100 Units Through Discipline And Wholesaling

00:00:02:16 - 00:00:12:10

Mark (Guest)

If you've never done an owner financing thing or anything like that or, you know, there's some resistance, like, I'm going to tell you the exact strategy that I use.

00:00:13:07 - 00:00:30:00

Jarred (Host)

All right, everybody, welcome to episode two of the Wholster Real Estate Wholesaling Podcast. Today we have a really special guest- expert real estate investor, professional traveler, and our co-founder here at Wholster, Mr. Mark Owens. How are you today, Mark?

00:00:30:23 - 00:00:36:03

Mark (Guest)

Yeah. Hey, thanks for that introduction, man. I didn't. I didn't know you were such a good liar.

00:00:37:12 - 00:00:39:07

Jarred (Host)

We can do cheering. (sound effect plays) There it is.

00:00:40:21 - 00:01:01:13

Mark (Guest)

Yeah. So, man, everything is good. I just. I'm, like, really excited to talk about this stuff, man. This has been a lot of hard work and hours, you know, with you and the rest of the development team putting, you know, so much time into this. And it's just like I am beyond excited about it. Cause you guys have done such an amazing job.

00:01:02:13 - 00:01:18:07

Jarred (Host)

Well, thanks. We're going to have to hold that excitement because we want to hear other things from you. You have a long history of real estate investment, and I think a lot of that could be value to our listeners. So let's start there. Where did you get into real estate investing?

00:01:19:08 - 00:01:41:17

Mark (Guest)

Okay, way back, way, way back, 2000. Near 2000. I was in the IT business and I was making pretty, you know, really good money at the time, for the time. And for me, I was making 130-150 a year or somewhere in that range. And over the previous couple of years and for the next couple of years, I was just saving, saving, saving my money.

00:01:43:08 - 00:02:06:15

Mark (Guest)

And around 2001, I got out of the stock market just because that's just like a roller coaster. I really didn't like it. And I was trying to figure out where to invest my money. And I had about 130,000 in the bank. And back then around 2001, 2002 the lenders, you know, the banks required 10% down. And you pay the, you know, the closing costs, obviously.

00:02:07:08 - 00:02:32:10

Mark (Guest)

And so I got this, you know, great idea. Like I'm going to start buying rental properties. And my goal originally was just to make it so that if I lost my job because I said something politically incorrect or whatever, because I do that, and I was always afraid I was gonna lose my job for saying something stupid. And I thought, you know, or if I get hit by a car or something, you know, if something happens, get a medical issue.

00:02:33:00 - 00:02:49:13

Mark (Guest)

So I just wanted to make enough money off the rentals to just pay my basic living expenses in the event that I wasn't able to work because my wife wasn't working at the time. We just had a son in 1999. She wanted to stay home for a few years and, you know, raise him and so I had a lot of pressure.

00:02:49:13 - 00:03:06:10

Mark (Guest)

I was, you know, we were one income household and we were making decent money. And, you know, I just had to figure out somewhere to invest the money that that saved. And so I started buying the rentals. My first one was a three unit with a big garage in a neighborhood that I grew up in in Baltimore City.

00:03:06:23 - 00:03:27:23

Mark (Guest)

And it was $75,000 and it was rented. Now, the prices were you know, the rents were a lot lower back then as well. But I'd put together a spreadsheet where I just wanted to analyze my rentals and I was looking for a 30% cash on cash return and that property fit my model. And then I bought another and another and another.

00:03:27:23 - 00:03:51:00

Mark (Guest)

And I started to realize that, I mean, if I keep doing this, like after, you know, ten, 11, 12, 13 houses, I'm going to run out of money. Mm hmm. I'm still saving money, but eventually you're going to run out. And so I started flipping houses. I took a seminar, weekend seminar that I started flipping houses with a business partner and, you know, in the whole goal of that was just to make money to buy more rentals.

00:03:51:02 - 00:03:57:02

Mark (Guest)

It wasn't a good buy, you know, an expensive car and a big house. It was just, I want to buy more rentals. You know, I'm looking for the passive income.

00:03:57:02 - 00:04:00:11

Jarred (Host)

I started this in 99. And where are we at now in this timeline?

00:04:01:17 - 00:04:03:19

Mark (Guest)

This is 2002 I bought my first property.

00:04:03:20 - 00:04:05:00

Jarred (Host)

2002 Okay.

00:04:05:08 - 00:04:22:02

Mark (Guest)

Yeah. So a little over 20 years ago. I think I settled like March 1st, 2002 and then so then I started, you know, doing these renovations. And one of the things like I'm not really good at renovations, like I do a good job, but I just don't like doing it. You know, once the house is done, I would just want to sell it.

00:04:22:02 - 00:04:39:23

Mark (Guest)

I don't even care if I break even. Like I'm just tired of it, you know? I'm just like, burnt out. So. And I always had this fear, like, now what if nobody buys my house? Then what? And I one day I got this, like, you know, great idea. Well, I guess I could just, like, you know, rent it out to somebody and refinance it and keep it.

00:04:41:14 - 00:05:02:08

Mark (Guest)

And then I took that a step further and said, well, instead of buying properties to renovate and sell, what if I buy them to renovate and keep if I can do that the right way, there was now it's called the BRRR method. I actually I think I invented it. I never heard of it. You know, when, when I figured that out like I had never heard of anybody doing that.

00:05:02:08 - 00:05:29:16

Mark (Guest)

Yeah. And it was probably a couple of months later I bought a 15 unit building that had eight vacant apartments that needed significant amount of renovation, and it had seven storefronts, which I actually still own. And, and so I bought that used hard money. Used hard money for the renovation, filled it up with tenants, and then refinanced it out and paid my lender back and ended up with a 15 unit building with a couple hundred thousand dollars in equity, zero out-of-pocket.

00:05:29:16 - 00:05:57:18

Mark (Guest)

That cash flowed, I don't remember now, but maybe 1500 a month or something like that. Now this is again, you're looking at 2005, 2006 numbers. So the rents were a lot lower, but, you know, money got a lot further back then as well. So the so once I figured that out and I proved that model actually worked, my business took off, as you know, after that I got a 10 unit, I got an 18 unit, I got a 14 unit, I got a 13 unit, a 7 unit, a whole bunch of houses.

00:05:58:05 - 00:06:27:20

Mark (Guest)

And I bought probably 100 doors with zero out-of-pocket. And sold most of them last year. But that's that's the way that I was able to scale was using the BRRRR method. It was somewhere around 2005 that I met a guy that was wholesaling and I actually met him on uh, they used to have these real estate investor Association cruises where you go on a freaking cruise in the Caribbean with a few hundred real estate investors, and they get seminars, especially sales pitches.

00:06:27:20 - 00:06:50:16

Mark (Guest)

But I met a lot of really wonderful people on that, and one of the guys was a wholesaler and we ended up talking after we got off the boat, you know, a couple weeks later, he was a Baltimore local and he was already successfully doing it. And I really didn't understand the business that well. I'd actually taken a weekend course on wholesaling, but at the time it still didn't make any sense to me.

00:06:51:11 - 00:07:07:17

Mark (Guest)

Like the house is worth 100 grand, you're going to sell it for 50. Like it just didn't make any sense and but it happens. And so he was already wholesaling. So I asked him, I said his name was Dave and I said, David, listen, I'm just curious, man. You know, I own a bunch of rentals got money in the bank.

00:07:07:22 - 00:07:32:11

Mark (Guest)

You know, I've got a crew, people to do work and all that stuff. Would you be interested in partnering up? And to my surprise, he said yes. And the my wife, this was I can't remember what year it was probably around 2005, 2006 might have been 2004 actually. And my wife was she was home, but she started going back to school to become a nurse.

00:07:32:11 - 00:07:53:20

Mark (Guest)

And she had a nurse job that, you know, she'd graduated in, she was graduating in the fall semester. And she had a job. She was going to start in January and I think ah, she started out at like little over 50,000. So I'm doing the math and I'm thinking, all right, well if I need 130-150 and she's already making 50, then I don't need to make so much.

00:07:53:20 - 00:08:11:06

Mark (Guest)

I can make 80 to 100. And then I thought, All right, well, I'm making whatever I was making 30, 40, 50 off my rentals. It was just like a $50,000 gap. And I could quit my job. And at the time, I was a hustler, you know, I was hungry. I'm like, you know, younger energy. You know, there's so much opportunity out there.

00:08:11:06 - 00:08:26:06

Mark (Guest)

And I just thought, man, I'm going to quit my freaking job, start wholesaling full time. And the truth is, like, I can make $1,000 a week picking up trash. Like, I don't care if I get it, you know, whatever I got to do, like I'm not afraid to work, even if it's dirty, ugly, unglamorous crap. Like, I don't care, you gotta to pay the bills.

