good with the finishes. And there's certain things that I don't like to do, like colors. I'm horrible with kitchen designs, that kind of more abstract stuff, terrible with I love numbers and I have more time than she does generally.
And that's how our partnership kind of started. She had much more savings than I did. I had more time. And so that's how it's split. And we need to that's one thing we're actually working on right now. We have to like more closely define our what our roles are, just one of our resolutions, if you call it that. Beautiful.
OK, so that's what you're going to be doing moving forward. Now, it sounds like you've got a lot of things covered. For once you find the deal, tell us how you're actually finding these deals, what your strategy is to to get them lock them up and then divvy up the responsibilities of who's going to do what.
Yeah, so finding the deals for me, like I don't have any magic systems, like we actually don't really do a lot of marketing. Most of it's almost everything we bought for now has been one on one conversations. I'm really good at like one on one phone call or in person. So before this year I've done a bunch I've been going to networking events for ten years. There's a couple of big meet ups that were year. That's by the way, this is how I met my one partner we did the thirty six houses with, but it's nothing complicated.
I just asked certain questions like I think that I'm my super powers, probably like being able to build rapport with people and ask the right questions and then get into like a meaningful conversation really quickly. And as simple as it sounds like, just doing that X amount of times every week, a deal's just come around once every so often. But in a lot of stuff we buy is on the MLS too, by the way.
Yeah, I was going to ask, is it mostly off market or on market? It sounds like it's kind of a mix. It's a mix. It's a little more on off market than on market. But like we probably like eight or nine that are on the MLS and the rest of market. But it's the same like for stuff that's on market, it always comes up at it. It's the same thing every time you see something. I'm thinking about a house that we flipped and sold, it sold like a month or so ago.
It was listed one hundred. Ten thousand. I know it's worth like fifty to sixty and call day one. Hey, my name's Rodney by its place in the area. We don't know each other yet, but I'm just like this is exactly like what we buy. I'll pay a fifty five for it. No, no whatever. We're going to get more for it. Like hang up, call him two weeks later. Same conversation. How are you doing.
If you sold it now and then hang up. So and then that evolved into a month then they got another offer finally for like seventy five, two or three k buyer which I knew that was probably going to fall through. It always does, because the buyer walks in and they think that it's going to be 30 grand needs really like a hundred. So just it's a lot of waiting people out and just being really up front really I guess like I come in with my real number usually like right off the bat and then Italy, if it doesn't work, I don't I'm not changing anything like, hey, like this.
It's the same number I told you like two months ago. Like, we're we're serious. I can get this close in a couple of weeks. Not joking around, but I know what I'm doing. I know what it's actually worth, what it's going to take to rehab.
That is such a good point and something that people should be like writing down this note. I mean, if you applied nothing like no change to your business, but that one thing is like every time you make an offer followed back up two weeks later, I just keep doing that until the offer like the product is sold or somebody else buys it or you buy it. Like people would buy so many more deals just from just from that one little thing.
So, yeah.
So where do you how do you track that stuff? I mean, are you just remembering like I know you're not doing dozens of deals a month or so, but do you have like a theorem or how do you track you know, I got to go follow up with this person in a couple of weeks.
These days, we keep it real simple like we used KW Systems Command has got this little pipeline thing and you just drag people from one one step to the next to like the warm leads. We've just got you maybe like a couple dozen people there. And I just looked at look through that once a week and I'm like, oh, man, I feel like so-and-so is probably ready for another phone call. Same thing with, like, Wholesaler's or just a couple of wholesaler's.
So I'll keep in touch with. And then every once in a while I'll get lucky and they'll bring me something. We have to ship another one of the friendship right now where the guy brought me something right before he was about to list it. Sales and retail sales, so I'm just lucky to have some decent relationships with some of these guys and gals and they bring stuff to us and then we go after it immediately.
So would you say, like when you're talking off market stuff, are most of them? You talk about relationship based, which is awesome. Does that mean primarily you're talking with, like wholesalers and they're the ones out there maybe doing the direct mail or doing the door knocking or auctions or whatever, and then they get under contract and sell to you? Is that how this is or is it OK?
A lot of it, yeah. And like we sometimes it'll be sellers, but like, it's a lot of it's wholesalers and realtors. We do the occasional wholesale deal.
So how do you find a good one? I mean, this is a common complaint in real estate is there's so many bad wholesalers out there. There's so many people who think they're wholesaling. And really it's just daisy chaining like 10 different dealers and everyone up sells. And it's hard to find the good ones that are providing actual good deals. How do you how do you find a good one, a good wholesaler that's out there hunting deals for you? And then how do you build relationships and keep that rapport going?
Because I agree. You, like you seem awesome at building reports. How do you do that for somebody who's listening to this going? I don't even have any experience at all. I just want somebody to find deals for me.
So I think that, like, so finding a good wholesaler, you don't really know. Well, I think I'm trying to think about the best brands. It's like when I say I asked the right questions and I get into conversation, people that kind of knocks off. I think it checks all the boxes, like, how do you find the right people and get in a relationship? Like, I think within a couple of minutes of meeting someone or talking on the phone, I'll ask if I'm talking to a wholesaler, I, I don't know.
