There’s two sides to the coin here. I want to have my business run for me and I do need to trust really good people, but it’s impossible to do that if you’re trying to just do network. So you do have to have a good balance. I would think if you’re new and you want to get some money, wholesale would be a great way to generate some cash. Many people now are not just going to Google to search their problems. They’re using ChatGPT, they’re using Gemini, they’re using the AI search model, they’re using Grok. We as investors want to have a passive lifestyle. We want to be able to do what we want to do when we want to do it, but at the same time we weren’t created to do nothing. So the top people have culture, people want to be around them, people want to work for you, they enjoy their life and they also know exactly what they’re supposed to do. People like orders, people like knowing what the next step is. They don’t like chaos.

Welcome to the Real Estate Masters podcast where we bring you the top real estate investors in the country. If you also want to be in the top 1%, you are in the right place. Listening to podcasts like this is exactly what helped me to scale my real estate investing business to seven figures, flip over a thousand houses and more importantly, step out of daily operations of my business over a decade ago so I could start and grow other businesses. So get ready to learn from the best and start building a business that works for you and not the other way around. Enjoy.

Austin, thank you so much for coming on. I know you have eight years of experience and I appreciate you sharing that with us today. But I am curious kind of how you got into real estate in the first place.

It’s funny. I wasn’t necessarily trying to get into real estate or start a real estate business. I had read a couple books about the millionaire next door, if you ever heard of that book. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and I was like, 90% of millionaires hold some type of real estate. So I was like, I got to get into real estate. So I met a guy from my church named Josh and he and I were both kind of interested in buying some rentals and he bought a triplex. I bought a triplex kind of in the same year and we’re like, dude, we should start a business. So we spun up a little website called 717 Home Buyers. We ran a Google ad to it. In day one, I’m not even kidding, it was like within 36 hours of launching this website, we got a lead from the Google Ad and it was a legit house in the city of Lancaster and we bought it for like 26,000 and then we ended up selling it for like 62 all within the first week of running the business. So that’s when I was like, all right, I think God kind of is telling me I should get into real estate. I wasn’t trying to make it anything and it slowly grew from there. So that’s kind of the story of how we ended up becoming a business.

That’s awesome. And then for the people listening, what does the business look like today?

It’s mainly fix, flip, wholesale. We keep rentals as well. We’d like to keep more rentals if we could, but it’s always tough to turn down a good wholesale fee if it’s like, all right, I need to force myself, but mainly fixed flip, wholesale, rentals.

Gotcha. Cool, cool. All right. I mean, I’m curious what the main problem that you were trying to solve when starting this business?

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I was right out of college, brand new and my wife was working as well. So she was working at our church. She was doing the kids men at our church and I was working at a Christian ministry. We were both making like 35,000 a year. So we made 70,000. Actually, she made $1,000 more than me and I went to my boss and I was like, “Hey, I can’t have my wife make more than me. Can you give me a raise?” And you did. So that was nice. So I think I was making like 500 bucks more than her. And anyways, I was like, if we have kids and my wife does not want to work and she wants to stay home because she wanted to do that, I was trying to figure out how to replace her income through passive income somehow. That would be doing some business, buying a smoothie shop or something. And I kind of thought, all right, maybe owning rentals would be the thing with cashflow. So that was the original start was how can I replace my wife’s income through something passive? And I picked owning rentals.

Yeah. When it comes to fix and flip versus wholesale, what’s your main go- to fee? What’s that cutoff to where you’re like, no, we’re going to wholesale this versus fix and flip this?

I don’t know if it’s more about the fee for me or the money. I’ve changed a lot over a couple years. It’s more about how easy is the transaction. If I can flip something, is it vacant? Is it pretty light on rehab? Do I need to do anything major? If it’s not on a septic tank, is it public sewer, public water? The easier it is for me, the more likely I will flip it. The more work involved, the more likely I’ll wholesale it. So I don’t necessarily think of it more as fee-based, more around how can I not be super distracted when we flip a house? Because I used to buy something, we’d have a bunch of problems, I would get distracted and then we would not sign as many houses. Now I feel like we have a good system where if we sign an easy flip, we’ll do it and it doesn’t detract us from keeping the business going.

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And then I noticed that you mentioned that your business kind of runs itself. Kind of walk us through how you set up the business to where that you can have it run kind of by itself.

So ultimately it does run itself, but I do need to be involved more for the fact of culture than anything. So we have some really good sales guys that work with us and we have some really good buyers that buy from us that we’re all friends and I need to be kind of the glue around the business so people aren’t like, “Yo, why is Austin golfing five times a week and like I’m grinding.” I need to be around. I’m in the office right now, but to the point where we have everything in a system at this point where if a lead comes in through our website, our sales guy can take it, he knows exactly what to do. We have percentages on what we try to make on wholesales so it goes straight to dispo. We have a transaction coordinator that if we sign something, she takes care of all the paperwork. I’m not really involved in the details anymore when a house is signed, but I’m still involved for culture. I don’t want guys to think like, why are we grinding just to make someone else a bunch of money? So I’m involved in doing things, but I could go on vacation for a month and everything would happen and I don’t think we would even lose business.

Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Why do you think so many investors overlook that piece of having to get run by yourself? I feel like a lot of investors are somewhat scared to kind of trust that much of a system, but why do you think so many investors overlooked that piece?

I think control. I mean, it’s hard to … I had a very hard time passing off our hot leads to our sales guy and he would get annoyed with me. I would give it to him. I was like, “Okay, now you can take these leads. I trust you, you’re doing a good job.” And then I would text him, “Hey, how’d that lead do? How are you doing? You have any questions?” And he’d be like, “Dude, just let me go with it. ” So I think control is a really tough thing, but I also think a lot of guys get into real estate because they want to have a passive lifestyle and they don’t want to work and then the business falls apart. So they go on the opposite extreme where they try to have the business work for them, but then they’re not actually doing anything and then you can’t ever hold people around in your company and then these businesses fail because it’s like, well, where’s the leadership? So I think there’s two sides to the coin here of, yeah, I want to have my business run for me and I do need to trust really good people, but it’s impossible to do that if you’re trying to just do no work, right? So

You do have

To have a good balance.

Yeah, for sure. Well, what do you think the most common misconception is about the wholesale versus fix and flip for a newbie investor?

I would think if you’re new and you want to get some money, wholesale would be a great way to generate some cash. I think though what I’ve learned being in the business now that I have regretted not flipping some houses that I wholesaled or I’ve regretted not keeping some houses that I should have kept. I let the $25,000 wholesale fee cloud me from going, “Man, I could have kept that house, refinanced it with no money out of pocket, and now I’m paying that down for a long-term asset.” So I think a misconception is, okay, sweet, I can make a bunch of money right now wholesaling. Cool. That feels really cool being in my bank account, but the long-term play you forget about, you cloud it. You look at a check and you’re like, “Oh, cool. I made a bunch of money.” In reality, it’s like you should probably delay gratification in some ways. And our world is so instant gratification, microwave, Twitter, all that, I think you need to have some discipline in life to go, “You know what? I’m going to put off what’s good now for what something’s great later.”

Austin, I’m curious what you’re doing as far as marketing and what you saw last year and how you’re using that to go into this year.

Yeah, good question. So our business is mainly built on inbound marketing through Google, making sure we rank well SEO, PPC. I’m staying on that pretty much daily, making sure that we’re doing the things we need to do to show up when people are searching in a distressed situation. So that’s the number on feeder for our business. How it’s changed is many people now are not just going to Google to search their problems. They’re using ChatGPT, they’re using Gemini, they’re using the AI search model, they’re using Grock. We are changing our strategy to make sure that we are answering the questions that people are searching through AI and that is a different search than it typically is on Google. So providing a lot more content on our website is the biggest change that we have been doing over the course of a year because if you open up ChatGPT to search something, your mind, it already speaks in a different way than if you go to the Google search bar. When I go to the Google search bar, I’m just typing sell house fast. Or you’re not actually coherently giving a conversation typically, you’re giving the keywords that come up in your head because you’re so used to it. As soon as I open ChatGPT, I’m being conversational. So we have to change the way that our content is being provided to people.

Yeah, that’s awesome. What’s the most common mistake that you see investors make that you think could be super easily avoided?

Well, I think honestly, I mean, the things I see the most is going back to just culture. We as investors want to have a passive lifestyle. We want to be able to do what we want to do when we want to do it, but at the same time, we weren’t created to do nothing. So we do need to work. We do need to work with people. We do need to be nice people, very obvious basic things. So I see a lot of guys who fail who are like, “I’m looking for a sales guy working 80 hours a week grinding and make up to 120,000 salary or commission.” It’s like, “Well, okay, is that guy going to want to work for you? ” So that’s the biggest mistake I see is just like, dude, be a nice guy, just go into the office every once in a while, respond to people, don’t be a jerk.That kind of stuff, I just see so much where I’m like, “Dude, you could be so much better if you just were a little bit more disciplined in your goals and held people accountable and you do what you’re going to say that you’re going to do. “That’s definitely the biggest thing for me.

Yeah, for sure. What do you think, and this could apply to this as well, but what do you think separates the top operators from everyone else in this business?

Well, going back to it, culture, I think that’s the first thing. But I also think documentation of your system is huge. Everybody knows exactly what to do when they’re supposed to do it. E-myth the business. If you ever read that book, why can McDonald’s hire a 14-year-old to make you a burger and you’re still going to eat that burger? A 14-year-old’s making your food, but you’re still going to eat it, right? Well, it’s because they have it down to a system. And so the top people have culture of people want to be around them, people want to work for you, they enjoy their life and they also know exactly what they’re supposed to do. People like orders, people like knowing what the next step is. They don’t like chaos. So too many people in business, I think, and at least in the circles that I’ve seen people, it’s like they have organized chaos. It’s chaos, but it’s kind of organized, but it’s not a system. It needs to be like, “When X happens, Y happens.” So that’s what separates it to me.