00:08:27:02 - 00:08:50:21

Mark (Guest)

And so this the timing worked out perfect with this guy. And we started wholesaling and he was we were very different people like very different. He was an art major and he was an artist and very right brain and creative. He was excellent at that stuff and I'm very left brain like spreadsheets, numbers, rational, logical, like let's think this thing through.

00:08:50:21 - 00:09:10:22

Mark (Guest)

And so we were very different, but that worked out very well for us. We complemented each other very well. If I would have been another art guy, we'd have probably went out of business in in a year. And if he would have been just like me, our marketing would have sucked. And so what happened was and people don't believe this today, what I'm about to tell you, I have no reason to lie.

00:09:10:22 - 00:09:35:20

Mark (Guest)

I'm not selling anything. I'm just telling you the facts. He paid some developers. He gave them like hundreds of sheets of his handwritten notes. He was like these. He would actually write backwards, like he had journals where he wrote backwards in the whole journal because he's an art guy. That's what he does. And he sent his writings to these developers and they developed a computer font that looked exactly like his handwriting.

00:09:36:21 - 00:09:56:04

Mark (Guest)

And then we started these yellow letter campaigns where it was using his handwriting, and then we had a couple of people that worked in the office that would actually fill out the blanks, like the person's name and address. And when these things hit people's mailboxes, people would call me up and say, I got your handwritten letter in the mail, you know?

00:09:56:04 - 00:10:13:04

Mark (Guest)

And it I mean, people like I actually had like people like, kind of yell at me. I said, that's actually not handwritten. It was it was printed out, “young man. Don't you tell me I'm holding it in my hand” like it was that good. And the part that people aren't going to believe is the response rate. We had a 10% response rate.

00:10:13:04 - 00:10:13:14

Jarred (Host)

Wow.

00:10:14:09 - 00:10:43:23

Mark (Guest)

Everybody else is getting like two. We had a 10% response rate. We were the first people that I know of that were sending out these letters that legitimately look like they were written by somebody hand and and we were killing it. And we probably him and I combined over the course of the next few years up until the crash, like 2008 or so, I think we'd probably done 120, 130 deals together and we were our average assignment fee was $9,000.

00:10:44:14 - 00:11:03:12

Mark (Guest)

That doesn't subtract the marketing. The marketing might have been we might have to spend 2000 to make the nine. But if you multiply 7000 times 120 deals, you know, we made a good bit of money off of it. Yeah. And I took my money and kept, you know, buying rentals. That's like I'm like, that's my ticket right there.

00:11:03:12 - 00:11:22:14

Mark (Guest)

I want the passive income, the stuff that's going to pay me for years and years and years. Some people might take the money and get by BMW or, you know, a big house and all that stuff. And I'm just like, Man, I just want financial security. So I cared about and and it worked. I just, you know, when the crash happened, I just kept building up my portfolio.

00:11:22:14 - 00:11:40:05

Mark (Guest)

And that's where I was able to get a lot of my larger buildings where, you know, I was looking for stuff, ten units, enough vacant that needs rehab. Like that's what I was looking for. And they just, you know, it took a lot of hard work, but I would find like one a year on average and I got tired of that, like waiting so long to find the next one.

00:11:40:05 - 00:11:52:18

Mark (Guest)

So I started buying like single families again and probably bought 40 or 50, you know, like between 2010, 11 and 2018.

00:11:53:09 - 00:11:55:14

Jarred (Host)

So that was a lot of deals on the market around that time.

00:11:57:07 - 00:12:13:10

Mark (Guest)

Well, yeah, there's a lot of deals on the market now. You know, nothing's changed. It's nothing has changed. A lot of people that have been in the business for three or four or five years think that this is like, you know, something unusual. It's like the weather. The weather is always weird, you know, it's always like, man in the weather weird.

00:12:13:10 - 00:12:32:21

Mark (Guest)

It's always been weird. People been saying that my whole life, you know, it's like and the real estate market is the same thing. It's, you know, the numbers, the numbers change, but they all change. How do I put this, like the prices go up, but rents go up, you know, the prices go up, but the after repair value goes up.

00:12:33:00 - 00:12:49:13

Mark (Guest)

So, you know, there are some short term things that are crazy, like when two by fours cost like $25. Like that's like crazy stuff. But that stuff doesn't last long. And if it does, then eventually that's going to be reflected in the after repair values, because if you got to spend more money to renovate the house, then you're going to sell it for more.

00:12:49:16 - 00:13:12:16

Mark (Guest)

And so everything is kind of works together. The market has ups and downs. You know, when I got in, it was going up. I didn't know, but I never made the mistake of thinking that I'm like super skilled with this business because the house I bought for 75, I actually sold it two years later for like 180, but I didn't think that I had some special skill.

00:13:12:16 - 00:13:35:04

Mark (Guest)

Like, I'm really good at this. I'm just like, Man, the market's good. I got a good buyer, you know, it's like and I just took advantage of that. I think a lot of people make mistakes where they're not good at the business. But as the market continues in an upward trend, the market corrects all of their mistakes and they mistake that for thinking that they have skills that they really don't have.

00:13:36:02 - 00:13:52:00

Mark (Guest)

You can find out who the people are that really know what they're doing when the market starts going down. And that's where I made my money when the market was going down. Anybody can make money when the market's going up. Right now, the market is kind of flat, you know, maybe maybe dip in a little bit. But that's like this isn't anything unusual.

00:13:52:00 - 00:14:10:18

Mark (Guest)

The interest rates went up. I think now they're like 6 or 7%. The first rental I bought, I think the interest rate was like 7 1/8%. Like that's what it was in 2002. So it's like people have been in the last ten years, the interest rates were, you know, the banks stopped lending in 2008. That's what the crash was about.

00:14:10:18 - 00:14:26:00

Mark (Guest)

They just like it was hard to get money, and so the market. You know, there's a whole lot of inventory in the market and nobody could buy anything because it couldn't get the money. But people wanted to sell the property, so there’s a lot of inventory, a lot of foreclosures. And then the banks, you know, said, okay, we got to start, you know, we had to make money, too.

00:14:26:00 - 00:14:44:17

Mark (Guest)

And the way we make money is we lend money out. And so then they started lending money out and to entice people to take the risk because the market was still going down and people were afraid to buy, the banks had really low interest rates and and they kept them pretty low for, you know, I don't know, 10, 12 years.

00:14:45:07 - 00:15:02:18

Mark (Guest)

And people thought that was normal. Well, that was normal for that period of time, but it wasn't normal before that period of time. And it's going to be normal after that period of time. Like I think right now it's like the normal market. People have just been spoiled from these super low interest rates that we've had. So if you just got in the business five years ago, all you know is 4% interest rates.

00:15:03:23 - 00:15:13:02

Mark (Guest)

People say 7%. You're like, oh my God, you can't do business in this. Sure you can. You just have to adjust your numbers for it. Your rents have to be higher, your after repair values have to be higher. It's not it's not a big deal.

00:15:13:02 - 00:15:13:17

Jarred (Host)

You gotta buy lower.

00:15:15:02 - 00:15:34:00

Mark (Guest)

You have to buy lower and or you know, you're like I said, the rents for B and C class properties always go up even when the crap hits the fan. The rents in the A-class properties might dip because people don't want to spend that much money to rent an apartment, so they'll move into the B neighborhoods and then it creates more pressure on the B neighborhoods and the rents go up and that's just the way it works.

00:15:35:17 - 00:15:57:23

Mark (Guest)

But it's you know, the real estate stuff is it has so much to offer all of us. And this can drive you crazy. It's kind of like going into Baskin-Robbins and they got 32 flavors. And you sit there like, what do I want to eat? What sky blue it is? Or it's like. And then a lot of times you just set on the default, I want rocky road or chocolate or like whatever your default is.

00:15:58:09 - 00:16:08:17

Mark (Guest)

I like choices like that. I like options. Some people, that stuff, you know, they got OCD or something just drives them crazy. You know, I got to try all 32 flavors. I've tried 22. I'm going to try the 23rd, I don't know. I just.

00:16:08:17 - 00:16:13:06

Jarred (Host)

It’s funny, we went out and got ice cream last night and I was in the same boat, you know, and I got vanilla.

00:16:14:21 - 00:16:16:12

Mark (Guest)

That’s it!

00:16:16:13 - 00:16:17:11

Jarred (Host)

I put fruity pebbles in there, though. if you've ever.

00:16:17:20 - 00:16:18:03

Mark (Guest)

You know.

00:16:19:03 - 00:16:23:03

Jarred (Host)

it’s so good. But it's simple. Yeah, just go.

00:16:23:06 - 00:16:37:21

Mark (Guest)

But but that's. But that's the way we all work, you know? It's like a confused mind says no, that's the default. No. You know, if you're if you're confused about which ice cream to pick, you pick your default flavor like the one that, you know is tried and true. You've had chocolate or vanilla ice cream a thousand times.