I like that just as like, hey, I see you sent out whatever and thinking about this one on Belmont Avenue that we looked at a couple weeks ago. Like you said, this place is with seventy five thousand dollars. You just need to know the right questions that they just want to make sure, like, you just got to ask the obvious, like, is this your deal or do you have this under contract, your being with somebody awesome?
Like, did you guys already run tight already? Or like if we put something under if we come to an agreement, you want me to run title, how many do you typically do stuff in this area or you all around the city? And by the time you just asked or five questions like that, they get a sense that, you know what you're talking about and then you get to. All right, like if you had any offers on this call, are you have someone who offered you asking price on a cool like that person sending funds and all that?
Or like, what do you think is the percentage you're going to close that person? And I think that, like, if you have the two to just know what position they're in, because a lot of wholesalers, they're writing off so many people, there's tons of buyer leads right now. So I think if you just show that, you know, that like one of the things I think I say to wholesalers, like, I don't need to be your first guy, like, just please keep me as a second runner up.
Like, if your main person falls through, I'm serious. I can get this done. But I understand you already have with buyers. And if you have that conversation, I'm going to be a runner up guy. Eventually you get something that's so that's what's really, really helped us actually get in a relationship with real people.
You know, it reminds me of like I mean, imagine this picture where there's there's twenty people in a room. There's ten wholesalers out there looking for good deals out there and trying to like the ten people, call them to the wholesalers. And then there's ten real estate investors who want to buy from those wholesalers. The problem is there's only two real buyers in that out of those ten, let's say. Twenty percent of them are actual buyers. And out of those ten wholesalers, there's only two actual wholesalers.
So really out of the twenty people, there's only four actually doing business. Two and two, let's just say, yeah, I'm making the numbers up. Right. So the problem is people who like first of all, people who are wanting to be buyers are people listening to show right now saying, I wish that whole thing is to just bring me deals. First of all, are you one of the two out of ten that can actually close?
And the way you know that largely is because either you've done it before or you're asking those right questions.
And then secondly, like, if on the whole inside side, like you've got to talk to a lot of them and the wholesalers, you got to talk to a lot of investors and you've got to ask a lot of questions.
And eventually, if you're networking enough, the reason I bring up the ten people in ten people is, is it it's a picture of like what you have to do to find the right people, the supplies, the contractors supply, anything does just terrible people all over the place. But the more you mingle and talk to more and more people, the more you provide your own scale, your own vocabulary, your own desires and wants and needs what you need and how you portray yourself.
And then the more you meet these other people, the greater chance of getting that connection with the with the top guy over there. And you're the top guy over here. You work together and boom, now you got magic. And now you can do a hundred times more deals when people are like, well, I can't find any good wholesalers like that because you've only talked to a couple. And the chances are the couple I like their odds are nine out of ten or eight out of ten are going to be terrible, which means you got to talk to 20 or 30 or 40 different wholesalers to find the one or two.
That that makes sense. So that does that make sense to you, that how can you operate your life?
Yeah, and I agree. And I think, like there's like you said, there's no way around the numbers. And then just I don't like whether it's wholesaler's. Sellers, I also just I like to learn I love to learn about people like I'm a super huge extrovert. And so just asking some of the basic like tell me a little bit more about your business, like, are you guys like one of them? You're sending ten thousand dollars and dollars a month and like you're selling one hundred places a year, or are you just kind of building up in your wholesaling things to have might make money to build your own radical folio.
And and I really actually want to know the answer to that. And then asking some another really good question. I think I'd like to ask, like, what kind of challenges are you having in your business right now? I'll tell you what I'm going through. It's really hard for us to find good deals right now that actually make the numbers work in the wholesalers that are daisy chaining everything like what is it looking like from your end? And then and another follow up to that is like.
Would it make it easier if I think is a good leader, like, all right. Would it make it easier if I can just be that buyer that never bothers you? And then when I see something, I can just send you my offer like us, I'll send the deposit and title company directly. So I'm serious. I think just having a good sequence of like I just try and make it really easy for people to work with us and ask the right questions to like.
And then I mean, whether it's a seller also, I'm telling you, like it's the same thing almost every time. And like that's how we put our last place in our contract that we're closing on a presidential house on this block that we did development. And that was talking to the seller. And how we got the contract was someone on the block who I'd spoken with before. It actually just happened to pass away. She she knew this person.
She could get my phone number, whatever they called me. And I said, well, I met with them and said, hey, look, since I'm a realtor, I've always disclosed before we talk about buying your place, I'm going to let you know you could be listed for like one seventy one eighty and get an offer. But it doesn't sound like you may want to do that. Is it easier for you if I make an offer that maybe a little bit less, but we're going to be at a closing table in thirty days?
Or would you rather go through the whole market process? And they decided, oh, no, I actually like you and I think you're going to close. And so let's go they one forty five. I don't need that extra or whatever.
Maybe that's a really good point. And I like the integrity behind that too. I mean like Holstein is giving a bad name and sometimes rightfully so for like, you know, like Robin grandma over property and, and whatever. And I like to say, like the whole thing is I know they're not robbing anybody of any properties. Like, they're like this is a legitimate service. You could probably get more. And the seller knows that.
