Wholesaling & Flipping Houses Listed With Real Estate Agents! (Interview)

In this interview, Ryan Zomorodi (Co-Founder & COO of Real Estate Skills) speaks with Pro Wholesaler VIP Students Adam & Luke on their success since being in the Pro Wholesaler VIP Program!

Watch Adam and Luke's inspiring journey into real estate investing during the 2009 market collapse. Over the course of 8 years, they successfully wholesaled the majority of their deals! In this video, they share their valuable insights on how they implemented virtual wholesaling into their business, which helped them to grow from cold calling to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service).

They used the Pro Wholesaler VIP Program's step-by-step roadmap to elevate their real estate investing business to new heights. In this interview, we cover:

✅ How Adam & Luke got into real estate investing in 2009 as the market collapsed!

✅ Adam & Luke over the course of 8 years wholesaled the majority of their deals!

✅ How They Implemented Virtual Wholesaling Into Their Business!

✅ Went From Paying Thousands on Marketing on Average to $0 On Marketing Using The MLS!

✅ How Adam & Luke Used The Pro Wholesaler VIP Program Step-By-Step Roadmap To Elevate Their Real Estate Investing Business

✅ How They Proved That The Pro Wholesaler VIP Process Worked For Them Across The Country!

✅ Adam & Luke Give Their Best Advice For Beginners Just Starting To Get Into Real Estate Investing!

If you want to learn EXACTLY how to start wholesaling real estate, virtually visit: Virtual Wholesaling Real Estate: A Step-By-Step Guide

*For in-depth training on real estate investing, Real Estate Skills offers extensive courses to get you ready to make your first investment! Attend our FREE Training and gain insider knowledge, expert strategies, and essential skills to make the most of every real estate opportunity that comes your way!

--- VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION ---

Ryan Zomorodi (00:00):
Alright. Hello everyone. It's Ryan Zomorodi with Real Estate Skills, and I'm here with Adam and Luke who are amazing real estate investors and members of the Pro Wholesaler VIP program. They've recently shared that since joining the Pro Wholesaler program, they've closed 15 deals, of which six of them are house flips that they currently have ownership of in various stages of the investment lifecycle. All within the past nine months now, they've been wholesaling and flipping houses in states like California, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Washington, and even Pennsylvania. But of course they're not stopping there. They're looking to buy as many houses as they can get their hands on. So Adam and Luke, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to sit down and chat with me about your business and your journey as real estate entrepreneurs. So first off, how are you guys doing today?

Adam (00:50):
Thank You for having us.

Luke (00:51):
Yep. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Ryan Zomorodi (00:53):
First off, if you guys don't mind just sharing a little bit about your background and what you're doing before joining the program and really just how you got into real estate.

Luke (01:02):
Adam and my parents started our business in 2009, right as the market was starting to collapse. So they bought two houses that they intended on flipping in our local market in. And so what they did was they started flipping these properties and then the market fell apart. So they decided to hold them as rentals. One of them was in a convenient location for Adam, who was finishing up college to rent from the business with his college buddies. And despite paying rent on time, we had a property manager. The property manager attempted to evict Adam for nonpayment from his own house. So my parents and Adam were like, okay, we'll just start our own property management company here. There's obviously a need for it in our local town and we'll build that out. So they built that out, sold the assets of the business a couple years later, and I was still in college at the time, so after I graduated or as I was getting ready to graduate, Adam said, I really want to get back into this, but I want to do it a little bit differently.

(02:07):
I'd like to, he explains wholesaling real estate to me. And I say, okay, that's cool. I've got a consulting job, but I'll do it on the side at first and then if we can make it work, we'll make it work and I'll do it full-time with you. Well, two months later I quit my consulting job and Adam and I have been full-time at this, basically at the end of this month. It's eight years in that time, we've done about 120 deals. Our primary market is central Maryland, so the Baltimore DC metro area is where we've done most of our deals. And just with the market changing and becoming more competitive and inventory being tighter, we decided at the beginning of this year that we were going to try and flip a couple of them. So as a proof of concept, we bought one in Bakersfield, California. Flip that, that's currently under agreement. Actually just got a call from the title agent before we hopped on this call. I was telling you, Ryan, and so that one should be closing here in a couple of weeks. And so we decided that we were just going to use the same skills that we had acquired partially from your company and just buy them and renovate them ourselves. So that's kind of brings us to today

Ryan Zomorodi (03:16):
You said 120 deals, about eight years were most of those wholesale deals. And then just more recently this year, moving into the fix and flip side,

Adam (03:24):
There might have been one or two subject to's in there, but we just decided, I know it was clean doing a wholesale, we had good buyers and we were turning 'em quick. So

Luke (03:38):
It's funny that we actually had a very similar philosophy coming into the program that you teach about with your buyers, finding good reliable buyers that are buying multiple properties like 10, 20, 30, whatever properties per year. That way they've got their own defined buy box. And that was something that we came to pretty early on. Also, I don't know if Adam, you want to talk about that?

