David Dodge: From Drugs and Crime to a Second Chance and $20k per Month from Rental Properties

Speaker 1

00:00

 This episode is sponsored by the Integrity income fund, which is managed by yours truly and my team at Labrador lending, the Integrity income fund is for accredited investors. It aims to pay an eight percent preferred return and an 8.5% preferred return for early investors. It aims to pay out monthly distributions. There's a 25 thousand dollar minimum and only a one-year lockup. If you are an accredited investor and you're looking to get away from Wall Street, looking to beat inflation and looking for an asset class that is backed by hard physical real estate then look no further than Integrity income fund, check it out at Labrador Lending.com. Today, I got the opportunity to chat with David Dodge of discount, property investor.com and David's been in real estate for. I don't know. He's been a real estate investor for I think almost 20 years started out doing rentals did those for 10 years, but he says he was doing it wrong for the first 10 years, and then he moved into wholesaling flipping. And now he's a huge fan of the Burr method, and he's got a really inspiring story, we talked about a lot of adversity that he had to go through including the death of his mother and then later his father's passing. And so essentially he grew up without a mother and then at 18 and on didn't have any parents and I think that probably contributed as to it was a contributing A factor as to why he ended up kind of going down a bad path for a little while there. And he got into some legal trouble based on because of activities, he was deciding to pursue and the crowd he was hanging out with and, yeah, so that's really interesting. And but he took that problem and turn it into an opportunity, and I can't wait for you to find out how he did that. He is absolutely crushing it. Now, he's in the Saint Louis. Zuri area. And he and his partner are extremely active in their real estate and coaching business. And he they bring in 20,000 dollars a month in income from their real estate. So definitely checks all the boxes as far as adversity and abundance and like I said, he's funny energetic. He's just was a pleasure to talk with. So I know you're going to really enjoy this one. Thanks, inspiring stories of real. People overcoming incredible odds to live life to the fullest. We are all guaranteed to face. Hardships, how.

Speaker 2

02:55

 Will we handle the.

Speaker 1

02:56

 Adversity? Join us to be moved by every day, people who have turned poverty into prosperity and weakness into wealth Be Inspired as these relatable Heroes, get vulnerable.

Speaker 2

03:07

 And former.

Speaker 1

03:08

 Counterintelligence investigator Jamie Bateman puts his interviewing skills to the test, restore your faith in humanity as you experience. True.

Speaker 2

03:16

 Cinderella's stories of average people.

Speaker 1

03:18

 People turning surreal struggle and deep despair into booming, businesses and financial Fortune. Take ownership of the life. You are destined to live and turn your adversity into abundance, welcome everybody to another episode of the form adversity, to abundance podcast. I am your host Jamie Bateman, and I am very excited today to be joined by David the discount property, investor Dodge. If I Said that correctly. David Badge of St. Louis Missouri David. How you do today, man? I am .

Speaker 2

03:53

 Doing fantastic. Jamie thanks for having me. I am excited to get this opportunity to share some value with your audience this morning. So I am really, really grateful to be.

Speaker 1

04:02

 Here. Awesome. So I know your name is out there already a good bit in the real estate space and, you know, entrepreneurial world if you will. But for those listeners who are not familiar with you, who are you, and why should we listen to you?

Speaker 2

04:18

 Yeah, great question man. Why should you guys care, right? So, my name is David Dodge, I am the discount property investor, that's the name of my entity discount property investor. I have been buying real estate for about 18 years, done about a thousand transactions, but the thing is, is the first 10 years? I did it wrong and over the first 10 years, I basically Bought a house a year and I bought rental properties. That was kind of what I wanted to do when I first started and at the end of 10 years Jamie I had 12 Rentals. So I got lucky two of those. 10 years was I was able to buy two houses in a year versus one house in a year. Right. And you know the way I was going about doing it for the first 10 years. Again very passively was I would locate an agent first and then the agent would help me find a property. I was getting ready to say a deal, but they're not. They will be located property and then I would, you know, make an offer on that property and, you know, maybe get a thousand or two or three or five discount. But like, that's nothing, you know, like basically paying full retail for these properties. And then I would walk into a bank and I get a bank loan. And the bank would say, hey, Dave, we're going to give you 80% of what the purchase price is assuming that the appraisal is at or above that number. But at the end of the day, It was 80% loan, that's it, right? So the average house I was buying in the first 10 years is still about the average house price, and I am buying today which is about 150,000 here in the Midwest, 20% of 150 is 30k. So I had to put down 30 K, 12 times over the first 10 years, that's 360 thousand dollars that I either had to save up to put down or in the very, very beginning for the first two or three that I borrowed the 30 grand and then got a bank loan and then I paid the 30 grand back over the course of a year or two or three, right? So the way I said, slow process Larry slow. So the reason I say that it was the wrong way is because it's slow, like you said, and it requires you to have 30 grand to put down on a hundred and fifty thousand dollar property. So if you're in a market where you can't find a hundred fifty thousand dollar properties in the properties are 300 Grand, you need sixty thousand to put down. That's very difficult. Yeah. So About 78 years ago, I went full time in the business, I had 12 Rentals already and I decided that I just wanted to be a full time real estate investor and I didn't want to be an agent or a broker. I didn't really feel like doing that kind of job. So I just kind of, you know, started reading books and taking courses and hiring, excuse me, hiring coaches. And I essentially learned and taught myself wholesaling and for the next three to four years. Jamie, I did that exclusively. I Wholesale, wholesale, wholesale, like crazy. And in the last seven years, I have done 750 wholesale deals, so don't quite a few wholesale deals and just the last, you know, seven eight years that's incredible but it's pretty neat. Yeah. Yeah. But here's the thing man I started out with Reynolds passively for 10 years got 12 and then I went full time and for the next let us say three and a half to four years. All I did was wholesaling. I like lost sight. I lost track of the reason I got into real estate. I got In real estate for, for two or three reasons. Number one, I wanted to have passive income. Yeah, right. Because I wanted to Financial Freedom and I knew that having passive income would allow me to have both Financial Freedom but also time Freedom, right? So, I wanted to stop trading your time for my want to stop treating my time for money, right? And then number two, I am terrible at saving money like the worst, the worst, right? So you know, whenever I go buy a rental property and I put money into it or I borrow Ani to get it and then I pay that money back. It's like a forced savings account. Sure. So I have always been terrible with money. I am still not that great at saving it. Yeah, you know, but when I buy rentals it, like forces me to save it, it's.