00:16:37:21 - 00:17:02:11

Mark (Guest)

You know, it's okay. And so that's it. So with, with the wholesaling stuff back to that. So when we were wholesaling, I just want to take you through the whole process. So we're sending out the yellow letters, we're hanging up the bandit signs. There was no cold calling and texting and all that stuff. I learn like the old school way and which I actually prefer, but the so that's what we're doing.

00:17:02:11 - 00:17:19:07

Mark (Guest)

We're hanging up banners on houses we’re renovating and, you know, just anything to get the phone ring. So this guy Dave, his job was to make the phone ring. My job is answer the phone. So I'm the one that's getting the calls from the sellers. And I remember like the first couple I got, like, I didn't know what to say.

00:17:19:07 - 00:17:40:13

Mark (Guest)

I'm just like, “uh, uh, uh” like nobody trained me on that. And so I finally just sat down and typed out just a sheet of paper, and it was that I would carry with me. It was like I actually printed about 100 of them. It was like name, address, contact, phone number, property address, condition of the property. And so when I would get a call, I would like literally like just write this stuff down.

00:17:40:14 - 00:17:48:09

Mark (Guest)

I wasn't using Pat live, I don't even have Pat Live was around back then. I mean, 2000, three, four. I mean, like Facebook wasn't even around.

00:17:48:09 - 00:17:48:15

Jarred (Host)

Yeah it was a different time.

00:17:48:15 - 00:18:04:16

Mark (Guest)

Craigslist wasn't around or Craigslist was just coming out. So things we had a lot less options than we have today. Right. So I'm taking the calls, looking at, you know, I'm analyzing the deals, I'm making the offers, I'm showing up the houses, I'm getting them under contract. Then I'm finding buyers, which is a challenge.

00:18:05:00 - 00:18:24:02

Mark (Guest)

It can be a challenge. And the way that I was doing it was we had a list at the time of like five buyers, and we would call those five buyers and they would buy like 80% of our deals, the ones that they didn't buy, we would advertise on Craigslist. Back then. Craigslist was still relatively new, but we would advertise on there some stuff we took to auction.

00:18:24:10 - 00:18:40:19

Mark (Guest)

I think one or two we may have listed we we closed on every deal we ever did if we got it under contract. We didn't have all the weasel clauses and all that stuff. My partners got to approve it or financing. We didn't have anything. If we got on a contract, we bought it and and we never lost money by doing that.

00:18:40:19 - 00:18:55:08

Mark (Guest)

But the point was on the times where we did have to market it, it's like all over the place. It's like, all right, well, you know, I got a I got a mail list. I think I got like 100 people on, and I guess I can send it to them. And there was this other website I can't remember.

00:18:55:08 - 00:19:14:20

Mark (Guest)

It was called, it was like posted or something like that where you put in all the information and then like you can put that link to different places and it would show that information. But it wasn't, it wasn't very like it was just the information. You couldn't click on anything. There wasn't a map button or any of that stuff, and it would go to like different Real Estate Investor Association.

00:19:14:20 - 00:19:32:09

Mark (Guest)

They would have forums where you could post your deal on those things, or you could go to a, you know, a real estate because there was no meet ups back then either it was named meetup.com back then. Right? You could go to the Real Estate Investor Association meetings and just print out fliers for the properties that you had for sale and leave them on the table hoping somebody picks one up and calls you.

00:19:33:05 - 00:19:56:18

Mark (Guest)

And so things were a lot more difficult back then. And then I don't want to fast forward too much, but that's like one of the things that makes Wholster to me, like just such a strong, powerful app because you can put all the stuff on one place and then very easily share it to what? I don't care if it's Facebook, your MailChimp list, whatever, put it on Craigslist, whatever.

00:19:56:18 - 00:20:21:07

Mark (Guest)

You can put that link on there. When people open that link, it shows them all the information and they can click on contact the seller, click on the little map pin, It opens up a Google map and shows you exactly where the house is at and it just makes things so much easier when it comes to marketing. Now, I wish I had had something like that back then because the truth is, I could have probably sold my houses for more money because I wouldn't have had to depend on the five buyers that I had.

00:20:21:18 - 00:20:44:07

Mark (Guest)

You know, I could have reached out to a much broader audience. And if you even think about like this, you know, we all know the joke back then. This is for the Baltimore people. New York and California people aren’t going to like this and DC people especially aren't going to like this. But the joke used to be, if you can't sell your house, raise the price and advertise it in Washington DC Craigslist.

00:20:44:07 - 00:20:44:20

Jarred (Host)

Oh God.

00:20:45:18 - 00:21:06:10

Mark (Guest)

And because the Washington DC people think, you know, that, oh my God, that's a steal. Well, it is in the DC market, but in the Baltimore market you just paid too much for the house. So one of the ways for the DC people and the New York people in Washington, people like to get around that now is to use an app like Wholster where it's going out to everybody, even the locals.

00:21:07:03 - 00:21:25:04

Mark (Guest)

It's not just focusing on the DC Craigslist. Anybody in the country can have it. So if you're living in New York, you're living in California and you're thinking, you know, Baltimore is like one of the cash flow capitals of the United States. It's got its issues. But if your ideas like if your dream is to make money in real estate, Baltimore is your spot.

00:21:25:09 - 00:21:47:03

Mark (Guest)

If you can't make money here, you can't make it anywhere. And so if you're living in California, you're thinking, man, I sure would like to buy some Baltimore rentals, man, Wholster, you just open it up. And there it is. You don't have to go find the REIAs and the Facebook groups and all this stuff. It's a one stop shop and I wish it had been around years ago, especially when I was buying back to my history with the wholesaling stuff.

00:21:47:03 - 00:22:07:20

Mark (Guest)

So and this is like I don't want to make this a tutorial on wholesaling, but wholesaling is like a lot of other businesses where you want to develop relationships with people, especially like the title attorneys, because if you're going to be wholesaling a property, you're going to be showing up and pick it up, you know, 20, 30, 40, $50,000 assignment fee and you never even own the property.

00:22:07:20 - 00:22:24:15

Mark (Guest)

You know, that could be tricky business. You know, the seller, if they're looking at the HUD 1 and they see that, that might really get their attention. So you wanna make sure that you have title attorneys that are that have done a lot of wholesale deals. They're very familiar with how to get through the HUD 1 without creating chaos at the settlement table.

00:22:25:15 - 00:22:43:23

Mark (Guest)

You want to have, you know, a good agent for the ones where you have to, you know, sometimes you going to list them. So you want to have a good relationship with an agent where you can list them if you need to. Somebody that knows your business. And part of what we did was if I found something that it wasn't there wasn't enough meat on the bone for me to wholesale it.

00:22:44:08 - 00:22:59:10

Mark (Guest)

Then I would ask people like, Listen, there's not enough on there for me. I've have an agent that's a friend that's really good at this stuff. Like they deal with these kind of properties. You want to give you her number and call her because she could probably sell your house pretty decent, pretty quick in a price you're looking for.

00:22:59:21 - 00:23:13:05

Mark (Guest)

And then that way, you know, we're kicking, you know, deals to this agent. We're I'm not looking for a referral fee or anything like they're you know, they're taking care of us. It's kind of like the one hand, which is the other thing. I help them, they help us. Everybody's happy, everybody's making money. People are selling houses they don't want.

00:23:13:05 - 00:23:33:10

Mark (Guest)

So so it worked out really well, but my point was, you want to develop relationships with people like the title attorneys, like real estate agents. Another valuable resource is other wholesalers, people that are doing it that have a track record, not the guy that just, you know, watched a couple of YouTube videos. Now he thinks he's a genius and he's going to get rich next week.

00:23:33:13 - 00:23:59:06

Mark (Guest)

Wholesaling properties, wholesaling is it's hard work. It can pay you very well with very little upfront investment. But it's it's still a grind. It's still a lot of work. And sometimes what happens is, you know, wholesalers will co-op stuff like, man, I got a deal, I don't have a buyer, but I know that, you know, maybe Terry, this guy Terry has buyers that are looking in Fed Hill for stuff.

00:23:59:06 - 00:24:20:08

Mark (Guest)

Let me call him up and we can split the assignment fee like there's man that's like that's good business because the truth is that that guy might be calling you six months later because he's got a property in the neighborhood that he's not that familiar with. But he knows you have buyers there. So when we all work together and treat each other the way we want to be treated, that also really improves our business and it makes it a lot easier for us.

00:24:20:08 - 00:24:39:02

Mark (Guest)

You don't have to go look for different agent every time, a different title, attorney every time and hard money lenders. Huge man. Because if you can't get it on a contract, if you can't sell it to somebody else and you're going to take title to it, you're going need to get some money somewhere. So unless you got deep pockets, you're going to need to develop some relationships with some hard money lenders.