And they're like, hey, I could list this for you. We could go through the hassle. You might want to fix some stuff up you money. You know, there's a thing there or I get you a little bit less, but it's we're done and it's simple. And a lot of people choose that because money is not always the number one primary motivator for people.
A hundred percent agree. And just being, like, genuine and like, I'm I like to tell it like it is like even if you don't have, like, the first couple of deals back that I did, like, I didn't have any money at all to close in anything. The first wholesale deal I did in South Philly, Alfred, I went and hung up bandit signs a couple of times like four a.m. on Saturday, so they wouldn't get torn down.
And the first place to put under contract was for eighteen thousand dollars for AIDS. Eighteen thousand dollars a little house, probably worth thirty, I thought. And long story short, it took me a while to make the offer. It took me a while to do a lot of things, but I met with a seller and how to just build a lot of rapport, had a really good conversation, learned about what happened. It was a state situation, like horrible way that they found a family member like deceased inside the house.
I was there for like two hours. Right. They got an offer. They got two offers, mine for eighteen, somebody else's for twenty. And when they called me back, they said, hey, I just want to know we got your offer rate so that, by the way, no proof of funds. No, nothing like we got you off for eighteen. We've met this other guy who was a cash buyer like fifty places in the area.
You offered his money and I was like, OK, well, that's that's it. But the hang up, she's like, well, like, we're going to go with yours. I was like, why would you go with mine? Like what? We like you better. It was like, what are you talking about? Like I was like twenty two and like I don't have any money, like it's going to take me probably like two months to close.
Yeah that's fine. Like just let us know. We'll come back up from they lived in Delaware, we'll come up in Delaware. It took me like two and a half months to close in that place, but I couldn't find a buyer and they stuck it out because they actually like enjoyed our conversations.
I say this all the time. Just people like to sell to people they like and like. The more you can get people to like you, the more chance you have of people want to work with you. Now, there's a number that they're not going to tell you that property for a dollar, it's not going to give you 20. But there's a discount that everyone offers all the likability discount.
And everybody, no matter how grumpy they are, even even like you, Scrooge McDuck or whatever, would offer like a Scrooge from whatever like they offer.
They are funny. There's a likability discount.
So the more you can build into that, the more you can build that rapport, the better.
Yeah. So, Rodney, what advice do you have for listeners who are maybe thinking, well, I want to be likeable, what do I have to do to be likable?
It's a really good question. I, I mean, the first thing comes to mind is like don't try and be a lot less judgmental as possible. Like everybody has. Their life isn't like life is hard and everybody's got their own whatever they're going through. And I try not judge anybody off the bat, regardless of some of the crazy things that you see or people you run into. Crazy right in quotes in real estate. And I think just asking really learn how to ask probing questions.
And that that says a lot more than trying to, like, tell someone how cool you are. Like, I never I don't ever get asked for proof of funds or bank statements or that just really because I ask a lot of. Probing questions and people get the sense that, like, cool, like I think this guy knows what he's doing and I actually want to learn about people. So I don't know if that's just like genetic or whatever, but have asked probing questions and like the ones we talked about, like just what's like what's going on in your life, like how are you?
I'm hearing that I think this is a way that I can help you like using. This is the way I can help you just kind of taking people. So that conversation with whoever, whatever it is, whatever, whatever you want to whatever system you want to come up with, once you figure out the whole like this is how I'm going to get leads and this is I'm going to follow with people just asking the probing questions like does wonders. Yeah.
In other words, as opposed to looking at that person like they're a transaction. And how quickly can I get to the point where I can figure out, can I make money from them, start with them as a person, what situations they're dealing with, what obstacles maybe they're dealing with, and then say, OK, now that I know their background, here are some methods that I think can work with what you're specifically struggling with. And the goal that I have to buy this property.
Yeah. And like and then you can also share just share really genuinely like what what you're trying to do. Like it's not wrong to try and make money off like a wholesale debt in the first place for twenty nine thousand dollars you made eleven thousand dollars a settlement. And there was an attorney representing the sellers at settlement that was like and the attorney for I didn't know was my first time. So I was like, so you going to feel some sort of way that like we're walking with the check and it's on the hood and they can see it.
But he shook my hand afterwards, like, congratulations. You were able to like, put a deal together and make some money and great. And guess who bought me my next wholesale deal that it's hurting.
So, like, I think just being open with it and once you're OK with it and you're you know, you just treat people like they want to be treated with respect and learn about them. Well, you have stories for days, and I put together that big development, too.
Well, you said something there that I don't want to gloss over because it was so good. And you just said you said, well, maybe it's genetics or something, but I just actually care about these people stories and like that, like in other words, like shocking. You genuinely care about people and people can read into that. People know when people genuinely care or when they're being a transaction.
And so, like anybody listening is just, yeah, genuinely care. I don't thing like pretend to care and do a better job acting, but like genuinely care, like be in the moment, be present when you're having conversations with motivated sellers or attorneys or wholesalers or mentors and stop thinking what's in it for me, how do I get more out of this. But just generally say, hey, I'm really interested in this person and I want to know what's going on in their life.
