$6M Portfolio Before Age 30 through "Problem" Properties with "Meet Kevin" Paffrath | BP Podcast 357

this is the bigger pockets podcast show 357 you're listening to BiggerPockets radio simplifying real estate for investors large and small if you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype you're in the right place stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from bigger pockets calm your home for real estate investing online hey what's going on everyone this is Brandon Turner host of the BiggerPockets podcast here with my co-host mr. David Greene what's up David not much dude I had a great day yesterday got a lot of sunshine and some exercise here in California run like 5 miles after a workout it was really good and then today during during our recording I got a message about a new flipped deal so I think I'm gonna have three under contracted by the end of today most likely so that's a really good day and we had an amazing interview today with a very successful real estate investor we did yeah I guess today is a YouTube star so to speak Kevin from meet Kevin a lot of you guys have seen his YouTube videos he's very very popular all his videos get hundreds of thousands of views sometimes millions and he's just a bright articulate smart dude that can really like like shares a ton of information about real estate investing getting started and all that good stuff we have a great conversation but all sorts of stuff I mean everything from like why he actually doesn't like cash flow and she says that I don't really like cash flow he goes into that he goes into something he calls wedge properties he goes into kind of his portfolio like why he's not trying to be the next grant cardone and it's really a phenomenal discussion I think you guys are gonna get a lot out of so stay tuned for all of that today and yeah I mean that's that's what we got going so before we get any further though let's get to today's today's quick that's very simple meet Kevin Kevin from Sado meet Kevin is a YouTube channel and we also have a YouTube channel so go follow both of us right now go to YouTube follow you know subscribe to bigger pockets and subscribe to me Kevin and finally now we are ready to jump into this interview with meet Kevin here we go all right Kevin welcome to the bigger pockets podcast man it has been a long time coming this is great thank you so much for having me I'm super excited alright cool so let's talk about you and your real estate journey I mean I know you're a real estate agent but you're also invest in realist so let's talk how did you first get into this whole real estate investing thing absolutely first thing was I would say I got my license and I thought wow you know how am I supposed to possibly get clients it's 2010 turn to 2011 nobody's wanting to buy real estate there tons of properties to be bought yet everybody's fearful of this double-dip recession coming so I'm like well nothing better than a salesperson going I'm buying right now so I bought I bought a house bad house would you buy anywhere yeah that I saw I bought a house in Ventura California and it was a three hundred and five thousand dollar foreclosure of course there were actually two cash offers on it so it's like ah like how do you compete against cash with an FHA three and a half percent down renovation loan and I thought well I really need a house so I could sell more houses so I'll just pay more that works definitely it works into the what year was this 2000 and he's a 10 2011 when I'm on closed the property so I mean it's worked out very well because I think you know even when we bought the place it was a foreclosure there was no kitchen the bathrooms didn't have toilets so at the time when I bought it I'm even paying 305 for it if I put 50 into it the day after I put the 50 and I knew I could have resold it for 400 425 so at least I felt comfortable that even in that market I felt like I had a worst-case scenario exit strategy but that really helped me sell real estate but then the cool thing that came out of that was oh my gosh I'm making more money investing in real estate than I am in sales because you start seeing that equity in that net worth builds so fast it's unbelievable yeah that makes sense now you said a renovation loan what does that mean for those who are never heard that term before yeah so this and I don't recommend it really for anybody it's like one of those worst-case scenarios but this was an FHA 203k renovation loan which is basically where you go in with three and a half percent down so on three hundred five thousand dollars three and a half percent down that was pretty small number somewhere on what eleven thousand dollars and then we borrowed about 50 thousand dollars or fix-up from the bank which was bundled into our first loan so really we were putting about three and a half percent down on 3:55 which you know again super small relative to us being able to now control and that's that's my girlfriend at the time Lauren and I we bought this we each put together like our eight thousand dollars that we had but you know for us to be able to control going from literally you know Jamba Juice and read rob and employees to two brand new real estate agent and being able to control up three-quarters of a million dollar property that we can fix up and have equity in we're just like wow you know day one our net worth goes from you know eight thousand dollars to like more than you know seventy-five thousand dollars after it makes that looks like whoa so that in that excitement really helped me sell real estate because people like you know they need to get an open house and they go Kevin what do you think about the board everybody wanted to know about the market there what do you think about the double-dip recession and yeah I studied as much as I could about the market but when I was talking to people the biggest thing that people related to was wow your urine age and you're buying right now yeah so why did you say you don't think that the renovation loan you don't recommend it cuz I mean I have my own room why it's good and bad boo what's the downside yeah so the downside is of that $50,000 we borrowed probably eight at least eight of that went to HUD consultants and extra bank fees which is really frustrating because that's it's expensive but you know constant doing business I can't really complain because it got us in but the process is also a bit of a pain in the butt because they really want you to have a contractor that goes in there and does let's say the kitchen then the the HUD consultant comes and says okay kitchens done then the bank gives you you know more money they give you like an initial draw and then they'll give you the additional draws after you do work but the problem is most of your handy folk the drywallers the electricians the contractors they finish the job they ain't putting bread on the table if they're not getting paid that day so we actually sort of parked it we did it is because it was a good deal which I always recommend trying to find those below market value deals I went to a client my first client ever whom I sold a six unit apartment building for him he said hey you know now that I sold this property I have extra money I go I'd happen Danny bunny could you lend me 20 grand and he put a second on the property because he saw the equity he walked the property he saw our building materials there he saw the struggle we were having with the bank and he goes I'll lend you 20 grand so we used that 20 to do a bunch of work did reimburse to the bank do a bunch of work get reimbursed for the bank that made the whole renovation process way easier but to do it legit tough yeah yeah so I I've never done personally a 203k I've done an FHA but not a 203k except for I I was the contractor on a 203k back in the day years ago and it was hell it was my actually my best friend at the time and then Adam was trying to buy a house and he was gonna do it two or three I mean it took like nine months to get through all the paperwork and the hell and the to get paid from the bank for me it was like insane and like yeah you don't have like a best friend contractor so because you need a contractor to like bear all the pain basically like yeah lot of paperwork you not saying it's not terrible if you get a good like a smoking hot deal it's the only way you can do it hey you know what it's it's a tool but if you can avoid it at all cost please yeah yeah it's what what I think a good use for that is I mean it's I'm not saying it's easier or not hell but so if you can buy the duplex triplex or four-plex you can also do the FHA 203k loan with that so potentially you buy that four-plex get the two or three K remodel the whole thing I mean it's again it's hell to go through at the end of the day you could be into a four-plex that cash flows like an ATM machine for three and a half percent down total so that that I think is it's awesome it's just it's it's hard to get through I generally that's a really good point it's what's so wonderful about what you said there is I think you're drawing a clear distinction and it's so important because I think people on YouTube and on the internet a lot of people they're looking to get started and they believe that okay you know what i'ma start getting passive income tomorrow and as if it's not gonna take any work or more time to build a net worth to actually get there and doing what you said yeah you know sometimes you get started trying to build that passive income you have to go through a little bit of work imagine that and you know people are like oh look Kevin you know you have to deal with fixing up your your rental properties or rear-ending them when they come baked it yeah it just happens to also pay very well so it's worth saying it's know I'm so glad we started off with this topic because just yesterday I had I mean I'm a real estate agent just like you are Kevin and I also an investor and I had a client who's like hey I'm gonna buy a house I want to use an FHA 203k loan this should be a breeze and I'm like okay I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you