Speaker 1

08:32

 Not very liquid. It's out of sight. Out of mind.

Speaker 2

08:34

 Is liquid but not very correct. Correct. Yes, right. We're on the same. Not like it, not like a savings account. Like not like a savings account, right? So you know about oh I don't know. No I guess you know another three. Let us just say three and a half years I That full-time. So then the following three and a half years. I like, you know, had the Epiphany, I woke up, and I am like man I got into real estate to like be my own boss and to like save money and do like build wealth and to create passive income, and I am not doing any of that. I am just wholesaling. I am making a good living. But like, man. So I pivoted back into buying rentals but this time I decided to try to figure out and learn a way to do it, that didn't require me to put down 20% or in my case because I am buying Fifty thousand dollar properties, 30 grand, and I stumbled across the bird method and I didn't create the method. I didn't invent it. I would I have written a book on it because other books written on the topic. But I am not the only guy by any means.

Speaker 1

09:33

 Brandon. Turner likes to take credit for the.

Speaker 2

09:35

 And that's fine. Yeah, I will give Brandon the credit. I know Brandon, I have met Brandon, he's a great guy. Love brain right now. He didn't, he didn't invent it.

Speaker 1

09:43

 Either. No, he didn't invent it. No, but he likes he coined, it may be that.

Speaker 2

09:47

 Term, but he was the first guy. Write a book on it, probably right. Yeah.

Speaker 1

09:50

 So no, I have done it as well. It's some version of it. That's, you know, I do I have rentals as well and that's really the primary method that we have my wife and I have used for, for our rentals. It's super powerful. So you know, there's no perfect strategy. There can be, if you don't know what you're doing you could get in trouble. But so you kind of sounds like you know now or at a point where you Blended and correct me if I am wrong but you Blended multiple strategies that you And I had mastered over those really decades actually and now you're kind of being more intentional about how you're approaching your own business and you're so you're able to hang on to a lot of these properties that you otherwise would have wholesale before.

Speaker 2

10:34

 And yeah, that's a great. Okay, so check this out. So the first 10 years I wanted to be a landlord but I still had businesses and jobs and whatever it was, I am getting this on Focus mode here and you know, Oh, it was very passive. So then I died. I went full time and I spent, you know, three and a half years roughly wholesaling, but I wasn't buying Metals, but I built a skill. I built the skill of marketing to sellers, negotiating putting properties under contract and finding Partners to sell them to. So, like, all of those skills that I learned were massively helpful, right? Yeah. So, then, you know, after that three and a half years, let us just say, three and a half. That's just a simple easy round number the purse. Eating three and a half years that light that leads me to today, right? I-i am still wholesaling but we have changed the mindset. And now it's we're going to keep the best deals that we get from our marketing efforts, and we're going to wholesale everything else. So we literally have a saying, keep the best wholesale the rest.

Speaker 1

11:34

 So you can cherry-pick. Yep, and.