00:24:40:07 - 00:25:07:08

Mark (Guest)

That's part of the stuff with that is and I talk about this like in other places, but like your reputation is so important when your name pops up in a conversation somewhere and you're not around, you want people to be speaking well of you. Yeah. He's a decent person, man. He really helped me out with this thing, like, and he knows a lot, like, just whatever you want people to talk well of you and that includes your hard money lender you want to show up on the first every month with this check.

00:25:07:08 - 00:25:20:13

Mark (Guest)

No B.S., none of that crap you want to tell him that the kitchen is done and then they come out for the inspection draw and the cabinets are sitting on the floor, now you're lying. And, you know, so when you're looking for help, you know, that guy's going to remember, man, this guy told me that stuff was done last time.

00:25:20:13 - 00:25:43:00

Mark (Guest)

and it wasn’t, we have to raise our draw fees or charge him another one next time we go out. So so for stuff like that, you really want to do the best you can to protect your reputation. When I started using one particular hard money lender who had it to me at the time, really deep pockets, I was another title attorney and I was showing up at his office.

00:25:43:00 - 00:26:02:20

Mark (Guest)

It's on the first of the month with a check in my hand and I would go up to the receptionist and I'd say, Here, I'm here to see Jim. And they would ask, Well, see, expecting you. And I'd say He's not expecting me, but it'll be happy to see me. And so they would go get me, come out and I'd, you know, smile and hand this check and thank him for, you know, for putting his, you know, trust in me.

00:26:02:20 - 00:26:22:17

Mark (Guest)

And I look forward to seeing him next month. And I kept doing that. And my goal was, look, I want to pay him on time immediately with no BS. But I also want to establish a relationship. You're not going to establish a relationship if you just mail somebody a check or you or you wire them the check, you can establish a relationship with a handshake and a smile, meeting in person.

00:26:22:19 - 00:26:47:10

Mark (Guest)

I wanted him to recognize me if he saw me at a steakhouse. I wanted him to recognize me across the room and think well of me when he saw me and and where that took me was couple of years later, I was standing out in front of a 13 unit apartment building. It was actually listed on the multiple list service, and it was on York Road in Baltimore, 13 units, and the cost was $325,000.

00:26:47:10 - 00:26:47:20

Jarred (Host)

Wow.

00:26:48:06 - 00:27:07:04

Mark (Guest)

Which was a good deal. Even then. And the property needed some renovation. I think there was might have been three or four vacant units, which is what I like. And so I called the guy, I called my lender up and I said, Jim, I'm I'm standing in front of this 13 unit apartment building not far from your office.

00:27:07:04 - 00:27:27:07

Mark (Guest)

And I'm just curious, you know, I'd like to buy it. I need 325 for purchase. And I think as for 75 or 100 for renovation, and I said, I'm just like, what information do you need for me to, you know, to analyze this deal? And he said, Mark, let me call you back in a minute. So I thought, he's in the middle of something or, you know, something.

00:27:27:07 - 00:27:50:03

Mark (Guest)

I just called him out of the blue and he calls me about 5 minutes later and he says, You got it. And I was like, Yeah, I was like, He approved a 400 $425,000 loan on the phone, didn't even know the address of the property. And he did it because he trusted me, because I'm showing up on the first with a smile every month, upbeat, no games, no B.S., no coming in, whining.

00:27:50:03 - 00:28:04:16

Mark (Guest)

People don't wanna do business with people that whine. “Oh, your damn inspectors” like people. I want to hear that crap. We know that about the damn inspectors. We don't want to hear the bad stuff. I want to hear about the good stuff I passed inspection the first time. It's awesome. We don't, you know, it's like, so you want to keep it positive.

00:28:05:12 - 00:28:34:15

Mark (Guest)

Smile. Thank people. And then, you know, people agree to lend you $425,000 on the phone without even know the property address. And it's nothing special. I'm not like Mr. Charming, you know, I'm just. But I know what works for me. What I respond well to. And I assume other people, you know, are the same way. I had another thing is I'll try to keep this short, but I had another guy that I was buying appliances from and he was selling his business and he called me up and invited me out to lunch.

00:28:34:21 - 00:28:57:03

Mark (Guest)

And so we got the lunch and I'm thinking like, it's kind of weird, you know? I mean, a guy, like, fixes my stoves and sells me used refrigerators and he wants to go out to lunch and I’m like, cool I’ll go out. So we're sitting down and he says, Mark, I'm selling my business. I'm going have $1,000,000 on January 1st. That's cool. And then the next thing he says, do you want to borrow it?

00:28:57:03 - 00:29:18:15

Mark (Guest)

Yeah, I don't like I mean, you know, your appliance repair guy's offering to lend you $1,000,000 and you hardly even know the guy. And I just I looked at him and I don't want to mention his name, but I said blank. You know, a lot of people I'm just curious, why did you call me and he said, well, your tenants were your reference.

00:29:19:01 - 00:29:19:17

Jarred (Host)

Oh, wow.

00:29:20:20 - 00:29:38:14

Mark (Guest)

Yeah, that's what I said you like, you know. And he said, listen, whenever we go over there or they fix a stove or, you know, put a new fridge in, he says, your tenants always speak highly of you. You know, they don't talk about Yeah, Mark, they never fix nothing. He's like a slumlord, like none of that. They're always speaking highly of me, always.

00:29:39:02 - 00:29:59:08

Mark (Guest)

And so in his mind, if I'm treating the Section eight mom with four kids and four daddies with kindness and respect, then I'm going to treat him the same way. And that's and it works. I mean, I don't I never like when I'm to treat the tenants like that, like really nice and compassionate. It's not because I have an ulterior motive.

00:29:59:08 - 00:30:24:10

Mark (Guest)

It's not I'm not doing that thinking. And one day my appliance repair man is going to want to lend me $1,000,000. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And it but the rewards for that are then people that are successful, that are doing well are going to want to do business with you, whether it's lend you million dollars or whether it is, you know, lend you $400,000 for an apartment building or they don't even know the address.

00:30:24:10 - 00:30:43:21

Mark (Guest)

It's that's what that's the importance of having a good reputation. And with wholesaling, it's no different than anything else. Call people up and tell them it's a $10,000 rehab and a roof's falling in. You're going to tarnish your reputation doing stuff like that, you know, show up with comps from a half mile away and a different zip code.

00:30:44:09 - 00:31:02:03

Mark (Guest)

You know, where the comps are like twice what they should be. That's going to tarnish your reputation, so if you're new to wholesaling, there is a ton of money for all of us to make it out there. Some of the most important things are don't get too greedy and know your numbers when you when you put them down, you know you don't want to.

00:31:03:00 - 00:31:27:05

Mark (Guest)

When I get an email from some of these wholesalers, I just delete it. Don't even look at it cause I know that they're clowns. It's not a lot of them, but there are some of them that are like that. So you really, if you're a new wholesaler or a regular wholesaler, like, you really want to be tight with your numbers if you don't know, like if you're new and you're like man I don't know how to repair estimate repair costs just do like $10,000 increments because it's 10,000, 20, 30, 40, 50.

00:31:27:21 - 00:31:41:03

Mark (Guest)

Or you can say, look, you know, 10 to 30. And that's what I usually do. I'll give a range. I'll say it's like 20 to 30, and people say, Well, what's the difference? I'm like, Well, I don't know what finishes. You're going to put it. You're going to put Home Depot off the rack, countertops down, or are you going to get quartz?

00:31:42:01 - 00:31:58:01

Mark (Guest)

You going to get off the rack, you know, Home Depot oak cabinets? Or are you going to go to Lowe's and get some custom cabinets that are 36 inches high? Like, I don't know how you're going to finish it. Most of the sources same. The drywall is the same, the plumbing is the same, the electrics the same, the flooring could be the same.

00:31:58:01 - 00:32:14:14

Mark (Guest)

You could put the final flooring down or you might want to go get some engineered flooring or hardwood floors. But the finishes are whats going to really make the difference. HVACs going to be the same price. Doesn't matter what kind of rehab you're doing, if you're putting in new furnace ductwork, air conditioning, it's going to cost you 12,000 in the hood.

00:32:14:14 - 00:32:21:13

Mark (Guest)

It's going to cost you 12,000 in a nice neighborhood that that stuff is is not going to change.

00:32:21:13 - 00:32:32:19

Jarred (Host)

Well, that's good advice. And I was going to ask you what kind of advice you might have for real estate, wholesale or so? That's coming up. You might you might want to think of something else to add to that.

00:32:33:13 - 00:32:50:18

Mark (Guest)

So, yeah, I just I get out ahead of myself because the truth is, like, I get really excited talking about this stuff because I know the kind of life that real estate has given me, and I know that it's what I've done isn't like I don't have any tricks or anything. Look, I'm telling you everything. There's no secrets.

