But I see so many people coming in with the same problems that I had. They don’t know where to look for the right kind of deals or what they’re actually looking for that’s going to make money. You’re not selling to end buyers or retail customers. You’re selling to other people that are in the industry that want to make money. And if you only got 10,000, $20,000 in a spread, your deals aren’t going to sell. In real estate, when you’re looking, all of you guys watching or listening to this, the number one thing you want to look for above and beyond anything is distressed properties. You got to look for those two things above all at distressed property and a motivated seller because if you can’t add value to the property, you’re typically not going to get a good deal on that property. And you’re not going to be able to make money. Honestly, the number one thing that I see is making bad offers. Because what it does, it loses-

What’s going on guys? Ken, thank you so much for taking the time. Look forward to chatting with you today. Obviously you’ve been in the space for a long time. I kind of want to take a step back and just kind of see how you got into real estate in the first place.

Yeah. And that’s really what I’d like to tell people because it’s not always as easy as people make it look. But now the key is right here hanging on my walk. You look right behind me, this is the key to for everyone that’s getting started, this is your key. And that’s what I live by in my business and the things that I do and I accomplish. So back in 2006 is whenever I actually got started in real estate as a quote unquote professional investor or somebody trying to get in and really make a deal. And I made my first deal back in 2006. So before that, I had spent a few years actually looking at properties, trying to figure out how to make deals, not really understanding what a true, how to really get the valuation of a property, the ARV, didn’t even know what ARV was back at then and so for me, and just like it is a lot of people today, there’s a lot of hype, there’s a lot of noise and you’re trying to wade through it and figure out what’s real, what really works for people and what they’re actually doing. And that’s the whole reason behind what I’m doing today. So my first deal back in 2006, I took a course from a mentor and he was a hand-holly mentor that I could call if I needed to. And I’ve never bugged him much, but I sent him a few messages and he answered my questions because once he laid it out, I kind of understood pretty plainly how it was. So that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing today. My first deal out of the gate, hadn’t done any deals, couldn’t even figure out how to do the evaluations properly. And today we have more information than we had then, but it still wasn’t that long ago but anyways, in 31 days, I did my first deal and I made $22,000. And I was like, wow, this is like great. And then I went on that in my first year. I made $930,000 my first year. And man, it was just the easiest money I’d ever made because I’d worked hard all my life. I’ve been in construction all my life. And my father was a contractor. And I had a construction background, but I didn’t really have a real estate background. But my mentor, he’s the one that laid it out for me, showed me how to do the deals, showed me how to evaluate the deals, what I was looking for. And a lot of people don’t know what they’re really looking for that’s going to make the difference. And he cut out all the noise. And for me, having someone there, even if I didn’t call him, but a couple of times, just having the knowledge that there was somebody there to help me, because you hear a lot of stuff out there you can watch videos, you can listen to this and that, but having someone you can call or send a message to and say, “Hey, what do you think about this? ” Makes all the difference in the world, man. So from that, I went on to do quite a few deals and I’ve seen the ups and the downs. In 2008, we had the subprime debacle. A lot of people watching probably don’t remember that in 2008, but I lived through it and it collapsed pretty much the real estate market overnight. Florida, we get hit the hardest a lot of times, Florida and California, Texas too, but we got hit hard, man. Property values just went upside down. It was literally a train wreck or a plane crash, whatever you want to call it for everybody involved. And it was terrible. So I’ve seen the ups, I’ve seen the downs, I’ve recovered from it. I know some of the mistakes that people are making today that seem like they’re not mistakes, but if anything happens, look out and it could. I mean, you never know. Markets are volatile. Things happen, economies collapse, whatever. We have recessions and things. So I’ve kind of built my program based upon being more careful than others.

When it comes to the beginner coming into the space, what would you say … I know a lot of people come in and try and start flipping right away. Unless you’re coming from a general contractor or some sort of handyman beforehand, would you recommend going into flipping or would you recommend going into wholesaling first?