Speaker 2

11:36

 We cherry pick. So what we're doing now, with the ones that were that we're cherry-picking, and we're keeping his, we're using the Burr method for those that aren't familiar, berzon acronym, it's be with for ours is stands for by rehab rents. Aunt, refinance repeat very, very simple strategy. If I was to Define what the bird method is? My definition is simple. It's a strategy that we Real Estate Investors used to acquire assets with little to no money. Very rapidly. That's the way I Define it. Sure. And the, the, the way that the Burr method is so beneficial is because it doesn't require me to bring in 20%. In the past or 30 grand to buy a property, but we do a whole, we have to go through this whole process to be able to do that. So I am going to shorten it, and we can you know elaborate a little later if we want. But what we do now is we find a deal just like we would if we wholesaled we Market we find a deal, and then we offer to buy it just like we would have we wholesale right we put it under contract, right? But instead of marketing that deal to the cash buyers. Now we Market that deal to our private lenders, and we have A couple of them that we work with seven eight, nine of them, and we have some hard money lender friends that we work with as well, but it's little bitten more expensive using hard money than it is private money. So we Market the deal to our private lenders but not for sale we Market the investment opportunity to them, and they say hey Dave you know will lend on this one. We want 12 percent annual no points hopefully, and we're like yeah, no problem. We're only going to borrow the money for three or four or five months. Anyway, so twelve percent isn't the total amount that's an annualized figure. So we will buy the With the private or hard money lender, and then we will also borrow an additional 20, 30, 40 Grand, whatever we need to rehab it. So the first letter in the acronym of Burrs be by, but you got to buy it a discount folk you gotta buy it, a discount on Bose the second time. It's so incredibly important, right? So then we rehab the property, and we use the same money that we got to purchase it a little bit more from that lender typically, right? Occasionally, we will have to bring a second lender in but 95% of the time it's the same lender. One lender, got it. I am under right, but then we will rehab the property. Now, rehabbing the property, does a bunch of stuff, it increases the value. It allows you to rent it for more money. It allows you or helps, you get it rented quicker. Sure. And it reduces a lot of the capital expenditures catbacks, hopefully 457 maybe even 10 years. So we're buying these properties, and we're doing these rehabs, we love the big ticket items. In fact, those are the first things we typically do roof Windows siding if needed It HV ACS flooring you now, and then we will look at the kitchens in the bathrooms in the walls but that's the last thing. We look at we want to do the big items first because those are the items that cost a lot of money and down the road, five, seven, ten years. We don't want to have a seven thousand dollar turnover cost. We want to keep it low for the rehab, does a lot for us. Right? Then we go, we get it, rented, and then we go to the bank, so I am still going to the bank, like I did in the beginning here. Jamie. But now I am not going to the bank. In the beginning, I was going to the bank asking for them to help me buy a home. It was a new loan. It's a new loan, it's risky for the bank. There's a lot of underwriting that's required. Well, now, we already own the property. We have already rehabbed it. We have already rented it, right? So the bank.

Speaker 1

15:05

 Technical, and yeah, and they will count that rental income as part of your they will come when you pass the.

Speaker 2

15:10

 Things like holy cow. Hell yeah, we want to, we want to do this refi. Yeah, we like this house. Yeah it's been rehabbed and it's Rented. So it's not a liability. It's actually an asset. Yes, Dave, we would love to refi this. Well, they still do the same 80% but here's the kicker folks. I am not going in buying a property that the purchase price is equal to the appraised value. That's how I did it in the beginning. There was very little capture of equity, if anything would be a couple Grand, right? Because, you know the bank that the appraiser is going to say, well what are you offering to buy it? That you're offering to buy it at 160. Well, you know, my job is to tell you what somebody else would pay you for it and you're offering to pay 160. So it's probably worth 160. I mean their jobs very easy on the purchase side. It's very yes, that's literally what their job is. What is your opinion of value? Well, when you buy a property at a discount, you fix it up, you get it written. And then you walk into the bank and you say, I want to refi. They don't care about your purchase price anymore. That number is irrelevant. Sure. What matters now is what? The damn thing worth. Let us send the appraisal out. So the goal with us now with the cherry picking W keep the best and wholesale. The rest is, can we be all in with purchase and Rehab all in of what the appraisal comes back at? Which is a gas. But can we be all in at 80 percent or less? And if we can, which we have done about 200 times now that I am at like, 197 bird eels, one called 206 Then you have got if we can be all in a terrible. Oh 80% in the bank lends 80% we can acquire the asset with no money, no money. And oftentimes I can pay the lender back 100% with the interest and I can use the loan to do it all to where I don't have to come out-of-pocket a dollar. So the average amount that we started with our I started with to buy a rental was 30 grand and over the last three and a half four years, I brought that average down to $1200. So after, you know, for five months of cash flows, you don't have any money invested into the asset, your returns are infant. It's.

Speaker 1

17:26

 Amazing, that, that is awesome. So, okay, yeah, and I definitely want to dive into that more later. I mean, that is super powerful. I mean, you have got no money in the deal or very little. And then I think the key thing with the well there's several key things but the last are is Repose the repeat and so it's like that's Well, where is you're previous? Your first 10 years, you weren't repeating until 12 months later because you had to save up all that cash to be able to put down that down payment, with this Burr method, you can repeat immediately and it you can go find it soon as you have a deal, good to go. So that is definitely very powerful. Of course, there are some things to be aware of and potential, you know, pitfalls along the way. Obviously, if you get, you know if you can't get that bank loan, you might be stuck, holding the bag. With the hard money lender or whatever, but I don't have to tell you that but just for the, for the listener out there, you know, you do need to get some coaching and know what you're doing before you just go start doing this but one thing I want to dive into David, if you don't mind is more of your background. Yeah, absolutely. We can bring it up, bring it up to speed, you know, up to the present again and then talk about more specifically what you have going on today. So yeah, lets you can. Can take it wherever you want. I mean, you have done hundreds of shows, you have your own podcast, you, you're very comfortable with this which is awesome makes my VIPs and but this show is, you know, from adversity to abundance. And it can be either professional or personal, but some real, you know, some real, you know, pain or some adversity that you faced as a human. I mean, we're trying to focus on the human element of real estate investing the human element of Running a business. The human element of overcoming hardship, you know, overcoming struggle and then getting to adversity, excuse me, abundance and growth, and you get the concept. And for the listener out, there we don't. It's not like we just flip a switch and all of a sudden, all of our problems go away, but a lot of it has to do with mindset and Lessons. Learned through the adversity. So what comes to mind, David? What do you want to talk?