need to understand that there's a principle that sounds like yeah this is great you know 203k loan and then there's a reality that you will hate every single thing about doing this that there's such a thing but nobody wants to do it like Kevin you hit it right on the head you better hope that contractor is your best friend because the government has made it so hard for that to work it's almost a useless product for most people and there's a lot of pieces of real estate investing that work that way you've said another good thing Kevin that when people focus on will yeah but then I got to do all this work yeah that's why there's an opportunity there because if there wasn't work involved somebody else would have bought it before you even found out about it that when you when you get a deal you are literally getting a problem you're getting somebody else's problem that they don't want to solve and if you're the person that can solve it then you get the fruits of your labor in you really have to just accept that that is what you're doing you you get results in the gym because you work out you get a paycheck from work because you bring them value you make money through real estate because you do the same thing and a 203k loan is not always a great tool to do that but Kevin you highlighted what you should do okay that loan sucks it's gonna be very hard how do I make this easier on myself let me go ask somebody for money how do I know that they're gonna be able to trust it I'll pay it back I'll put a second mortgage on my house so they'll get a lien on my property you took all the tools of Brandon and I are talking about and you creatively use them in the situation to make this happen then you got the bug like this is great I don't have to work at Jamba Juice anymore I can actually have a job where I wear tell me more about it so what I want to know is did you become an agent because you're the real estate investing bug caught you and you fell in love with real estate or was it the other way around yeah I mean honestly what you just said there is so on point first of all I actually took out a notepad and I wrote down you get a deal you get somebody else's problem that is so understated now you're gonna get very well compensated for it often especially you get a good below market value dealing real estate but that's so great because it sets the expectation a lot more properly and yeah I became a real estate agent first and the problem that I had was you know at 19 18 19 it's hard to convince people to use you as an agent yeah but for some weird reason when you at 19 buy real estate now people are like this guy's 1980 the with kid yeah so it just it ended up just paying dividends not only by being a good deal but also in my opinion if somebody's a salesperson or something they better freakin own and invest in what they're doing I heard you know sometimes I hear real estate agents they go yeah you know I sell real estate in the area here and like I'm not trying to bag on people but whatever sometimes I do that that's why I say don't sue it's just what I feel sometimes I hear real estate agents are like you know look I sell houses here but I don't invest here I you know I I buy REITs or something else and I'm like ah what no it's the wrong message to be sending to your clients first of all and second of all it's just it's not congruent in my opinion you know if I'm if I'm gonna legitimately go to a buyer and go you should buy this it is a good deal and if you don't somebody else is gonna get a lot of money buying it I have to legitimately stand behind that as if like I would put my money on that deal you know yeah I think that's the key to like sales in general I mean every good sales person I've ever known in any field if they actually believe in what they're selling let's say I feel like so if you're like out there's telling me yeah you should really invest in this type of property or you should really live here because it would be a great investment for you and your family but then you're not willing to do it like yeah you just look like a just a lot like a liar so now I mean I granted there are some people who maybe feel like they can't buy because they're like oh I live instead in California but I mean obviously you you did it you pulled it off right there's always ways if you if you really want what Jim you know Jim Rohn quote like if you really want something you'll find a way if not you'll find an excuse you know people have every excuse under the Sun to get started and you know honestly I mean I went live on Instagram one day somebody's like I you know I live in Orange County I can't find anything to buy everything's like $700,000 I pull up you know here I've got my iPhone on Instagram I pull up my laptop you know I go on Zillow I go show me everything that's a townhouse or condo under $400,000 in Orange County Wow you're 50 hits all right let's go through these oh wow here's one that says it's a fixer-upper why don't we set up a showing for that one like oh wow and it's a two-bedroom it's a three-bedroom you can house a kit like ah there are ways to solve your problems people yeah because what you're realizing is what he's saying is there's nothing that doesn't require work that's underneath 705 there's nothing easy that's under 700,000 right and that's exactly what you but you pointed out yeah it's good they all come with problems right everything that's under 700 is a problem and I'm not willing to inherit that yeah I always like to push people a little bit too when they said I can't find any deals I always asking three questions right like how many offers did you make this week how many deals did you analyze and how many leads came across your desk because if you can't find deals it means you're not doing one of those three things or three you're not doing those three things and if and every time I've never had somebody say like answer any of those with anything other than zero like every time it's like well none none none I'm like okay well now you know your problem is like let's just let like hi any get leads to catch your desk oh we go to go to Zillow and sort by cheapest or recently reduced or like there's so many ways to do this it's just people it's a lot easier to sit on the couch and watch The Bachelor than it is to sit and actually invest in real estate and so that's what people do they sit on the couch oh you're so right about that and and I think really one of the biggest things that stops people is it's and it's almost the easiest thing to solve is get pre-approved you know just by know just by the nature of picking up the phone and getting pre-approved you now have a lender telling you you know what we should really work to pay off this car and then you can afford this kind of property now you get motivated come on you know yeah I think too many people are like oh well I don't want to have my credit run because it might score by six points so let me let me chime in on that cuz dude Kevin you're speaking my language this is the frustration of every real estate agent right the first thing is your credit will drop it will come right back in like a month or two it's a temporary hit the other thing is if you get your credit run you have a 30-day window to continue to run it from other banks and it won't go down any more because after the Fair Credit stuff happened after the last crash the government changed the standards of how credit is run so that you can get multiple quotes and don't get ripped off the third point is I tell my clients this all the time getting a pre-approval is not just something you have to do to be able to buy a house although it usually is if you're using a loan it's like going to the doctor and getting your blood work back and they say here's the deal here's where your cholesterol is here is where your a 1 C count is here's where your protein count is we need to make these adjustments to make you healthier well your your pre-approval is a form of paperwork that you look at and say oh if I pay this off I can borrow more money I didn't even realize that my debt was this high on this interest rate all that I have to do is move this thing around and I can get a better rate and it and it empowers you now to have a plan to go forward and like you said Kevin it motivates you I think the reason people really don't want to get pre-approved is the same reason guys don't like to go the doctor is we don't want to hear oh there's a problem you have something that you have to do but it's so important because once you see that it impacts you emotionally and then you start to take action and that's what we can all agree here taking actions actually what's gonna build you wealth and to help you grow now Kevin you're a unique person I know you have a YouTube channel that is massive you you're you're known as a real estate educator you're very young you give really good advice I've listened to you on YouTube before I think you have really good stuff as far as being an agent because we actually have a lot of agents that listen to this podcast and we have a lot of people that work with real estate agents as well give me some insight into what you've learned being a real estate agent similar to me that you didn't know before when you were just an investor what some things in the industry that you see that give you an advantage because you work selling real estate for a living that might benefit people who want to get into investing oh wow that's that's a really good question you know if it's one that I I would say and okay so we'll go down this rabbit because this is a this is a big pet peeve of mine for investors most of the time when people become investors they or they start investing in real estate they they kind of they turn into like Dracula's that I'm an investor and everybody around them to me it's honestly you know people people for some reason become mean and aggressive sometimes when they're investors and they don't treat agents well escrow well lenders well electricians plumbers well everybody you know they're they're the Thai king of the universe is their own impression