Adam (03:58):
We've done several programs and we've taken something from each of them, but a lot of them wanted you to do like a Jo and pony show and just squeeze every penny out of the wholesale deal that you could. And for a time looking, I had a team of cold calling agents that we managed and they were overseas. And so basically having an acquisition team of five or 10 people and then various support people and then a disposition team. It was just like if we don't have to have a disposition team, that saves us having to have the manager oversight on five or six people, dispo-ing these things. And then also got sellers buyers. Everyone just didn't really like the flashiness of us getting 15 people out to a house. So we're like, let's rethink this. How do we do this where there's as few moving parts as possible?

(04:59):
And that's like, so when we were going through your course and you're like, yeah, you want two or three solid buyers, and then a couple of our mentors, I mean it's people that you recognize from the whole San Diego thing, but people that were doing huge assignments off the record, they tell us, yeah, we always say about blasting this, but in reality there's one guy that buys 60 or 70% of our stuff and we're like, we had a white bulb moment where we're like, I'm not going to try to do it better than this guy who's getting these monsters fees. He's a mentor to us, he's taught us how to, our entire selling system or whatever. So then we just started looking for who we're going to do the best ones. We're going to basically offer a good price, be easy to work with, close fast,

Luke (05:48):
Just from the whole pumpkin plan with Mike Mica at style, who's not an to work with who's fun because we're going to be working with him a lot. Who's a good person to work with.

Adam (06:03):
That was, I guess when we got there, it's like, okay, well this is going through this portion of the training. This is directly maps onto what we came to just from doing it both ways. And then the other thing too that we really, I guess that resonated with us from the training was we were based in southern Pennsylvania about 45 minutes or 50 minutes from Baltimore City and about two hours from dc. So just about everything in Maryland is about 50 minutes to two hours away from us. And the reason why we went towards that market was there's just a ton of people. There's a ton of houses, and in our market it's a little bit more clickish, a smaller market. And I think we found also in Bakersfield with it being a smaller market that if you're not there per se, if boots on the ground yourself and you don't have all of the network built out, which more maybe older investors or people that have been in the market for a longer period of time have that, there's a lot of opportunities that you don't have. And so we went to a bigger market that wasn't too far, but we realized that we were going to have to do it majority without seeing the house. So when you were saying in the training, kind of like a similar ideology is that this maps onto what we've learned, I guess through our experience thus far. So it was a couple of, I guess just if I have pointers to people about the training, it makes sense and it's probably the most logical way to do it, is that's what we found from our experience. Also

Luke (07:51):
Long intro in soliloquy from both of us about our background and your company, the Real Estate Skills, but we're big fans of yours, so that's why we talk so much.

Ryan Zomorodi (08:04):
Yeah, no, I love it. I think, yeah, everything you're saying is definitely resonating, and I'm sure a lot of others are either in similar situations currently or have kind of experienced same things when they're managing a bigger operation and you want to see how you can simplify things and ultimately get better results without doing as much work. We like to say work smarter, not harder. So definitely appreciate the kind words. So it sounds like a lot of the deals you had, you were working different strategies. Was it mainly the cold calling team that you had, or what were you doing before joining and implementing the MLS offer system ultimately to get those deals? And maybe just speak to some of the strategies you were using and how effective those were.

Luke (08:50):
Initially, most of our deals were from mail. Then mail became a bloodbath in, I don't know what, 2017. Then we started a lot of cold calling, ringless voicemail was prominent there for a while until about 2019 before states started making laws against that. And it was like, okay, so this doesn't make a whole lot of sense for our legal risk threshold to keep doing. We've gotten a decent amount of deals from pay-per-click ads on Google and Facebook. And then through the pandemic, everybody started doing that. So then we jumped back into mail and we had some more success for a very brief amount of time, and it just felt like we were always going one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And it's like, well, what's the most evergreen solution to being able to buy a lot of houses so we can scale our business? Well, I think you talk about this in the training, 90% of houses that transact are sold on the MLS. Well, it's probably a good place to start then if most of the houses are being sold there, let's go to where all of the houses everywhere else is already spending all of the money to market for these houses to get them on the MLS. Let's let everybody else spend the money and then let's just go to the traffic source.

Ryan Zomorodi (10:02):
Absolutely. Yeah, it sounded like you're doing a lot of the mail, the PPC, the cost there adds up over time because every piece of mail, every person that clicks on your ad, that's an additional cost. Do you kind of have an idea what your budget was during those years and ultimately was there a good ROI on that marketing budget? Initially

Adam (10:24):
It would cost us maybe around $5,000 to get a deal, sometimes a little bit higher. And as it would go up, we basically would cycle out of that medium, but on average to get the deals that we were looking to get, we'd be spending 12 to $15,000 a month on marketing.