Yeah, it's like how to win friends and influence like one on one from Carnegie. It's such a good book, but like that's like the basis of so much of his of that book is I just care, care.
And people like they'll root for you. You like you like you said that other than the eighteen versus twenty thousand person, they wanted you to get it because they liked you and they were rooting for you. They're on your team, which feels weird because like you're trying to get a good they're making less money, but they people sincerely like to thank the people they sincerely like. So anyway, that's awesome.
I hope you're enjoying this episode of The Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. We'll be right back after this quick break.
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All right. So let's talk about like what you're doing with all these properties. You're buying a bunch of stuff. You said you had, what, 20 some rentals now?
Yeah. Twenty three units up to that, including the ones that are construction.
And you're also your yacht. That's a lot. I mean, that's awesome. So how are you financing all of these properties? And like, are you flipping thumbs the higher paying for you burn them? What's your strategy?
So most of it, like 90 percent of them were doing the first strategy, but it's all the same. We're buying stuff for like 30 to 70 and putting you like fifty to up to probably the biggest ones, like one eighty since it was a triple X. And then we have the value added for right around the 70 percent mark and then we're able to refinance to get the money back. We've sold a few of them, especially this year, like in March, we were like, right, let's catch up on a couple of them and we want to move up to larger stuff, too.
So we're all. Thinking about selling some of the duplex and five that we have, but it's basically the Burchard for all of it and selling some well, we need to, like, get more cash in our pockets. That's cool.
And are you finding, like, local banks are able to help you refinance like the whole like can't have more than four or 10 loans to your name, but are you running into that problem or how are you getting around that kind of stuff?
So we're not we have all of ours are an LLC, except for one that I have that's in my personal name. But there is one local credit that's been a great asset to us. We've done a lot of options like most local lenders, like banks or what you call them, the larger institutions. They're usually lending around like seventy, seventy five percent LTV. The rates are like five, six amortized or twenty five thirty years. But you got to pay it off in like 15.
This one bank that we found, it's amortized over 20 years. You paid off in 15, but they get 80 percent of the value. That's cool. And the rates and we just re five to six the other week and it's like four and a quarter. So really low. So we're trying to lock in as much of these rates, much these low rates as we can right now. I don't know what's going to happen next year or the year after, but yeah, the rate has been the easy part.
Luckily, like, we built a good relationship and that's they've gotten the same. We've been hitting our values to like this. We've been focusing in mostly on West Philly. So I decided to specialize in this one area. And rents are going up in that area. Values are going up in that area. It's we're doing we're doing all right. That's cool.
Do they both have a problem where every time somebody says West Philadelphia, they immediately think born and raised on a playground is where I spend my days as anybody else every single time anyway.
So you're buying these properties. You bring them. I love the dollar. The tip about the local community bank, like, yeah.
You're not getting the 30 year mortgage until you're paying half way faster, which is great for long term wealth building maybe a little less cash flow, then maybe the return is not as low. I mean, the interest rate isn't as low as you'd get from maybe like a Wells Fargo U.S. bank, but it's so much easier. Like who cares right now you're building wealth, you're building passive income and cash flow and building these things up and you're building the portfolio, which is awesome.
And so you do what you got to do. I think somebody will get stuck with these like this is the rule of real estate is I have to go to a big bank. I put down 30 percent and get this on it. Like like there's so much flexibility and you don't know that until you jump in and start doing stuff and asking questions and talking with other investors and getting to know it. So I'm curious, before we move on to like the deep dive, it's the question I want to ask more often on the show, but I never do.
But I'm going to ask you, how has mentorship played a role in your upbringing of being a growth investor and maybe has maybe hasn't?
Like, what I mean by that is, are there people that you'd like they were your mentors going into this or did you just kind of figure things out along the way? Because what role is mentorship played?
I haven't I don't think I've really necessarily had a I don't know if you call it coach and a mentor, the same thing like do you or sort of you could.
I mean, I've heard people call him the same. I've heard people call him differently. But yeah. So I've had I've I've had sort of mentoring like I I've had both coaching and mentoring. I've had a business coach for the majority of whites since two thousand twenty thirteen. He's really helped and he invests in real estate too. So he's helping the sales in in like pulling me back to reality with investing because I'm kind of crazy. Let's go through this, you know, so like that's really helped.
But mentoring wise, like there's just been a couple of people really helped. First joining the development from 2013. That was a really there was only like five of us. And so just I get asked all the questions in the world that I wanted to talk about the guys I was working with. We're doing all this construction. It's like that really helped in the construction. And and like one of my lenders is actually he's been a big investor himself and he's been a really good resource for us.
One of our he's in between, like, hard money, probably rates. But a guy who's done tons of developments, tons of rehabs and like, I just have a few key people like that, like one of my partners on our project, the before the construction guy, the developer I was with in one of the lenders, like I think a few of those people have made huge differences. And and what we've done, places that I bought and not bought, but I haven't had any direct apprenticeships or mentorship like that.