and that may be true because investors create a lot of business for a lot of people but when I found being an agent so they answer your question what I found being an agent is as an agent my relationship with the other agents is what gets me deals not because somehow I'm getting these pocket deals but because when I call an agent I don't even necessarily have to know them but I call an agent and I say hey you've got and I just did this this year so I put my money where my mouth is this guy's got he put a listing on the market from out of the area great deal put it on the market for $650,000 I looked at the thing I go this place needs ten thousand dollars worth of work and it's gonna be worth seven hundred seventy five thousand dollars and so I called him and find out okay you know hey I talked to him build some rapport Wow you know it sounds like you got a great listing here tell me a little bit what are the sellers motivations and by getting to know him and talk to him and building a relationship building rapport with him I'm able to go from not knowing him coming in as an agent like hey we're colleagues here like you know tell me what's what's going on with the sellers what's going on with these other offers what are the problems why haven't you guys picked an offer yet if you have 10 offers oh because of this because of this because of this well what if I was able to make you an offer that checked off all these boxes would you be able to sign off an offer you know tomorrow and and that's that's how I got a deal so you know that's just one of the deals that I bought this year but it's a big message and I'm trying to send with that hopefully clearly is by going a lot of investors they start with well here's an agent I'm gonna pick up the phone yeah so so what price of the other offers just tell me tell me where do I got a beat I got all this money ready to go on pre-approve I mean oh I got cash or do I need to be and it's very off-putting to agents when you come in with with the mindset that you're gonna be in the business for the long run either as an investor or an agent is your reputation will travel as an investor too and you treat people like they're gonna be there for a while let's let's work with people like their people you'll actually end up getting more information which will lead you to getting deals that's awesome work with people like their people there's a tweetable tweetable quote right there all right I want to go back to your story a little bit so you got that first deal that first house how did you get into actually you're your first like other other than your primary your first investment let's talk through that Wow yes so my first investment so we closed on this deal we fixed it up a lot of people are fearful of putting less than 20% down because of mortgage insurance and they think this is the end of the world which you know oftentimes when you do the math of mortgage insurance it's really the difference of getting like a 4% rate to like a 4.75 it ain't that big of a deal like it doesn't change your life that much especially if you're getting a good deal but we did have mortgage insurance and we also wanted to pay this $20,000 back that we had borrowed so what we did is after we fixed up the property hey this is a method you folks have heard from before we did a cash out refinance and we were able to refinance to a conventional loan 20% down essentially because the equity we had in it we were able to take some cash out as well we got rid of our mortgage insurance the rate stayed about the same it's a matter too much to us so the payment went up a little bit you know three four hundred dollars payment went up but we now had extra cash available to to consider going shopping and so I remember the next year or the beginning of the next year we finished that renovation somewhere around August November we finished that renovation and remember January I was passing out flyers and I was thinking to myself I gotta find a deal like I gotta find a fixer is almost sort of driving for dollars I just wanted to put that energy out there I think I just seen the movie the secret and I okay if I put the energy out I will get a deal I don't so I just had no idea where was gonna come from and I was holding an open house and in a neighborhood that I would gladly invest in which I always recommend you know go go work in the areas where you want to invest anyway i'm holding an open house and the neighbor across the street walks in and says hey what would it be weird to have two for sale signs on the same street and me as an agent I'm like oh tell me more anyway you know long and short of it I visit her house and I see your house and I asked her what she wanted for the property I go oh gee you know what what if I told you I had a buyer you know and and that's that's how we got into our first investment property which was crazy about that was it goes sort of back to this in this relationship world and how small or investing communities can really be Lauren I brought Lauren by my you know my girlfriend at the time now my wife to look at the property Lauren gets out of her car walks up the driveway I'm on the top of the driveway with the seller and the seller is like oh my gosh Lori mitt Lords like oh my gosh marry like they knew each other like oh my gosh that's funny they hated each other Oh Lauren Oh why'd you bring her around yeah good good thing so let's it was a single-family house how much was this thing okay so we bought this single family for 387 so us so the first one loyal just backtracked quick the first one it was listed for 287 we you know we knew there are two cash offers I go the only thing I can compete on is paying more which remember when people are flipping the person who can always pay more than a flipper is the person who's gonna rent out the property and then the only person who's gonna pay more than that is a person who's gonna buy it live in it and fix it up but that's a small percentage of people and usually it's a big gap the homebuyers they don't want the fixers anyway so BA deferred 305 we paid more was we refinanced it when we got a refinance appraisal that was probably somewhere 450 to 475 we ended I didn't mention they said I want to complicate it too much we ended up getting a home equity line of credit as well because we were able to get that 20% loan get our mortgage insurance removed then he lock up to 90 percent which gave us a little bit more money for for fix up the second property was three hundred eighty seven thousand dollars it was probably worth somewhere on four seventy five to five with maybe thirty thousand dollars worth the work okay that's cool so what is what is the proper like that in this area this is in Southern California right so what about for an area like that yeah so you know when when we first rented that property out we probably rented it for somewhere around 24 25 now it rents for 29 so rent stuff you know moved a little bit but usually these deals the only way they cash flow and this is the case for a lot of areas of the United States though you know a lot of rules don't work out here because each market is kind of their own in most of the time something like this if you put 25 percent down on a good deal good deal 25 percent down should be somewhere out to $300 month cash flow so you're not really you know getting rich off cash flow you're really making your money on the equity play of building your net worth acquiring these fixer-uppers yeah yeah I mean it just shows that there's different strategies for different areas right so you just absolutely you know and the other thing to that that I personally like is you know just just this year for example and obviously as I've gotten better at this the deals have gotten better but this year I closed three purchases one of them was 450 worth 6y with about 50 all of them about feminine with the first two about fifty thousand dollars wouldn't work so 450 needs fifty thousand dollars worth of work it's worth six that's maybe $100 two hundred ollar a month cash flow after you know vacancy repairs piti everything and you know there's this one hundred thousand dollars of equity in that deal another property for 65 worth 615 and then that's 650 worth 775 that one only needing about fifteen thousand dollars worth of work I talked about so to me I look at these three deals I go I just essentially increased my net worth $300,000 and I paid zero dollars in taxes on that and because I'm a real estate investor which anybody can do this with my own real estate I'll never pay taxes on that because if I go to sell I'll exchange and one day after I exchange my way and and the government says Oh Kevin you do in an exchange no worries catch us later on the taxes and I do that over and over again one day I'll have you know 9 million 10 million 20 million dollars worth of capital gains that I'm supposed to pay the government and you know let's say I sold them all I'd have to pay a couple million three million dollars in taxes that would suck especially in California but if I don't sell and one day I happen to get hit by a bus my children and family will get all of these memories with a stepped-up tax basis and nobody will ever pay taxes on that gates so yeah because of that I look at real estate I go I just made three hundred thousand dollars tax-free and people are like oh well well how can you use that money call up my buddy Bob like I did the first time I go hey can I borrow undergrad to go buy another deal oh that's awesome you said something I really want to point out because I think it's very valuable for especially newer investors to understand when everybody starts off they have a at a perspective of how real estate works and that it's usually cash flow is the reason that we do this and there's many reasons that that's the case especially just when you think about we came out of last recession a lot of people lost real estate because they didn't make sure at cash flow they couldn't hold it so cash flow took this elevated position of the reason why you should invest in real estate but when you talk to people who