The Professionalist Real Estate Investing Podcast
The Professionalist Real Estate Investing Podcast will help individuals get into investing in real estate and provide you with the knowledge and skills to accomplish your goals. We will be discussing all different aspects of investing, such as tools and tips to guide you through the steps. We will be having experts in the real estate field, syndicators and people with an abundance of knowledge who have succeeded in investing. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
The Professionalist Real Estate Investing Podcast
Networking Like a Pro: Mike Liddicoat's Secrets to Building Connections
Discover the inspiring journey of Michael Liddicoat, who turned his family's architectural roots and a major sports complex development into a thriving real estate career. Learn how Mike overcame the challenges of juggling a W-2 job with his real estate ambitions and emerged successful through networking platforms like BiggerPockets. His story is a powerful reminder of the importance of persistence and finding the right niche within the real estate landscape.
Gain exclusive insights from seasoned realtor Michael, who shares his unique E-A-R-N approach to client commitment. Michael breaks down his method of educating clients, advocating for their best interests, referring them to trusted professionals, and negotiating effectively on their behalf. His proven strategies for setting clear expectations and demonstrating value have resulted in impressive client conversion rates that any real estate professional can emulate.
Lastly, we discuss creative problem-solving in real estate transactions and the significant impact of surrounding oneself with goal-oriented individuals. Hear real-life examples of how understanding sellers' unique needs can create win-win situations, and appreciate the heartfelt gratitude extended to the uplifting community of real estate investors. This episode is packed with valuable lessons and motivating stories that showcase the transformative potential of real estate investment.
If you would like to get ahold of Michael Liddicoat you can email him at michael@dissectingthedeal.com. This is the best way to contact him .
Podcast Intro
Welcome everybody to the Professionalist Real Estate Investing Podcast. I'm with Mike Lidicote. I pronounced that right. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Mike, yep, yep, I'm doing great. Thank you very much for having me on, tony, no problem.
Speaker 1:No problem, I just wanted to get you in before I go on my little vacation. But I just want to talk to you about how did you get into real estate, what's your little background as to from where you started to basically where you're at, where you're at now?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, uh, how I got started, uh, I grew up the son of an architect, so a lot of dinner table discussion around, you know, buildings and permits and cities and counties and those sorts of stuff, um. So you know, when I got into my twenties I didn't realize that it wasn't normal for people to not know how to read a blueprint. It was kind of my first introduction to job sites and that sort of stuff. But where I really got into real estate was my parents were doing development work and they found what eventually became I think it's like 140 or 160 acres for a sports complex development, and they met the people and got the deals in place and did all the stuff. And at the last minute they brought in a realtor to go and sign all the paperwork and get everything done. And then they saw the size of that commission check that that guy did and they're like, wait a minute, we did all the work, we did all the hustle and he's going to get how much? And so my mom called me up and said, hey, this is what just happened. We think you should go get your real estate license so that if we ever have that happen again, you can. You know we can, we can keep that in the family. And I was like fantastic, which, by the way, never happened again, like that didn't come to fruition. Yeah, one deal one time. I mean I don't know how many other times. They were expecting to do 160 acre deal for a major sports complex, but it happened that one time and that was it.
Speaker 2:So I went and go through and in Washington state, once you get your license you have to go into a brokerage. And so I found a nice easy brokerage to go into and started learning a little bit about buyer's agency and listing and all that sort of stuff. And I was still working W-2 and things at the time and I well, I guess I'll put this caveat in I never, while I had my real estate license, was not a W-2 employee or a 1099 employee for somebody else, so it was something I did on the side. But I was able to consistently, with that real estate license, make anywhere from 20 and $40,000 a year in additional income by doing that. So I'm going out and I'm doing these things right. Like I didn't have my first commission for six months, like it was just brutal and struggling. The brokerage is giving me leads off of Zillow.