Luke (10:44):
Sometimes the size 25 we used, when we would get into a new medium, it would cost us about 3000. And when we'd get out is when it was starting to get closer to eight. And it's like you got to have to have a pretty monstrous wholesale fee to one, make that one worth it. And then two, you're not, you're running a business too. So there's not just like, oh, I spent that money and there's this amount of net profit that's going into say atoms in my pockets. It's like there's other business expenses because running a business and it's like at the end of the day when everyone else would be in that same medium as you, it would just be a little bit demoralizing that there just wasn't more money left after having even done a pretty good deal, like a $15,000 deal over half of it's spent in marketing. That's wild.

Ryan Zomorodi (11:33):
Totally, totally. And especially starting out, for those who haven't had experience doing direct marketing, whether it's the mailers, whether it's the PPC or other paid marketing strategies, you might just be burning cash until you finally get that deal. So it takes a number of deals and it takes a lot of testing to ultimately figure out what is the cost of the deal, what's your client acquisition cost? So it does take time and not everyone's fortunate enough to actually get that deal to pay off that marketing spend. So that's why we really focus on the MLS and working with the real estate agents because there's really no cost to submitting an offer with a real estate agent or on the market. And that's why we ultimately say it's one of the more profitable ways to do deals because you can continuously get leads without having to spend any money on marketing. So that's why it's such an essential piece of our model here. But of course, I'm sure you knew about the MLS, you knew about properties on market before joining the program. What did you not know about the MLS before coming in and I mean, what sort of tweaks did you make that ultimately allowed you to do more on market deals

Luke (12:43):
At the end of 2019? We did a little test run ourselves on the MLS before having done your mentorship. All right, I'll kick it over to you, Adam.

Adam (12:52):
How many houses do we get? Was it three or four? Three and it was a completely different, it was a different market cycle. It was a little bit cooling off, and we did it in the October to November timeframe, maybe even as late as December. It was a more indirect approach, more like an email asking 'em if they'd accept an investor offer, that kind of thing. And at the time, I mean, if we just filtered the leads on the front side and messaged a few people, we were getting a pretty good response because it was the right season to buy and the right market timing to buy. We got several of 'em and a couple of 'em were people that came back to us, how you guys were saying that a lot of times if it falls out of escrow or something like that, or if it matures now in Maryland, there isn't a ton of maturing necessarily to deals that's happening. It's almost like it's very reminiscent of California, maybe like six or seven years ago. But at that point, the market wasn't that hot. It was still like an even market. There were higher days on market and everything. And so I guess what we got from the course that maybe we didn't have doing it ourselves was the confidence and here's what to expect, here's how to go about it. Here's what you're trying to find out.

Luke (14:16):
I think having real KPIs that we were going after, I mean sending an email to an agent, it's not that it's not a meaningful KPI, it's just like an intro email doesn't really get you too much. And that's basically what we were tracking instead of what the course teaches you on what to track specifically and how to make sure that your offers are being submitted, presented, et cetera. I mean, I would say that that was a huge value to us. And then most people overlook this in the whole off-market game, but having a reliable proof of funds with the low inventory environment right now is the difference between getting slaughtered and being taken seriously, really.

Ryan Zomorodi (15:04):
For sure. Yeah. I mean, we love to say if an offer's not in writing, it's not real then that shows, hey, we're serious about this property. We're serious about this deal enough so that we want to put it in writing with the proof of funds. We want to ideally be the first one to call and then ultimately get all that information so that we can put forth a number and a deal that we can perform on. So yeah, it's definitely super important. I think a lot of newer investors, they do kind of run down that path of just sending an email. Of course it's easier, it's kind of like the lazier way of doing this, but getting it in writing, it opens up the opportunity to then get those deals that fall out of escrow because who's going to be more reliable? The person who called and had a professional conversation with the agent who actually submitted the offer, solid proof of funds, those are the people that get those calls back as opposed to just the text message or the informal email. So yeah, glad you guys got value out of that part of the course as well. So I'd love to hear out of all the deals you've done or maybe even some of the newer fix and flips, is there any deal or deals that you maybe want to talk about as far as something that was extra juicy or something that was very memorable on your journey, like a big milestone or any particular deal you'd love to highlight? I'd love to hear about it

Adam (16:23):
Win Oak. We were actually on a call with a friend, it was Thursday night and I got an alert on this house and I was just like, wait. So I know a lot of people like to do either really big areas or pedestrian and looking at it, but I mean for every one of these houses we're checking out the neighborhood and just getting a gut feel on what the price is so that that way when we see a Redfin alert or something like that or an MLS alert that we know that's a good price. I got to get on that quick. So got on it quick, got the agent to submit the offer, let her know that I was unrepresented. In Maryland, it's a little bit, it's not exactly like California. So basically, I still don't even know how to say it, right, because talking to a bunch of different agents, they're like, no, that's dual agency.

(17:21):
Or there's just a whole bunch of different terms for it. And you don't want to say, oh, you can represent both sides because that's not, they're trained that that's not something they're allowed to do even though they kind of are. So I let her know that basically we were going to be unrepresented. And then she figured out how she got both sides legally. There was three other offers in the process. And so I was thinking, we're not going to get probably the highest offer. And she told me about the repairs and everything, and this was before Luke and I had gotten to any bids on any houses. So we were very nervous about it, but we estimated that it was going to cost us 75 grand and it was based on a mix of just your training on repairs, your updates that you had done in Skool, and then also some of our buyers, what they had told us about what repairs were costing in the area.