have actually done it cash flow is usually the least important thing they care about I tell people cash flow does not make you money cash flow is a defensive tool it keeps you from losing a property you're not gonna make a lot of money are you write that down yeah that's funny if you do two videos over the next couple weeks I'm like yeah I mean that that is that's a brilliant line there because people think that okay I'm gonna buy real estate and I'm gonna sit on the beach in Tahiti and and you know drink my eyes all day long but to me and this is a challenge I always pose to first-time investors I go ask yourself this if you had a zero dollar net worth and you had no assets how hard is it to create of income you have to go work hard if somebody now just to show the difference of net worth and cashflow here if somebody now gave you twenty million dollars of property with twenty million dollars worth of debt and a zero cash flow so literally you're in the same place the person that has no assets no debt no ass no nothing right zero net worth compared to somebody who has twenty million dollars in properties twenty million dollars in debt and zero cash flow they're technically on paper net net the same place but what's gonna happen next year this guy with twenty million dollars some properties gonna have paid down five hundred thousand dollars of principle yeah you know they're gonna have appreciation they're going to have tax benefits the tax benefits out the yin-yang and if they raise the rent on twenty million dollars a real estate boom there's a lot of cash flow real fast so it goes to show that well the challenge is and let me get cash flow now to me it starts with let's get some net worth going first and some tools that are gonna build a set net worth and then n single-family single-family real estate is it's somewhat easy and simple to build net worth you buy it for less than what it's worth and it's valued based on comparable sales right so sometimes just buying an ugly house and making it a pretty house is all you had to do to build equity in the property even if you didn't build cashflow but that starts to build your net worth then and that's because single-family real estate is not in intended it wasn't built for the purpose of cash flow that's not why it exists it was built for someone to live in it we've Jimmy rigged it to make it work that way what is what is intended for cash flow is multi-family property apartment complexes are designed to produce cash flow and they're valued based on how much cash flow they produce like the metric that you use to make it worth more is literally to make it a more profitable business so if you understand that it becomes very simple that you start off buying single-family rentals not for cash flow but to build equity you then exchange that equity into multifamily properties later which is designed for cash flow and it's a very simple process if you start with the end and work backwards and you're pointing out something I'm so glad you are because I usually feel like I'm banging this drum and nobody's listening to me I just don't want to hear it right now you have all these properties you're making so much money I'm like I'm really not there's stuff that goes wrong all the time you get this many single-family houses you got to pay people to help you manage them you're constantly dealing with paper cut after paper cut it's really annoying however you're building the snowball of equity that someday in one fell swoop I'll sell them all I'll go ten thirty one into you know a handful of properties that cashflow really good most of my problems will be gone and I'll have cash flow but my house is bought my cash flow as opposed to the money that I saved up buying my castle which is much slower bingo that's it's funny you say that because that's literally you know if people here I'm just gonna say people here at Grant Cardone all the time say oh you know the single family don't buy that probably buy multifamily you know he he made almost 11 million dollars on a single-family which he was then able to take that 11 million dollars some gains and you know I I'm not sure this is the case but it's presumed this was 1031 exchanged into 50 million dollars worth of multi-family real estate in Florida so take 11 million dollars and games in California boom here's your cash flow in Florida one thing I do want to point out too on cash flow is a lot of people you know at least or people in their earning Gear's cash flow can actually be a little bit painful because you do get taxed as ordinary income on that which so it's kind of frustrating especially out here in California man like 45 50 percent of Texas sucks yeah yeah it's - and but here's the point we act wait to be careful that to make sure we say is that like we're not saying never saying go buy a bad deal that you lose money every single month on just because you want a chance at equity right so I've know people were just like I mean I unless unless you're rich I know guys Southern California who came to me and wanted to buy a deal and it was like gonna rent for $2,100 a month his mortgage payment was gonna be like three thousand a month and he's like should I buy this deal and I'd say no but this guy makes millions of dollars a year in income from from his business so I'm like okay fine of all the people I know if you're gonna gamble on appreciation and in you really believe in this property and that it's gonna go up fine you're the guy that maybe could do it right because you can handle it but nobody else like know like and that's where it's just like knowing yourself knowing what you are capable of what can you can handle like I don't care about a brick I would buy a property in Maui like I live in Maui Hawaii right so I buy property here and breakeven all day long why because I want I can afford it and it's got to be actual breakeven I'm not talking about mortgage same as my you know my rent but I actually got a break-even fine whatever if I hold it for 20 years things gonna be worth way more and my loans would be bit way less and I'm gonna have net worth from it and then I can dump into multifamily so again bingo well you know another thing that's so interesting I'll just kind of tap that because what you just said there is it's so perfect it's like you don't build that build that net worth and even in an expensive area like Hawaii you're buying there because you're a your income can support it be you know the numbers make sense to where your repairs and vacancies cover are covered by the rent with everything else but another thing to know is when people get started you know you want to go start a multi-family 35% down because like you know we said here the banks and you know multi-family being designed for cash flow the banks are going to require that cash flow and how do they get that out here I go run the numbers on a multi-family deal I got to put sometimes forty five to fifty percent down for the bank to be satisfied with the cash flow you know a single-family it's like sure you put three percent down are you really gonna be expecting cash flow right now you know yeah okay this is good stuff and I think people are getting a lot of value out of this at least I feel really good that we're sharing the truth about real estate right now and not not the infomercial version where it's packaged up so you spend forty thousand dollars to buy this thing that I mean to make $40,000 in cash flow on these courses that takes you like seventy years it's shocking some of these really expensive programs and sometimes I you know I have people they come to me no Kevin I spent Minh to a shooting range and the trainer knows him a real estate investor and he said hey you know I'm looking into this this forty thousand dollar program that's gonna teach me how to flip real estate using other people's money and I'm like holy crap like I'll tell you how to do that in the next ten seconds you know like there is no shortage of hard money lenders shortages deals you find a deal you'll find the money there you go you know now you submit same a bill for forty thousand dollars and have a great time yeah yeah so we're all in the wrong business right now we're launching the Kevin David and Brandon course on how to buy real how to flip houses with no money it's forty thousand dollars you can send you next to me it'll be great it's $39,000 we'll save you a great well safety there we go for the low low price yeah okay I wanted to ask you Kevin can you tell us what your portfolio looks like and what your favorite parts of your own portfolio are yeah so I right now it's I control six million dollars worth of real estate and it's all single-family at this point I every single year of my career I've looked into acquiring duplexes triplex as for plexes I just every single time I'm shopping like I'm shopping right now I've got money ready to go I'm ready for my next deal every single time I go shopping I will put on Instagram I'll show videos like Here I am looking at houses here I'm looking a multi-family in every single time I go shopping the multi-family stuff gets at least in this area so over bid and I think it's because you have so much money especially you look at countries like Europe where they have you know negative growth rates people are looking to pension funds you know insurance companies everybody is looking to dump money into real estate and where is that real estate going or where is that money going it's a lot of it's going into multi-family real estate they're not looking at the single family space so a lot of these properties they're having offers from from institutional investors that it doesn't matter how much they pay it doesn't matter how much a syndication pays for a 20 unit apartment building or a hundred unit apartment building in California because they make the money on how much money they have if they make their money on how much money they have under management and holding the property for the long term the buy price doesn't really matter to them and that's frustrating to me what I'm looking for undervalued real estate in this