Well, for the average person, honestly, wholesaling is the best way to start because you start to learn how the mechanics of the deal works. You really begin to understand the paperwork, the process. I try to get people to that first closing. After they’ve done three or four closings, they understand how it works, the mechanics of it, what’s going on, and they get a little money built up. That helps because in real estate, hey, no matter what, it does require money. You can wholesale some deals not using much, but if you’re going to really make money in this business, you’re going to have to put a little in, some sweat and some cash in. But it’s a great way for people to get started to really understand the mechanics of real estate because it’s a process. Just like you don’t go and become a doctor overnight. You got to get some training. You don’t become anything overnight. And investing in real estate’s the same way. So with wholesaling, it’s fairly easy for a person to get the mechanics so that they can move forward and understand where to find those team members that are going to be their contractors or how to weed through the good ones and the bad ones, or maybe where to go find that lender that’s going to loan them money and what the process is and what it truly costs to be a real estate investor, which of course sharpens their business and it helps them to make more money in their business. But wholesaling, I think is a great way to get started for any new person, but they need to get educated first. You need to find that person that you think you can work with that’s going to help teach you and wade through all that noise and all that confusion to get you going.

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What was the main problem that you were trying to solve when starting the coaching side of the business?

Well, of course I reflect back on my own situation and that’s what really made me decide to do this because I see so many people coming in with the same problems that I had. They really and truly, they don’t know where to look for the right kind of deals or what they’re actually looking for that’s going to make money and they don’t know how to evaluate it properly. I mean, I get calls myself from wholesalers that are trying to wholesale me deals and I’m like, “Dude, that’s a $10,000 fluctuation from market price versus what you’re asking.” Well, it don’t need any work. But yeah, $10,000 is a market fluctuation. That is not a profit because if anything goes wrong, just anything, something unforeseen and hidden. And in real estate, there are unforeseen and hidden. I mean, it’s just part of the business. So you have to plan for that and that’s really what made me want to teach other people and show them the right way, because as I said before, there’s so much noise, man. I mean, there’s so much confusion out there in the industry. This person does this, that person does that. Well, this … Look, pick a way the right way, learn from somebody who’s been there and got the experience, learn what you’re looking for, learn how to find that property, where to find that property, who to talk to, how to talk to them, learn what a real real estate contract looks like and what should be in it and what should it be in it and learn how to evaluate your properties properly so that whenever you come up with a valuation, it’s real. And the person that you’re going to sell your deal to, if you’re wholesaling something you got to bear in mind is he’s going to want to make money and it’s going to be a rehabber. That’s who’s going to buy most of your wholesale deals. You’re not selling to end buyers or retail customers. You’re selling to other people that are in the industry that want to make money. And if you only got 10,000, $20,000 in a spread, your deals aren’t going to sell. And that’s what my so- called system, as you’d want to call it, does. It’s five steps. You got to learn where to look. You got to know where to look. Then you got to know how to evaluate it once you find it. And is it really a deal or is it not a deal? You got to know how to get it under contract and get it under contract the right way that gives you enough time to sell it if you’re going to wholesale the deal to somebody else. You have to know how to do that you have to know how to find your buyers. You have to know where that money’s at. If you’re not going to find a buyer and you’re going to rehab it, you have to know where to find that money. I teach them all these things, and it’s in succession and it’s in steps of this is what you do. Number one, A, B, C, D, whatever it is. And then I offer tips also to help them with a little bit extra, as you call little extras that kind of aren’t a specific part of the course, but they’re still important to the process. And I started a new YouTube channel recently. You’d asked me about some of the things that I was doing before that. I’ve just finished up a book. I got another one I’m working on and it’s not ready to go out yet, but it’s close. And it’s like the YouTube channel. We got a few, I don’t know, dozen or whatever videos uploaded that we are beginning to help people through the process. I got some people going through it now, the process with me. They’re learning what they should and shouldn’t do. And some of them are quite surprised at what they were doing wrong. And that’s really what the mentor is for to show you, “Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, step back, think about it. ” And my goal in the whole mentorship program overall is for the person to be able to do it on their own. My goal is not to stand there and hold your hand for five years. You got a deal or two to do, and once you do those couple of deals, you’re going to see the process the way I’ve laid it out and you’re going to see what it takes to actually do this. Now, when you move from wholesaling, like you asked me about wholesaling, when you move from wholesaling to fix and flip, there’s another set of dynamics. And I cover a lot of that in my course because some people have a little bit of money to use and to utilize, but I’m teaching people to start from nothing like I personally did. I literally, anybody watching this, I started from nothing. And when I say nothing, I literally, I had nothing. I had a business that I was working at and I was doing 80 plus hours a week, man. I mean, I was killing myself every week after week. I was on the road all the time. And you asked me what really brought it to fruition, I guess you’d say. I called home and my four-year-old son said, “When’s daddy coming home to visit?” Man, that hit hard. I mean, that hit like a sledgehammer. So when I got into real estate, I was like, “This is it. No more 80 hours a week for me. I can make money much easier than I’ve been making it. And I can spend time with my family, which is what we all want to do is get our time back.” That’s your most valuable asset for anyone out there watching that. Watching this, remember, that is your most valuable asset is your time. There’s only so much for each one of us. So you want to spend it enjoying life instead of killing yourself, working those jobs crazily, crazy hours. But that made the difference for me, man. And like I said, I just want to help people understand how to make money of this.