Yeah, for sure. A lot of people define the word success differently. They measure it differently and they strive for it differently. How do you define the word success? How do you measure it and how do you strive for it in your day-to-day life?

Dude, it’s so funny. I just went to this thing locally called GrowthCon. It was for realtors to grow their business. I’m not even really … I mean a realtor, but I don’t work as a realtor. So anyways, I went for a friend and these guys were getting up and they were talking about growing your business and grinding, staying on top of it, getting deals. And I was sitting there and I’m like, “Man, I just don’t know if I care about that anymore.” I used to when I was younger, like Grant Cardone, 10X, your goals. And that’s important and I do have goals and I want to grow the business. But I think God has worked in my life in significant ways that this is not me pulling the strings. I can’t control a person signing a contract. I really can’t control that. I can control our messaging. I can definitely control the way we treat them. I can control the way we do our numbers. I can control our sales process, but I cannot control a person signing that contract. And once I gave that up to God and just said, “Hey, this is you. If this business goes away, that’s you. I’m going to do everything I possibly can in my day-to-day life to make this business be successful.” And I can look at everybody straight in the eyes and like, “Yeah, I did work really hard on this business, but I can’t control the bank account.” And once I came to that realization, I’ve had so much peace and I don’t know, success is peace to me. I don’t know. I want to make money, don’t get me wrong, I want to have a successful business. I want to be able to go on vacations and pay my mortgage off fast, all that. But I don’t know, once I stopped making that like an idol, that’s where success came, if that makes sense.

Yeah, 100%. Well, let’s say the business completely goes away. You get to keep all the knowledge that you’ve learned over the past eight years, but you were going to completely start from scratch. What would be the number one thing that you focus on first?

And I’m allowed to be in real estate or am I trying to do something different? Oh, okay. Yeah, dude, I would just … So I’m in Pennsylvania. I’ve already thought about this if everything’s failed. Pennsylvania has new wholesale laws, so it’s a lot trickier to do our work. Dude, I would move to Tennessee or Texas somewhere where there’s the Wild West, I would pop up a website, I would run PPC to it right away And I would go to all the meetups. I would meet all the buyers. I would just grind it out for three months, meet all these people, provide as much value as I possibly can, take people to breakfast, take people to lunch and I would just wholesale.That’s what I would do. I would wholesale and a lot of guys in my area I’d probably still get funding from so I’d have ways to get cash fast, start flipping a little bit. I mean, I would go to a bunch of meetups, I would pop up a website and I feel like I could do it. I really do. And I think I would like it. I honestly think I would like it.

Yeah, just the grind of it to start again I mean definitely-

I think that’d be

Fun. Fun in the beginning, for sure, for sure. Well, what drives you personally to keep innovating and keep succeeding? Dude,

Honestly, I think it’s just my personality. It’s funny, I just like it. I’m here right now in the office right now by myself. There’s nobody else here and I’m here. It’s kind of cloudy. It’s like I just come in, I like it. I enjoy working. My grandpa, I mean, this is kind of an interesting story, but my grandpa who’s still alive, he grew up in Germany during World War II and when the Nazis were taking over, he was in Berlin, my family escaped, I’m getting deep here on this podcast, but my family escaped. They had to hide in a cave and he was dying at five years old and he had to go to the doctors. They went to this American camp and they could only prescribe him one egg a day. That was the medicine they could give him. And this is my grandpa who’s still alive. So I’m one generation and then he ended up moving to America and became a bike salesman, sold Mongoose bikes and was pretty successful, did a good job. And every time I called him, even as a kid on my birthday or whatever, he would be like, “Hey, I was trying to run little businesses in high school and I made a sale one time and he’s like, well, did you get paid?” And I’m like, “No.” And he’s like, “Well, it’s not a sale until it hits the bank account.” He was telling me this stuff when I was 14. So knowing that one generation removed had such a hard life, I think about that a lot. I don’t know. I would say that’s a real big motivator for me. Even when I just saw my grandpa, I was down in Florida, saw him and he was just like, “How’s the business doing? Are you making sales?” He’s like, “Don’t trust the government. They could take it from your bank account at any moment, put it in assets.” I don’t know. So I have a pretty cool grandpa that I named my son after him even. So I don’t know.

It’s

Pretty motivating to me.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, if someone is interested in learning more or reaching out to you, where can they find you?

Yeah. I mean, I’m on Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram. I’m not super active on them, but I check my messages. So if anybody wanted to reach out, they could just search my name and I’m on there and I’ll respond.

Awesome. Awesome. Austin, thank you so much for taking the time. It’s been awesome. Everyone, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time. Thank you.