particular area multi-family undervalued doesn't exist single-family on the other hand only 11% of people looking at single family or investors to me it's like shooting fish in a barrel it's the same way in the Bay Area so I'm a real estate broker up here we help people by helping them find houses everybody comes to me with what you said I want to find multi duplexes triplexes before plexes use the low downpayment it sounds great in theory and at certain times it works really well but what you just said is really important everybody's playing in that space I hear people complain all the time how are they gonna ever make money at that price yeah yeah and they don't understand they don't need to make money they just sold something and they have nine hundred thousand that they need to put into play in a 1031 so they don't pay taxes they can break even and save all the money that they were gonna be taxed on to them it makes sense to pay that price and we when you get into your own perspective and you think about what you're wanting it's very frustrating when you step back and you look at the big picture like what you're saying you're making no money on your money in the bank there are tons of people who've raised a buttload of capital and they have to put it somewhere and they can earn enough cash flow to break even or make a tiny little bit so that makes sense for them when you're the little guy trying to get started don't go compete with these people that have a ton of capital and a ton of experience and all these advantages over you you gotta find the place to hunt where there's less people looking for the game and that is absolutely single family so what we do is we look for areas with like a split-level single-family house that can easily be managed like a duplex it's got a finished basement and a top house and maybe we put some drywall in the top part of the house and put a kitchen on the other end of it and we just turned it into three units now it's not technically a triplex because it's not zoned for multifamily you wouldn't be able to use the income from it to qualify for the loan but if it's in a price point that you can qualify for I can find you something that will make you cash flow and make that deal as opposed to just looking for something that's labeled a triplex that every other investor is getting in their search and that's the way you gotta be you have to be different you got to look in places other people aren't looking now I completely believe we will hit a recession at some point I don't think it's right around the corner like some people do but eventually it will happen and there will be the fish in the barrel those multifamily properties will be dropped in value the investors will want their money out the people will be selling them they'll go to foreclosure that's the time that you go buy those deals why not build equity in the single-family space in the mean time so that your your your guns loaded so to speak so when those opportunities come you can move on it rather than just sitting around and complaining that oh it's so hard there's the deals go so fast that's a really really good thing you just said there's find a way in your space to you know make your deals work and in your area that might be taking that same family you know what maybe your your Airbnb hanging out the basement you know it's and what we're seeing a lot of us especially now with the new Adu laws people are buying you know fixer-upper in our area Midtown men Tara homes these are like these little 1920s 30s bungalows that have larger yards and they go let's let's convert the garage into a liegelady you now boom there's our cash flow you know and what a great way to get started there's so many opportunities for people to get started and really things become a lot easier when you own your first place oh yeah so much easier so you just got to get started somewhere so how does somebody who's just getting started I mean how are you finding deals in a competitive market in a expensive market how do you recommend how do you find deals and how do you recommend newbies listen to this get started yeah I mean to me there are dime a dozen opportunities and when I look statistically it was throw the numbers have leave about a thousand sales per year in the city of Ventura and of those thousand I'd probably say about 10% need work and or fixers and maybe about half of those are good deals like great deals so I just took a thousand to a hundred 250 and now if I divide that fifty by twelve I get one deal that week that hits the market that's very very good and juicy so for me every single week there is an opportunity that hits the market that I could be writing an offer on that I I look I go and I just get one a year I'm doing really really well and there aren't that many people competing against me in a smaller city like Ventura I mean a pitcher has a hundred thousand people but the problem is there are most of the people in the real estate competition space eighty-nine percent of them based on kind of what I see out here and then stats that I can read online or research eighty nine percent of them the average homebuyers they're not looking at these fixers these these deal a week that comes up they're not looking at those and these are MLS deals I'm not even talking about doing anything like driving for dollars or the other ways that you can find deals just straight-up deals that hit the mls being fast on them being pre-approved being ready to go and seeing value where other people don't see it those come up easily once a week and again 89% your homebuyers they don't care about them because the carpets stinky it's you know got a little bit of mildew in the bathtub or whatever they don't care then you're against the flippers which just pay a little bit more than the flippers you're gonna rent it out or live there and you win so I mean if you know if you're doing the Bur strategy like you could pay more than what the flippers are so what I always say if there's somebody in your market flipping houses anybody if there's flipping going on you can get into rental properties because if the flippers can do it you can do it as well almost entirely you can find a deal to to buy rehab right refinance repeat you can find those deals if the flippers are doing it if there are in there everywhere and so people just love to have these limited beliefs of like oh I can't do that in my market doesn't work here it's just an excuse what I mean what you said is so brilliant literally in every first of all you said two great things one if the flippers are doing it you can do it and the second thing you said is everywhere as a flipper yeah for sure all right so let's let's talk about so that's what do you look for me like specifically those deals of the week that come up I mean you kinda mention a few things but let's say like give some people some actionable like this is what listen what I look for that makes me go yes I'm gonna go in analyze this deal okay all right so first thing and let's see if I can pull something up here the first thing that I'd like to do when I look for deals is you know usually it's got to be new I've seen all the old stuff already and a lot of the old things they're the older listings I've already tried to lowball occasionally I keep them on a list I try to lowball me get I keep a dialogue going with the agent that's usually the easiest way for me to do it the generally though the deals that I buy are the deals that they hit the market I'm there the first day they get other offers but I don't get discouraged by the other offers I see the other offers as this is maybe just a mind twist but I see the other offers as my safety net if other people are writing offers other people see value here and that's good I know I'm gonna be in again like those home buyers they're usually not writing offers on this but let me show you what what I'm looking at so let's see if I could do this so if I this button that button we should have an example I do so this is an example of a property that I just bought and you know you go in here you go okay there's there's no flooring so the way the agent sold this property is it has to be cash only because they rip the carpet off I mean the old asbestos tiles are here you know you got this kind of a you got the acoustic ceiling you've got the older fireplace you know everything's kind of disheveled here this is a this is the kitchen you know everything about it most people are gonna look at this and go Oh gross you know it's it's old we got a demo everything we got to tear everything out you go kind of walk over towards this way here you literally have your blue bathroom tiling which is massive - and they even - match over here have whereas there it is a blue toilet you can kind of smell yeah all right beautiful mean just everything about it is just nasty this is money to me and the reason it is is because this place we bought for $465,000 we're gonna put about $45,000 into it oh and that's scraping the ceilings flooring removing the wallpaper painting it new light fixtures outlets door handles you know a couple new vanities we're gonna glaze the tiles in the bathroom reef floor and then I need all 40 will be gone after we repaint look we'll actually keep the kitchen cabinets and we'll repaint these instead because initially people look at this and they go ill gross look they're terrible I look at this I go this is this is hardwood this is nice quality stuff ready to go as long as it's not water damaged or broken or whatever I can make this work over here for example we cut in a range so we you know we have put a little 18 inch cabinet here and cut in a range right here so now I've got my bill at my oven and my cooktop and I'm ready to go so you know that that's the kind of stuff I look for when I see that I don't I can play that game all day long and I keep doing that so it maybe it's just because a lot of people go in there and they go I'm gonna have to spend $150,000 on it I look what are you talking about yeah well you're buying a problem then the problem is it's ugly yeah right that's it it's not