But I think having a couple of key people makes all the difference because there's been some moves like that. There's been some places that would have been really bad investments that I was going to buy. And I'm glad we didn't like this ten in Canada. We almost bought that I think would have had all these structural problems. We the lost a bunch of money on. Like being talked out of some of those things is that we dodged some bullets. So I don't know if that's sort of the answer.
It does.
It doesn't. I'm just I always like to know, like because some people are like real big on like, I can't get started unless I have a mentor and then they will you be my mentor and they get that kind of the awkward relationship I like. You strike me as somebody who is more like just figure things out and but but also at the same time build relationships with people who are experienced. So you. You don't have the formal necessarily like awkward, like I'm going to meet with you every week, mentor thing, you have a business coach which I love, coaches I love like performance coaches or business coach.
I think they're fantastic.
But you just build relations with everyone around you. And I think I guess the word I'm like the way I'm going with this is like you strike me as a super authentic in the way you build relationships. And I think that's the way that people try to get into real estate right now should be focusing as authentic relationships with sellers, with vendors, with potential mentors like authentic build friendships and relationships with people. And they want to help you. They want to root for you as long as you're not weird about it.
Yeah. And I think something that comes to mind, as you say, that is like when you're like, I hate asking people for help. First of all, like I it's one of my things that just I'm working on. But I think if you do whatever I ask someone a question, I like try and make triple sure that I've gone and researched everything I possibly can. So, like, it ends up being like a three minute conversation. And I'm not sucking away that person's time.
I think that's why the rare times that I do it, people will want to talk to me because I'm like, I went and tried this and I called this lender and I did this. And I can't figure this little thing out, like, please help me instead of like, hey, I'm trying to buy a 10 unit. Like, what do I do? Yes. Yes, that's really helped. Yeah, I think that's that's the ideal use of a of a mentor is I've tried everything.
I'm stuck on this one point. Can you can you help me out here. And then a little question. Like I've talked to ten banks. I can't get one. I'll finance this. That's a good question for a mentor. Yeah, but not what bank do I go do to finance this? I go talk to him first. Yeah, it's so good.
I think that's a great lesson in general when it comes to looking for partners or looking for help that the more general your question, the more onus you put on the other person to figure out how to solve your problem, which gives them less incentive to do it. The more specific of a question you're bringing, the easier it is for them to help you. And so the more likely they are and I say this because a lot of very well-intentioned people probably have no idea how that question comes across to the person that you're asking it of me and Roddy.
I think that probably for you is somewhat natural because you're very good at being likable and you're a genuine person. So that would automatically be the way that you'd go about it, which is probably one of the reasons you've been successful. And I'm sure that that success isn't just related to real estate investing. I'm sure in your age of business you're doing very well there also. And you probably are a very good trajectory to build that business as well, because people like genuine people.
If you look at the real estate industry in general, just solid real estate, the trend is towards technology. There are big companies that are trying to convince people that own real estate. You don't need humans in this. They all do the same. They're all interchangeable. Every agents, the same as every other agent. Let us connect you with a buyer. I buyer programs, echo programs to get people to click on something and say I can sell my house without an agent.
And they get really excited and they're not being told your problem. You probably have got a lot more. If you used an agent or the agent that you use matters as far as how much money you could walk away with.
And the only way for those of us that are trying to make a living in this industry that are not part of a huge machine of buying companies is by setting ourselves apart with the relationship piece. And that's really why Brandon's ask you these questions and why we wanted to share your story with the listeners, because you've got that secret sauce. You can one conversation with you. And it's very clear this is different than most people. I trust this person. I think they're looking out for me just as much as they're looking out for themselves.
And that's how you get ahead. You don't try to beat technology by at its own game, by let me make this as transaction focused as possible. A computer program will always be able to do that better than we could as a human being. You do it by playing this other game, this relationship game that technology will never be able to overcome.
Yeah, I totally agree. It's it's a it's an intangible thing that kind of sounds airy fairy talk about sometimes. But like and by the way, like my one of the challenges I'm going through right now is like my age, your business is doing OK. But like I feel like I've been self sabotaging is I'm actually getting bored in a way of like that. I really want to step up and do larger vessel and stuff so I can talk with my coach like I'm ignoring all my clients, like.
So we're trying to figure that out. But the people I do work with, I think really appreciate like just having a relationship, like I've tried taking time to learn about someone's whole life story, like talking people out of buying the house is a conversation. I have a lot more often than like, OK, this is the one you want because you told me you're trying to buy investment properties and retire in X amount of years, but you're telling me you want to buy 500000 our house.
You don't have any kids yet. Like, so sometimes that conversation goes in the other direction. But they'll remember it and those people will come back to you when it's time. There's many people that's called me about selling their house and I talked him out of it or that wanted to buy the wrong type of property. And I talked about that and how to buy a different one where they knew I made a lot less money, but it was better for them.
And it always comes back tenfold with referrals that gets sent your way or them bring in other people to you. I mean, one really good investment deal could be five to 10 transactions in a normal thing. So that's just that's always the struggle, though, is there's a tempting side that wants to say, well, I could get this right now, but if you just have faith and you put other people first, it always ends up coming back to you.