Speaker 2

19:47

 About? Yeah. A man. So I have had a lot of adversity in my life and it's led me to abundance, so I can I will be happy to talk about this. So you know, some of the adversity that I faced was really more so younger in my life than it has been recently. Okay. But it has molded me and it is a shaped me into the person that I am today. So, you know, I lost my, I lost both my parents before I was 18. I lost my mother when I was nine and I lost my father. When I.

Speaker 1

20:18

 Was I.

Speaker 2

20:18

 Was 18. So my dad did a great job of raising me, you know, up until I was 18, which I was still a child at 18, you know, they say you're legally, an adult at 18, but I was a kid still and you know, so growing up without a mother, you know, was, was, was difficult. It wasn't, you know, Impossible by any means but it definitely brought some challenges. But then losing my dad. At the age of 18 was really tough because I didn't have any Parental Guidance. I have an older sister You know who's always kind of had my back and kept an eye on me, but she's not my mom. She's not my dad, she's my sister, sure. And I have had other family, you know, aunts and uncles, and grandparents, that have obviously been there to help me and to help guide me, but at the same time they're not your parents either, right? So at the age of 18, I was out on my own and luckily my grandparents, you know, were really good Savers. I am not a good saver, they were, and they were like, hey, we would love to have you go. College, you know, we're going to pay for it, and I was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Like amazing people Angels On My Shoulder, so they help me go to college for four years and help cover. Some of those. Some of those costs are paid for a little bit of it, but they paid for the majority of it but because I didn't have any Parental Guidance, man. I got in a lot of trouble in college. I just was hanging out with the wrong crowd and you know, is doing a lot of activities that we wouldn't refer to as being good activities. And you know, a lot of these activities were very Illegal activities. And, you know, I got myself into a lot of trouble and, you know, at one point I was, you know, standing in front of a judge facing seven years in prison. Wow, horde. Certain, you know, activities that I was doing and the judge took mercy on me and was like, you know, you don't have any Parental Guidance. I think I was like, 24 to time, you know, and, you know, and I was crying up on this up on, you know, in court and you know, Didn't want to go to prison, you know. So the judge took mercy on me though. And they, and she said, you know, we're not going to send you to jail because this is your first, you know, basically big offense here. But you know this is real, this is real life and if you keep you know screwing up and you know messing up, you're going to go to jail dude, and they ended. She ended up giving me house arrest for nine months, man. So I was on house arrest for nine months because of my activities.

Speaker 1

22:45

 This was in college. Still, you.

Speaker 2

22:47

 Said, In college is when it started but it rolled over into, you know, into my early twenties to right? Yeah. And but you know the thing was though, Jamie that was one of the best things that ever happened to me, to be honest. I mean, it's kind of crazy to think about that or to even say that out loud.

Speaker 1

23:04

 But ya know and just to quickly jump in that is one of the things that, you know, we have always been one of the themes with the shows we have had thus far as that and of course, this takes time and reflection, right? You don't see this in the moment, typically I would just I would assume right, but looking back it's a lot of people have said, similar things with very painful. You know, traumatic experiences they have been through is that is the best thing that ever happened to.

Speaker 2

23:28

 That. One of the best things that's ever happened to me.

Speaker 1

23:30

 Absolutely. So why do you, why do you say that in your and your?

Speaker 2

23:33

 Case? Well, because if I hadn't gotten caught doing, what I was doing I would have still, I would have kept doing it. Yeah, you know. So but yeah, a long story short, it was one of the best things that ever. Ever happened to me, I straighten my life out, I quit messing around with the crowd that I was messing around with that quit messing around with the substances that landed me in that courtroom. And, you know, I realized at that point in time that, you know, I had been kind of earring down the wrong path since the age of about 18. So I was, you know, about seven years that I was a kind of up to no good, you know, and.

Speaker 1

24:15

 Long time for the most energy it's a, you know, almost a third of Our life. It sounds like, at that point, a third, or a quarter of your life. Yeah. So my point is long time, you're building and you're very, You're Building habits and patterns and things. So it's, it's not like you wake up one day and you're just, you know, oh, that's over. I imagine, it was quite a process.