Speaker 2:I'm going out and meeting with people showing up to property at 7am on Sunday and I was like this sucks, like there was no other way to say it, like I was just not cut out for that type of real estate of, you know, being a commodity and, you know, just hoping people answer the drip campaign and everything else just was not for me. So I start looking into well, what else can I do with my real estate license. And that's when I discovered BiggerPockets. So I mainlined BiggerPockets. And I then go to my Rotary Club, which I was a part of, and I start talking to a couple of guys and just like, hey, do you own property? Are you someone who does this sort of stuff? And like, yeah, I totally do. And so I talked to enough people that I was like, well, I would like to help with that. I have this real estate license, I have access to these things. If I were to like start underwriting or looking at properties and sending those out with that, would that be a value? And they said, yeah, so that was how I built.
Speaker 2:My first buyers list was that I went through people I knew and people that were in clubs I was a part of and said, hey, I'm doing this thing and for probably about two or three months I just cut my teeth by going to the MLS every single morning and I would look at what are the new properties and I would underwrite them. And at the time BiggerPockets had a free calculator that you could go on and they didn't care how many you used. So I would go in, I would just start plugging away on the properties and just putting them in and doing this and I'd send it out. And then guys would start to reply to me and they'd say, hey, I noticed that in your calculation you were only using 5% for maintenance costs for me on a home of this age. I'd really like you to look at 10% of what that would look like. And I was going oh okay, wait a minute. So now I understand that different investors have different criteria for what they're looking at. There's not a universal standard. Each of them has different tolerances.
Speaker 2:So then I started to go like oh okay, let me start, you know, drilling down on this list. And I started going like oh okay, if I'm going to send this over to Charlie, I need to make sure that it's got these numbers on here, because these are Charlie's numbers in order to make it work and what that looks like. And that started to get me traction and started getting me some deals closed as a real estate agent looking at stuff. And then I was going like, well, what else could I be doing? Like, how else can I use this license? What can I go on? And then I was like, oh well, meetups Like my challenge continues to be that I still am not getting enough look at off-market properties. I'm still not, you know, getting a wide enough network of people that I know. So I was like, great, I'll start a meetup and I'll start doing that.
Speaker 2:And I ran a meetup for three and a half years, just before up until COVID. We tried doing the online meetup thing and it just wasn't as interactive. We didn't still have the same thing. But for three years, every single month, I got between 30 and 50 people into a room together. We talked about a deal and I said, hey, we're going to dissect this, we're going to look at this and we would break down what made the deal good or bad, why people would or wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2:And then I would encourage people like, hey, if you're interested in this, this is live Like you can come. You know, ask me I'll, I'll help you with it. And then I had a lot and they were trying to come in. So then I would use my access to the National Association of Realtors stuff to start pull like here are expired listings for them, here are some for sale by owners, here let me do the comps for you so that when you're doing things out in the hopes that they would recommend me to get the list back or other sorts of stuff that I was doing. And so that was again that it took a while to get going, but it was establishing me as authority within the area of what to do. And I started getting people saying oh, I know so-and-so, can they get added to your, to your buyers list that you're sending properties to? I heard from so-and-so that you ran this. I am looking for properties in that market. Can we have a conversation? And just started developing those relationships and doing that.
Speaker 2:And so then COVID hit, real estate kind of died down for a little bit in our market just because people were buying homes and so all of a sudden the prices just were going through the roof and finding a deal was next to impossible of what we could do, moved out here to Tulsa, oklahoma, and discovered that it's a very different prospect out here. The thing that blew my mind really was the fact not only things were a little bit cheaper, but that complex strategies were very easy to explain to homeowners. I wrote a letter to a homeowner. It was just like hey, I noticed that you guys are trying to leave. Sounds like you guys have work. Your property's been on market for this number of days. Are you open to me taking over payments, doing something creative that I can help you with?
Speaker 2:And my response rate on those was like 80, 90% of people going like, yeah, we totally would be into that, that's something we let's discuss it, let's talk about it. I was like, oh geez, this is great, that's something we let's discuss it, let's talk about it. I was like, oh geez, this is great. So it's gotten much more over the last year, more competitive in this market, because people have figured out, like they do all the time. You know what are small markets and how to go about them.