When it comes to a newbie investor, obviously they can’t do something like TV, but what would you recommend and what do you recommend them to do to start looking for leads?

And that all depends on what you were just saying, on a budget. What does a person have? I mean, look, I had nothing to start with. So for me, what I started with was bandit signs. I ordered bandit signs and they worked great. I mean, I got that deal. I made 22,000 in 31 days. The next deal I made, if I remember right, I mean 25 or 27, didn’t take me but another month or whatever. And I made some more deals and I’d done all those using bandit signs and it was easy for me. Somebody that really doesn’t have a budget, anybody can drive for dollars. I mean, there’s people that crack on it and say, “Oh, driving for dollars.” Well, honestly, they may have the budget to do pay-per-click. You may not. You may not be able to run TV ads or Facebook ads or anything else but just like in my course, I lay out things just like that, how to get started for nothing because a lot of people just like me, they’re struggling. I mean, this economy today, there’s a lot of people struggling and they’re trying to figure it out without investing tons of money into things that don’t work. If you’re great at cold calling, hey, that’s wonderful. Myself personally, I’m not a cold caller, man. It’s like kryptonite to me. I’m not that guy. I would rather have people call me because when your sellers call you instead of you calling them, because today everybody’s bombarded with calls, when they call you, their mindset is different. And you actually have the opportunity to speak to someone that’s open-minded versus you calling them and they’re being like buzz off, man, and slam the phone down or say something ugly to you. I mean, I’ve had things, I’ve had door slammed in my face It’s just I’ve door knocked. I’ve done a lot of things. Foreclosures, I focused on foreclosures when I first started. And here in Florida, it’s every day. They list foreclosures every day. I know in Texas, I’m not sure if they do it every day, but they do it a lot. The guy that actually taught me or mentored me was from Texas, believe it or not. That’s where he was from. And he was big into foreclosures and that’s what I really cut my teeth on was on foreclosures. And it’s a wonderful way, but it will require you to get some doors slammed in your face and some rejections because those people are under a lot of stress, man. I mean, they’re facing life changes, possible deaths in the family or multiple things. But in real estate, when you’re looking, all of you guys watching or listening to this, the number one thing you want to look for above and beyond anything is distressed properties. You have to have distressed properties and that person has to be a motivated seller. If they’re like, “Yeah, well, it’s worth 275 and I want 272,” just move on and say, “Thank you very much and have a good day.” But you got to look for those two things above all, a distressed seller and a motivated seller, distressed property and a motivated seller. Because if you can’t add value to the property, you’re typically not going to get a good deal on that property and you’re not going to be able to make money, especially if you’re wholesaling because you got to flip that to the next person and they’ve got to make money. So there has to be some way to add value to the property to bring it to its highest and best use so that you can get the most money for it. But all that stuff is covered in my course. I mean, I wish I could teach everybody for free, but that’s just not reality. I mean, I put a lot of content out there and I’m putting more every day on my YouTube channel and I’m making these books available at almost nothing for people to get started. I really want them just to get to thinking. Get to thinking, “Hey, there’s another possibility in life besides slaving at another job and killing myself.” I was killing myself 80 hours a week, man. That sign right there, it’s there for a reason. That’s my motto and I mean, I live by it. You can’t give up. It’ll get hard, it’ll get tough. You might win a few deals, you might lose a few deals, but you don’t give up because nobody wins the race giving up. Real estate is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. A lot of these guys teaching, “Oh, in 30 days or six months or whatever.” This is a long-term goal. This is a marathon and you can win and you can win big if you’re the person that’s willing to run the marathon.

Yeah. I love it. Well, what mistakes do you often see investors, in this case, more beginner investors make that you think could be super easily avoided?