Speaker 2

24:35

 Yeah, it was, man. It was, it was quite the process, but it led me to go into real estate full-time. So, again, it was a, it was a godsend, it was a blessing, right? The fact that I was able to avoid a harsh Each sentence, you know was, was amazing. I still got punished. I had nine months house arrest from, from my actions, and I had an additional four years behind that of supervised probation. So, I was getting my drug tested and I couldn't, you know, I couldn't leave town without, you know, having a probation officer breathing down my neck. I had to check in with them, you know, once or twice a week, random drug test, all that stuff, right? So it Does nine months house arrest? It was four years of supervised probation. That was the punishment. So the punishment was you know it was something. It was tough, it wasn't easy. Yeah. You know I mean was in prison but it was still punishment.

Speaker 1

25:32

 Yeah, that's that does.

Speaker 2

25:34

 But here's the thing man, when I was on house arrest for nine months I read like a hundred books. Couldn't leave my house man. So I just was like, all right, and I am not a big reader either. Trust me. It takes me a whole day to read a hundred-page book. But I was just like, I am just gonna learn real estate investing. I have already got some rentals. I already know how to do it. The wrong way. Let us learn how to do it the right way and during that time, I probably spent 50 Grand on books courses and even a couple of coaches along the way to, and I was buying courses online, you know, a weekly, you know if anything and everything on rental, property, Fix and Flip landlording Wholesale, lease option. Creative Finance sub to you name it. I was learning about all this.

Speaker 1

26:16

 Stuff and just that you were Working at this time.

Speaker 2

26:20

 Or at the time. So right before I got in trouble, I had bought a house to rehab. So luckily for me, I was a full time real estate investor even though I wasn't doing a ton of transaction, I just had one house that I was fixing up. So I was able to leave my house at like 8:00 AM but I had to be home at like 6 PM and that was only five days a week. So the weekends I couldn't leave. I basically had a really early curfew and I wasn't allowed to leave very early. So I had to, I had a gap. I had a time that I was allowed to go work a job essentially, but instead of going to a job, I would go to this house. Got it. And I would fix all of it and that ended up taking me like seven months. So, almost the entire time I was on house arrest, but it was such a great opportunity to learn how to go plumbing, how to go Roofing, how to install Windows, how to do fluoride, how to put in cabinets. Like, I had friends, that would come help me that I would pay, but I didn't hire anybody ever like, hey, I need Do my kitchen. It was always like I want to learn how to do the kitchen you know how? So I am going to hire you, but I am going to be your assistant like it or not. I know. And they were like, okay, you're still gonna pay me, and I am like, yep, I am still going to pay you but I want to be there every second of the way to see how you're doing this and learn the process. Sure. So I did kind of have a job. It was a self-employed job at the time, understand. But for the most part. Yeah, that opportunity led me into education of learning, you know what? Not To do, which I had been doing for 10 years and how to Market direct to seller. I did my first wholesale deal, you know, while I was, you know, dealing with that. And once that I was you know, able to leave my home again, you know freely I went and got an office and partnered up with a couple of my buddies, and we just started marketing like crazy. Direct Mail, cold call cold text bandit signs. I got some radio ads running. We have had Billboards in the past, a lot of networking AdWords, Co all these different things that we can do to get direct to The Cellar, right? And then once I was able to get direct to The Cellar, I was able to then learn how to negotiate and how to lock up properties and how to wholesale those properties. So again, it was such a great opportunity. Yeah. You know but it all LED from bunch of bad decisions hanging out with the wrong crowd and in myself in court facing jail time I.

Speaker 1

28:40

 Mean it was to dive into a little bit as it is and I appreciate that. You said you made bad decisions, right? And that's you know, and I am not trying to this show is not no, no I didn't mean that. But you know, I love that you took ownership of it and you ended up seeing this as an opportunity versus only a problem, right? But the other thing you have mentioned a couple times was hanging out with the wrong crowd, right? And so how did that go as far as just kind of like because I your environment is so critical for you know, for all of us. Right? So I understand that you had forced You know, certain things were forced upon you from the court system. But how did you tactically kind of did you have to say, like, hey man, I am not, I am not going to be friends with you any longer, like, how.

Speaker 2

29:30

 Did you? Yeah. I had, I had basically done that prior to okay, you know, the, the, the feces hitting the fan, you can customers here, right? So, yeah, I had basically done that prior we, you know, we all kind of knew that we were, we were going to get in trouble for the most part. So, I Just kind of separated myself from these individuals, and I just told him, hey, this isn't personal, but like, I don't want to go to jail, so, but I wish you the best of luck and if you're ever in a really, you know, bad situation, and you need to hurry the helping hand, you can call me by all means. I am not telling you that. I don't want to ever talk to you again, but we can't hang out anymore and I just separated myself from these individuals. So then you were.

Speaker 1

30:09

 Focused on coaches and reading and absorbing all this knowledge and growing your positive influences, right? And then.