(18:23):
So we ended up running our inspection. We got, I think it was only four or five contractors out to the house. We got two bids we liked, and they were like 60 grand. The agent calls me back, I think it was Sunday, and they said, the estate attorney's on the phone, he wants to talk to you to give him some certainty. You kind of made a low deposit offer. We did 1%. And he's like, yeah, that's not $1,600. I don't feel good about that. He's like, can you do 5,000? And I said, go, we just do 2,500. And he's like, yeah, that's fine. So it's like, okay. He's like, okay, well, I said, now you tell me something because it said on the MLS that it needs court approval. Are you able to even officially sign on this? And he said, we can. I think, I mean, I know the judge and it's going to get approved at whatever price I submitted at.

(19:22):
It's like, okay, well, okay, I'll sign off on it. And so we signed, they signed and they had told us that they wanted a little bit longer of an escrow because it was a court order to kick out the executor of the estate who was living in the house. And it was just like, I guess this had been going on for several years. And finally the court said, no, you just have to get out and sell it. And so the agent had told me they were on board with moving out and I said, I hope I know these kind of situations from being a wholesaler that they're not always mean. They might say they're on board, but they're on board when they're out and we have the keys, so to speak. So they called us about, they wanted 40 days, they called us about maybe 15 days in and said that they wanted to close quicker.

(20:12):
And this was Luke, our first buy in Maryland. And so Luke and I at this point weren't, we didn't have all of the pieces in place that we have now, so we weren't able to actually close quicker. And we also had two under agreement, and those ones were ahead of it in the queue in our internal system. So we're like, oh, I thought you wanted 45 days. And she's like, oh, that's fine. So we ended up closing in 45 days and then the contractor that we hired first week, we just thought, this isn't going to work. So we fired and we got a new contractor on, got the whole project finished in about three and a half weeks, and the house needed everything, new roof, new hvac. We took out two walls, we put one or two walls back in,

Luke (21:00):
Changed it from a three, one and a half to a four three, redid some of the electrical, it's basically a brand new house and it looks beautiful.

Adam (21:07):
We just actually got that on market on Thursday and it went under agreement Sunday night. I mean, it was a whole bunch of new stuff that we were doing with flipping it for the first time. But I mean on the front side it was like the process isn't any different between that. And I mean, I even had to get an assignment like them to cross out the assignment section because they originally just wrote it in my name since our company wasn't in standing in Maryland yet. So they're like, we'll just assign it to your company then after you get the registration to be able to do business in Maryland. So we're like, okay, that's cool. It was a very, I guess almost textbook Real Estate Skills deal.

Luke (21:47):
I'll take the other one quickly. So there was a house when we were looking through some of our areas that we knew would fit historically our best buyer, his exact criteria, it was close to actually a vacation home that he has. And so we see this one house and then I click on the one next to it and I'm like, that's weird. That's for sale too. And we look into it a little bit more and we find out that an estate owns both houses. And we're like, okay, cool. We're going to make an offer on both of 'em. And Adam and I went back and forth and we were like, well, do you think that they'll want to make an or they'll want make the one to sell one and then the other or both at the same time. I was like, we'll, gun sling a little bit and we'll go for both of 'em.

(22:26):
The one had a failed septic. And so we were able to negotiate a septic inspection period. We bought the one house for 1 72, the other house for 1 73 just because, I mean, we made a packaged offer. So the whole total offer was 3 45. And the total assignment fee, I'm looking at our sheet here was just over $36,000 for the two properties. Our buyer wanted both of 'em because it's like a mile or two from his vacation home. He said, it just gives me an excuse to go down there more. So awesome. One of 'em was a Cape Cod, one of 'em was a split foyer, and I mean they were fantastic deals for him. We made good assignment money. The one fell out of escrow, which is what kind of queued us back in when we were like, okay, listen, I want to buy both of them. I don't want to just buy one of them. I am not making an offer on the nicer house only. I'm trying to take the bad one off your hands too. And so the agent negotiated it with us and our buyer got two great deals, and I think averaging over $18,000 on two wholesale deals or two deals, because we had two houses, was a pretty good day in the office for us too.

Ryan Zomorodi (23:36):
Yeah, that's phenomenal. And it's amazing when they're back to back because it's nice for the investor because ultimately they have centralized place to where they need to make those improvements, and then ultimately they can have a little bit more influence on the price when they go to resale.

Luke (23:51):
Absolutely.

Ryan Zomorodi (23:51):
So yeah, a way to capture that both of them at the same time and just kind of take that next step and find that additional deal and package it up and make it a win-win for both of you and your investor. Sounds like your buyers are mostly fix and flippers. Are you doing most of your business with that one buyer or just a small handful of buyers now?