horrible and that problem it looks worse than it is right and you got some experience so what you're seeing is okay this is a facelift I just need to go put makeup on this thing that's not a very big job so I love the fact that you thought you just showed us a deal that makes a ton of sense there's no ton of equity in there is scared everybody else away because it wasn't pretty well you can make it pretty that's like the best problem to solve yeah exactly I'm gonna see if I can you know just probably take a second I'll see if I can pull up a partial after that I have but if not no worries but basically what what I described to you is is what uh what we did and yeah exactly you know I maybe it's just because I look at these deals and and I don't go in there and I say you know I mean what I what I my favorite thing to buy and this is my definition of sort of your wedge deal and it's very much like this deal I go in I'll open up like everybody else they're looking at all the nasty stuff and the smell and the lack of carpet and stuff like that I look at it I know I open the furnace closet I go brand spankin new furnace I like this you know I look at the roof I go roof is pretty good we're gonna put on new ridge counts for 1,800 bucks that roofs gonna kick it for another 10-15 years you know and you look at the foundation all the expensive things are good ground and electrical the expensive stuff is good and you know the cosmetic stuff is I think what people dramatically overvalue and that creates an opportunity to even get on the market deals for a tramatic discount I've had so many people have talked to I mean one specific I remember the a friend of mine said we walked into a condo and just took one sniff and we walked right out and I was like like they were trying to buy an investment property and they're like we took one sniff and walked right out and he was out like you know they're kind of proud of themselves because they did they didn't want to like yeah like no that was that was that's my favorite thing in the world like so and car those are like the safest thing to buy if you think about it because you're sharing responsibility for the roof and the plumbing with everybody else you know it's like a great way to start oh I got I got two condos right now that I'm flipping but all holding with rentals all day long if I if I have to if the market changes cuz yeah like the idea of the kind I mean yeah there's some annoying things you got to be aware of but like oh yeah HOA is primarily so here's that question for you real good oh by the way that's the partially finished it's looking awesome this is yeah this is partially so you can see these are the same exact cabinets i we still had we did a gas line here so I have a patch attitude I just quickly wanted to show you this is just a quick little shot of what that kitchen looks like now where we painted the cabinets you know this gray we put the hardware in this you can see the stainless appliances the quartz countertop new faucet is saying so this all of a sudden you get a regular homeowner that walks into this you're like whoa where you know where do I sign up I like this yeah that's that's awesome and of course if people are people are listening to this right now you want to what you should go and check out our YouTube page and and see what Kevin's guys shown here like the before and after it's it's pretty remarkable so in bigger pockets that Oh youtube.com such bigger pockets you'll see sums up there and of course I mean obviously follow Kevin as well on YouTube what do you have meet meet Kevin on YouTube right yep alright alright so here's a question for you how does a new investor know like you okay you and I look at that property the one that you just kind of walk through the matter port there right do you like you and I look at that and in David and we're like oh yeah Jimmy great we'll paint the cabinets here like the flooring whatever we'll cover them with this that way it's not a scary thing but how does a newbie know something that's cosmetic and not a scary thing or this is a tremendous rehab that they should not get into because it's like gives gonna be a money pit that's a great question really the this is the first thing that everybody should do is buy something to live in and when they buy something to live in they start understanding wow these these houses they're really just especially if it needs work and you start doing some work yourself when you start doing things like I'm gonna put on paint I'm gonna do a little bit of you know drywall you know maybe I'm gonna have an electrician show me and teach me how to change an outlet safely all of a sudden and that's that's exactly what I did when I started my first deals I did the drywall I scraped the old tiles off the floor I scraped the ceiling I hey whatever it took I did it and what it taught me was something that I thought it especially in nineteen years old was an invaluable lesson that wow these houses are really just toothpicks and paper it's not that complicated to deal with the cosmetic but what it also showed me is if you don't properly inspect the systems those could be a lot more expensive so by doing it by owning the first property and surrounding myself this is probably the more applicable for everybody who doesn't have the time to do the work by surrounding yourself with professionals who know now you protect yourself so you go into a house that needs work you say you know what I'm gonna I'll do some paint I'll try drywall I'll try some of these things but now you bring in your real estate agent who also invests what's gonna happen your real estate agents gonna tell you well I invest in this neighborhood and Kevin you know what we need to make sure that we scope the plumbing lines not just from the outside to the street but the inside as well because these cast iron trains run out maybe they've been replaced maybe not let's look at that and see what our exposure is there that's where you learn a lot really fast for free basically because your agents getting paid by the seller and then guess what you do a home inspector in the home inspector goes ah you know what this uh this electrical thing over here this is a little janky okay you call an electrician the electrician comes over and and even if you had to pay him people are so fearful like oh well no no electrician is coming to talk to me have you tried this you pick up the phone go hey electrician I've got some uh you know I need an electrician for about thirty minutes next week I'm willing to pay $150 just for a psych consult on a property I'll pay you right there on the spot 150 bucks if you can walk a property with me I guarantee you they'll be doing it's like four times their hourly rate right so they're there and now you know Wow oh I've seen these panels before you know what these houses they're actually wired pretty well but we should change out the panel this is really just an eighteen hundred dollar problem for you Wow cool thanks I knew nothing about electrical now I quantified it with a number it's $1,800 does that still make sense to my deal so the two things one getting that you know be willing to do some stuff yourself and learn and be exposed because if you walk in you see stinky asbestos and lead and mold and all this you're gonna be fearful unless you're willing to to try to expose yourself to understanding what does it actually take to deal with this and solve it second thing surround yourself with professionals because you'd be surprised how much you can learn for a very little price yeah that is so good really really good all right so this deal that we're talking about here can really kind of be we always do a segment the show called a deal deep dive and really this is kind of it like that it's the it's the what did you you know how did you buy it you bought this MLS right yeah this okay so that you bought this property you already told us what you paid for it you kind of watch us through all that I mean what's the long-term plan with it like where do you headed with it yeah the rental exactly so this property if I don't refinance because we bought it so far below market value with 25% down this property will cashflow probably somewhere around $700 but I actually like I said earlier in the segment I don't want the cash flow I could I could easily you know do a YouTube video or whatever long look at all this cash flow even afterward you know 200 bucks for repairs and and and vacancy or whatever and manage makes expense this that and all the other the piti all this stuff look at all this cash flow just because I got a good deal at 700 ah let's call I can spend it on whatever I want you know I I don't really like that because it's it's a lot of taxable income for me and I don't I don't want that right now so for me this deal usually I probably only refinance deals like 30 percent of the time but this particular deal because it does have so much sort of on the bone I'll refinance it and probably pull out cash to where the cash flows closer to $200 you know maybe a hundred dollars after repairs and vacancy and all of that so I'll be able to take out a little bit of a little bit of cash and then I'll just go shopping for another deal the plan is because I've renovated because I know how old the systems are and the quality of the property the quality of the cosmetic remodel that we did I look at it and go I don't mind holding on to this for the twenty seven and a half years I don't plan to sell it mostly I don't look I'm a realtor but I always say I sell real estate but I don't sell real estate because I hate paying other Realtors so you know even though I can't represent myself I didn't just don't want to pay the closing cost so I'll keep it for twenty seven a half years in the meantime as values go up I can pull seconds on it if I need to I don't want to over leverage though I want be safe and I'll go shopping for other deals usually my for a portfolio wise I don't like to be any more than like 60% debt overall the whole portfolio and right now I'm below that so I don't mind doing some refinancing okay that's