00:32:50:18 - 00:32:52:03

Jarred (Host)

There's no secrets

00:32:52:06 - 00:33:04:17

Mark (Guest)

You know, all the information is out there. If you're looking for the secret and I have to tell you what the secret is, the secret is going to get up off your butt and do it. Yes. You know, it's like we can all, you know, buy the ab machine and all this stuff and, you know, wow, I want a six pack abs.

00:33:04:17 - 00:33:27:02

Mark (Guest)

I want the beach body and you buy all the stuff. But if you don't use the stuff, you're not going to get the results. You got to use it. And you know, and one of the things you want to do is you want to how do I put this. One of the ways that I've been so successful, not just financially but with my time, with my quality of life, is I learned how to get things off of my plate.

00:33:27:20 - 00:33:47:07

Mark (Guest)

I automate a lot of stuff, I delegated a lot of stuff and the stuff that's left over. I look for simple ways to do it. And a great example that would be is Wholster, where, if you're, you know, you want to market your properties, man, this is like a one stop shop. You do it here. People all over the United States are going to be able to see your deals in like 5 minutes.

00:33:48:00 - 00:34:13:12

Mark (Guest)

You want to share it to other platforms. It takes like a minute for each platform. It's very simple. And so I'm really excited about this for myself because I am actually starting to wholesale again, partly because the truth is I have a few different reasons, but one of the reasons is because this app is going to make it so much easier to sell properties because I can post it and I can get people all over the United States seeing my deal in 5 minutes.

00:34:13:15 - 00:34:33:15

Mark (Guest)

Right. And so that's one of the things that's kind of pushing me back into it. That and I also I have a lot of free time and so that's it. But automate delegating as much as you can. When I say automate, what I mean is put your cell phone bill on auto pay your gas, electric, your whatever. You know, any bills that you got that you can put on auto pay, put it on Autopay.

00:34:33:15 - 00:35:01:09

Mark (Guest)

I mean, there was a time a few years ago where I was paying 60, 60 plus gas and electric bills every month. I don't feel like sitting down writing 60 checks every month to pay gas and electric. So I put it all in auto pay. You know, it's like everything that I have that can possibly be on auto pay is with the exception of the water bills, because you can't Baltimore City, you can't put them on auto.

00:35:01:09 - 00:35:04:09

Jarred (Host)

You know, that's a whole other podcast, the baltimore city water bills.

00:35:05:14 - 00:35:07:09

Mark (Guest)

Yeah yeah. I don't want to talk to you about that.

00:35:08:12 - 00:35:09:16

Jarred (Host)

I'll just start getting angry

00:35:10:18 - 00:35:26:11

Mark (Guest)

Yeah. So but that's, you know, but there's some of the secrets to like being successful. It's not just in wholesaling or real estate. Any businesses want to automate as much. You can delegate as much as can look for easier ways to do the stuff that's left over so that you have more free time to go chase the next deal.

00:35:26:11 - 00:35:34:09

Mark (Guest)

Yeah. Why do you want to spend. Why do you want to spend, you know, 4 hours on $20 an hour tasks when you could spend that 4 hours going out and finding a $10,000 deal?

00:35:34:11 - 00:35:34:19

Jarred (Host)

Right.

00:35:36:04 - 00:35:51:10

Mark (Guest)

That's it. And I ask myself that. I figured that out like years ago when I was before I was even in real estate, my wife and I bought a townhouse. It's got a pretty big yard for a townhouse. We moved in and so like the first or second Saturday that I was still in the IT business back then.

00:35:51:10 - 00:36:08:11

Mark (Guest)

So I had Saturdays and Sundays off and I didn't even have every Saturday off at the time because I was teaching in colleges all over Maryland. There was a lot of Saturday classes, so I spent a Saturday or Sunday morning cutting the grass and I'm thinking about it because I don't like cutting grass. I actually I don't even like working like hardly any at all.

00:36:08:15 - 00:36:28:02

Mark (Guest)

And so I'm pushing this lawnmower and thinking, you know, like kind of pissed off, like, man, I got one or two days off a week and I'm pushing this damn lawnmower and I get a rake crap up and and then I thought, you know what? My free time, if I've got to pay somebody 40 bucks to cut this grass, my free time on a Saturday, a couple of hours free time is worth $40.

00:36:28:02 - 00:36:45:18

Mark (Guest)

So I gave my lawnmower to a friend of mine like two days later, I gave it to him because I knew. Well, then I have to find somebody if I go home. I'm not going out there with clippers or scissors, like I got to find somebody, cut the damn grass and I don’t have a lawnmower. And and it forced me to take action.

00:36:45:18 - 00:37:03:16

Mark (Guest)

And I took action, and I haven't touched a lawn mower since. It's been like 23, 24, 25 years since I touched a lawnmower. And it's because I determined that, you know, I fell in this trap like, oh, I'm saving $40. Well, how much is your free time worth? You know, I hear guys say this. Well, I'm not going to pay somebody to change my oil in my car.

00:37:03:20 - 00:37:18:22

Mark (Guest)

You know, I could do that myself. Alright. I mean, that's fine, man. It's going to take you, you know, two or 3 hours to change your oil and then you gotta find somewhere to take it when you're done with it and you got to buy the oil and the filter and all that stuff, and you're going to do that to save 20 or 30 bucks.

00:37:18:22 - 00:37:19:12

Mark (Guest)

Like that's crazy.

00:37:19:12 - 00:37:30:10

Jarred (Host)

You're going to say that much. I used to be in the industry and I don't even change my own oil. It's like now the cost of doing the oil change. You guys make like five or $10. It's like, just pay somebody.

00:37:30:10 - 00:37:45:12

Mark (Guest)

Listen. I will say this, like, if you enjoy changing the world, like it's a hobby, like men come over my house. It's like, you know, if that's like therapy, like some people, that's their therapy. Some people like cutting the grass. If you're if you're doing it because you enjoy doing it, they get you out of the house.

00:37:45:12 - 00:38:07:01

Mark (Guest)

Your wife's not yelling at you if you're out there on lawnmower. Yeah, then, then go do it. But if you're doing it to save a little bit of money, I think that most of the time that's you know, that's not your best financial interest or your mental health interest if you're running around all week tying up loose ends that are 15, $20 an hour tasks, and then you're stressed out, you don't have any free time, it's not worth it.

00:38:07:04 - 00:38:27:05

Mark (Guest)

And so many people get stuck on one variable. My variable is to save money, what my variables are like to save time. I want to save money, but I also want to save time. And I want to take stress away. So maybe I'm going to save a bunch of money, but it's gonna really stress me out. Is the money worth it?

00:38:27:05 - 00:38:41:11

Mark (Guest)

Now, I'll just spend the money and get rid of the stress, you know? Right. I got a bunch of carpet in the house that I'm getting ready to sell. It's out in the backyard. I could go get it and throw it in my car and take it to the landfill and save $120. No, thanks. I'll pay somebody else.

00:38:41:11 - 00:38:52:13

Mark (Guest)

120 bucks. They can take care of it. And then it frees up two or 3 hours of my day. Some people, you know, because my free time is worth more than what I would consider today. A little bit of money.

00:38:52:13 - 00:38:57:11

Jarred (Host)

Because you can go spend that two or 3 hours on the phone with some sellers and pick it up a new wholesale deal.

00:38:58:10 - 00:39:13:11

Mark (Guest)

I could spend two or 3 hours taking a freaking nap, like whatever I want to do, you know, it's like my it's my free time and free time. You can do whatever you want. So if you want to, you know, binge on something on Netflix or, you know, watch a football game or whatever it is, you just want to go out and, you know, hang out with your friends.

00:39:13:11 - 00:39:30:17

Mark (Guest)

Like, man, that's that's fine. There's no right or wrong answer to that. You know, some people might say to you, wash my car, look, I'm not washing my car, but if that makes you feel good and you enjoy doing it, then like go knock yourself out, but don't do it to save ten bucks. You know, that's that's kind of backwards.

00:39:30:18 - 00:39:30:23

Mark (Guest)

Yeah.

00:39:31:09 - 00:39:58:04

Jarred (Host)

Well, hey, I want to switch gears here a second. Um, so you have been very creative in your strategies with purchasing real estate over the years, and that's something that you have been successful doing and, and do a lot of teaching about creative real estate strategies. I want to go into some of that, um, because I think, I think you've done a lot of different things that are really creative.

00:39:58:04 - 00:40:06:00

Jarred (Host)

And I want people to hear what they are. So what, what is the most creative strategy that you've ever used to purchase a deal.