Speaker 2:But what I've also done is I've started keeping in touch with some of the people I know and getting referred to people, and I'm doing a lot of underwriting and JVs right now. So people are saying, hey, your boots on the ground in that market, could you go take a look at this property, figure out what it is and let us know if the numbers make sense? Because we're out of state and we're trying to do this. So I've got a couple of guys right now that they have a bunch of 1031s they're looking to place and so they're saying, hey, here's our criteria, let us know what this looks like. And we're trying to figure out what that could look like as an opportunity for them, but also as an opportunity for me to help them.
Speaker 2:And then, before the call we were talking about, like, I found 101 units single family portfolio that I'm doing the due diligence on right now to try and figure out, like, okay, is this even really a deal? Because every realtor that lists one of these things thinks it's gold. And I've got to sort through it and go it's fool's. Gold is what it is because of X, y and Z. Wow. So that's been my journey up through here. Wow.
Speaker 1:That's a lot to take in. So, first of all, shout out to BiggerPockets, the biggest investing platform online in and about, because there's so many different resources that come from there. I use it all the time also, yeah. And then I see how you leverage your real estate license. So you got your real estate license, so you got your real estate license and you leverage these like how more can I use it than helping a person buy or sell a house? You use it actually into networking. I do the same thing too. I actually you have more avenues when you have your real estate license to get into different, to get in different areas, and that's that's to me, that's a, that's a huge plus. I mean because there's certain stuff that people can get for free, but then when you're a realtor.
Speaker 1:It changes the game a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Well, and I would go tell other realtors that were trying to become investor friendly. I was like, do you know that you have access to this thing called NAR, rprcom or org I can't remember what it ends in, but it's like that is a national MLS listing. It has everything, including tax records and property records and all this other sort of stuff, and so I would show that in demos to other realtors or to investors. I was working. I was like, well, let's run the numbers here. And they're like this is amazing, how did you get this? I was like, well, it's free because I paid my dues, so I'm just going to leverage this tech in order to find out more info and get a leg up on the other people that are spending their time in coffee shops trying to say would you please let me add you to my email list? Yes, email list. So for me, it was all about adding value. The other thing that you and your audience might be interested about that I did that was something to help was I did the thing we're all told we're not to do when we're in sales roles, which is like I over explained everything to everybody when I started to work with them and, like I said, the reason I did that was because I was always a W2 or 1099 employee while I had my license. And everybody tells you real estate's a volume game. Well, if it's a volume game, but I only have 10 to 15 hours a week that I can do work. I don't want to go open doors for people that aren't serious buyers or that if I open the door for them and they're like well, we didn't want to buy that. Again, you and I have had this experience. Michael, I'm not interested in that house because the third bedroom was pink. Yes, I was like I will buy the paint. Like, if that is the reason we're not buying this, I will buy the paint to cover that up. Like that. That should not be the defining factor, but that's what I was running into.
Speaker 2:So what I did is I started creating this, this pattern that I came up with in the script. That would, depending on how it went, would be like the first time I met somebody. The first 20 to 40 minutes of me meeting with them was me talking at them and it shouldn't have worked, but it did, and what I would do is I would say hey, I just want a baseline level check with you. Do you understand how I get paid, like as a realtor, helping you? Do you understand how this is going to work, whether it's an investment transaction, a residential transaction, commercial? Do you understand how I make my money? And they would say like, oh yeah, the seller contributes that. And I was like that's how I get the cash, but that's not how I would become your agent.
Speaker 2:So what I do is I have to earn what I do E-A-R-N. I have to educate you, I have to be an advocate for you, I have to refer you when I don't know the answer or it's not my specialty, and the very last thing I have to do is negotiate on your behalf. And each of those, like I, had breakdowns and examples of everything. Like you know, educating is like hey, man, you're going to do four transactions in your lifetime. I'm going to do four a month. So I need to make sure that you understand all the parts and pieces that move, how they go through, because the last time you bought is very different than the market that we're in today. And I want to let you know what's normal, what's happening. Advocating is, again, this is a weird thing that's happening. This is a normal thing that's happening. If you're comfortable with weird, here's the consequences of that. If you're comfortable with normal, here's the consequences of that. And just give them like, hey, pro and con this for you. This is what is going on. Refer.