great great so where do you see yourself out in the future like where's the next 5-10 years look like for Kevin you know it's funny because III think our society says that you know so there's there's a society driven Kevin and then there's like the the Kevin you should do this and so society driven Kevin says I got a 10x I got a do a syndication of single family wedge deals meet Kevin capital I'm gonna go out there and have you know a big team with 20 employees and we're gonna have a startup or I'll just start in a living room and then we'll be out in a warehouse somewhere whatever it you know everybody's hunting for deals and helping people you know what will pay more than open door and and read fit now or whatever I just go crank it there's there's that side which is that I say that's a society driven because it's always like 10 X 10 X 10 X but then I also come from a place of having been a licensed contractor having had 15 to 18 employees at one time feeling that stress seeing how little time I actually got to enjoy myself my family my children money like that's a problem so then there's then there's the other Kevin which is like wait a minute this is this is such a good formula just buying these simple like basic little deals building your equity so fast renting them out and then just enjoying life like it doesn't take that much effort to do the case deals yeah oh yeah so it's like just keep doing that I know that's more of like the boring answer but honestly that's just such an easy thing I'm one of those people know that I do get bored easily I'm constantly like what's next what's next what's next and I think that's dangerous and risky because that could make me very unhappy we're right now in just such a happy place where I don't have to don't crazy like that yeah that's great answer yeah I struggle with that as well it's like part of me it says well I should just relax and hang out and enjoy my time and then I'm like no I got to go bigger and bigger and bigger you know what made a big impact on me was Tim Ferriss said I think was an honor when it was on our podcast but also just on his own show what if it was easy so the question I'm asking myself all the time is what how can I get that thing that like the growth of a big company in an equity you know like you know Brandon capital how do I do that but not have to do the 50 60 hours of hard work the Grant Cardone hustle hustle hustle thing and that's a hard question to answer but that's what I'm exploring and trying to figure out right now is how do you do that yeah and I think it's hard it's a hard question to answer because it's relative a mic I'm not I'm not trying to say this about your goals in general in general usually it's very unrealistic you know people I think they they think all right well I just want to work four hours a week I'll have a startup and I'll be rich he usually doesn't work that way yeah I mean you know you look at Elon Musk's sleeping on the floor of his offices right and I'm not trying to compare myself to him but you know when I in 2015 for example the year I sold the most real estate that I've ever had in my career and had employees and had all these other business ideas and stresses going on pre-youtube and look at that time and I go yeah there was money success but it came at the cost of working 90 hours a week not four hours a week and I was really unhappy yeah really really good point so yeah really good all right let's head over to the next segment of our show it's the way around by around around all right this is the fire round these are the questions that come direct out of the BiggerPockets forums that we're gonna fire them at you and see what you got to say so Jordan I from I'm not sure waste from but Jordan said this exactly said that in the in the in the question Jordan said where in California are people having the most luck finding cash flowing properties I'm in Central Coast and it seems like the costs are simply too expensive to make the numbers work this is the sort of the generic scenario that we get all of the time people look they go well if I'm gonna put 10% down on the deal this isn't cash flowing that's it I'm just not buying real estate yeah well of course the two things the only two ways you're gonna get cash flow in Southern California Central Coast or NorCal anywhere along the coast the only way you're going to get cash flow is one below market value feels to where the cash flow not make sense or number two you put more money down all right very nice this next question is from sin Chi in New York City I have never purchased a house in my life so when where does a buyers real estate agent role and responsibilities end for the Commission they get paid I like this question is it their responsibility to arrange the city code inspection the regular inspection communicate with my attorney and title and closing company etc okay interesting yeah so me and every real estate agent is different you're going to have it in it I'm just gonna say because it's real usually what I found in my experience is the larger teams the real estate agent teams they're so busy that oftentimes they can't go to that level of providing more value to you not saying don't use teams but I found a lot of the really busy agents where their phone is ringing off the hook with people asking to work with them you know you're gonna off the times get a little bit of lesser service not always but this was what I found generally what I found is if you find an agent that's not overly busy invests in real estate it may be this is a unicorn invests in real estate and isn't overly busy but is out there you know looking for deals for their clients these agents can oftentimes provide you a lot more value and these are people that you really you know the way the question was phrased I'm just reading between the lines here makes me think that this is somebody who's doing a cost-benefit analysis on their real estate agent they're going okay well they're they're making this much money for my purchase they should do this this this in this room and I think it's the wrong way to look at it I think if you find that agent who invest and that agent that's working with you directly it's not an assistant it's not a member that agent is working with you directly that agent it should be a lifelong relationship for you I have clients that I know their tax returns I know their finances I know how much money they have how much their business is made and for these people when they call me and they say Kevin hey you know what whose the plumber of choice this week they could call me three years after they bought something I'm there for them to help because I've created this relationship with them and I think if you look at a real estate agent as a long-term money generating relationship then you'll look at real estate a lot better than what I'm worried in the direction you might be going mmm yeah great answer all right number three the last month I've been getting my butt kicked with tenant complaints repairs high vacancy what's a bad rental situation you've been through and how could you have prevented it or what would you do differently next time so I did I hope yeah what would you do or like yeah what's how do you deal just rough times it's you know it might it's tough for me a little bit to relate to because I I Drive myself so crazy in my pre-screening stages and I'm not saying that they don't pre-screen properly but one of the things that I've found that I've loved about these single families is I'm buying median priced single-family homes and I'm pre-screening people to where I know they have excellent credit maybe they own property somewhere else they're gainfully employed and they meet all of these criteria that I usually don't have headache tenants a B I don't buy a property and rent it out as is there are a lot of investors that I know they buy a property they rented the way it is and then they say Oh some the brakes kind of can call me well yeah then you're going to have issues and so those two things the pre-screening of the tenants the quality tenants keeping the properties properly renovated is helpful even if that means you have to rent slightly a little bit below market value red just to get a good quality tenant you're now gonna minimize that turnover but the other thing and this is possibly a risk you know I'm gonna try to help in that scenario it's another possible risk when I hear hi I'm somebody saying in that question phrasing the question high vacancy probably dealing with units and one of the problems that I found in units is people get started with smaller units like Studios like tidiness these are always going to have high turnover so you have three possible issues that could be longer term things that you might want to solve and that's making sure they're properly renovated making sure you're properly you know getting those higher quality tenants and doing the renovation to attract a higher quality tenants high quality tenants don't want to live in crab and then maybe increase the size of your unit now once you have those three things solved what do you then do when you're dealing with these these rougher times you suck it up it is called real estate ownership I'm sorry like it is what it is you get in there and you fix the problem look I've got an insurance claim on a property going on right now I didn't want to have to crater a hole into a property to replace the sewer line but guess what it's an insurance claim I'm getting all new stuff out of it I'm getting you know thirty-five thousand dollars worth of value paid for by the insurance company which is spectacular but yeah guess what it's a pain in the butt I have to go over there make sure they have the faucet I bought on Amazon you know which I usually don't recommend getting faucets on Amazon mr. special services you know I gotta make sure everything's coordinated it's work but it's still a good deal and I'm still coming out ahead yeah great answer awesome I luck alright last question which apps or unlace tools do you use the most in your real estate investment business is there a