Speaker 2

30:15

 Yeah, so I mentioned earlier, I am not the best at reading but here's the Easy part. I love learning new things, man. Like I have always been a good student. I have always enjoyed school when my grandparents were like, hey, we want you to go to college? I was ecstatic. I am like I get to go learn for four more years. Like this is amazing. So, whatever I was in my, you know, in that time frame of my life, where I was in trouble and things were not looking great, you know? It was another opportunity for me to learn so, you know, hiring coaches and taking courses, and of course reading books. I did. Even mention listen to hundreds, thousands of hours of podcasts. Just like this one and learn from other individuals who are already wholesale and already had hundreds of rental properties, and just picking up little gold nuggets. Along the way, I love to learn. I would love to learn, then I love to learn now. Yeah, I am you know, so, I mean, it was, it was one of these things where it was like holy cow, I dodged a bullet and then now I get to, I get to learn like this is how mean it was like it was a lot of bad things that happened all at once, but then it was like a lot of good things that came from it. And that's really where the abundance came from and I have a lot of abundance in my life. Now, you know, I have done a thousand transactions. I got about 90 rental properties. We bring in about 20 grand a month in passive income from our rental.

Speaker 1

31:34

 Portfolio. Just to be clear when you say we and it did we don't have to get into specifics if you don't want to. But it is that who's we, who is.

Speaker 2

31:42

 We my partner Mike and I.

Speaker 1

31:44

 Okay, that's amazing. That's awesome. That's really impressive. I just you're like you clearly are not afraid of hard works. Clearly like learning and growing and the abundance mindset. It just sounds like you just have to get yourself on the right track and get, you know, make sure you were exposed to positive influences and it's this, this is a really good turnaround story, so it's yeah, it's impressive, man.

Speaker 2

32:16

 Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you. I mean, It's one of these things where like I always wanted to do real estate and I dabbled and then I jumped in, but I jumped in, and I was blinded by a shiny object, which is wholesale, and I am glad it we know is I don't have any regrets, but I am glad that over the last, you know, three and a half court for years that I brought my focus back. Sure. Yeah. I bought my first house when I was 20 years old, a house hacked. I was at. I was in school. I was house hacking. I borrowed that 30 grand. I got it. You.

Speaker 1

32:48

 Know what house hacking is? The one that Brandon takes credit for the Toka.

Speaker 2

32:51

 Okay. Either way. I am a fan of Brandon. Yeah. No.

Speaker 1

32:56

 I love it but and I know you talking is super powerful.

Speaker 2

33:00

 It is and I did that three times while I was in school. So I was actively investing in buying rentals and doing this, you know. But again I lost sight of it when I started wholesaling but I brought it back and, you know, at this point our goal is to acquire rental properties that are I said that we can use the bird method, and we haven't used the bur method to get into these with very little to no money. And then the last are that I skipped over. But thank you for reminding me was to repeat and now it's so scalable. So now, you know, we can go pick up five, six, seven houses in a month when I was doing one maybe two in a year, you know, the beginning.

Speaker 1

33:41

 So question. And then we will get well, we will do some rapid fire questions before we wrap up. But as far as your business, right, Right now, are you adjusting anything based on market conditions or?

Speaker 2

33:53

 where? Yeah, I mean, we're always adjusting stuff. I mean, really, the interest rates are going up, that's, that's a given. So we got to find better deals. You know, inventory is low. Yeah, and yeah, inventory is low. So it's hard to find good deals. I mean, we used to stumble across two three, four deals a month, just stumble across them. Right? And now, you know, we're lucky to get a property under contract weekly, you know.

Speaker 1

34:18

 Are you buying in just in? You must be a pretty good.

Speaker 2

34:22

 Footprint. We have about 100 mile radius around where we live and work in my office is 8 minutes from my house, and I am happy to buy something and flip it or rent it out. If it's within, you know, an hour and a half, I would say 90% of our portfolios within 25 minutes away from our office. So it's we're hyperlocal I guess you could say. So you know I don't come in St. Louis Missouri. Yeah I don't own any property outside of Missouri. Everything I got in the.

Speaker 1

34:49

 Stage, you are the expert in that area, I mean.

Speaker 2

34:53

 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And in the game for quite a minute and you know 750 Wholesales, 200 birds deals roughly a thousand transactions.

Speaker 1

35:02

 So geographically you're the expert and then as well. It's like you have so many Tools in your tool belt it. No matter if deal goes sideways, you still have an option. You still know what to do. So yeah.

Speaker 2

35:12

 We everything we do is buy in a discount, hence, hence the name of my show and, you know, My nickname David, the discount property.

Speaker 1

35:20

 Investing and I think that is a.

Speaker 2

35:22

 Sorry. Go ahead. Oh no I was just going to say here's the thing. Guys, if you buy a property retail yeah can you make money on it? Well, the answer is yes, it's just so slow. Right. You're going to typically need money to put down to buy it too, right? Right. But if you buy a property at a discount all of the exit strategy doors are wide open. If you want to wholesale it you can make a profit without even buying the home. If You want to add into your rental portfolio? You can use strategies like subject to or Burr and you can get into these properties for little to no money. If you want to fix and flip that property, you have mitigated your risk a ton, can you buy a property and increase value from rehab alone? Yeah. But it's not going to be a huge increase typically, but if you combine that forced appreciation from fixing it up, with the discount, or the are the captured equity on the, on the get-go, you know, doubled. Your.