00:40:07:22 - 00:40:30:06

Mark (Guest)

One answer comes to mind and it's going to answer. It's going to actually address a couple of issues. So the Cayman Islands are like my go to vacation spot. Like when I go there, it's like my favorite place and specifically the east end of the island, which is it's a lot more laid back. You know, it's not as congested and all that stuff.

00:40:30:06 - 00:40:51:23

Mark (Guest)

It's a seven mile beach side of the island. And so I've been going out there a lot over the years, and there's one specific building that I stay in where it's right on the beach, it's next to a dive shop. And I and I scuba dive out of that dive shop in the boats. The pier is like literally like off the patio and and the dive shop

00:40:51:23 - 00:41:13:13

Mark (Guest)

What they do is they manage this building and they rent the units out. If you want to rent them out, if you don't want to write them out, you don't have to. But if you do, they do everything and then they send you a check every few months for, you know, for whatever profit there is. And I've gone out there and many times I'd like looked online to see, you know, Compass Point Condos for sale and like the numbers never made sense.

00:41:13:13 - 00:41:33:12

Mark (Guest)

You know, it's like, okay, I'm going to spend 300 grand. I'm going to make $1,000 a month. Like, that's like stupid. Like, that's not good. And the last time I went out, before I owned one, we stayed in this one unit, which was like my favorite one. It's right on the corner. It's on the top floor. The third floor is a beautiful view of the ocean, the pier, everything's right there.

00:41:34:07 - 00:41:55:09

Mark (Guest)

And I thought, man, if this one ever came up for sale, I think I would buy this. And the reason that I kind of changed my mind on it is because I realized that I wasn't I wasn't interested in it just strictly from a financial thing, because I could make $1,000 a month buying a $80,000 house in Baltimore City.

00:41:55:09 - 00:42:13:01

Mark (Guest)

So like financially it wasn't the best decision. But I realized that, well, I'm not really buying it for just that. I'm buying it because like I want it like I want it to stay in like it's a lifestyle investment. It's not just like, you know, like it's not a timeshare. Like, we own a damn thing. If we want to live there full time, we can do.

00:42:13:02 - 00:42:31:06

Mark (Guest)

We don't have to ask permission. We just email him and tell him when we're coming down and then they reserve it to make sure that nobody else is going to be staying there. So a few months after we left, I looked online and the unit that we were in, it's like the Law of Attraction, right? The unit that we were in was for sale.

00:42:31:22 - 00:43:01:13

Mark (Guest)

And I think the price was like maybe 350. Two beds, two baths on the ocean building was built like 15 years ago. And I called the agent up and I asked her if if the owner would consider seller financing. And she said no, absolutely not. He doesn't want to do any kind of financing. And the reason why that was so important to me is because the Cayman Islands have different laws, different country, different laws.

00:43:02:04 - 00:43:20:12

Mark (Guest)

They don't do mortgages like run your mortgages up to your age of 65. So if you're 55, they will only give you a ten year mortgage. If you're 63, you're getting a two year mortgage and and they also want 50% down with like, you know, because you're out from out of the country. So I'm looking at that. I'm like, man I dont

00:43:20:14 - 00:43:41:18

Mark (Guest)

feel like putting 180 grand down plus, you know, whatever, 170, whatever it was with closing, it would have been 180. Like that doesn't make any sense. That would have been like a 1.8% cap rate or something. So so a month later I saw the price drop $10,000 and I sent the agent. I just I didn't call her back.

00:43:41:18 - 00:44:05:15

Mark (Guest)

I just sent her an email and I said, Here's my offer. Tell the owner I'll give them 50,000 down. I'll give him 2000 per month principal only with a balloon in four years. And she called me up and said, Mark, listen, I will submit your offer to the seller, but I can assure you he's not going to take the deal.

00:44:07:06 - 00:44:25:02

Mark (Guest)

She and I was kind of cocky. I was like, All right, like I've done a bunch of these and everybody says the same thing and then it happens. And I was like, just kind of, I don't know. And and this goes back the next day and she says, she says, Well, I got some good news. And I said, Yeah, what's that?

00:44:25:02 - 00:44:41:12

Mark (Guest)

And she says, He took your offer. So that's like, that was it. So I ended up settling on that to put 50 down on a paid, I actually paid it off early, I paid off the rest of the balance on it. But I was paid 2000 down principal for like 36 months and and I still own it.

00:44:41:14 - 00:45:00:22

Mark (Guest)

I was actually just got back from there last week and been there three times this year. So it wasn't a financial thing. It was like a lifestyle thing as much as a financial thing, and now it's worth significantly more than we paid for it. So I'm benefiting from that. That's not my skill. Like that's just the way the market works is nothing to do with me being able to forecast into the future or any of that stuff.

00:45:01:12 - 00:45:22:20

Mark (Guest)

So that was probably one of my more interesting kind of deals. One of the things that I really like to do and I've done this several times is make principal only payments. And when it's a lot of times you get resistance from the seller, I want interest. I'm like, Well, listen, you want 80,000 for the House. I can give you 80, but I need to make principal only payments.

00:45:22:20 - 00:45:41:03

Mark (Guest)

So like a thousand a month for two years and then I can refinance, pay the bank off. If you charge me 7% interest, I'm not going to be able to refinance to pay the back off. And if you're going to charge me seven or 8% interest and you want 80,000 for the House, now I'm going to try to pitch it down to 70,000 so that you're going to get the price you want.

00:45:41:22 - 00:46:04:09

Mark (Guest)

I'm going to get the terms I want. In a couple of years, I'm going be able to refinance and give you all your money at that point. And you want to do any work like this is like, you know, and they are you would be surprised at how often I get yesses for that. Now. They got to own it free and clear if you're offering them, you know, to do that and they get a $70,000 mortgage on the house, then maybe you can do a sub-to or something like that.

00:46:04:09 - 00:46:23:00

Mark (Guest)

But I don't I don't do sub-to’s Don't like them. Never done one, wouldn't do one. Not that there's anything wrong with people that do. I just I don't want to get involved in mortgage fraud. You know, it's like there's a due on sale clause. And if I'm taking over payments, you know, like the deed transferred to me and you didn't tell the bank.

00:46:23:00 - 00:46:49:14

Mark (Guest)

That's kind of like fraudulent and I don't want to be a participant in anything like that. I like being free. I like living in my house and all. But some people, you know, some people do that and listen, I'm not knocking them. It's just for me, it's just I don't want to do that. Plus, yeah, the way I think is like, man, if something happens in my life, like, my life gets really screwed up, like, you know, health wise or something, and I'm not making the mortgage payments, then that person's credit's going to get f’ed up because of me.

00:46:49:14 - 00:47:06:05

Mark (Guest)

And I don't want that responsibility. I don't want somebody depending on me to keep their credit intact. That's I don't want to be in that position. So I care too much about the people that I'm buying houses from. I don't want to I don't want to risk that. So but the principal only payments is a really big one.

00:47:06:13 - 00:47:34:22

Mark (Guest)

Sometimes people they don't know, like they're afraid to say it. Or if you've never done a homeowner financing thing or anything like that or, you know, there's some resistance, like I'm going to tell you the exact strategy that I use if I know that the deals alright, it, it's it's not the best, but it's okay. I'll tell the seller like, look, man, I can't I can't figure out any way to make these numbers like work.

00:47:34:22 - 00:47:52:00

Mark (Guest)

Give me, let me think for a minute and then I'll just, like, walk around looking up the sky like, I already know what I'm going to say. But I'm just like, you know, just walk around. Then I'll come back and I'll say, Listen, this. This isn't an offer. I just want to run something by you. And if you think it sounds good, then I'll see if I can figure it out.

00:47:52:00 - 00:48:16:03

Mark (Guest)

But this is just it's not an offer. What if I gave you 10,000 down and a thousand a month for two years and then a and then I'm able to refinance out and pay the rest in two years? And I said, look, I'm not saying I want to do that, but I just a thought and a lot of times they say, Man, yeah, that sounds good.

00:48:17:20 - 00:48:40:15

Mark (Guest)

It's like, I got it, you know? And then I'll say, All right, well, let me just give me a couple minutes and then, you know, then I'll come back and say, Yeah, I think I can do that. If you want to do that, I can do that. I can, you know, we can make it work like that and then just put it in the contract and and then the title attorney, you know, when you get a settlement, they're going to write up the, you know, like the loan docs and it's really just seller financing and they'll put it all in writing.

00:48:41:04 - 00:48:56:03

Mark (Guest)

The sellers protected. If you don't pay them, they get the house back and plus you get a little bit of skin in the game. You know, I've done a lot of them with no skin in the game, but you're going to maybe have a little bit and make them a little bit more comfortable. And that's one of the strategies that I've used for a lot of deals.

00:48:56:20 - 00:49:04:06

Jarred (Host)

So they're getting the price they want, they're getting a little juice up front on the down payment and then after a couple of years they get everything.