Speaker 2:I was always like here are three people I want you to go interview all three of them. They're all great roofers. You need the roof inspected, you need somebody to give you opinion. I should not be doing that, but here's the deal, here's the question. I want you to ask each of them and it would be topical, right, like you know ask them about. You know you don't like any of those three. I'll give you another three to call.
Speaker 2:Like I'll happily do that, but I don't want you to just pick somebody, because my whole thing with referring was I never, as a business, want to put you in a situation where you get to say Michael told me to. What I want you to say is Michael gave me the options and he explained what was good and bad, and then I picked the outcome. And again my reasoning, I would tell him, is like I don't have to live with those consequences. Yes, like I get to get paid, I get to move on, but you have to live with this investment property. You have to take on the consequences of what's going to happen when you get into rehab and start pulling stuff out of walls and other stuff. Like that is solely you, and I don't want you to have a bad taste in your mouth because I showed you the property and you went through the deal Like that is. That is the worst thing that can happen. So let's bring in a pro that can give you great advice and do that.
Speaker 2:And then again, the last thing to negotiate was all right, let's go in. We can offer, you know, 20 grand under, but at the rate the way the properties and the market is right now, we're going to piss them off and we're not going to have a response. So here are some other tactics we can go in with to try and see if we can knock them down, because we know that it is overpriced. But it would be to have those negotiating conversations with them in order to again show the value. And, like I said, that was the first 20 to 40 minutes of meeting anybody, regardless of what they were using before, whether it was commercial, whether it was residential, whether it was small investment, wholesaling, whatever I would tell them that 80% of the time, people would say yes, I want you to be our realtor, I want you to be the guy helping me with doing this, even if they were already working with another agent. And how I would get over the other agent issue is they would say well, we're working with so-and-so and I'd say great, they're a wonderful agent.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you two questions. First, did you sign a buyer's agency or did you sign an agreement with them, a listing agreement or whatever it is? Did you sign something with them already? The answer is yes. I was like great, I want you to see that through, because I would feel terrible if anybody was stealing my clients. But I want you to see that through.
Speaker 2:The only thing I want to tell you is that, like, if you feel there's a night and day difference between the service level that you're getting, I would encourage you, as a customer, to go demand the things that I'm promising you from your current person, and if they're unwilling to do that, then you know you can see about getting out of that and coming to work with me. But I I believe that everybody should have like especially if you've signed a contract with somebody, go see that through to the end, like, follow through with that. That is, that is what I'd encourage you to do. And then, if they said, no, you know, like we've, we've walked through a couple of houses with uh, you know, with Tony and we've taken a look at this I'd say, okay, great. So here in Washington state, if you haven't one, because I am going to invest in you, I'm going to put the time and energy in, so you're going to. I need you to commit to me because I'm going to commit to looking for you and helping you and doing the things that you want to do. Is that a commitment you're willing to make? And they have, none of them had a problem signing the agreement. They were all just like, yep, totally bought in.
Speaker 2:They would tell the things that we hear from other agents right, like, oh, this, uh, this agent was, uh, they've got me on a drip. I occasionally see emails. They call me on Sundays, ask if I want to go look at a property. Um, or the investors would get the one of like man. My agent called me up and was like hey, there's a duplex. It's for sale for half a million, but it brings in $2,000 a month. That sounds like a good deal. We should go look at that. And you're just going no, you should not waste my time with that. That is absolutely not something I want to go take a look at because the money doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:So that was again trying to make sure that I was efficient in the use of that time. And for those 20% that didn't want to work with me, I was happy to see them go, because either they did not like they were, they were set in how the market was and what they knew and their knowledge, and I was never going to convince them. So, no matter what, how I advocated for them, negotiated on their behalf like they were the ones that were going to make the decisions, and that's just not the way that I wanted to do business. And then the other ones were like boy, this seems like this guy's a talker. He's got a lot of effort. I'm like yep, if you don't like me, we're probably not going to be good for doing business with each other, because the way I'm educating you now is the way I'm going to educate you through the entire process. So if you're already tired of me talking after 20 minutes, you don't want to be with me for the next two months, two years, while we go through this process.