That was really one of the core tenants of Josh Talk. And when he established bigger pockets was you're not going to be in business long if you go for the quick, easy kill right off the bat instead of the nurture of doing the right thing. And Brandon, I have seen this time and time again there are flashes in the pan. They come along and put a lot of people under contract really quickly. But the way they do business was very one sided or dishonest and they don't last very long.
And then the Rodney's, you know, I'm sure when we talk to you five, ten years later, you're going to have an empire that was built on the back of this being genuine and being trustworthy and being honest person. Trying to have an empire. There you go. All right, well, let's move along and hit the next segment of the show.
It's called Our Deep, Deep Dive. Hey, hope you're enjoying this episode of The Bigger Pockets real estate podcast. Let's take a quick break to hear from our show sponsors and we'll be right back. Hello, everybody.
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We dive deep into one particular deal that you've done. Right.
If you have something you can dig into, I do a simple, straightforward one. Actually, I.
Perfect. So I'm going to ask you. Well, we're going to ask you a series of eight questions about it. First of all, technically eight times nine, because the first one, I was asked two questions. What kind of property is it and where they're located? That's the first question.
It's a duplex that's being turned into a triplex in Cobb's Creek possibile. All right.
All right. And how did you find this deal on the MLS?
Well, s all right. What do you as a question of the deal, Deepthi, but what do you look for when you're looking on the MLS in a competitive market like Philly?
So for something like for this one particularly, I look for areas that are I'm pretty confident that have you can see a couple of things going on with the area that are going to be worth more the next couple of years. And this is the perfect example as I bought it, like two something little more than two years ago. And now the rents are way like three to four hundred dollars higher values way higher. And so having a certain amount of cash flow, like a couple hundred bucks per unit, cost the appreciation and plus being able to put the least amount of money out of pocket, which is what happened here.
All right, MLS, very cool. And how much did you pay for this property?
It was one thirty two with the seven thousand dollars, one thirty two or so.
They gave you seven thousand for closing costs. Yeah.
And mind you, it was actually listed only for like one ten or one fifteen. So I over I overpaid for it because I saw that I thought it was worth something. All right.
And how do you negotiate all that like. Well, what you negotiate to look like obviously that played into it offering more.
So I called the agent like day one. And when it was listed, I had this really short window that I was financeable for like a couple of months at the end of the year. So I really wanted this call. The agent set up a showing, spelt out whether I thought I needed to have them represent me or not. And they actually seemed to be it was OK if I represented myself. And then I just said, like, hey, looks like, what's your highest offer right now?
And tell me what I to do to beat it. That was really what it was. And then that number happened to match our highest offers. One twenty to one whatever. Cool. I'm going to offer one twenty five and I'm going with FHA. But here's the reason why I think when close because I'm Rodney Ross model and I've got a great lender and here's his phone number and so will a lot of reports. A really nice lady and that's the only reason I got it, because there was like six other offers right on.
So you already told us you funded it with an FHA loan. Any additional financing? It was actually FHA two or three loan. OK, so did the twenty something thousand dollars with the rehab. Now I'm putting another forty five fifty out of pocket, adding a unit and going to refinance again.
Oh so take a burr house tack. It's a Brozak sounds like. OK, all right. Probably two or three. Can you explain what that is. Because I love FHA two or three loan.
Explain how that works for those who might not know.
Yeah. So a two or three car loan is standard FHA loan. You can put as little as three and a half percent down into two or three. Loan is the same and you're allowed to do rehab work. I did the streamline one, which is like if you do less than thirty five thousand, they don't need to do that. They don't need to have the whole HUD consultant go out and do their whole. This is what I think it's going to cost.
You just submit a budget boom like use your contractor is what contractor want to use. Here's how much it's going to cost. And then they let you just go at it takes a little bit longer to close. You're probably looking at forty five sixty days, but it's a really good product if you know what you're doing and have a contractor doesn't need a ton of money upfront because they have a little more money than No. Yeah, what's cool is you can yeah, you don't have to come out of out of pocket with all the repairs needed, like that gets financed and it's just three percent of the total, which is super cool for those who want to do kind of a Brozak, we'll call it like the.
Yeah, the buy rehab. It's like you don't have to refinance because you get the rehab. So it's like the buy rehab, rent it out and live in it because they've got to be a living at least for a year. Right. And then instead of refinance, you just like it just transitions to a long term loan basically because it's already at the beginning anyway. And then you. Yeah, it's it's awesome.
Well, there's not a lot to refinance out if you use an FHA loan because you only put three and a half percent down. So there's not a ton that you need to get back out of it, especially because the rehab was included in the loan, too. So you accomplished the same thing as buyer.
Unless you add another unit like Gradney, which is super cool, like you went you went from a duplex, you added a hold on the unit.
You're you're covering that out of pocket now to to make the value go way higher so then you can refinance and.
Exactly. Ethical and like in like what David said, like I use my commission for commission, that's my down payment. So I actually came out of pocket like 500 bucks, close as the last and security covered the other half percent down payment and myself just cover the closing costs. So it was a little like five hundred bucks out of pocket. And there was both the units already rented like eight point five and eight fifty. And I had every intention to move in there.