specific system that once you set it up and save you a ton of time and headache so I'm like the opposite when it comes to apps and stuff I'm very anti you know I hate to say it but very anti spreadsheet I'm anti you know programs I've like anti pretty much everything tanked because when it comes to the deals I've what I found is it when I go through with the spreadsheet I oftentimes I'd met up in the past I've miss valued properties because I wasn't able to incorporate kind of you know that what's the market doing at this time and sometimes these intangible values in terms of my market valuations they like competition and how am I going to make sure I'm not overpaying sometimes the spreadsheet could miss that for me but also on my renovations when I walk through a property the way I do it is I create a new spreadsheet every single time I take my laptop I stand there and I look around what do I have to do any look okay panel the roof Florie and I write everything down before I ever even write the offer I do a custom spreadsheet and I just kind of write down okay I see I need to do outlets and into this I need to do this I do this and it to me rather than being focused on an app or program I focus on the property itself now I know sometimes that could be like oh well you know what if you don't think of something what if you don't see something and I guess that's where you want to surround yourself with that circle that helps you the agents the contractors and professionals but the most important things that I do use in terms of apps are the Zillow mortgage calculator just solely because I see what interest rates are doing every single day I kind of see that up and down I like that a lot and then usually it aside from the MLS and as much as I'm not a fan of red fin especially in the realtor community they're big competitors their app is fast so when you're looking for new deals they're notifications for deals that have the most fast so those are the two things I use but outside of that I don't use anything all right well good answers in the fire round and now it's time for the last segment of the show it's our these are the same four questions we ask every guest every week for going on almost what seven years now or something like that's crazy let's hear what you got to say number one Kevin do you have a favorite real estate specifically real estate related book you know this is it's a tough one to answer because I've read so many the difficulty that I found is markets are so dynamic that a lot of people will will read books and the nice thing is like you guys have an excellent selection of books and I've read some of your book on rental property investing they're great and they teach they take you from this like place of zero knowledge to like a good baseline of knowledge which I love like if you don't know real estate this is so great you know or you know if you have courses online or whatever like there's such great ways to go from zero to a good amount of knowledge but often times I struggle a little bit with a finding you know if I if I only Zone in on books I miss my local market opportunities and that's where often times I try to drive people I go what can you do to get out there and get involved with a circle of people that are gonna help you get deals how are you gonna find those agents that are out there hunting for deals and that's usually my preference over books seriously like your books great I was like so I like I hate giving that answer because I'd like I like you guys you guys are awesome okay but that's my answer but no I I think if there was a choice between reading a book or going to a local meet up I'd go to local meetup all day long I tell somebody go hang out with real investors in your local market I'm again baseline great but get out there all right number two then David you won't ask it number two do you have a business book that you really like oh man yeah so I really liked the good to great series there's a good to grade built to last and there's there's one more it's a it's like a trilogy of books I camera yeah I was like a great great on purpose or exactly those are really really good and they gave me some good perspective I'm also a massive fan of Malcolm Gladwell you know bullying is a good really really good one so things like that awesome okay when you're not selling real estate walking properties playing with your kids making awesome content what do you do for fun what are some your hobbies Wow yeah if what's funny and it's probably a curse of being an entrepreneurs you're almost always thinking about work you're always thinking about like oh is there a new red fin notification for a dealer never less evil oh you know even and this is a struggle even when I'm with my kids I'm trying to have fun playing nerf guns which I love with them you know and still oftentimes thinking about you know got to get some content or you know gonna got a deal with this with a property or whatever outside like if I could just remove every distraction which sadly lately haven't had very much time for the things that I really like paintball and Call of Duty I like it alright last question for me then what separates successful real-estate investors from those who give up fail or just never get started what separates successful real estate agents from the ones that give up well you know those things all relate back to matru thin any business of life is you got to be tenacious you got to get through the crap you aren't going to have bad deals you're going to have hurdles that come up that say I should not do this let me just make this very very simple go back to that first deal so we started out this podcast by saying I got this great deal it's really easy and exciting for me to talk about that in hindsight but when I zoomed in to that deal what I didn't mention is we started that escrow I think it was like in February we didn't close it until July or August it was like a six month transaction and there were so many parts during that transaction where there's a Bank of America foreclosure at the time there were so many parts of that transaction where I go that's it it's just isn't meant to be I'll never forget standing in sign of the house and when I go inside a house to look at it I usually lock the door behind me and I take the key inside like people I'm in a showing and people will literally just stroll I know it was a little bit house really there was no sign in the inside the house house is locked and the seller Bank of America is like the deal is done we've had it with you guys where - this is only two months in we're done we're cancelling that's it they put it back on the market it's active I've in the house at the time I was doing like you know inspections and then a meeting a kitchen contractor to you know work on some proposals and so we're in there doing our due diligence and the deal is cancelled the the other agents freaking out and they're like that's it it's over at the same time I'm in there - other people show up and they've got this like like investor vibe like they've got that investor look and they're walking around here in California with their shorts and their t-shirt of their polo and they're kind of like doing the look in the windows and like looking around at the eaves and at that moment the despair I felt that utter defeat of like wow I thought this was going to be a defining moment in my life and now it's trash horrible I'm a failure was was so it's something I've never shared before is so miserable that it you know looking back now I could look at that time ago wow I'm so glad I didn't give up and I fought to get that deal reactivated and kept going and that's see if I so give for everybody don't give up even if you feel don't give up the beautiful thing about America is I could go bankrupt and I wouldn't give them their I would get an FHA loan in two or four years and I'd start over and do it all again yeah awesome advice dude well it's been fantastic thank you for joining us today we're actually I don't take David's last question they've always worried about that Brandon I know no I'm not doing it and that's all right Kevin where can people find out more about you yeah meet Kevin on YouTube or Instagram at meet Kevin and hey I'm around I tried try to post daily we'll see that's awesome awesome you have a great Channel and yeah everyone go follow me Kevin on YouTube and Instagram and very cool thanks Kevin thank you alright that was the episode with mr. Kevin I'd say his last name path RAF path breath I believe so yeah alright I is known as meet Kevin so Kevin yeah it was an awesome show I liked that guy a lot I've been following on YouTube for quite a while and it was awesome to finally get him here on the show last name Kevin first name meet there yeah all right so anyway great show today and go follow Kevin over on YouTube at meet Kevin or just meet Kevin on YouTube and at me Kevin on Instagram and while you're there follow david green at david green 24 and bigger pockets at bigger pockets alright well that's all I got today I'm gonna go get out of here David we're supposed to be closing on a hundred and sixty eight unit mobile home park portfolio today I'm just waiting for that email or call to come in so we'll see him another day in the life of my buddy Brandon Turner just another day yeah we'll see so anyway thanks buddy well thank you this is David green for Brandon the condo desperado turner signing off you're listening to BiggerPockets radio simplifying real estate for investors large and small if you're here looking to learn about real estate investor without all the heights you're in the right place stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from bigger pockets calm your home for real estate investing online you

Channel: BiggerPockets

Views: 123,256

Rating: 4.8916693 out of 5

Keywords: biggerpockets, real estate, real estate investing, investing, rentals, rental property, investing in real estate, income property, bigger pockets, passive income

Id: gX8afDpHN3Q

Length: 75min 49sec (4549 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019