Speaker 1:No, and I love what you said about right there, because that's the way I am with clients too. You tell them everything up front. You're honest with them, yeah, respect them, and you tell them, like, well, we can go from this position or we can go from this, but you show them. You show them exactly what the options are. I always say that if you show a person options and everything about what they can and can't do, and then their perspective changes, nine times out of 10, they're going to stay with you, just like that 20% that left you didn't need them the 80%, of course, because you brought so much value to them. Like, hold on, we feel confident in you, we feel confident in Mike helping us find us a place or selling a place, and that right there, what their mindset and everything that makes them feel more comfortable, and it's like a genuine feel. It's definitely a genuine feeling, especially when you express it to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and so that was a pattern that I developed. Like I told you my first six months as an agent terrible, horrible, like didn't close a single commission, didn't do anything. And then I discovered this like pattern, this explanation to people that first year I was rookie of the year at the brokerage Like I think I did 2.5 or 2.8 million in that last six months. You know of going through stuff, and it was uh and and we were in a tertiary market.
Speaker 2:So some, some people listening out may be like well, 2 million is not hard to do in my market. It was like, well, at the time when the average home sale price was between one 50 and one 80, like that was that was a lot of hustle, that was that was a lot of good. But that was for me like again, how do I, how do I make something systematized? Like, how do I develop a new habit for me so that I can get in front of more ideal people that I want to talk to, rather than a bunch of looky-loos or other sorts of people that are just going to waste my time and kick tires?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, wow, you've come a long ways.
Speaker 2:How long have you been in this? So that was 20, I want to say that that was 2015. Because I got my initial license and then I went and got my managing broker's license because there was some investors contacted me. They were thinking about buying a brokerage for the property management side and they said, hey, we want somebody that can do this. And I said, all right, I'll go get my managing broker's license.
Speaker 2:So passed that test and, for those of you in Washington State, that is the scariest test I've ever taken, is it? Oh, it is terrible, because most tests they are like, hey, if you get it right, you get it wrong, it's no big big deal. But theirs is a multiple choice of, like here, what are the things you should do and you can. You can get every answer right, but then you also lose points if you put on wrong things. So you can walk out of there having given every single answer, but if you gave too many wrong answers into in addition to it, you can still fail the test.
Speaker 2:And I have not, since college, woken up with sweats about, like you know, trying to figure out what is that, and they're very, like you know, ethical and also like process driven questions about stuff, and so, yeah, it was a nightmare of a test. And when I moved to Oklahoma, they do not have reciprocity with Washington State, so I had to close out my license, and so for the last two years, I've just been a knowledgeable investor working with other people.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is crazy. I didn't know it was that deep for that test right there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. So is there any obstacles, like huge obstacles, that you had to endure while you're here in your journey with real estate investing?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, the challenge for me was that I was in a small market.
Speaker 2:I was in a tertiary market with a surrounding area of between 150 and 200,000 people when you really opened up the map on what properties were out there. So at that time it was a tertiary market that was a farming community, so traditional historical appreciation was just that consistent inside of that market. So 2015 comes along. Things are starting to change a little bit. 2016 things start getting a little wider. 2017, 2018 things are just like.