But within the first 60 days, property guidelines, you know, but I, I actually just ended up being a straight duplex investment.
And yeah, the FHA guideline is you need to have the intention in your plan has to be moving there. Now if you if something changes in your life and you end up not moving in because they don't come at you with guns and jail time, but you do have to be able to say, like you have to you have to genuinely have a plan, like your intentions are to move into the place. So something that that's what we're that's what you're talking about there, right.
Mm. Yeah. I just had a there was an old lady in the first unit who didn't move out so. Yeah.
You know, it's like well I could Victor or just leave it.
Right. It was that's what we would talk about was so for this third unit, did you have to get it permitted at it? How did that work.
Yeah, so this one is on a block. We're like luckily it's the the places are all set really back far from the street and the first floor is raised a good like six steps off the ground. So all the basements have tall ceilings. Don't have to do is an entrance and it's like three steps down it. It's a really deep two bedroom unit. I'm like a thousand square feet. So that's that's how we're we're just going through the process.
We dug the entrance of the basement so much I wish we had more of them in California. They're like the best thing ever when it comes to real estate. If there's a decent rental demand. Yeah, that's one of the benefits, I guess, of living near tornadoes and stuff. So there aren't there aren't basements at all really in California. Hardly ever. Do we have those. Yeah. Oh yeah. I can't even imagine.
You know, it's very rare when you come across that very old properties and only in certain cities do they even have properties that were built with Basement Foundation. So that's something that as an agent, when I'm looking at stuff, if I see anything that says basement, I immediately key in on that. How big is it? How tall is it? Like, it's so easy to convert those in relatively inexpensive compared to building a whole new Aido site? No, we do have legislation that passed in California that makes it so that the government can't stop you from building eighty use on your property.
The problem is there's no easy financing in place for this. So it's going to cost eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to build this entire new structure, which could have been the down payment on a whole property. So it's not very financially advantageous to do that. Well, so good question for you, David, on that.
This, um, I've been thinking about lately here in Hawaii for the same reason that you got in California. It sounds like a business opportunity for me. If someone hears I'm going with it. If you spend one hundred grand, let's say building on eighty you. Well, I don't know if that's reasonable in California.
Let's say you buy one hundred grand, build in a two bedroom little shack on your property. What does that rent for there in your area.
Uh, somewhere between fifteen hundred and three thousand dollars.
All right. So we're looking at probably like a one and a half to two percent rule based on this thing. It's a cash flow, like an ATM machine. It's going to be like it's a good investment to do. Most people won't think that way or don't have the money to do that be right. So what if there was a company? I'm just making this up. But I've been thinking about this. What if there was a company who would go into people's properties fund, the entire building of the eighty?
You manage the property that gets rented out and just take a sizable percentage, like I'll take fifty percent of the rent for the next ten years or 20 years.
So they get paid back their whole amount plus some that like Amy. Ever heard of that? Anybody doing that? Because I feel like there's an opportunity there somewhere that's like a business model that could work really well. Nothing I think.
Yeah. Would work. I think that especially with as much money is floating around. But I just I have heard of it. I don't know any doing it.
But it's cool if anybody know that anybody doing that, let us know in the show notes for them.
I think in Hawaii that probably adds more value to your property than it does in California, because everybody wants that that a unit in Hawaii. So you can then reify the money that you spent out. You like basically your Hawaiian property and get it back out. California. Having one of those doesn't really add a ton of value because not as many people have caught on to, I want to rent out part of my property. Of course, bigger pockets.
Listeners want that. But your average home buyer isn't looking to be a landlord anyway, though I've digressed a little bit here. Thank you for letting me get back on track. All right, Rodney, we know that this became a burr and you're adding an additional unit. And that's not completed, correct?
Not completed. Not yet. OK, so what lessons have you learned from this deal so far? The main lesson, having had challenges with my one Section eight tenants know how to work through.
You know, it's just difficult with especially this year. I got a chance earlier this year when not only eviction rules happened and all that just end up being a weird situation. That's it. But mainly, I think the main thing was like believing in it was the only place I think I paid over asking like that, especially with financing. And but I knew in the back of my mind, like this has got to be like this is the cash flow make sense.
They won like it's already making like 17 a month of payments can be like 11. So I believed and what I felt the value was, even though it was listed on the MLS, a lot less than I thought. And that paid off because in just two years, the rents now like that unit that the old lady was in, that was eight. Twenty five. I just listed eleven seventy five. And a bunch of people that wanted second floor just basically is going for eleven, seventy five.
Bottom is going to be a thousand. So it's going to turn from making like seventeen fifty to like thirty one hundred bucks or even a little more maybe, which is crazy like in a couple of years. So the area is just really just so believing in what you think something is worth. And when you know enough that you can see the value of just going after it and like forget what other people think that it may or may or may not not be worth.
That's well, real estate investing is meant to build wealth over time. So it's somewhat foolish to look at your year when numbers and assume that's what it's going to be forever. They could go up. They could go down. But you should be looking at which you expect them to do, because my experience has been just like yours in areas that I bought in, in higher appreciating markets, both rent and value. They performed really, really well over time.