Luke (24:11):
Yeah, and it's been like that for a long time. Historically, I don't know how to describe this, but we haven't ever really done too much business with buy and hold investors. Early on, it seemed like we were getting bigger fees from people that were flipping. And it might just be that because of the market we were in that you could buy low price point rentals maybe easier or something that cash flowed for them. And so it just wasn't a niche for us. And so in our entire wholesaling business, we've just mainly focused on the fix and flip investors.

Ryan Zomorodi (24:41):
Nice. Yeah, I mean there's always a market for that. People are always looking for a nice new renovated house to live in. Housing is not going out of style, which is why we love residential real estate. So I love your story because you started with wholesaling or you actually started a little bit with the property management side, which I think is super valuable. But then when you ramped it up and turned it into a real business, you went hard with wholesaling and got that ramped up to doing significant volume. And then you've transitioned into fixing and flipping, which is something that we really advocate for, learn the business, generate capital, and then roll that into fix and flips where you're taking them down yourself, improving the property, making those bigger profits, and then ultimately acquiring rentals and creating rental income for yourself. So I'd love to hear about where you're taking your business. I know you mentioned you're setting up that infrastructure to scale and do even more deals, but where do you see you guys going in the next several years? What are your ultimate goals for your business right now?

Luke (25:41):
Yeah, I'll go. So right now we're fix and flipping in the Baltimore DC metro area. So anybody that watches this, whether they be in the course or not bring us wholesale deals, that would be wonderful. Probably finding Adam on Facebook, is that the best

Adam (25:57):
Message me in Skool? And then I'll just give you my Facebook and the direct message on Skool.

Luke (26:05):
We want to build out the market in Maryland. I think we can hit over 50 deals probably this year. We'll be able to probably do somewhere in the 35 to 45 range. That's our goal. And then we'd like to add a market in Florida where Adam currently is, and we haven't quite figured out our passive income investment strategy yet, but it's probably going to be some variation of utilizing these skills and just figuring out how to invest in real estate because it's something that we know and don't know. We feel safe investing in real estate versus, I don't know, the stock market or whatever, that's fine, but we know how to buy assets at a discount, so we're cool with that.

Adam (26:51):
So that was another thing that we wanted to say is your videos on valuation are really good and as many valuations as you can get as a wholesaler and then get an opinion from a person that's acting as a principal, it's going to at least calibrate you to your buyers. And then eventually when you're your own flipper, I mean then the market recalibrates you, but at least for the time being a good proxy is what your buyers are going to think that it's worth. And the closer you can get to knowing what they think it's worth and what they'll offer is, the better you're going to be on your just seeing it and being able to make an offer fast. And so I think that's one of the things that's allowed us at this stage for us to be able to go from not doing any flips to having seven going where we're not too crazy. It's just that we know when we look at something, whether or not it's a deal from just looking at having looked at thousands of houses and valuing them over the last eight years,

Luke (27:51):
Exercise that we used to do when we were like wholesaling is we would say, okay, well what was, and then we would name the buyer whose area it was in, what would this person think that it's worth? What properties would they use to justify it? What are they going to say and how are we going to then either agree with them or are we going to say, yes, I hear what you're saying, but there's this property which shows that it's worth $10,000 more. And so as a result, my wholesale fee isn't ridiculous.

Ryan Zomorodi (28:19):
Yeah, I think it's so valuable when you're learning your market, if you can get your hands on appraisals just to really understand how appraisers think, because as you guys know, when you're flipping a house, ultimately it's that appraisal that really matters because when someone's buying your house, they're going to get a loan on the property and they're not going to be able to get the maximum loan on the property unless it appraises. So it's like that point when you're getting that appraisal is super important. It kind of tests your skills when you're on the front end when you're underwriting the property and you're trying to determine what is this thing going to sell for. So I think just knowing that from the get go and reviewing an appraisal, and then when you're making your offers, understanding what makes a good deal for your buyer and really trying to get deeper than just the 70% rule or percentage minus repairs, really just trying to get as deep as possible, understanding how they evaluate repairs, what's their exit strategy.

(29:14):
This is all about the exit strategy and ultimately whether you're going to fix and flip it or your buyer is, or if you want to take it down as a rental, it's different numbers. It can be the same property and you might offer a different amount depending on the exit strategy. So yeah, I definitely agree with that, just having that really clear criteria, either yourself as the buyer, as the investor, or if you're going to be wholesaling it, what is that exit strategy? What is that buyer going to be looking for when they ultimately make that decision? And I'm sure you've seen that makes it a lot smoother when you're in the disposition phase of your wholesale deal. Just having that solid number makes you confident in sending those offers. And then even when you're buying, you know that you have that built in equity based on that price that you acquired the deal for. So glad it's given you the confidence to continue to make offers, continue to buy houses and scale up to where you guys are at.