Speaker 2:I walked out of one property that was an estate sale and I made an offer to the family and I had done all my math and everything and they said, no, thank you, that's not an offer that we're interested in. I was like, oh, that's a bummer. I thought I made a really good, compelling offer and it went on market later for $150,000 more than my offer had been and I started calling all of my realtor friends. I was like I want you to go to this open house, I want you to look at it because the home looked like the Brady Bunch had lived there yesterday. There were no improvements to it, granted great square footage, but it was a 1970s home that mom and dad had never made any improvements to Great square footage, did have a pool, had a great view, all that sort of stuff. But there was so much that my wife and I were like, oh, we're going to have to make lots of improvements to it. Every one of my real estate friends went and looked at it and they're like, yeah, it's way overpriced. Like, this is not going to go for that. This is not normal. I don't know what they were thinking. It sold for $20,000 over asking. Wow. And that's when I knew my radar was off. That's when I was like the market is doing something weird versus the math that is going on. And that is when I started to have struggles with understanding some of the comps and things that were going on, because I'm like now I'm making a wild ass guess, like now I have no historical precedence for what is happening and what's going on.
Speaker 2:You were seeing a lot of people that were claiming it was out of state investors that were coming in, but in reality at that point it was pre-COVID. You were seeing people retire out of very good markets like California, selling their homes, that were getting these massive appreciations and they can afford to go and pay all cash and they're looking at it going like do you know what 1,500 square foot was costing me in my market? You know that was half a million dollars and I can get it here for 300. I'll happily pay $40,000 over asking because I want this house. It's perfect for me, it's ideal, and that was more what I was seeing inside of the market.
Speaker 2:That was really the challenge, especially for people that I was representing that were looking to purchase homes. I would just have to tell them like this market is crazy, and I only want to tell you that if you want to move forward, you have to be willing to be a little crazy in order to do this. And what's going on. It helped when, like, rates started to come down. That made things a little bit more achievable for them. But on the investor side, that was also the point where we were just I was just telling people like at my meetups. I remember going like OK, average home is selling for one hundred and ten of asking price and it's sitting on market for 40 days. That's time it's listed to time it's closed. So I don't know what to tell any of you guys. If you're looking on market for stuff like it's that, don't like, just hold on to your cash, don't try anything If you're looking for on market, like invest in off market stuff and go go find the fix and flip, or go make friends with a wholesaler who wants to do it for you. Um, but that that was the.
Speaker 2:The biggest thing for me was that, again, not having control of the market and the things that were going on, and then having people just skew data and skew results by coming in and having unreasonable like abilities to make offers on stuff that that people I was working with just they weren't going to be able to do. That it was great for my sellers, right Like when we were listing properties. It was just like, well, this is fantastic. I'm I again. I'm going to put a wild ass guess out here and we're going to. I'm going to do my math and now I'm going to say, hey, based on appreciation, I'm seeing that things in this market are going for 15% above. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to go 15% over and we would still get an additional two or three grand above what I had put, because the demand was just that high.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said about that, especially here in California, like there's that appreciation. I mean so many people left out of California because the appreciation of what they got from homes it was crazy. People were buying, right, people were selling so many homes, they were buying and selling so many. It was just crazy here because I know a lot of them did go to the Midwest, oklahoma, texas. I know some, I know friends that went to South Carolina, north Carolina, virginia and living like kings because what the price is here and what you can get there in the Midwest and the South.
Speaker 2:You're living in a palace. Oh yeah, no, I've got family. They've lived for probably 30, 35 years in a house in a major market on the West Coast and they're looking at it going like, oh, we're going to sell this thing and we're going to be able to buy for cash you know our, our downsized dream home and still have money left over because of the appreciation that this market has had and they're like it's a, it's a nice house. And again, looking at the markets that I'm in now, I'm like, yeah, it's, it's okay, it's fine, but in that market the, the square footage, the location, the, everything else like it's. I bet it's one of those that you know the stories out of California they probably bought it for, you know, 150, 180, and they're going to sell it for 1.8, 2 million.
Speaker 1:You know, yes. And then, with with everything that you've accomplished and what you have going on right now, my main question I love to ask is your mindset. What got you to the right mindset, to where you're at right now?