00:49:05:11 - 00:49:27:12

Mark (Guest)

Yeah. And, and you're able to knock down a lot of principal because you know if you're going to give them. I don't, I don't want to whip out my Karl’s mortgage calculator right now but if you if the payment if you get a mortgage on the property and say it's $600 a month and you're offering to give them $600 a month, principal for two years, that's going to be almost $15,000 in principal that you knock off 14, 15,000.

00:49:27:12 - 00:49:50:15

Mark (Guest)

If it was amortized in that period of time, you might knock down like 2,000 right? So you're getting a lot more equity. Like every time you send that seller a check for $600, that's like money in your bank. You know, that's $600 in equity that you got because you just paid down $600 in principal on the loan. You send the same $600 to Wells Fargo and you paid down $27 of principal on the rest for interest.

00:49:50:16 - 00:50:10:17

Mark (Guest)

So you're not getting any equity. So and I've done that with a lot of deals where I had like zero. Now I wouldn't suggest you do this if you’re new but I've done it where I have zero cash flow. I rent a property out for 1200 a month after taxes and insurance crap like that. There's maybe eight or 900 a month and I'll pay the seller a thousand a month.

00:50:10:17 - 00:50:28:14

Mark (Guest)

But then in, you know, two or three years because I've got notes like that with five year terms five years I own the house free and clear, nothin out of my pocket, you know, except a couple hundred dollars a month. But if I can pay somebody $200 a month for five years and then I own a 70, $80,000 house free and clear, like I'll take ten.

00:50:28:14 - 00:50:51:20

Mark (Guest)

Yeah, it's like. It's like a no brainer, but in the beginning, you wouldn't want to do it because if you're coming out of pocket every month, one, two, three, $400 every month to pay that loan, then where's it coming from? It's coming from your W-2 or your savings or something like that. So for, you know, once you get above a certain number of properties, then you're making enough profit.

00:50:51:23 - 00:51:18:13

Mark (Guest)

Yeah, then that could pay for it. So that's, you know, I see there's like three phases of real estate investing. The first phase is where you have enough properties where the business can support itself. If you got one house in a tenants in there six months and moves out and now you get a month or two vacant, you got to get back in there, maybe paint the property or like do some stuff to it, or is that money coming from it's coming out of your pocket, right out of your W-2 or whatever.

00:51:18:13 - 00:51:53:03

Mark (Guest)

If you got ten or 15 houses and one goes vacant, the other ten or 15 are carrying it so the business can support itself. And if you get ten vacant units, then you're in trouble. But, you know, it should be like during the normal course of business that you have enough units where the business can support itself. Then you move into the income replacement phase, where now as you buy more properties, you can start to replace your income where you can either quit your job or get a part time, or change jobs to something that gives you more free time, even though it pays less money.

00:51:53:03 - 00:52:18:18

Mark (Guest)

Because with your now your rental income money in that you know, you're not losing anything. And after you have enough units where you can replace all of your W-2 income or whatever your source of income is, then you can think about quitting your job. And that's that's what I did. And then after you finish that, the second phase in the third phase is where you do stuff like, yeah, okay, I'll take that property, I'm going to break even or lose 100 dollars a month for five years and then own it free and clear.

00:52:19:02 - 00:52:21:15

Mark (Guest)

Like that third phase is where you start doing stuff like that that.

00:52:21:15 - 00:52:22:04

Jarred (Host)

Makes sense.

00:52:23:00 - 00:52:47:18

Mark (Guest)

Where you got like the play money where you can, you know, do whatever, right? That's that's the that's the way that I found it. I kind of made those three phases up just because I looked at my own real estate investing history and I was just looking at the different sections of it. It turned out there was like, there's three sections where where changes happen.

00:52:47:19 - 00:53:01:09

Mark (Guest)

You know, the first one is definitely like, man, you got a vacant unit. The other ones are paying for it. Like, That's okay, that's a new. Now you just finished a chapter in that book. Then the next chapter is replacing your income. Then there is going to come a point where you like, you know, why don't make enough off my rentals.

00:53:01:09 - 00:53:23:21

Mark (Guest)

I don't have to work anymore. The the trick is and this is where people get they screw themselves up every time it makes you want to slap them when your income goes up. This is this takes discipline. When your income goes up, if your income goes up 20%, don't raise your standard of living 20%, maybe one or 2%.

00:53:25:02 - 00:53:50:14

Mark (Guest)

You know, if you're if you're start making $80,000 a year off your rentals, don't raise your standard of living where you're chewing all that up. You'll never be able to quit your job. You should have a $2,000 mortgage and I get a $4,000 mortgage. Used to have a $500 car payment. I get 1100 dollars car payment. Like if you start living up your if you start increasing your standard of living at the same pace that you're increasing your income, you're never going to get out of the rat race.

00:53:50:14 - 00:54:05:13

Mark (Guest)

And for me, that was a big goal. You know, it's just like, man, I don't want to work for other people. You know, it's like I'm kind of lazy, so it's like I really don’t want to do a lot and if I am going to do it, it's got to be worth something for me to get up off my ass and do it.

00:54:05:23 - 00:54:06:19

Mark (Guest)

00:54:06:19 - 00:54:15:08

Jarred (Host)

You know, you told me something a couple years ago that was funny, it was it had to do with you being lazy.

00:54:16:09 - 00:54:16:20

Mark (Guest)

Yeah

00:54:16:20 - 00:54:21:07

Jarred (Host)

That that's the reason why I create all these systems so I don't have to do anything.

00:54:22:09 - 00:54:41:09

Mark (Guest)

That's true. That is true, man. That's it. And it it's not it's not just I mean, it's being lazy, but it's for most people. Hopefully you have a little bit more energy and enthusiasm than I do. I’m like the guy that just went and eat like a huge lunch and now I need to take a nap. Like I'm not hungry anymore.

00:54:41:18 - 00:54:53:21

Mark (Guest)

Most people watching this are hungry, right? It's like, man, you know, we're all are going to get this. I want to get this. I'm like, I got it. I'm full, man. I want to get take a nap. And so it's I don't have as much drive and ambition as I used to because I don't have to do anything.

00:54:53:22 - 00:54:56:18

Mark (Guest)

I make enough money now where I can, I don't have to do anything.

00:54:56:21 - 00:55:00:05

Jarred (Host)

It's a good segue though. What? What are you doing now?

00:55:01:23 - 00:55:27:08

Mark (Guest)

What am I doing now? I've sold, I had a little over a hundred doors like 18 months ago. I've sold most of them. I got, like 30 left. My wife and I, she, how do I put this. She was a nurse. She's still a nurse, but she's a travel nurse now where she'll get a contract like we were in Charleston, South Carolina, for six months from November last year till she was there till I think June.

00:55:27:08 - 00:55:48:12

Mark (Guest)

So we took a month off and went to the Cayman Islands for a couple of weeks and then I actually went out west. We bought an RV, I drove out west and hung out there for a couple of months, like, you know, climbing some mountains and hiking some trails and hanging out with some friends out there. And we as of this time, right now, we just got back from Cayman.

00:55:48:12 - 00:56:08:05

Mark (Guest)

We're heading to London on Monday for a couple of weeks. Then we come home for like a week, home being Baltimore and then we she got a contract in Tampa, Florida. So I'm going head., we're going to head down to Tampa for at least three months. And and I'm actually going to start wholesaling down there. You know, it's like on my list on my power list.

00:56:08:06 - 00:56:27:18

Mark (Guest)

I have a power list on my power list is I want to get a Propstream and, you know, find 10,000 people that fit my criteria to start sending postcards and letters to. And I mean, if I'm down there, you know, I mean, why not? And I've got friends that live down there and I actually eventually want to move to the Gulf Coast of Florida at some point in the future.

00:56:27:18 - 00:56:58:12

Mark (Guest)

So this will give me something to do and it's going to be like really great because when I'm down there wholesaling, I'll be able to list all my deals on Wholster. So like I'm like really excited about that and I'm really excited about it. So, so we're traveling for the most part. I do some coaching for it's very limited, like you're not going to see me like Facebook ads and all that stuff and like, you know, you can see a picture of me sit in my Lamborghini, my rental Lamborghini, you know with a, with a rental Rolex and you know, all that stuff.

00:56:58:22 - 00:57:22:19

Mark (Guest)

Like you're not going to see that people I coach some people that know who I am. I just saw another piece of advice I want to give to everybody that's watching this. I don't care what part of the country you're in my goal and I would think it would suit you well to have the same goal is you want to be the most well-known, well-respected investor in your market period.

00:57:23:12 - 00:57:41:13

Mark (Guest)

When your name comes up, you want people to speak highly of you and and you want your name to come up a lot. And in the way that you do that is by providing value to people with no expectations of anything in return. You know, if I'm invited to go speak at a REIA I go speak at a REIA, a meetup, a meetup, somebody calls me up and says, Hey, Mark, can you do a podcast?