And it's OK if I didn't make it incredible high Arawa in year one, because by year five or six, I definitely was. And conversely, some of the markets where I had a stronger ROIC coming in on year one, they sort of flat lined. They didn't really do a whole lot. And then when I did get capital expenditures, they crush me like I got one right now that hasn't appreciated at all. And the sewage line has to be fixed.
It's about thirty five hundred bucks and that's like two years of profit completely gone by one thing. And rents are over two to three year period have gone up like twenty five dollars, hardly anything. So it's definitely wise to consider the big picture. That's what I wanted to highlight with what you're doing. It sounds like you've got a great deal there.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm thankful for it. That's awesome.
And congratulations on that. Sounds like a really like that's like the I feel like the Brandon Turner special right there. I love that type of thing. I've done so many of those, like small multifamily, add in a unit, that kind of stuff. I love it. All right.
Well, we got to move on to the last segment of the show.
It's time for our famous for this is the part of the show with the same four questions every week to every guest.
So we're going to throw Matthew Rodney so No. One, Rodney, current favorite or all time favorite real estate related book of all time favorite is probably the Richard Ford.
And current favorite that I've been revisiting is the billionaire real estate investor. The diagrams in that I really like the visual kind of guy and it just it's a good mental reminder, like in any room for clients, it helps like it shows like this is what happens even if you buy a place every other year for like fifteen years or whatever, it just shows it does all the math. We're like it shows if you put this many such and such, they have the basic models I could get get a little house.
Twenty percent of value put 20 percent down. You know, it's funny the rates that they use and there are like seven and eight coming up rates. So anyway, those, those models are like times. It just shows that if you just make little investments over a decade or two, you end up having millions of dollars. So that's a current one. I've been looking for that. I mean, all time for me. Cool, awesome.
That's a great shout out. What about your favorite business book? I think my favorite business book was really just like a whack me in the face last month, which I actually think you guys mentioned on our episode. The Imus. I got the audio book. I was like, oh my God, I'm going through this. Breaking down the three roles and the technician manager. I'm like, wow, I'm going to this burnout thing right now. We're like, I'm operating and all that.
And it's different skill sets to run a business than to be a really good agent or invest or whatever. So we're readjusting now and it just it hurt a little bit to read that. But I think I'm getting in way back. Out of my comfort zone, again, trying to make our business look more like a business and not just based off like my energy all the time.
I love it. I'm very smart guy, Rodney, in case no one's ever told you to learn from.
I listen to so I've listened to so many podcasts like I've been doing a long time listener. I think I started listening for your pocket just like I don't know by how long you've been around.
We have been around for almost eight years now, I think. Right?
Yeah, it's been a while, so I've learned a lot of tips from both of you guys trying to pick off a little here and there. I like how you gave us credit for your own intelligence.
That's a very classy move there and smart proving my point even more. OK, when you're not flattering the hosts of the podcast you're being interviewed on, what are some of your hobbies? I love working out like the bikes, like the list. I like to speak French. I really was. My big goal is to try and like, go back to France for like a month or two. Didn't happen that literally not to go right now again, but working out, speaking French and just playing guitar.
So that helps my mind because my mind goes a thousand miles an hour thinking about this all the time. The big goals are now I'd like to take time off, get over to Europe and for a couple of months, at least in the happy place.
That's fantastic, man. Well, my final question of the day and the last of the famous for what separates successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail or never get started.
I've forgotten that. Yes, that, I think is cliches.
It sounds like just sticking with it, not getting out of the game like this is as simple as it is. It's not easy. And like the hardest part about this right now, like a couple of years ago, we were just building up like I feel like figuring out the rehab and the numbers. And that was I hadn't done that yet. But now it's like managing my own emotions and not getting to the point. I'm kind of like my coach was like, look, you've been doing this for like the past year.
Again, like you're really good for a couple months, then burn the heck out and get anxious and not be able to sleep. And then you have to chill out and then you don't have any business and then it happens again. So just managing like learning how to first of all, staying in the game and then just learning how to manage your own emotions, like just be more self aware. That's my biggest thing right now. Like I'm I'm taking a step back.
I'm not really looking to buy something hardcore right now. I'm like, get my shit together. Yeah. To get ready for the next hopefully next step, buying bigger things than houses. Man, I love it. Well, with that said, David Greene. For those who want to learn more about your story, tell us where people can find out more about you.
Sure. So we're a lot heavier in social media these days. Philly real estate boss on Instagram. I've linked in our new website, which is almost done, will be done in a week or two, limitless r e dot com. And so Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, mainly the Instagram, I think is worth posting most often. Just start to tick tock, which is also feeling, you know. So I think they'll be more fun stuff on there in the near future.
Those are the main channels. All right, very cool. Well, that said, it's time to get out of here. David Greene, you want to close down shop? I appreciate you, Rodney. It's been a great show.
Thank you so much. Appreciate both of you. Thanks, Randi. It was awesome talking to you and thanks for sharing your knowledge. I think it's going to do a lot of people a lot of good. This is David Greene for Brandon, the Bruce Hacker Turner signing off.
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