Honestly, the number one thing that I see is making bad offers. Because what it does, it loses, it gives us all a bad rep because we end up not being able to sell the property. Or you go out and you make an offer on a property and you have to give it back to the person. They’re kind of mad about that. They’re not real happy about it. They would like to sell the property. Go in honest. No matter what you do, go in honest and above, all be honest in this business because this is a small community of people out there. You think it’s big, but this is a small community of people. And when you get a bad name, people are not going to want to deal with you. So be honest. 100% transparent. People will appreciate that. People appreciate honesty. So you be honest and when you make your offers, even if it’s a low ball offer, you can always come up. Man, this is real estate. Everything’s negotiable, but you need to … The new people coming in really need to learn how to run their numbers properly and make their offers according to that because they’re only hurting themselves. And it’s discouraging. You get three or four properties under contract. I mean, that’s where the never give up comes in. You get three or four properties under contract and you’re not closing those deals. Stop, step back, take a look at what you’re doing and take a look at why you’re not closing on those deals. If you don’t close one and you close two, well, okay. But still, look at that one you didn’t close and think about it and analyze what you’re doing you got to look at everything in this objectively as if you’re not the person that it’s happening to. Just like your sellers, you have to look at it from their standpoint of view. Don’t take advantage of people. Make a fair offer. If you can help them, help them. If you can’t help them … I had a guy call today and he’s in a desperate situation. I’m not going to go into it. He’s in a desperate situation. And I told him, honestly, I said, “Look, man, I’m just be honest with you, I can’t help you. I want to help you and I feel for your situation and all, but there’s just no money there.” And he was in that spot and you’re going to run into people like that in this business for sure and you’re not going to be able to help them. But if you can, help them, treat them fair, but make your offers to where that everybody is happy, everybody win-wins, and you can close them if you’re not closing offers, step back and evaluate your situation. That’s a big one, the biggest one probably.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. When it comes to the word success, everyone’s got their own definition for it. Everyone’s got their own meeting for it. Everyone’s got their own way of measuring it and striving for it. How do you define the word success? How do you measure it? And then how do you strive for it every day?

I would say that the measurement of success, of course, excuse me, it’s an individual thing, but it’s really when everybody wins. As real estate investors, we’re professionals. Now, we’re not licensed realtors. I am, but a lot of people aren’t, but that’s another side of the business. But we’re considered professionals and we should treat ourselves that way and act that way to our customers and we should never take advantage of people. We should treat everybody fairly. And for me, that’s a win-win. When you can go in there, just like I told the guy today, I mean, it wasn’t a win for him, but it was a win for me because I didn’t get myself into a deal that I couldn’t close. I didn’t lose the confidence of the seller. It was a win for him because now he can move on and try to do something else. So you say win-win, yeah, that’s really what it’s got to be. If people are losing on one side of the transaction or not, it’s not good. I mean, it’s just not good. So for me, that means a lot in success that everybody wins. I mean, yes, you’re here to make money. That is your business. You’re not in business to lose money or give deals away, but you just got to deal fairly with people. Be honest, upfront. I mean, it’s a win when you’re honest. If you’re honest with people, even if you can’t help them, just tell them the truth, straight up. And if you’re going to wholesale it, you don’t have to hide behind this or just say, “Hey, look, this is what I got. I got a bank of investors that I use to buy deals with and I’m wholesaling it. And I got about a bunch of eyes that can look at your house and get it closed immediately and that’s what I’m here for. ” Or some form of that. You don’t have to say that exactly, but I’m just talking to you guys as professionals, but that’s what you want to do. You want to be honest, that’s a win for everybody and you want to do your deals fairly with every person you’re dealing with. That makes you successful. No matter how much money you make, this all has to be about more than money because one day you can buy cars, you can buy houses, you can buy anything you want, but that’s going to run out. The money is not the main thing. Your time is the main thing. Getting your life back, getting your time back, man, that’s a win-win. When you can make money and get your time back, Lord, what more could you ask for? I mean, that’s fantastic for somebody.

I love it.

Which is what I’m trying to help them with, honestly.

Yeah. I love asking this question to people. And in your case, it’ll really, I think, dig deep on the point talking about newbies and people getting into the space. Let me ask you a question. Let’s say your current business completely goes away. All transactions, all relationships, everything, you’re basically dropped into a different market. Sure. You can keep all the knowledge you’ve learned over the years, but when it comes to the business itself, it’s completely gone. What would you focus on first to rebuild? What would be the main focus?