Speaker 2:Oh, the a hundred percent of the mindset that got me to where I need is, uh, the abundance mindset, right, like there are not enough people to tackle deals, there are not enough funds to bring down every deal, and there is. There is always an opportunity in everything. Every one that I talked to, um, I met a wholesaler who really helped me with that. He was telling me about this terrible deal. Like he, he's got it there. The mom wants to get out of it. She's got a granddaughter but the son is living at it because he's got, you know, drug and gang friends that are hanging out there and stuff, and she, she just wants out of it, she doesn't want to be there.
Speaker 2:And I was just going. Well, so what did you do? He's like Michael, I was able to get that hat, like I would not have picked it up or anything else except what she wanted. What her desire was was she wanted to go travel the country with her granddaughter. So I bought them an RV and I was able to get that house for the cost of a used RV with gas in it that she could drive out. That day she signed the paperwork, I gave her the keys and I got that property and then all I had to do was put it at the eviction notice, get the police out, do all this sort of stuff, and I was just going. That is some next level creative thinking.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Mike to that On how to do that. Uh, well, again, that wasn't me. That was one of the wholesalers I was working with and I was just like that is incredible. But him bringing that to my attention was like, oh, that's right, there has to be a positive outcome for every opportunity in front of you. Like there, there is a win-win for everybody. Sometimes the other person doesn't want to give you the win, like they're not actually open to help or they're just so out of touch with what things are going on. But if you educated them enough, if you gave them every opportunity, if you gave them the pros and cons, and the worst thing they can say about you is like yeah, you know, tony gave me all these options and he gave me a price and it just was the right price. But he then said I can give him a call anytime if I change my mind. Like word gets around about you know you, you doing business that way versus burning bridges and blowing people up and, you know, yelling at people for not, you know, for being dumb and not knowing the thing. Like that was the change for me of just like, okay, anytime I'm talking to somebody. Uh, there, there has to be an ability to create a win for both sides and what we're looking for.
Speaker 2:I helped a guy with an underwriting on a property recently. It was storage and multifamily and single family all on. I think it was like two or three acres or something like that and through my rapport building with the realtor I discovered that the owner was in his 80s, his wife was significantly younger than him and he was open to creative finance, but he didn't want to do these long creative finances that everybody else wanted. He wanted short-term creative finance is what he was looking for because he knew he wasn't going to be around for much longer and he wanted to live long enough to see that the funds went to his wife and that she was taken care of and he didn't have to worry about her. So I presented that to the team that was making the deal and putting together. I was like guys, here's how you're going to win. You've just got to make sure that whatever terms you want, he will. He will for sure accept them. The agent even gave me the price on what he was like I'm pretty sure we can be accepted at this which I think was like three or something like that 3 million. I was like I'm pretty sure we can get it for this price. I'm pretty sure they will accept any terms you give, as long as you make the balloon within 24 months. I'm pretty sure they will go for anything you guys want to do. And here's what that looks like.
Speaker 2:So the property had been on market for months. The guy had been getting a bunch of offers, but again people wanted five, 10 year balloons, all that sort of stuff, and the guy just wasn't having any of it. So they went in, they made an offer. That was, I think they did, two and a half years is what they got him up to, but they still were within that timeline of what they wanted to do. They gave him just a little bit of money but then financed everything else and they've just got to go in and up the rent rolls.
Speaker 2:They've got to remove a couple of tenants outside of the storage side, but he's also got like one of the only storage facilities. So they're just going to do that marketing thing of like okay, great, over the next, you know, six months, we're just going to keep raising them until we get to. Right now they're at a hundred and they were at 130% capacity, meaning that they had a wait list of people looking to come in. Yeah, and so they were like we've already got plenty of built up capacity. It's like, all right, so we're going to start escalating the pricing until we get to 90% capacity, because then we can accept anybody that comes in, that then we're also at good market rates for where we need to be.
Speaker 2:And they have an NOI, so that once they do that, the bank will look at the income ratio and what they're doing on the storage units and the properties and go, yeah, of course, like you guys tied this up for three you need a balloon of 2.8. Okay, that's a no brainer, because based on your revenue income, even if we give you that loan, your debt to income, and uh, what you're doing is going to be like, uh, I think they got it up to when we did the calculation like a 2.2 or 2.5, like there's no lender out there that's not going to take that to a debt to coverage ratio. Like they're absolutely going to do that. So, yeah, that was again.