Speaker 1

36:18

 No, it's a very going. What I teach people.

Speaker 2

36:20

 Is regardless if they want to wholesale regardless, if they want to fix them flip regards, if they want to be a landlord. And, you know, 2.0 landlord Aber method, landlord like me and you, regardless of what they want to do, they need to learn first and foremost how to buy properties at a discount. I truly believe that is the first step that anybody should take. You don't have to be a wholesaler if you don't want to be a wholesaler, but you need to learn how to find discounts. And I am going to just say, one more or thing in before we wrap up your gaming, we can have fire round, of course to. But when it comes to buying properties, you got to get a discount on those properties. And when I first started out, I was looking at properties that I would buy to Fix and Flip around to the portfolio. You know, as how much profit can I make? And I don't look at it that way anymore. Now, I look at it. Am I buying it at a big enough of a discount where I can screw up to three maybe even four times and still make a couple dollars, or Ben break even, right? So at this point, I have pivoted my mindset to sure is the discount deep enough to where my bookkeeper could manage the rehab and screw it up, that's still made money on the deal, that's pretty good. So you got to learn how to buy it, a discount. Here's the point that I was trying to make. Yeah, the well, no we're good. It's all good. We will .

Speaker 1

37:40

 Go down the same thing applies, and so we're mostly focused on mortgage notes. I mean, rentals are an important part of my own personal Leo. But same exact thing applies and you can get into that argument of. So the way I look at both of our businesses really is, it's three parts. One is Raising capital. And you talked about that with hard money, and private money. And then the bank, the other is finding the deals. And the third part is managing the assets, right? So but if you can't, if you don't buy a mortgage note at a good enough discount, you just put a ton of stress on yourself to make some make something out of nothing. And You know, it's the same philosophy and concept is true in notes. If you don't buy it, a discount, your probable, your there's a good chance, you're screwed, I mean, or you're just not, there's not there's nothing there. So why not set yourself up for success? I mean, I think Warren Buffett has the same philosophy. It's all about the buy right value of value. Investing value. Exactly it at a.

Speaker 2

38:38

 Discount and then, yeah, you can make money. So, here's the point, I was trying to make, and I literally surrounded mine twice, but it came back to me. Hello, we have averaged about 100 purchase, This is a year last year, we did a hundred and sixty which is a little crazy, but we have averaged about 100 purchases a year. And the point that I want to make is, you know, two or three out of a hundred, come from the market like the MLS. Yeah. One more guy. The other 97 96 98, whatever. That number might be. Yeah. Now let us say 97%. That's probably a good number. Don't you? Use come from direct to seller marketing? The eighth, there're no agents involved. Sometimes there may be, but they're not on the market, they're direct to The Cellar and what we do as investors is very simple. My way of defining it to a newbie as this we exchanged convenience for discounts. That's it. It's the simplest of definition of what Real Estate Investors. Do if you want to go buy a property, retail and fix it up and try to make a profit go for it. You're not going to make that much money typically, right? All right, but if you buy it at a discount, Aunt might not even need to fix it up to make money on it. Right? Sure. But the best way to buy discounted properties is gone direct to the seller, find sellers that have problems, right by and people that are distressed, or they have a distressed home or the Holy Grail would be to find a distress person that has a distressed property and you offer them about you, offer them convenience. Do you help them? I mean at the end of the day we're helping.

Speaker 1

40:10

 People right? We're solving for someone else's.

Speaker 2

40:12

 Problem. Yeah we're saying hey we will take this off. Your hands will pay you for it too. Now we're not going to pay you full retail because This is a business and by definition business means the act of making money. So of course, we're doing this to make money, right course, but we're offering convenience to people in exchange for discounts. That's it, it's so simple. So if you are brand-new and you're listening, understand that this is a marketing business before it's an investing business. And then number three is, as you make your money, when you buy, you get paid when you sell.

Speaker 1

40:43

 Really, really good. All right, we're going to fly through a few questions, do it. Wrap it up. What's something that people misunderstand about?

Speaker 2

40:50

 You? Oh man, I am a clown. I like to laugh and have jokes and you know, I like to love, you know, love life. So I think sometimes people think I am a jokester of the gate and it's just like I just want to make people laugh.

Speaker 1

41:04

 Right? So that's good. All right, if you could have coffee with any historical figure, who would it.

Speaker 2

41:09

 Be? Meaning that they have already passed.

Speaker 1

41:11

 Away? They could be alive, anybody? Onyx email and.

Speaker 2

41:15

 He lands the best, we got on the planet, he's the best. So I would love to be able to meet him. And that would be cool.

Speaker 1

41:22

 I just saw it. You see his ending? The work from home thing the other day? Yeah, I think it's amazing. Yeah, if you don't come here, if you're not here, physically will just assume you're not.

Speaker 2

41:33

 Work. This is assuming that working. Yeah, I love it. I think hoarded it perfectly.

Speaker 1

41:37

 He is incredible. It's amazing. All right. If you were given let us say 20 million dollars tomorrow. What would you do with?