Luke (30:09):
I think a lot of wholesalers actually forget to think about the interest that people are paying on their money because just because you're a cash offer, if you have a great hard money situation where they can close really quickly, there's still a cost of the money, even if it's your own cash that you're investing in the deal. And so I think just factoring that in too is a, I don't know, maybe a pro tip, maybe it's not, I don't know. But I think just knowing that you're investors, if you're a wholesaler, that they have a cost of money no matter what, they're either looking for more profit on a deal or they're looking to pay for that money. So just knowing that too will also help you make more accurate offers. As a wholesaler,

Ryan Zomorodi (30:49):
There's always a cost to capital, even if you have cash, there's an opportunity cost, so you always have to weigh different investments over the other, most people are using other people's money, meaning you're either giving up a share of the equity or you're paying interest on that money. So yeah, it's definitely important to take that into consideration. Again, when it comes to your exit strategy, your financing, all that definitely impacts the returns on the deal. And real quick, before we start to wrap things up, I'd love to hear how you got into these other markets in more than a handful of different markets. What was your thought process going into them? Did deals just kind of pop up? And I think you mentioned something about the local competitive landscape. How did you end up in a couple of these different markets?

Adam (31:33):
Basically we're just adventurous by nature. But the second part is if we've seen an opportunity, a lot of times we just want to see what it's about. So for the Missouri stuff and Michigan and all of that is us just trying to sell rentals to hedge funds. And we did do that on maybe, I dunno, four or five houses. And that's kind of what helped us solidify in our mind the idea of the buy box and what, I mean, everyone has a buy box. Not everyone knows that they use one and normally they're just like, I don't like the deal. That means that the deal's outside of the buy box for you. And then California, we wanted to be doing this in California, we were there for Covid and it was a little bit crazy.

Luke (32:20):
And that one was more of a proof of concept just to show that we could flip houses and not have to go to them in the same manner that we've wholesaled deals. We haven't been to a deal that we wholesaled in what we were talking about it the other day. It was that one in Sue Suitland, that was like four or five years ago.

Adam (32:37):
The deal I told you about in Glen Oak, I actually told the agent, she's like, so you don't ever go out to see these? And I said, no. I mean, I told her the story about the Suitland one that you just said, Luke, where we went out and we got in the middle of inadvertently tenant landlord dispute where the tenants were threatening to shoot the landlord and they called the police and it was complete Jerry Springer show stuff and we're like, okay, that's it. I mean, I'm not putting my life at risk.

Luke (33:10):
And it's funny, it was pretty at the time, it was like a $315,000 after repair value house, which wasn't a cheap house

Adam (33:18):
And anywhere but California that's a half decent cost house.

Luke (33:24):
The Washington State one that was during Covid. We just had some of our pay per click guy. We just said, yeah, let's just see what we can get across the country and we'll just see if we can sell it. And that one was in a pretty nice area, ironically, not too far from wine country in Washington state. But yeah, so it was just kind of fun activities for us. We're mostly, I would say we're 99% focused right now on just the Maryland DC area and probably a year from now, probably the southwest Florida area.

Ryan Zomorodi (33:53):
That's awesome. I love it. Proven the concept, proven that you can do it. It's possible. So you just want to rise to the occasion, test yourself and ultimately take on that challenge. So I love that you're not only virtually wholesaling in different markets, you're also virtually house flipping at a distance. So I think it's awesome to take it down a project and then manage that from a distance. I think it really tests you as an entrepreneur and as an investor, being able to manage contractors, the repairs, the transaction. It's definitely a testament to what you guys are able to do in your business now and then going forward. And I think it's cool that you guys have kind of started to focus even more on an area that you guys like and that's going to allow you to just continue to scale. So thanks for sharing that. I think that's really awesome.

Luke (34:42):
One of the biggest deals we've actually ever done was like 10 minutes from where we grew up. We didn't even go to that house. We didn't go until settlement day. That's what I would say. We didn't go inspect it or anything like that. We didn't go out there with our investor or anything like that. We just looked at it literally on settlement day just for kicks just to see it because it's right there.

Ryan Zomorodi (35:04):
I mean, I think it's definitely a myth and just a limiting belief in real estate that you have to go to the property even before you make an offer. I mean, I think the majority of real estate buyers out there believe you have to see the property before making an offer, and then of course before you close on it, and then obviously during the transaction. But as you guys are proving, and a lot of members in our community are doing successfully, we can do this without actually physically going to the property. Even when you're buying multimillion dollar property in your backyard, a lot of times there's only maybe two or three moments where you actually go to the property, everything else is done digitally on your laptop, your phone. And so there's just so much we can do to supplement those visits as you guys have, that ultimately our presence isn't required. So that really just opens up the entire country as an opportunity to invest and ultimately get access to different markets, different property types. And so it is just cool that you guys have been able to challenge yourself and do that successfully. So congrats on your success thus far.

Adam (36:13):
Oh, one last thing. I was just thinking about this, and I know you guys go through this in the calculator section, but it's important to figure out your two or three buyers, what their calculator is, because really what allowed us to do so many with our handful, very small handful of buyers, because we just knew exactly how they were going to underwrite the deal themselves. And then like Luke mentioned earlier, we just tried to be as faithful to what they thought the value was going to be, what they thought the repair cost was going to be.