Well, let’s just say, okay, I would begin with wholesaling because if I didn’t have any money, excuse me, it was a brand new market. I didn’t know anything. I would focus on wholesaling. But with that being said, you got to focus on finding your buyers. You need to find those buyers first. I mean, you don’t have to have a property ready to sell today to find your buyers. You can put out a simple Facebook ad on some groups that says, “Hey,” and most everybody’s got social media today. I mean, Facebook is your demographic for the people in the age groups that will have homes with equity in them or deferred maintenance or whatever. So that’s a little tip for you guys. Instagram is not so much, TikTok is not so much for the age group, but Facebook is. So most everybody has social media today. easy to join groups, free, don’t cost you nothing to join a group. Join that group, throw an ad up there, join 10 of them. Put 10 of them and says, “Hey, I have the best deals. I’m looking for cash buyers.” And stop. Don’t say nothing else. Now, when they contact you, immediately keep their information and say, “Look, I don’t have anything today, but I’m actively searching.” You don’t have to have a deal today to find your buyers. So don’t think that you have to start later. No, you start first finding your buyers. And as you’re doing that, on the flip side, if I didn’t have any money, I’d kind of be looking in the areas and driving around thinking, “This is a crappy area. I don’t want to invest in this one and I drive to a better neighborhood.” Remember, your best houses that will always sell the fastest and usually have the best deals are going to be in those bread and butter areas. We’re working class people, three bedroom, two bath is America’s home. 1,100 to 1,800, 2,000 square foot, that’s America’s home. And people will buy those quicker because they’re affordable. Your average person can afford those. You don’t want to be in a war zone because a lot of war zones are rentals. If you’re starting new, we’re dropped out of the sky and we don’t have any information. You’re looking for an area, you don’t want to go to the high end, you don’t want to go to the low end, you want to be in the middle of the road. Look in those middle of the road neighborhoods, drive through them, look for the neighborhoods that have large trees. A large tree is an indicator that a bunch of large trees are indicators that subdivision or development has been there for quite some time. Those houses have equity. If a house has been there for 25 years, there are houses in that area that have equity. Don’t go driving through the brand new neighborhood. I mean, if you want to focus on sub twos and you want to do those kind of deals and lease option, things like … Yes, you can do that where there’s no equity or very little equity, but I’m trying to teach my people solid, sound skills that will make them money. Go through those neighborhoods that are 25, 30, 40, 50 years old. You don’t want to go through the new neighborhoods. Hey, free. Free tip for you. When you find that address, go to your county’s website, jump on your county’s website, put that address in. It’ll generate the person’s name that lives there. If the property’s vacant, the tax man is getting his money. Okay? So somebody’s address is going to be on that property that the tax man’s going to send him a bill to, him or her, and they’re going to pay it. So that’s where you can easily find those people’s information. Now, if you really get down and you can’t find them, you can’t knock on the doors. All the neighbors usually know where they are or how to get ahold of them. If that don’t work for you, you can always do a skip trace, 20 bucks. You can find anybody just about it for 20, 30 bucks. But when you don’t have any knowledge of an area, look for those houses in that medium neighborhood that’s been there 25 plus years. There’s equity in those homes. There’s usually deferred maintenance. I mean, that’s a really, really easy way. You don’t have to have any money other than to buy some gas. It’s free to look on the county’s website. You can do your Facebook groups and find your buyers. I mean, these are just some tips that are really easy for people to do that don’t cost them nothing. You don’t have to buy a list. You don’t have to do any advertising. It might take you a little longer, but remember, this is a marathon. This is not a sprint.You’re not going to make a million dollars in a day. This is no get rich quick scheme. If that’s what you guys are thinking, switch, go to another business because this ain’t it. You can make a lot of money in real estate, but there is no get rich quick scheme here. You might do one deal and do great, and then you might do three deals and just do okay. It’s just, it’s the marathon. It takes time.

Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Well, first off, Ken, thank you so much. You’ve been spewing information. It’s been great. If someone’s interested in getting coached by you or learning more about your program, or just wants to reach out to you in general, where can they reach out to you? Where can they reach you? If someone wants to get ahold of you, where can they find you?

Sure. I got multiple avenues, of course, like everybody does. And there again, you don’t have to buy my coaching program to ask me a question. I’m here helping you for free right now. You look on my YouTube channel. I’m helping you for free. You go to my Facebook group. I’m helping you for free. I love to help people. That’s the goal behind what we should be doing in life is helping others. Your goal is to bring people up, to not knock them down. When you get up on the top of the ladder, reach down there and pull somebody up with you. Don’t step on their head to get yourself to the next step. My Facebook group is also never give up, just like that sign right there. You’ll see that sign on my Facebook group page. Okay? But you can get me easily. Very easy to find. Very responsive too to your questions to give you answers.

Awesome. Awesome. Ken, thank you so much for coming on. It’s been a pleasure. I appreciate you taking the time. Everyone, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time.

Been great, man. Thanks.

All righty.