Speaker 2

41:43

 It? Oh, I would park it because I am terrible at saving. I will tell you that. So, here's the thing, I would much rather have income. In monthly or quarterly, the big nest egg, because the nest egg you can spin, you can blow it shut the income if it comes in routinely, like for instance, our rental portfolio. Pays us about 20 grand, my partner, Mike and I we can go blow every nickel of that. And then on the first of the month and next month we got 20 grand more coming in, so awesome. What I would do with that money as I would buy real estate, I would park it and I would try to get my passive income up to you know, eight hundred grand, a million five whatever would equate to because then it's impossible to go. I broke every month, you get more money coming in. So to me, I would never the big, the big number it which is most people's go. All I need you to turn that every time I.

Speaker 1

42:30

 Turn that into cash flow.

Speaker 2

42:31

 It turned into cash flow. Yeah. Having a big, a big number in one spot, scares the hell out of me. You know, how it's going to be gone. So.

Speaker 1

42:39

 What is, what's a challenge that you're facing in your business right.

Speaker 2

42:42

 Now? Finding good deals, man. Inventories light.

Speaker 1

42:45

 Yeah, got it in your opinion, you have already covered some of this but in your opinion, what's one of the most Important personality traits for someone whose someone to be successful in your industry.

Speaker 2

42:58

 Okay? So any industry.

Speaker 1

43:00

 My eyes are feeling is you're, you're, you're saying.

Speaker 2

43:02

 Yeah. So I am actually going to build on that. Got any industry got it right? My definition of success comes down to three words, consistent, persistent action. And I literally interviewed a seventeen-year-old last night. He's one of my coaching students, and he just got his First wholesale deal. We made 11 Grand. And I said, what was the main thing that you took away from my coaching? And he said, you got to be a persistent SOB. If you want to do deals and I said, yep. And I asked him. I said, how many times did you touch that cellar with a phone call? A text message, you know, an email, just a touch, and he said, oh at least 40 I go you know what a newbie would do two or three and then stop sure that persistence allowed you to do a deal. So in real estate dancer Question persistence in anything in life? Yeah, sure, it's persistence, guys. You can't be. That's great week. Got to be persistent.

Speaker 1

44:01

 And consistent. Like you said, and, and an action taker. So, all the above.

Speaker 2

44:06

 Sauce, consistent persistent action is the equation that equals success, guys. It is no matter what you want to do. You can't quit got to be consistent. You got to be persistent about. Yeah.

Speaker 1

44:17

 And it doesn't mean you never pivot, you talked about several pivots you made.

Speaker 2

44:20

 With your. Oh, yeah. We All the time, especially with marketing if Market is not working, then we stopped, and we find another thing to do all the time.

Speaker 1

44:28

 All right. What's the movie that you'd recommend? Never watch movies.

Speaker 2

44:32

 Yeah, I love movies, man. I would say that. Just saw the new Top Gun. It was amazing. Love that ice. Yeah, check that out.

Speaker 1

44:40

 What other podcasts do you like? You have your own.

Speaker 2

44:42

 Right? So I host the discount property, investor show. And I also host wholesaling, inks podcast one day. Yeah. Okay. I love both of those. I would recommend those. So that's.

Speaker 1

44:54

 How is through Brent who interviewed me on that show last? Yeah, it's not a great.

Speaker 2

44:59

 Team of people over there, great team. So I would say those two would be my two. Faves? Because I spent a lot of time working on both of them.

Speaker 1

45:06

 Perfect, two more. How do you like to serve others?

Speaker 2

45:11

 I like to serve others by showing them that they have more value than they think they have, or they know that they have and I like to make them laugh because it just brings joy to their.

Speaker 1

45:20

 Life. Love it. All right. Last one and you touched on this, but where can our listeners find you online?

Speaker 2

45:27

 Yeah. Yeah. So discount property investor.com is my main website that hosts my podcast. If you guys are looking to learn more about the Burr method, that's really my passion. At this point, I do have a program that you can learn more about it and that you can find that at wholesaling inc.com forward slash rentals. Again that's wholesaling. Inc.com forward slash rentals To learn more about me, you can learn more about the Burr method. And if you're curious book a call with my team, and we can, you know, kind of put together some of your goals and wants and put together a plan to help you achieve a.

Speaker 1

46:04

 Awesome. Cool. This has been really good David. You have a ton of energy and you just, did you bring it? Hey, thank you.

Speaker 2

46:13

 So much for having me. Jamie, like I said, in the beginning, I am honored to be here. I am grateful for this opportunity to, you know, serve and provide you to your audience. So I couldn't be happier this morning. So again, thank you so much for including me.

Speaker 1

46:27

 Appreciate that. And to the listeners out there, we appreciate you spending your most valuable resource with us and that is your time. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the form adversity to abundance podcast. If you're.

Speaker 2

46:42

 Enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever.

Speaker 1

46:47

 You listen to your podcasts, that helps others find the show.

Speaker 2

46:50

 And we greatly appreciate. Ooh, she.

Speaker 1

46:51

 Ate it. Thanks again for listening, and we will catch you in the next episode.