Luke (36:43):
Doesn't matter what we think it's going to be, it matters what they think it's going to be unless you can convince them that you're right and they're not, which only happens a handful of times.

Adam (36:53):
So basically that, I mean, if you have buyers, if you ask them for their calculator or to guide you through their process, I think a lot of the people that are going to be the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 house a month, buyers are going to be process oriented and they're going to know, here's all the assumptions that I made to make this offer. And I mean, if you guys bring us a deal in Maryland, that's how we are. We know, I mean, most of it, it's pretty straightforward for us. We use a calculator and we know exactly, okay, this price is good enough, we can get a deal done here.

Ryan Zomorodi (37:29):
Yeah, that's super important. Yeah, just getting ultra clear on how our buyers think, because you guys said, it doesn't matter what we think the repairs are, it doesn't matter what we think the ARV is, it's really ultimately who's buying that deal. That's what matters. So the more we can see eye to eye with them on the costs, their costs of capital, the ARV, how do they value property? How do they get to their conclusions? How do they make decisions when they're looking to buy a property? The more we can get in their mind, the more we'll be able to transact with them and ultimately help each other do more deals. So it's great that you guys have been able to tap into that and utilize that to your advantage.

Adam (38:06):
And then I guess the last thing is just make sure you're making offers. I mean, you just have to make offers.

Ryan Zomorodi (38:11):
Totally. Yeah. I love saying, yeah, if you're not making offers, you're not making deals. So it's simply put, there's no way to create an opportunity if you're not taking a shot. So well said. Well said, Adam. So just kind of starting to wrap things up, do you guys have any advice for people who are maybe working a job or just not yet involved with real estate who've been thinking about it, who might want to take the leap and start wholesaling or start investing? Any advice for those looking to get started and even joining the Pro Wholesaler VIP program?

Adam (38:44):
Definitely doable. You just have to, I mean, if you're working your job and you want to eventually have this take over, you just have to make sure that this is your number one hobby outside of your job. And times that you might've done things in the past, I don't know, go to football games and drink beer, that kind of thing. For now, you just have to put that to the side because you're going to be making the wholesaling take the place of your job. So you just need to actually nurture it enough. And then secondarily is a lot of the agents are doing the same thing agents. So what we found is there's a lot of deal flow from two until eight at night, and people that are professionally buying, a lot of times you're doing it like nine to five. So there is opportunity to do it, have your job, and still do this on the side, but you have to be very disciplined in it after a short amount of discipline. I mean, it's going to pay off in you being able to do it full time. So I would say yeah, absolutely. I mean, isn't an easier way to do it easier than what you guys lay out in the course

Luke (39:52):
And there's not a less risky way to do it.

Adam (39:54):
Yeah,

Luke (39:54):
It's like in terms of people look at the education expense associated with buying into a course like this. And I would say that one, it's worth it. And sorry for the endorsement everyone can make. Yeah, everyone can make their own decisions. But what we found is what we told you earlier is it's like six to $8,000 to buy an off market deal in terms of marketing costs. So I'm not exactly sure what the course costs now, but I mean you're going to spend it one way or another except for the fact that this teaches you a skill of how to get them for $0 over and over again for zero over and over again. So in terms of are you making a good trade off, at least in my opinion, I think so. And then just to reiterate what Adam said, I mean if you're doing this part-time, the only way you're going be successful is discipline.

(40:47):
And then unfortunately, this is the tough medicine no one wants to hear is that after you're doing it, it's going to take discipline because it's your job and you got to make money. So you can absolutely do it. You just won't see the same results as doing more of it. So stick with it, be disciplined and follow the training. I feel like most people say that with some other courses, and maybe it's not as true or there's a luck component or it's a market dependent type thing. But in this course, finding an MLS, it's like you might spend some time and if you don't have any success with buying deals in that market, that's fine. Switch to a new market, get MLS access again and start over. It's not like where you're marketing, you're like, oh my God, I just spent $10,000 on marketing and there's no leads or deals. What do I do? Well, you're out to $10,000 this, you have the skills, pick a new market, start again, find one that works for you and just get going.

Adam (41:52):
I mean, you don't even have to put, it's not like a ton of time because if you make one offer a day for an entire month, I'd be shocked if you don't have at least several people that are negotiating pretty close to strike Grinch. And if you have some good buyers, you could just ask 'em about a couple of 'em and see where, or just give them the area and tell 'em, look, this is the kind of house, it's in this area. Tell me what you think this is worth and it's going to need all of this stuff in renovations. What's it going to cost that way I can go back and get this for you. And I mean, you make 30 offers. I'd be shocked if you don't have one, especially if you're doing it how they lay out in the course. And that doesn't take a ton of time.