Speaker 2:Property that was sitting on market wasn't moving, nobody was. You know, the realtor was getting frustrated because he wanted to do this deal for this guy and then just saying great. So what is the win? How do we make this a win for your client? Let me go back to my team and see if we can make this a win for them as well. What does that look like? And it is just that attitude of abundance. There's always a positive outcome for everybody that I work with. If there isn't one, it's not because I didn't try. It's because they didn't want to do business with me, and that's also okay.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. Yes, I love that. I mean to me mindset's everything. It changes everything about you, the way you are, the way you feel, your daily activities when it comes to work, comes to people, communication, it's just to take. It's an abundance of things and then people can feel that energy, that positive energy you have and, especially with you. I can already tell from the energy that you have and positiveness energy you have, and, especially with you, I can already tell from the energy that you have and positiveness like that, that 20%. You didn't need them, like I said before, because that 80% yeah, you know you're not going to.
Speaker 1:I tell people, you're not going to win every, you're not going to win everything. But you know, if you always say like, even if you change one person's life, right, that that's, that's huge, that's huge, and I see that you're helping a lot of lives, especially around your community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and at the height of what I was doing in my community back home, like, yeah, I was an avid Rotarian, I was involved in the theater community, I was involved in a lot of other organizations like United Way and other stuff. I was just constantly giving back to the community and doing that. But that was also one of those things of like, hey, I'm a, you know, I'm a person that does do these things and I do give back and I want other people to be educated. Part of why we're talking today is, you know, I want people to know things because the more people know when they come and do business with me, the less work I have to do in order to keep them educated. And then I just get to help more people that want the help.
Speaker 2:Like that was the other mind shift. Stuff was like the people that need me may not know that they need me, but, man, if I can explain to them what I do well enough, then they will. They will appreciate that and they'll, they'll be more likely to do business with me. Or again, worst case scenario, they're like, man, this guy talked to us for 40 minutes about all the stuff he's going to do for us and he was going to offer to do these things and I can't believe that somebody would do that. And you know what, what a jerk to assume that I wouldn't. Would need his help negotiating and stuff. They'll figure out another solution, exactly, exactly. What's the best way for people to reach?
Speaker 1:you, because I know people are going to be listening to this thing like I need to get a hold of Mike because he's just an inspiration himself.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely Best way to get a hold of me is direct to my email michaelatdissectingthedealcom. That is the email I check daily and, uh, I still have people from uh you know, over a decade ago uh reaching out to ask for help and get uh information stuff. So always happy to help people through that.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll, I'll definitely put that in the notes and everything. And, and is there any? Do you do an investor type meetup? Also, do you have, uh, anything going on with that that that people would make?
Speaker 2:Not right now. It's not something that I'm doing at the moment. I'm attending other people's meetups and doing those. You run one for three years and I'll tell you this meetups are not the way to get rich. Nobody is getting into the meetup game in order to make a side income, just like they're not getting into podcasting to to blow up that way. Um, so I am happy now to just go and be a participant and go in and meet new people and go do those sorts of things. Um, uh, yeah, that's, that's been my philosophy for the last couple of years, but I do occasionally have that itch of wanting to control the room a little bit and be like we are wasting some time here. Can we get on to the next? Exactly right?
Speaker 1:Well, it was an honor and a pleasure for you, mike, to be on the podcast. I can't wait to put this out and everything. And yes, I love everything that you've done helping with people and you're just an inspiration. You've been an inspiration to me because I love just being around people who have goals in their life and they want to make the world a better place.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Well, again, thanks for having me on and yeah, I'm always happy to talk with anybody, especially when it comes to real estate.
Speaker 1:Great Thank you so much and on that note we are out here. Thank you everybody for listening to this podcast of the Professor's Real Estate Investing Podcast. Y'all have a great day.