00:57:41:13 - 00:58:05:16

Mark (Guest)

Sure, I'll do it, I’m not charging anything. I hope people get value from listening. If I can spend an hour of my time and affect people in a positive way that live a thousand miles away, that I will never meet, like that's well-worth an hour of my time. And if you just keep doing that and, you know, people want to do business with you, they want to be around you and they want to do business with you because they see that you're not just all smoke and mirrors, you know, all that stuff.

00:58:05:16 - 00:58:25:15

Mark (Guest)

Like for me, if you like, genuinely care about people, whether it's my tenants or my buyer or the seller or whoever, and people see that and it just stuff comes your way. You don't even have to ask, it just comes your way. And that's probably one of the most important pieces of advice that I can give everyone, and it doesn't have to.

00:58:25:15 - 00:58:48:01

Mark (Guest)

It's not just real estate. It's I don't care if you're selling hamburgers, you're one of the best reputation. It doesn't mean I have the best reputation and more people know me than anybody. But that's the goal. Mhm. And, and it works. It really works. So when I do have a wholesale deal people are going to pay attention because they know I don't play games, I'm not making stuff up, I’m not you know, trying to milk the deal, you know, skin all the meat off the bone, you know, it's like I'm going to leave plenty there.

00:58:48:01 - 00:59:08:04

Mark (Guest)

So the next time I call you, you're going to pick up the phone. You know, if you're like a lot of these wholesalers or you don't, you strip the you strip the meat, all the meat off the bone, you sell something to somebody. And then the next time they get an email from you, they're just going to delete it, you know, because they know that like he made more money than they did and he didn't, you know, and they did all the renovation and they hardly made anything.

00:59:08:14 - 00:59:22:16

Mark (Guest)

So if you leave plenty of meat on the bone, maybe you're going to make less money. They're going to make more. But then the next time you get a deal, it's a lot easier to sell it, you know, because people know it's a good deal if you're selling it, it's must be a good deal. I mean, you are I'm a true wholesaler that's my goal.

00:59:22:16 - 00:59:43:22

Mark (Guest)

I'm not selling stuff at retail and calling myself a wholesaler. I am a wholesaler. And so that's why I had five people that bought most of my deals. I've done probably 200 wholesale deals as of this time, and it's like five people that bought like just about all of them because they're wholesale dealers. And that's, you know, that's that's what works for me.

00:59:44:12 - 01:00:01:07

Mark (Guest)

And again, because my free time is so valuable to me and that free time can be spent, you know, watching TV, fishing, I don't fish anymore, or scuba diving or looking for, you know, a 15 unit apartment building that needs renovation. That's that's what I'm interested in doing is freeing up my time to do things that I really want to do.

01:00:01:12 - 01:00:01:22

Mark (Guest)

01:00:02:14 - 01:00:09:12

Jarred (Host)

So you still go rock climbing?

01:00:10:06 - 01:00:21:12

Mark (Guest)

Sometimes. It's like, I wouldn't want you to see it. It's not pretty, I've tried a lot of stuff, man. I mean, I actually have my pilot's license, a scuba dive. I've been

01:00:21:12 - 01:00:25:18

Jarred (Host)

Yeah, I refuse to get on a plane with you. I've heard the stories.

01:00:25:18 - 01:00:27:13

Mark (Guest)

Really? You haven't been up in a plane with me?

01:00:27:13 - 01:00:30:04

Jarred (Host)

I went with Gabe, but I don't know.

01:00:30:23 - 01:00:39:02

Mark (Guest)

Man he’s a, I almost said it. I almost said it. Politically incorrect, man. I think he went up with me.

01:00:39:02 - 01:00:40:14

Jarred (Host)

Yeah, he's been up with you.

01:00:40:22 - 01:00:45:23

Mark (Guest)

Oh, yeah. I mean I've had some people like want to throw up when they get out because it's like motion sickness.

01:00:46:00 - 01:00:54:02

Jarred (Host)

That’s why I won't get in with you. He told me what it was like and I said, yeah, you know, I think I'm good.

01:00:54:02 - 01:01:15:15

Mark (Guest)

You know, it's just. I don't know, man. I just like adrenaline I don’t know what to say man. So the. Yeah, I mean, I do. I've done a lot of stuff and I've jumped at it, you know, skydiving a few times and hang gliding and rock climbing and climbing mountains. Now I'm getting too fat and lazy to do it, but I’ve done

01:01:16:16 - 01:01:20:05

Mark (Guest)

It's interesting. When you got free time and you got money, you know, it's like, man, there's a.

01:01:20:05 - 01:01:20:20

Jarred (Host)

Whole lot to do.

01:01:20:20 - 01:01:23:08

Mark (Guest)

It's a whole lot to do. Yeah.

01:01:23:08 - 01:01:43:00

Jarred (Host)

Well, Mark, you've had a really, really long and successful real estate career. You're really into giving back to people, which I love. And it was it was really great to hear about your story, what you're up to. And I appreciate you coming on here and telling us everything.

01:01:44:03 - 01:01:59:17

Mark (Guest)

Yeah, of course, man. This is. It's my honor to do this. This is a privilege to be in a position where you can speak to people. And there's actually a few people that like, care what you have to say and hopefully you can get something from it. It's a privilege to be at that point in my life where I have stuff I can give to people that can help and make a difference.

01:01:59:17 - 01:02:03:11

Jarred (Host)

So where can people get in touch with you today?

01:02:03:11 - 01:02:11:18

Mark (Guest)

My regular email address Mark@markowens.com Mark with a K. Mark@markowens.com That's the easiest way.

01:02:11:20 - 01:02:21:23

Jarred (Host)

Okay. Okay. Well, we'll, uh, we'll get that into the show notes and hopefully people will reach out to you. Do you still do coaching?

01:02:21:23 - 01:02:41:00

Mark (Guest)

Yeah, I do. I do. Yeah, not not not a lot. And the truth is, I try to talk people out of it when they call me up and say they want to do it. And it's like I make them wait a few days before I'll like agree to do it because I don't want to get people that just like read some book or saw some seminar and you know, now they have all this like, oh man, I want to do it.

01:02:41:00 - 01:02:55:12

Mark (Guest)

And then they sign up and then they don't do anything. So I want people to think about it for a few days before they commit to anything. Because I'm not a motivational coach. Like if you pay me and you don't call me, I'm not going to call you back. It's like, you know, like you have to have some ambition.

01:02:55:12 - 01:03:09:04

Mark (Guest)

And I want to weed out the people that don't, you know, it's like because they're they'll be the ones blaming you, right? They'll be the ones that pay you some money and then they don't do anything. And then they say, Oh, that coach sucked. It's like, did you do what he told you to do? Did you call them?

01:03:09:04 - 01:03:14:11

Mark (Guest)

Did you make appointments? You know, it's like, no, so so that's why I'm very selective of who I work with.

01:03:14:11 - 01:03:21:15

Jarred (Host)

Makes a lot of sense. All right, Mark. Well, hey, thanks for coming on. It was good to see your face and hopefully we'll catch up, I think, in Tampa soon.

01:03:23:07 - 01:03:26:09

Mark (Guest)

I think so, man. I hope so. Maybe I'll. Maybe I can flip your house down there. Yeah.

01:03:26:12 - 01:03:28:08

Jarred (Host)

Hey, I'm buying so let's do it.

01:03:29:13 - 01:03:50:03

Mark (Guest)

All right, well, you know, find the you'll find the deal on Wholster. No, I'm not doing any special stuff for anybody any more. It's like I had. I had the five people, man. And now that is going to be my exclusive thing. There's other companies out there that are trying to do something like we've got and they're charging like, I mean, it's just like an insane amount of money to do it.

01:03:50:03 - 01:04:04:13

Mark (Guest)

Like, Yeah, this thing's going to do far better than that. It's like, you know, it's just, I don't know, man, but that's going to be my exclusive way to list any properties that I get under contract. Wholster is going to be it because it does everything I need it to do. And it's easy.

01:04:04:13 - 01:04:07:04

Jarred (Host)

It's easy. It is easy. It's very easy.

01:04:07:05 - 01:04:18:02

Mark (Guest)

Oh, look, I can do it. I'm not an IT guy anymore, right? I'm like I'm like an end user guy. Like, I can point and click and maybe I can hook up a printer and stuff like that, but not much more than that. Yeah.

01:04:18:02 - 01:04:32:10

Jarred (Host)

So if you guys want to see Mark's deals, you can go to wholsterapp.com It’s Wholster with a W, H O L S T E R and you can download it on the App Store and the Google Play Store. Thanks, Mark.

01:04:33:12 - 01:04:55:01

Mark (Guest)

Hey, thanks, man. Have a great day, Jarred.