Ryan Zomorodi (42:34):
Yeah, that's phenomenal advice. And we've seen that as well in various markets. There are a lot of part-time agents, there's a lot of part-time investors, and it is that discipline, you can carve out an advantage by just being more committed, being more responsive, being more professional, and just caring yourself a certain way, which is why we emphasize just redefining who you are in the beginning of the program. So you just set your intention, you set your new identity as you go into this business and ultimately can create those results. And yeah, I think you said it beautifully. Just everyone has the same amount of time in the day. It's just how can you create more space and time in your schedule by eliminating some of those unnecessary activities or making just selective sacrifices so that you can invest time into your business, which will ultimately create more time and space later on because you can create that income stream, you can start acquiring more real estate, and then ultimately you'll have more time to do whatever you want in the future.

(43:36):
So it's just about those sacrifices, which most people aren't willing to make. And so that's why there's this opportunity for those who are willing to put in the work who want it more than the next person. So it's just that consistency and dedication. And then finally, just touching on what you said, Luke, it's just a matter of if you're working paid marketing strategies, you can just continue to go down that path and maybe not get a deal. And you unfortunately might end up losing a lot of money, which is kind of scary. And a lot of people just don't have five, 10, $20,000 a month to risk on potentially getting a deal. So why we're so bullish on the MLS and working with real estate agents is what we focus on in the program is because you can send as many offers as you have time for, and you can get a deal without having to bury yourself into a marketing expense hole.

(44:30):
So it's just the most profitable way to get deals, and you're not having to risk that capital, which is why it's so beneficial for a lot of people to at least work this strategy. And maybe you can entertain spending some money on marketing later, but unless you have a marketing budget and you know what you're doing when it comes to direct response marketing, then the MLS just makes a lot of sense and it's just a safer, more reliable way to get into the business. And even just add that as an acquisition arm of your company if you're not using that quite yet. So I think you guys just dropped a lot of great knowledge and wisdom so

Adam (45:06):
Having done both too, it's like I don't know that we're leery to go. I mean, we've read every book on direct marketing. We had campaigns that pulled ridiculously well at different

Luke (45:16):
Points. That bookshelf behind me is filled with direct marketing books. Even if you know what you're doing, it's still tough as hell to get a direct marketing deal.

Adam (45:26):
But now, I mean, having done the whole MLS way mean we're believers having done both for long periods of time. I think that the MLS thing, the system, the way you lay it out, it's, it's just better than direct marketing. Someone has to, every deal that you get represents people that direct marketed and use their money to find the deal. And so for you being able to get it is you not having to have spent 10 agents worth of money on making that person aware that they could sell the house as is

Luke (46:07):
Or 10 agents worth of time. But either,

Ryan Zomorodi (46:10):
No, I mean, at the end of the day, it's not rocket science. It's just having a system and a process and knowing how to work this A to Z and really doing it in a systematic approach. That's how you'll get the best results. So it's one thing to be casually browsing on Zillow and requesting to talk to an agent to maybe make an offer. And it's another thing to really work the MLS offer system and systematically go after deals that you, you know what you're looking for and you know what your exit strategy is, and really just having a plan in place. So there's really just a difference between the amateur and the that Pro Wholesaler. So love seeing you guys, just take it and run with it and really add to what you're already doing. And then ultimately being able to have this acquisition strategy without spending the money on marketing like you were in the past.

(47:00):
So again, appreciate you guys. I'm super excited to see where you've taken this so far. And I know really it's still just the beginning. So I see the ambition with you guys. I see the vision that you guys have and the trajectory. So I'm super excited to just continue to support you guys and be a part of your journey and see your growth and as you continue to do more deals and make an impact and continue to help people at the end of the day. Again, thanks guys. I know you're very busy with what you got going on, but I appreciate you stepping up and being leaders in the community and sharing your story with our audience today. So certainly very inspiring. Any last words you guys before we wrap up?

Adam (47:39):
Thank you for having us here,

Luke (47:40):
Yeah, thank you.

Ryan Zomorodi (47:42):
Cool. Thanks guys. Appreciate you.

Adam (47:44):
Anyone that has anything in Maryland, bring it to us. Our buy box is after 1950, no septic

Luke (47:50):
Under 750,000, RV over one 90,

Adam (47:55):
And we don't care about the amount of repairs.

Ryan Zomorodi (47:57):
Yeah, that's great. So yeah, it's guys like Luke and Adam who are in our community. They're looking to buy as many deals as they can. They have a buy box. So joining our community, you definitely get access to guys like Luke and Adam looking to buy deals, looking to jv, just looking to continue to make an impact. So love that. Guys, thank you again for hopping on today. For anyone else who's looking to get involved with the Pro Wholesaler VIP program, just go to RealEstateSkills.com to learn more.

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*Disclosure: Real Estate Skills is not a law firm, and the information contained here does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney before making any legal conclusions. The information presented here is educational in nature. All investments involve risks, and the past performance of an investment, industry, sector, and/or market does not guarantee future returns or results. Investors are responsible for any investment decision they make. Such decisions should be based on an evaluation of their financial situation, investment objectives, risk tolerance, and liquidity needs.